7y
Hello there,
First off, thank you for your honest feedback. I have always appreciated knowing what’s on the minds of our employees, current or former and good or bad. It’s this kind of constructive feedback that gives me the motivation to strive to do better and make the Canvass team even stronger.
It’s a key moment in any company’s journey to receive a negative Glassdoor review, and I want to be upfront and respond directly for both yourself and others who may read this. (And by the way, I think responses—good or bad—are always a healthy sign we are growing!)
As you may have experienced in your short year with us, Canvass is a fast-growing and fast-paced company. And we LOVE that about ourselves. In growing from 3 to almost 30 people in just over a 1 ½ years, we've made a few (ok, maybe more than a few) mistakes. And I'm CONFIDENT we'll make more. Being on the co-founder side, you see things from a different perspective. And I can tell you that if we aren't making mistakes, that means we probably aren't trying hard enough.
To support the theme of “know better, do better,” I recently put myself through a 6-week leadership course and had the opportunity to hear from Bob Proctor (Proctor Gallagher Institute). He shared a quote from Napoleon Hill that fascinated me and, ironically (or perhaps not), is so timely for this Glassdoor review.
“Every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent success.” – Napoleon Hill
I also learned that goals should both scare and excite oneself at the same time, otherwise they aren’t worth pursuing. And I couldn’t agree more. In one of our recent town hall meetings, our own CEO boldly challenged everyone, including HERSELF, that although mistakes are part of learning, we should all work hard not to make the same mistake twice.
Regardless of our growth, our core culture and value system will always be this: We are relentless and resilient in our pursuit to be an innovative AI company that’s forever changing the Industrial sector. And without a doubt, our company and our people will only continue to grow and be stronger.
To those reading this, I’ll be transparent (because that’s who I am). Some of what was said in the comments is true, and some of it is through a contextual lens. But I can say with 100% confidence, we’ve already taken a few actions so that we do NOT make the same mistakes twice:
1. Chaos is common in any startup. Our role as leaders is to help manage that chaos as best we can while still leaving room to grow, learn, and pivot (if needed). One area where we see an immediate need for this the sales process, which is why now have a team member dedicated to Sales Operations. We’ve also launched a new sales process that will empower our sales leaders to sell with greater confidence while bringing more discipline and acceleration to our pipeline.
2. We hired a dedicated People & Operations Manager as Employee #22 - She’s awesome. She’s a believer of always doing better. Join us and come benefit for yourself.
3. We have started to implement regular 1:1’s, goal setting, and will be rolling out bi-annual performance planning later this month. Not to check up, but to teach, coach, get and give feedback, and ultimately make the team stronger.
We’ve got so much opportunity in front of us, and I cannot wait to continue building out this incredible foundation of a team we’ve assembled. If you want to continue this chat, feel free to reach out to us. My email is still the same.
Best,
Courtney-
