ID&E: Akamai’s Journey of Continuous Improvement
Akamai was founded to give the brightest minds somewhere to grow – and by surrounding ourselves with supportive individuals and an open culture, we can all bring our best, every day. It’s for this reason that our commitment to inclusion, diversity, and engagement is a key cornerstone of how we operate. Not as an objective or goal to be achieved, but as a journey of continuous learning and improvement that we can all benefit from, individually and collectively.
As a Director of Change Management, it’s my responsibility to create an environment where Akamai’s transformational projects and initiatives can take root and thrive. Since joining, I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to help lead a multi-year program, Grow, which is aimed at improving our ability to anticipate and adapt to change. With a focus on teaching our employees positive habits, we’re embracing a growth mindset, proactively fostering inclusion, identifying and mitigating unconscious biases, and creating psychologically safe spaces to have candid conversations about much-needed change.
Because whether it’s adopting a more diverse and inclusive hiring approach, moving to a hybrid work model, or launching a new organizational structure, we’re constantly working to find new ways to make Akamai the very best workplace it can be. We are, first and foremost, an organization focused on innovation. And I truly believe that change management can help us move toward a better future as a company, while helping to minimize the disruption that such an evolution can cause.
Enabling each one of our people to understand the influence they have is a major part in both our journey to improvement and in making everyone feel comfortable through significant transitions. Borrowing a phrase from Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, it’s what I like to call “creating a culture of learn-it-alls,” rather than “know-it-alls” – the key difference being that success is measured in the genuine curiosity we foster and our desire to learn and challenge ourselves. It’s in this collective sense of purpose we can keep taking steps to target the things that matter most.
Although the work we do here is truly inspiring, I believe it’s the people and culture that make this such a great place to work.
Prior to starting with Akamai, I read a book titled No Better Time, which provides a glimpse into the incredible, but brief, life of our co-founder Danny Lewin who lost his life on 9/11. I think the attributes listed in the book about Danny are deeply entrenched in our culture and are what set Akamai apart: courage, persistence, a sense of urgency, intellectual honesty, passion, commitment, and living by a solid set of values.
It's these values that inclusion, diversity, and engagement can continue to uphold, each and every day.
