It's all about Culture.

[Mark]

Things will always go wrong. My inner-physicist tells me it’s got something to do with entropy, but I’ve never really understood entropy so instead I’ll base the statement on my own experiences of the world. Put a different way, if something can go wrong it will. What does this mean for business? Well it means that you will spend most of your working life solving problems. So the next question is, is there some sort of universal problem solving tool that fits all sizes? The answer is yes: a high performing dynamic team of people that understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses, feel safe enough to offer their opinions on what is going wrong and are empowered enough to put in place solutions when they start seeing things go wrong.

So as a leader it sounds like a high performing dynamic team is something that I would really like to have at my disposal. I can’t really buy one so I’ll have to build one. I can’t really change the way people behave by ordering them around, but what I can do is create a culture of support, encouragement and openness and then I can watch the team perform and the dollars role in.
For me, that is the fundamental point behind our trip to Italy and the surrounding work that goes on around it. I can tell you that it’s a real struggle to get people to buy in to that kind of event – there are wives and girlfriends and projects and allergies and easyjet and a whole range of reasons not to go – but I’m glad we did. It’s been a rough year for Introversion D+ has slipped and Multiwinia didn’t do as well as we had hoped, but here I am on the last working day of the year absolutely confident that this team of people is ready and prepared to rise up and face any challenge that 2009 throws at them. Why am I so confident? Because right now I have just finished going through the feedback that the team have given me over the last year and whilst much of it has been critical I’m now able to focus on my weaknesses and get better. Not only have I gone through this process, but so has every other member of the core IV team. We all know what each other think and feel and we all have the skills to improve ourselves and improve our ability to work as a team.

It’s a really tough process to have to go through, but Byron, Martin, Leander, Gary, Vicky, Johnny, Tom, Chris and Mark just proved that they are prepared to put themselves through the mill and come back fighting. That tells me something very important about Introversion’s Culture. That something is very special, very hard to find in the outside world and is key to our success in the future. Come on 2009, we’ll take whatever you can throw at us.

[RabidZombie]

Come on 2009, we’ll take whatever you can throw at us.

Even bricks? Bricks are pretty heavy...

Glad to hear your confident for next year. I hope any internal changes you have made help Introversion kick more ass than they ever have before, because I'd like you to be one of the companies that doesn't go bust in this economic depression.

[ynbniar]

2009 is going to be tough, no doubt.

My own place exports about 85%. Every customer I visited in Thailand - automotive, construction, electronics - are cutting production.

Survival of the Fittest (and Flattest ) for the next 9 months.

[Darksun]

here I am on the last working day of the year

God, it's alright for some!

[Rkiver]

here I am on the last working day of the year

God, it's alright for some!

Quite true. Some of us have no time off.....

/me looks towards Christmas Eve, night shift, and Christmas Day, nightshift.

[microchip08]

Ouch.

[desktopsimmer]

here I am on the last working day of the year

God, it's alright for some!

Quite true. Some of us have no time off.....

/me looks towards Christmas Eve, night shift, and Christmas Day, nightshift.

I'll be joining you. Please reconsider and come to the Boxing night shift, there's a party on the 2nd Floor, Cheese, biscuits and more turkey to eat than you can possible imagine Hopefully you're not in the newspaper industry too... it's great fun at this time of year...

[Ebola]

Ouch.

Let me be the first to tell you, welcome ba...please go die in a fire.

[ewanm]

Come on 2009, we’ll take whatever you can throw at us.

Even bricks? Bricks are pretty heavy...

I would have thought nukes would have been more appropriate, or Evilwinians.

[Greeba]

My company directors held an announcement meeting and lunch for us last week, to talk about the soul searching that's had to go on thanks to the huge challenges facing our business at the moment (for instance, the demise of one of our biggest customers is all over the news right now), and a lot of the same vibes came out of that as have from Mark's and Chris' blog posts. It's fascinating and encouraging to see these snapshots in to Introversion's culture. I hate training sessions like these as I'm quite shy about the introspective side of things, but I have to admit they help.

Here's hoping we all weather our respective storms and continue to innovate. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to Introversion and the community.

[faemir]

Here's to another year of Introversion!

[X-reX]

Come on 2009, we’ll take whatever you can throw at us.

Even bricks? Bricks are pretty heavy...

I would have thought nukes would have been more appropriate, or Evilwinians.

What about needles? They are probably hard to catch, dangerous and needless.

Oh, I hope everything goes well for you. I am impressed of this trip - I have never heard of anything of that kind before.

[RabidZombie]

Come on 2009, we’ll take whatever you can throw at us.

Even bricks? Bricks are pretty heavy...

I would have thought nukes would have been more appropriate, or Evilwinians.

What about needles? They are probably hard to catch, dangerous and needless.

Unless Introversion are secretly ninjas, and this was secret ninja training camp, then I think Mark's statement may be pretty accurate.

Unless we through pirates at them.

[Phelanpt]

What about needles? They are probably hard to catch, dangerous and needless.

How long did you wait to use that one?