Levelling Up: Coaching That Powers Performance and Engagement at Volley

At a glance:

• Company: Volley is a fast growing gaming company.
  
• Challenges: Uplevel new and emerging leaders during a time of rapid scaling. Individual contributors need to adopt a growth mindset.
  
• Solution: Partnered with Sama to provide tailored coaching ensuring employees at all levels can develop in alignment with Volley’s long term growth goals and support a growth mindset.
  

Result:
Skilled leaders who lead with vision and influence, more confident managers, ownership mindset, clarity, engaged teams fueling a culture of innovation and collaboration.

About HigherVisibilityAbout Volley

Volley is the leading developer of voice AI games for smart speaker platforms like Amazon Alexa, smartphones, and connected TVs.

Volley strives to maintain an open, supportive, and feedback-driven culture. It builds up people to unlock an ownership mindset – to take initiative, share innovative ideas, and drive impactful change.

Volley emphasizes a culture built around three core principles they call their “Vollues”:

Best-in-Class: Volley makes the best products in the categories they choose to enter.

Play Together: Volley’s products are designed to bring friends and families closer together. They care deeply about nurturing this same spirit of togetherness in their work.

Shoot Your Shot: The team at Volley takes calculated risks in new markets with the potential for massive rewards. They’re betting that the revolution enabled by voice technologies is just getting started and they want to lead the way forward.

The Challenge

As Volley scaled, its once-flat structure began to evolve, introducing new management layers. Many team members were stepping into management roles for the first time, all while driving to maintain a competitive product vision. It strived to maintain a culture of innovation and collaboration as new talent joined.

Deena Manley, Head of People at Volley, describes the challenge of her role in this environment as follows:

“You, as HR, do not have the time to step in and advise every single function, nor are you the best person to do it. I have never been an engineering manager. I have never been a product manager. I am not the best person to coach somebody on how to drive product vision.”

Volley needed a way to give employees one-on-one support that was tailored to their individual needs given the speed of change. Volley already provided training, guides and frameworks, but it looked to provide a solution that was more adjusted to each individual’s needs to accelerate their individual growth and performance of their team. It looked to first support senior and emerging leaders as well as key individual contributors. 

The objective was to help individuals and teams perform at high levels, innovate, open new market opportunities in alignment with ambitious growth goals without losing the great culture Volley had built.

For this, leaders had to create goal clarity, support a feedback and collaborative culture, and be able to coach their team. Individual contributors had to step into their own and embrace courage and an ownership mindset to craft the path to greater innovation.

Why coaching?

Volley offered a strong foundation of internal resources (performance management framework, regular training, and quick-reference guides), but these tools couldn’t fully address the unique, individual challenges that employees faced in a fast moving environment.

Moreover, as the company was in hyper growth and evolution, what made people successful now would not necessarily make them successful in the future. Coaching provided this support by creating a space with an external perspective helped people think differently. It could support a growth mindset to better navigate ambiguity. 

“What some of our more senior team members found to be the most helpful is coaching on their own individual roles, and how they show up in those roles, and how they drive product vision and influence across their teams. It has been incredibly helpful.” —Deena Manley, Head of People at Volley

Why Sama?

In line with their collaborative culture, when rolling out Sama, Volley created a Coaching Club with regular meetups, as well as a dedicated Sama Slack channel. Deena did this to share best practices, provide clarity on how to navigate challenges and understand what the team could bring to the table with their coach. “You need to do work on your end to ensure that people are feeling supported in their coaching relationships” Deena explains.

“I’ve worked with quite a few different coaching platforms, and I have found Sama to be the most effective. A large part of that is the coaching algorithm—it takes into consideration somebody’s experience level and where they’re operating from in the organization. So we don’t have the same coach being assigned to a senior engineer that we have assigned to a VP in our organization. They would have two different coaches that have two different levels of experience and are able to come to the table and have a conversation with them at their level that they’re able to understand.”—Deena Manley, Head of People at Volley.

By meeting each individual at their level, Sama delivers coaching that feels relevant, actionable, and immediately applicable.

