The ubiquitous workday shuffle: From one meeting to the next, each with a different mix of people, to conference calls with teams in other departments and locations. It’s during these moments that communication breaks down and things get complicated—which Marie Poyet, co-founder and head of product for Know Your Crew, is all too familiar with.
Growing up “half French and half American,” as she describes it, she’s always had a foot in each culture, including stints of work and living in both the U.S. and in France. In workplaces in both countries, she felt the cultural differences acutely.
“It was a challenge,” Poyet says. “Sometimes I was doing things that I didn’t realize were being misunderstood, or I was misunderstanding my colleague’s actions, and there was no easy way for us to get on the same page.”
The idea for Know Your Crew, a “gamified” mobile platform aimed at fostering connections and engagement within teams (a.k.a crews), started percolating while Poyet was working at ?What If!. It was at this innovation consultancy in New York where she met her business partner, Alison Bloom-Feshbach, Know Your Crew’s co-founder and CEO.
And while tech tools and platforms continue to reshape the workplace, Poyet and Bloom-Feshbach discovered a white space when it came to team building and bonding.
“There wasn’t really anything addressing workplace culture that’s content-driven. Most of the platforms that exist are more infrastructure and aren’t actually a source of guidance,” says the WeWork Williamsburg member.
Thus, the idea for Know Your Crew was born. After users create a crew through the app, they have access to hundreds of questions that fall into different categories such as “What the Blank,” where everyone in the crew completes the sentence, and “Most Likely to”—each person weighs in on who is most likely to, say, fake an accent. You earn points by correctly identifying who said what; a leaderboard then tracks points and stats for bragging rights.
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After one year in development, a consumer version of the app launched summer 2015. In January, Know Your Crew launched a beta “Pro” version for enterprise customers geared towards workplace teams.
With the Pro version, “We are trying to accomplish two things primarily,” Poyet says. “First, to make people feel more connected. There’s so much research that shows that if you have friends in the workplace, you’re happier. Second, to strengthen team alignment and help surface those minor points of contention—all the while keeping it enjoyable, surprising, and fun.”
While the platform’s content has a lightness in tone, it’s culled from serious research. Bloom-Feshbach has a background in cognitive psychology in the workplace and is, in Poyet’s words, a “psychology and personality analysis nerd.” A data scientist who works in a lab focused on “gamification and connectivity in groups” is the most recent addition to the team.
“We’re going for those moments where you feel like you are very connected to someone—an unprompted question, but it feels so right,” Poyet explains. “We’re playing in that space of ‘Team Happy Hour,’ and we want to keep it on that level.”
Photos: Katelyn Perry