When we first started The Peak, we learned very quickly the importance of repeatable systems. Prior to establishing The Peak’s processes, our content didn’t meet our high bar, the ad campaigns we ran were riddled with errors and our growth was inconsistent. So, we made Trust The Process a corporate value and prioritized documenting our work.
That’s where The Peak’s handbook fits in. Whether you’ve been with us for years or it’s your first week, the Handbook should be a resource—the written reference to all of our processes, systems, and tools.
The Handbook begins with everything worth knowing about The Peak, the company, our culture, our operating system, our values, and our history. It’s a guide to knowing why we chose green for the brand (hint: money), how to book a vacation (we encourage you to) and what a rock is.
The Handbook also offers us an opportunity to clarify how we work in detail. Codifying these practices into a Handbook will make it easier to work together remotely, which is increasingly important as we add team members from outside Toronto. Which tools do we use? Where can I find podcast scripts? Is the editorial calendar in ClickUp or Notion? Documenting all our processes into one handbook answers these questions and makes our systems tangible and, importantly, editable.
A good rule of thumb is if we do it twice, it should be documented. We strive to over-document how we work rather than under.
Please keep this Handbook up-to-date through quarterly audits of your guides. We’re always modifying our processes to make them more efficient—let’s be sure to update our guides accordingly. We don’t want this to be a one-and-done document. We want a living, breathing Handbook that embodies our uniquely fun and high performing culture.
If you’re reading this handbook for the first time, welcome to The Peak! Our goal with this document is to help you make your career here. We know there’s a lot going on so if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Everyone working at The Peak is The Peak. Media businesses are run on a simple value chain of growth, editorial, and sales/account management. If you’re in one of those functions, your work is critical to our success. What’s the point of a newsletter if nobody reads it? Why try to grow a product that nobody actually likes? And so what we’ve got a great product that people love—how are we going to pay our salaries? Our value chain answers each of those core questions.
We strive to make modern Canadian business leaders smarter, faster on what matters with fun and accessible content. Our vision is to become one of the most recognizable media brands in Canada. We layout this vision and the core values that drive us in ‣.
We’ve built the best team in Canadian media. We’re a young, scrappy collection of world class media operators—get to know them in ‣.
In order to achieve our vision, we collectively set team rocks at the beginning of each quarter and year. These rocks focus us on exactly what we should be working on. Each week you review the rocks with your manager to determine if they are on or off track. You’re performance is assessed largely based on whether you complete the rocks assigned. You can find the entire team’s rocks in ‣.
Here’s a guide on how we set our quarterly Rocks: