By: Daniel Fried, GM and SVP, EMEA and Worldwide Channels, Veeam

Creating high-performing teams has been the topic of business research for decades. There are many theories about what drives high performance – whether it’s leadership styles, strategy, and diversity of all forms. Personally, I think this is about culture.

An article in Harvard Business Review recently described a culture of shared values as the starting point for high-performing teams. At Veeam, our industry leadership in EMEA owes much to our culture, which as I wrote last year is built on agility, discipline and fighting spirit.

These values drive high performance, as well as our commitment to investing in our partner relationships, which are based on a two way street of trust from both parties.

Culture versus strategy

As world-renowned consultant Peter Drucker famously said: “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. That is not to say that having a clear strategy is not fundamental to the success of any business. It is.

Fostering a culture of shared values enables you to implement whatever strategy you want to. Whereas you can have the smartest strategy in the world, but if you do not have a culture that unites your team behind a set of common goals, you will ultimately fail.

Shared values are not about groupthink or exerting control. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. It is well noted that more diverse teams thrive in terms of creative thinking, continuous innovation, and high performance.

It’s not about individuals within your team thinking, acting, and behaving in the same way. Our shared values are simply the fundamental principles we believe we must all demonstrate to achieve our shared goals.

To use an analogy, our strategy is our destination. We all plan different routes, use different modes of transport, have different experiences on the same journey. Our shared values refer to how we support each other, how we think outside the box when we hit a roadblock and how we share our progress.

Shared values of partnership

At Veeam, our network of EMEA partners are an extension of our team. So, we must reflect their values and culture in the way we work with them, as well as impart our own culture on them so they are an integrated part of our organisation.

This includes everything such as the experience partners get when they attend VeeamON or VeeamON Tours to continuously evolving our value-proposition to partners based on theirevolving needs.

A great partnership is a two-way street. Partners offer us an insight into the minds of end-users, the opportunity to be a part of exciting digital transformation projects, as well as infinite skills and expertise.

Veeam is committed to helping partners improve their value-proposition to customers. Furthermore, we believe in sharing our own expertise and experience with our partners to help them become the trusted advisors customers need when implementing digital transformation.

Veeam is #1 in EMEA, according to IDC’s latest Semi-Annual Software Tracke rfor Data Replication & Protection 2H’20, we attribute our industry leadership to our values of agility, discipline and fighting spirit, as well as the trustwe have with our partners.

A culture of shared values and a set of strategic goals is a winning formula for any team and any partnership.