Build a community, not a team

It's not enough to build a team, you have to build a community. Building a community is no small feat, and I’m grateful to have incredible colleagues in the Axoflow Team. A special thanks to Zsombor Szende, whose contributions have been invaluable in this effort.

Probably one of the biggest challenges in a company's life is building a team that not only has strong players professionally but can also become a real community. It's just as much of a challenge to do it from the bottom up. Thinking over the past year or so, it was reaffirming to see that it's worth building a strong community from our teams because actually, it's the community itself that makes an effective team.

In my experience, bottom-up initiatives are much more effective in building a community, and motivate people in a way that "leading" from above cannot achieve. Even if that initiative is something small, like knowledge sharing, a one-on-one workshop, or a board game night in the office. Bottom-up initiatives also provide a kind of magic freedom, bringing out creativity and giving everyone the opportunity to contribute their own ideas to the development of the people, and therefore the company.

One such initiative that's especially close to my heart is that we've been supporting a kindergarten for disadvantaged children, for about a year now. So now the children have regular access to fresh fruit and vegetables (and sometimes ice-cream ;)), their teachers have no problems with color printing, and we've prepared a surprise for Santa Claus day -  we're constantly working on new ideas to help even more.

Other activities also bring the team together, like sports:

• long distance running

• Santa Clause running

• cycling, sailing,
• or board game nights and a casual drink.

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Of course, humor is also an important bonding force. Sometimes a little irony, a little bit of sarcasm, but we're always having fun! Here are some of my favorite quotes, a snippet of our daily lives:

"The product team never asked for it, the code just appeared."

"I opened a lot of PRs because we're supposed to have a release today."

"My sugar level dropped because we haven't gone out for waffles after lunch. I'm a mess!"

I’d say it was a pretty good year.