RiverNorth’s Fundamental Assumptions
RiverNorth is unabashedly counter culture. We were founded with the idea of changing the entire consulting paradigm, putting it on its head, and proving that federal contracting can be different.
To do this, we have to act differently. This means getting rid of the old methods that have been the pillar of Corporate America for the better part of a century. One of those methods is to ascribe Core Values to the individuals who work there, assuming every person will value the same things.
When founding RiverNorth, we said “no more” to the core values that hang on a wall, live in marketing brochures, and ring hollow to every employee who can name a dozen examples of how the company does not live up to the words. The core values can come from a good place of honestly wanting to act right; but they are usually so vague that they are hard to interpret or easy to misinterpret. This leads to rule bending and moral manipulation.
RiverNorth went a different direction. Instead, we made a few fundamental assumptions about how we will behave -- and this is how we measure the success of our actions daily. The key difference between our fundamental assumptions and traditional core values is that the assumptions are focused on the feeling you have when you work at RiverNorth. They are not meant to be client-facing or drive marketing materials. They are not motivated by profit, they are motivated by purpose. And most importantly, they were not derived years after the company formed as a way to explain why we do what we do… rather, they were formed months before RiverNorth ever had a product offering at all. When we say “founding,” we mean it literally — they are the entire reason the company was founded in the first place.
More than one-word adjectives, our fundamental assumptions are more like RiverNorth laws. My most important role in the company is to hold the space for these assumptions to remain true and to sense when we are straying from them.
RiverNorth’s Five Fundamental Assumptions:
Corporate purpose is the sum of each individual’s purpose
We actively sense opportunities to challenge the current
Every person is critical and valued, regardless of role
We trust and are accountable to each other
Everyone shares the burden of transparency and honesty
The five fundamental assumptions are embodied in the way we behave, which includes:
Constantly adapting and evolving in the direction that our collective purposes advise
Believing that innovation does not live on PowerPoint, it lives in our ability to sense, challenge, and adapt daily to our surroundings
No employee is empowered by another, we all have power inherently
We are problem solvers, not just problem sensors
We trust each other to do the right thing, to handle difficult conversations, to never consider a topic “unmentionable,” and to leave egos at the door
RiverNorth is challenging the current in so many ways. But among the most important is the priority we put on living up to our “why” — why we exist, why we were founded, why we continue to work in this industry. Because if we can do that, “what” we do is pure gravy.