Effective Stilists

A little while ago, we went through an exercise in thinking about the behaviours and qualities that make people truly outstanding contributors to Stile’s team. No one person at Stile is all of these things – they’re aspirational as we’re constantly learning and growing - and in no particular order.

• Teamwork: You’re humble, honest and put the needs of others above your own more often than not. You’re not afraid to ask for help when you need it. You always assume positive intent, and clarify, rather than assuming the worst and staying silent. You understand and respect all perspectives on situations and decisions that you are involved with. You often achieve change by winning the hearts and minds of everyone involved and turning them into allies.
• Customer Focus: You’re committed to making sure anyone that interacts with Stile has a surprisingly delightful experience.
• Getting Stuff Done: You accomplish amazing amounts of important work. You make time to reflect on your priorities, and those of the business, to decide what is truly important now. You have a bias towards action. You make well-reasoned decisions quickly, and get things done. You do whatever it takes to get the job done, without compromising integrity. You seek to understand what should be done well now, and what can be improved later. You have a strong understanding of what you are, and aren’t, trying to achieve.
• Self Reflection: You make time to reflect on your own skills and behaviours and actively look for ways to improve on what you are doing. You are open to hearing and eager to respond to critical evaluation of your performance. When you err, you admit your mistake fully and quickly.
• Argumentation: You believe diversity of opinion and ideas ultimately helps us achieve better outcomes. You respectfully listen to and reflect on the points of view of others, but are also respectfully willing to present your view, even if controversial. You’re prepared to challenge standing assumptions and suggest better approaches.
• Transparency: You are transparent and honest by default. You prefer to share ideas and information with the wider team.
• Initiative: You take the lead to ensure we’re delivering on our mission. You don’t wait to be asked to do something, and you identify opportunities to delight. Never trying to do the bare minimum, you always seek to exceed expectations, to deliver work that is better than what was asked for.
• High Standards: Your work is of excellent quality, and always embodies wise trade-offs.
• Drive: You’ve got a positive attitude. You seek to avoid complaining and prefer to present solutions rather than problems.
• Creativity: You generate useful novel ideas, and you’re always considering how we could deliver meaningfully better education.
• Fast Learner: You’re a fast and eager learner.
• Knowledge: You are broadly knowledgeable about technology, pedagogy, science and the world around us. You seek to deeply understand schools, teachers, students, our competitors and the education sector at large. You seek to understand how what we do fits into that picture.