Redefining Workplace Culture: Redmond Is More Than a Company. It’s a Cause.
Written by McKella Kinch
In our modern world, dreading our work is considered “normal”. Complaining about our jobs is a go-to activity at any social gathering. For many, work is a diversion from real life—something to retire from as soon as possible.
But what if work was actually a place where we could find our greatest opportunities, fulfillment, personal development, and deep, lasting connections?
At Redmond, we believe work can be just that. We're building a workplace culture where everyone has the opportunity to find purpose, fulfillment, and meaningful connections.
After all, why can’t work be a place where everyone feels like they’re a part of something greater than themselves, where they can develop their uniqueness, and where they have true, lasting connections?
That’s why, over 30 years ago, Redmond began an experiment:
Instead of subscribing to the typical corporate model where only a few succeed and employment is a necessary evil, we strive to create a workplace where everyone has the opportunity to find friendship, purpose, and deep fulfillment, in addition to making a good living.
This might sound like inspirational corporate mumbo jumbo that you’ve heard before. After all, most of us are used to workplaces that promise lofty ideals they don’t live up to, where we have to be on the defensive because we know we aren’t valued as individuals. Too often, work is a tenuous contract where our companies try to extract the most out of us while giving as little as possible in return.
But what if work was a win for you AND the company?
What if work was fun? What if you got to explore and use your strengths, feel like the work you do truly matters, work with people you actually love being around, grow as a person, and make a good living?
We believe hierarchy holds us back because it locks human potential and creativity into a rigid structure based on fear and power grabs.
So what do we do instead?
We’re forging a new path because the old beliefs about work don’t give us the fulfillment they promise.
These Core Values guide us on our journey:
Passion for Contribution: The joy of making the world better in your own unique way.
Humans have a natural urge to help. We all want to feel useful and like what we do matters.
When we feel like we’re making a true contribution, it’s easy to feel passionate about what we’re doing. And if it’s something that also uses our strengths and fills our cup, even better. Passion and helpfulness go hand in hand.
Occhiolism: The awareness of the smallness of your perspective that leads to a thirst for understanding.
When we can appreciate the strengths and perspectives of others, we can appreciate how their strengths complement ours and we can do more together.
When we know that we’re only a sample size of one, we can respect and value others’ views even if we don’t agree with them. And together, we can develop a deeper understanding of the whole.
Ubuntu: A Nguni Bantu term that we’ve interpreted to mean, “I see you, I see me, and I am because we are.”
Instead of the typical workplace pecking order/hierarchy, we believe in collaborating to maximize our strengths. That way, we all improve together.
We succeed together. We choose team effectiveness instead of individual achievement because success is a group effort.
When people come together to do work they care about, amazing things happen.
Reflection: Wondering intentionally about the past, present, and future.
We regularly pause to look around and ask questions about where we are, how we got there, and what the next right steps might look like. Instead of pushing forward just because we set an arbitrary goal or because everyone else is doing it, we make time to learn and adjust. We strive for deep understanding and to get at the root of an issue instead of just skimming the surface or slapping a band-aid solution on it.
Reflection is something we do as individuals and groups. It’s active, even if it doesn’t always look active, but we take the time to ask what we’ve learned from an experience before we jump to the next thing.
Renewal: Caring for yourself in body, heart, mind, and spirit.
We also practice Renewal, which involves caring for ourselves, but also changing, evolving, and growing as we learn.
Renewal is also preparation, learning, and stepping back so you can come back with a fresh set of eyes, find new understanding, and then move forward in a different way. In other words, Renewal is the process of growth.
New Paradigms
These core values guide us as we upgrade our paradigms from the typical corporate practices to ones that truly fulfill us as people and help us grow together as an organization.
Success Tracks for All Instead of the Corporate Ladder
We believe in abundance, and that success is not a limited resource.
We also don’t believe success is all in a fancy title, a fat paycheck for work you don’t care about, or prestige. Instead, success comes from making a good living AND doing work you truly love and care about, that utilizes your strengths and actually helps.
What if leadership wasn’t a requirement for success and better pay? After all, we aren’t all wired to be leaders. And what is leadership, anyway?
