Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s new CEO, was tasked with changing the culture of the company. On Tuesday, Khosrowshahi announced his plans in doing so. First, he intends to toss out the rules that were established before he became the company's chief executive. The rules include some that had been pushed by the former CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick.
"As we move to a responsible growth from an era that involved growth regardless of the cost, our culture is in dire need of changing and evolving. Rather than ditching the entire goal of the company, I am focused on identifying what works for the company and preserving it while changing what doesn’t," said Khosrowshahi.
Among the things that need to be scrapped is Uber's love for "toe stepping," which is a term that was popularized under Kalanick’s leadership. It meant that anyone, regardless of the position in the company, can say anything that they want to say. This only sounds great in theory. Fortunately, Khosrowshahi saw the downside.
"For instance, stepping on toes meant that employees were given the chance to share their thoughts and ideas. However, more often than not, the term was being used as an excuse to be an asshole," noted Khosrowshahi.
Khosrowshahi has only been the CEO of Uber for a couple of months now. The company was drowned in controversy over the internal culture it adopted before Khosrowshahi was appointed as the new CEO. Half of the executive positions of Uber were left vacant during Kalanick's leadership as journalists uncovered harassments that went unpunished and a sexism culture.
All those actions did not come as a surprise as Uber grew from just a startup into a massive success all thanks to its determination to break rules. Uber has done everything, even manipulating competitors' platforms and bending local taxi laws in order to attract riders and drivers to use the ride-hailing service of the company.
The willingness of the company to break a couple of conventional rules helped greatly in turning the company into one that's valued at billions of dollars. Unfortunately, it was also the reason of its downfall.
Now, the new CEO is working on doing everything possible to repair Uber’s internal problems to keep it afloat. The company was on its way to become a global power. However, the ambitions of Uber may have grown too big as it’s now experiencing setbacks from all parts of the globe.
In order to bring change to the company, the CEO asked Uber's employees to help him come up with brand new values.
The result? New cultural norms that the company has to adopt.
Most of the norms are basic and they can even be considered as motivational poster stuff. What stood out is the part where they will do what’s right, which is an answer to the previous mistake of doing everything just to get ahead of everyone else.
