After writing the post on ICC 2021 and calling out the diversity problem in our industry, it felt like a good time to start outlining the culture and values that form the basis of Corso Systems.

If you visit our homepage, you will see the Core Values clearly listed, and this post will go a little deeper into each one. These values were assembled by the Corso Systems Team and are reassessed as the years go. We want to make sure we are living up to them and adjust them as necessary to meet the ever changing needs of Corso Systems and the world we live in.

Empowerment

This core value is simple. As a distributed company—and as a company who works with customers—it is important for everyone in our circle to be empowered to make decisions. And to have the tools and information they need to make good decisions, along with support and guidance over time to understand the impact of those decisions.

Empowered employees can solve problems quickly, experiment and iterate with product and service ideas, and help customers get up and running more quickly. They can also do better work by choosing their own development path on a project and by implementing best practices instead of the typical Integrator ethos of “just get it working and we’ll make it right later”.

A good example of an empowered decision was on a project where we needed to check a complex route through a piping system before we could launch a pig to clean out a pipe. Understanding the problem and needing to get something working, the senior engineer suggested a somewhat brute force method of solving the problem, which would have worked and required a large amount of hardcoding. Instead, the engineer assigned to solve the problem decided to use best practices instead, abstracting as much as possible and moving to a more object oriented approach. This resulted in a much smaller amount of code and a more capable function that could be reused on multiple projects with minimal rework.

Supporting this employee’s decision ultimately led to a better outcome for everyone involved—and cemented the concept of empowering employees to make decisions when needed. It has helped to empower them to ask questions and learn as they move through their careers.

Diversity

In order to empower employees to make decisions, it is really smart to have a diverse team. Not only in terms of demographics, also in terms of backgrounds and worldview.

People who see the world through a different lens can provide creative and novel solutions to the problems we encounter on projects. This allows Corso Systems to be agile in our approach and more able to take on any problem we might encounter.

We put in effort to seek out people from different backgrounds, places in the world, and who may or may not already be “qualified” to work for other integrators. These are the people who didn’t go to a top 10 engineering university and get a 4.0GPA—yet they will run circles around a lot of people who did because they understand how to learn and grow.

Diversity is well served by being a distributed company. Since we’re not tied to any particular geographic location, it allows us to find the best talent, period. We’re not limited to just the best talent in a city where we are located. This helps us operate at a level that far outclasses most other companies of our size.

Commitment

Corso Systems is committed to helping each and every member of our team meet their goals and potential—this includes both our employees and our customers. This allows us to build strong, high-trust, long term relationships with everyone we interact with. We make our customers’ challenges our challenges, and apply our skills and experience to solve the most complex problems we encounter.

We are committed to building a diverse team, constant growth and learning, and not simply repeating what it took to get us to where we are today.

Our team stands behind the work they do. We see every project through to the end, making sure we have met our customers’ goals and expectations, solved interesting problems along the way. We grow individually and as a company through this process.

Growth

One of the mantras of the company is “to be comfortable being uncomfortable”. Uncomfortable in the sense of challenging ourselves and what we think. We are capable of our projects, but “uncomfortable” because we are solving new and interesting problems. We are putting in the reps to expand what is possible for us to accomplish. Uncomfortable because we are not bored doing the same copy/paste projects every time.

This mindset provides us the opportunity to learn and adapt to an ever changing world, and not get stuck doing the same things over and over again because that is how they have always been done.

Systems Integration and Manufacturing are industries where the learning curve can be as steep as anyone wants to make it. There is no shortage of new technologies to learn, tools to understand and optimize processes and workflows, and numerous unsolved problems to solve every day. We choose to make that learning curve vertical, empowering our people to move up as if they were climbing a ladder to get to where we are on the journey. Then, we hand them some ropes to climb further and keep expanding what we are capable of as Corso Systems.

Wrapping Up

The goal has always been to make a great company to work for, change people’s lives, and have a ton of fun doing it.

We have plenty of growth left to accomplish as we stay committed to building a diverse and empowered team. Thanks for being part of the journey!