Here, leadership is shared, and not a contingency of success or value. It also doesn’t come with perks.
To thrive here, you need to be willing to let go of the corporate ladder. If you’re disillusioned with corporate hierarchy, we invite you to try something different, where success actually feels fulfilling not because it looks good on the outside, but because it feels good on the inside.
Because we’ve let go of the pecking order, we value collaboration over competition. We rise together by maximizing each other’s strengths and working as a team instead of pushing to “sell” our ideas or put our name on something.
Passion for Contribution Over Manipulation
We believe everyone has the desire to contribute. When people have a real sense of possibility and the impact they can make, external motivation and “holding people accountable” is unnecessary.
When we’re driven by meaning, accountability takes care of itself because we naturally take ownership of our work.
On the flip side, we want to create an environment where everyone can find meaning through using their strengths and feeling helpful rather than relying on praise and recognition.
We don’t do “management.” Instead, we want you to care about the work you’re doing and strive to improve yourself, every day.
We’re vision-driven, not goal-driven.
Our mission to elevate the human experience guides our direction.
Instead of setting rigid goals and “cascading” them through our teams, we keep our eye on our mission, creating a culture where we are aligned in purpose. This allows us to stay nimble and our teams to use good judgement when we get new information or when something in the market changes.
We’re in this for the long haul and we know there’s no finish line to our mission. So we choose sustainable growth, not just next quarter’s numbers.
Exploration Over Expertise
Curiosity is foundational to how Redmond functions. Exploration and asking questions is part of our process. Reflection and learning is how we determine our direction.
We’re curious about the people we work with and the possibilities for the future. We let the journey unfold instead of expecting it to be linear. We aim, then shoot, and take time to explore instead of jumping on trends.
We don’t hire for expertise or experience. Instead, we hire for aptitude and a thirst for learning, for curiosity and a desire for growth, because that’s how we work.
We don’t pretend to have all the answers. We only commit to exploring, until we find the best imaginable, together.
Win-Win Thinking
Traditionally, corporations are the idea that there are winners and losers. At best, there’s compromise, which usually leaves neither party happy.
We believe that together we can come up with solutions that are better than anything either of us could have come up with alone. This is how we work with our customers, our partners, affiliates, and associates. Not your way or my way, but our way.
This isn’t self-sacrificing. We don’t work this way so our associates thrive while the company suffers, and we don’t subscribe to the typical—wringing employees dry—to bolster the bottom line.
Workplace Culture: Why Do We Do It This Way?
We think this way because it works. It genuinely serves everyone better. These paradigms not only create a better environment for associates, but it strengthens the company as well. After all, we’re going to be more successful if our teams are strong, if our associates are happy and care about their work.
An Ongoing Experiment
We’re 30 years into our experiment to make this vision a reality. We know we’ll never truly “arrive.” We see this experiment as more of a dance, where every movement matters and the beauty is in the moment, rather than a journey with a final destination. But we’ve seen incredible things in the lives of our associates and in our businesses, and we’re loving every minute.
Redmond isn’t for everyone. It doesn’t appeal to everyone.
But it could be for you.
If you want to feel like your work matters, if you don’t want to pursue the typical definition of success that requires fighting your way up a ladder, if you want to look forward to work, to love the people you work with, and grow as a person, we’d love to have a conversation!
About Redmond Incorporated
At Redmond, our dream is for work to become a place where everyone feels like they’re part of something greater than themselves, where they can develop and volunteer their uniqueness, and where they have true friends.
We’re a mission-based rather than a product-based company, and we provide a range of products such as Re-Lyte, Real Salt, fresh raw milk, a café, agricultural and equine products, fencing, and even an Alaskan fishing lodge!
Our unique and diverse products are just a few of the ways in which we strive to fulfill our mission to elevate the human experience.
About CultureCon:
CultureCon, a Certified B Corporation®, is on a mission to inspire positive change around organizational culture. Through large conferences, online courses, consulting services, and certification programs, we deliver experiences that provide practical tools and motivation for our customers to become cultural change agents within their organizations. Our customers include business owners, CxOs, HR leaders, senior management, individual contributors, and anyone who wants to build more uplifting, inspiring, and healthy workplaces.
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