Language: it’s how we communicate, describe challenges, and share ideas. When a friend or colleague is talking about their company, you might notice they tend to use words that belong only to them; maybe they have slick sayings that keep them focused. If you listen long enough, you’ll pick up on internal sayings that mean something unique to their team and spur them on.
If you pause, it’s likely you’ll be able to come up with a few that get tossed around your office when something goes wrong, or better yet, when something amazing happens: like closing a deal or shipping a new feature and pushing code live. These are the kinds of moments where intense feeling can be captured in a few well-thought-out words.
These phrases become your battle cry, or phrases that summarize what it means to be part of your team, or a pithy way of describing your vision and sparking motivation.
At Voices.com, we’ve got a few of these sayings; they were developed organically, not thought of in some boardroom. And because these battle cries were spontaneously created in a group setting, they stick. Here are five of my favorites:
1. #oneteamonedream
Our “One Team One Dream” captures the sentiment that we’re all in this together. From the marketers to sales reps, from financiers to web developers — we’re all working at leading and transforming an antiquated industry and bringing them onto the Web. One colleague even got a t-shirt printed up that says #oneteamonedream. This is also a common hashtag in Chatter, our internal collaboration tool. However way it’s used, the meaning is the same: we value, respect, and support one another in hopes of realizing our dream of dominating our space.
2. Dominate The Industry
We’re on a mission to connect brands with professional voice talent: the people you hear on commercials, documentaries and even games. Being only a few steps short of complete world domination, our “dominate the industry” line has served to summarize our strategy and has been seen on many whiteboard walls at the office. It’s a reminder of our ambition.
3. Going Global
Being focused on a rather obscure niche, despite it being a $1 billion sub-category of the broader $20B language services industry, we are branching out geographically. When launching new features, redesigning our products, or prospecting for customers, we often refer back to this motivation to “go global.” This reminds us that our customers are located around the world, not just in the United States.
4. Let’s Do This
A meeting kick-off phrase, typically heard during our Huddle, a daily ritual in our company. This all-hands gathering is a fast-paced meeting designed with a recurring agenda for the purpose of giving everyone some face-time with each other while bringing the entire team up to speed on the happenings of the last 24 hours. Like a news broadcast which starts precisely at the same time each day, our Huddle starts at 11:50 a.m. When the clock — or in our case, the moderator known as the Huddle Master checks his or her iPhone — strikes 11:50am, it’s usually followed by a kick-off phrase to start the meeting on a high note.
5. Make It Happen
A wrap-up or sign-off phrase used to conclude a meeting or conversation. It’s a constant reminder that action is required to produce results. Encouraging someone to go “make it happen” dishes out a dose of personal responsibility. Stuff doesn’t happen on it’s own. You must make it happen.
Every startup needs a few motivational sayings to rally around. This lexicon will be part of your culture. If you latch on to a few sayings early on, they’ll form the basis of your culture: a common set of words that establish the lingo in your office.