Creating an explicit, equitable and inclusive culture is critical to achieving your company vision. We work with Westbound portfolio companies to help them design, operationalize, and troubleshoot their cultures, processes and team dynamics through every phase of company-building.
How we support founders
Our portfolio companies have access to expert office hours, small group coaching sessions, and tactical toolkits to help them build their company culture with intention.
We coach founders as they create or improve their people processes and codify their unique company cultures. The one-on-one format allows us to provide personalized, tactical guidance specific to our founders’ needs.
We bring our founders and their executive teams together to discuss challenges that every company faces as they build their culture and people processes. We foster an environment where founders can collaborate and learn from one another’s perspectives on topics such as performance management, DEI measurement, and more.
We’ve created tactical toolkits to support our founders at key inflection points of growing their teams. These toolkits provide step-by-step guidance to navigate common challenges such as facilitating difficult conversations or making interviewing more equitable and effective.
Designing for Equity & Inclusion
We use a 4-part framework, asking these key questions as we design equitable and inclusive company cultures, processes, products, and teams.
Explicit Alignment
What is important at our company? What do we value and how do we make it known to everyone, not just to some?
Equitable People Processes
How do we create effective people processes at this stage that don’t drain us but also aren’t unfair? Which process do we start with or add next?
Inclusive Team Interactions
How can we facilitate meetings that solicit different perspectives and invite brilliant ideas? How do we create a culture of healthy conflict and regular feedback?
Inclusive Products & Marketing
How do we build experiences with access and accessibility in mind? How do we expand our customer base?
At Sierra, it has been important to us from the outset to build a team that is diverse and representative. Westbound has already made a real impact there – through advising us on culture and processes, making introductions within the Westbound network, and more. We are so grateful to be on our journey with Westbound.
Sierra
Sierra is the conversational AI platform for businesses.
Clay Bavor, Co-Founder
FAQ
No. We don’t believe there’s “one right” type of culture to have. We don’t believe “inclusive and equitable” looks the same in every company either. We do believe that there is a specific culture that will allow you to achieve your vision at scale – what that culture looks and feels like depends on your business and goals. We work with you to codify your unique company culture as you grow.
We also believe that an equitable culture is one where the goals, values, and processes are explicit— everyone, regardless of their background, can understand what ‘good’ looks like and can achieve it. We work with our portfolio companies to make their cultures explicit, and doing so makes them more equitable.
Yes! We work with each of our companies wherever they are, today. If you already have codified your culture, we help you pressure-test it for equity and we support you in operationalizing it through your different business functions. If you already have V1 of a performance management system, we partner with your team to understand how it can get easier to execute and how it can be more equitable. If you already have a Head of People, we work with them as well. No matter how far along you are, we support you as you scale.
Build a winning culture
We work closely with founders to help them build winning company cultures based on their specific business objectives.
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