Growing up, when I would fail at something, my mother would say to me “every day is a school day, son.” It was her way of telling me that failure is a learning opportunity. When we internally crowdsourced our core values at Social Tables, learning came up several times and so we borrowed my mom’s saying and made it a core value.
During my quarterly company-wide one-on-ones this week learning was consistently listed by our team as the top reason they love Social Tables. I have no doubt that our dedication to professional development is what helps us attract and retain some of the best talent in DC. But we don’t stop there.
Last quarter, we committed to being a deliberately development organization (DDO). A DDO is the kind of organization that pushes its employees to constantly improve not just at what they do but at who they are. It’s about creating a culture of constant improvement. It’s about acknowledging that no one is perfect and that we — as curious humans — are always trying to iterate towards the best version of ourselves.
To promote this ideal we’ve decided to start sharing our experiences as a DDO via this blog. “Every Day is a School Day” is a place for Social Tables employees to share their professional development challenges and triumphs. Every blog post will have two objectives: reflection and teaching. We want to write these posts to reflect on our learning experiences and we want to share them so that others learn to.
We encourage you to join the conversation and learn with us!
-Dan Berger, Founder and CEO Social Tables