From Nyaya Health’s “note to new team members”:
It’s important to get a sense of the core values that drive our workplace culture. They are:
- Efficiency as a moral must:
- It is the job of all team members to turn time into resources and opportunity for our patients. Thus, there is a critical and constant push towards making our individual and organizational systems as efficient as possible. There is a belief here that purpose ought to triumph over profit. Thus the need to have clear expectations, 100% follow through, and efficient systems of management and operations is considered to be even greater than in the private sector. We aren’t perfect, but that is the framework we work within. We value hard work and long hours. But we value smart work even more. We don’t need you to be a martyr or live an extraordinarily austere lifestyle to fit in. We just need you to care about getting the most important work done most efficiently and teaching us how we can be better at doing the same.
- Good ideas and intentions are not good enough:
- We celebrate results, not merely ideas and intentions.
- Deep mission integrity:
- We ensure that we think is what we say, and what we say is what we do. We constantly worry about our actual impact rather than appearances and thus we select goals that represent truly meaningful progress, even if they are difficult to achieve or market. You will pick up a sense of skepticism from team members in regards to work, internally or externally by others, that seems driven too much by hero stories, ego, magic bullets, or marketability without impact. We avoid that and are authentic about our successes and shortcomings. This is why we believe so deeply in…(see next section)
- Transparency:
- We believe in being transparent until it hurts. It is an accountability guarantee against our own human frailties, and it is a way to shift an important global paradigm. We also do not believe that, over the long-term, it serves our movement to make this work appear easier than it actually is. Hiding challenges and failures for fear of punishment from the media or donors hurts the ability of our own organization and others to learn, iterate, and improve. It also disguises and delays the roll-out of truly effective solutions.
- Sense of humility and respect:
- It takes a special commitment to do this work and to share personal agency with others. We value all those who are part of this community and have a commitment to curiosity in order to learn from other individuals and organizations. In any debate or question that comes up within the team, our mission provides the metric for the answer, and discussion is founded upon a respect for each other.
- Optimism and humor:
- We bring a sense of possibility to this work and act as if it is within our locus of control to achieve something great and world-changing – and we laugh along the way.