Sama offered a scalable way to connect employees with expert coaches who could support the team develop both mentorship and actionable strategies. The ability for team members to choose coaches with relevant industry experience and backgrounds made the partnership especially valuable, making support and guidance practical, credible, and directly applicable.

The matching algorithm really worked. People were matched with coaches who understood their unique context. Unlimited coach swaps made finding the perfect coach for individual team member challenges quick and easy. Sama’s matching algorithm connected each leader or team member with coaches with relevant industry experience that Volley’s team can pull from.

The Solution

Sama coaches support changing responsibilities

At Volley, rapid growth created an environment for quick career pivots, whether it’s moving from an IC role into management or taking on a completely new function. Sama’s coaching has been instrumental in helping Volley employees adjust to new roles, develop new skills, and excel in their new function.

“There are skills that you need to invest time into developing, when making a career pivot, and a big part of that is influence. We’ve had team members engaged with their coach for that in particular.”—Deena Manley, Head of People at Volley

Deena shared an example of one of their team members making a significant career pivot relying on coaching as a sounding board and strategy lab. This targeted support not only accelerated their adjustment to the new role but also brought in positive feedback from their co-workers.

“In the 8 months that they’ve been in coaching, we’ve seen a tremendous uptick in positive feedback. (…)They’ve been tapping into their coach to help them build influence, executive presence, and been able to develop that skill set of connecting with, driving, and motivating their teams.“—Deena Manley, Head of People at Volley

Sama coaches onboard new leadership hires to company values

As Volley’s product and team grew, they brought in more senior leaders. When hiring senior professionals, there is always a risk that it negatively affects a positive culture. These professionals came with strong experience, but sometimes were influenced by previous company cultures that were very different from Volley’s collaborative values.

In one instance, “That team’s relationship felt very diagnostic and transactional. The team got the thing done, but they were not sharing much feedback. They were relatively quiet. Now we feel like that team is much more collaborative and engaged, in line with the culture at Volley.”—Deena Manley, Head of People at Volley

Over time, coaching helped new leadership hires align their established ways of working with Volley’s culture of openness and collaboration. By creating space for honest dialogue, shared feedback, and relationship-building, Sama supported a cultural shift where experienced hires didn’t just deliver results, they became active ambassadors of the company’s values.

Sama coaches help first-time managers

When rolling out Sama, the leadership team prioritized the groups that would benefit most immediately from one-on-one coaching. Given the company’s rapid growth and evolving structure, they recognized that managers, especially those stepping into leadership roles for the first time, were facing new challenges without a playbook to follow.

“We started out with Sama being geared towards our manager population that had some first-time managers. They need coaching support with developing their teams and building executive presence.” —Deena Manley, Head of People at Volley

By focusing first on managers, Volley created a ripple effect across the organization. As these leaders grew more confident in guiding their teams and representing their ideas at the executive level, their direct reports benefited from stronger mentorship, clearer goals, and a culture of accountability. Their teams were more engaged and collaborative. This early success laid the foundation for expanding Sama’s reach to senior ICs and other high-impact roles.

The Impact: Confident, communicative, and innovative leaders

The most meaningful change wasn’t just about skills or processes. It was about equipping people to lead with clarity, confidence, and creativity as Volley scaled.

100% are confident leading teams

“Sama coaching helped our leaders develop their teams and executive presence.”

As Volley grew, many managers were leading teams for the first time. Sama coaching provided a safe, tailored space to work through challenges: whether navigating difficult conversations, building executive presence, or motivating their people. This hands-on guidance built a foundation of leadership confidence that’s now evident across the organization.

54.5% report an average improvement in overall performance at work

“Our team is driving critical business, doing critical work. They are providing feedback when they need to provide feedback, and they are eager and excited.”

Sama’s coaching, paired with internal support like the Coaching Club meetups, the Sama Slack channel, and quarterly check-ins, translated directly into day-to-day performance: clearer priorities, faster decisions, and teams taking ownership of high-impact work.

88.2% have made meaningful progress towards their goals

“Sama provided clarity on how to navigate challenges along with accountability.”

In a high-growth environment, priorities shift fast. Sama gave Volley employees an external partner to help them set meaningful goals, stay focused, and adapt as circumstances changed. This consistent, personalized accountability empowered participants to turn their intentions into tangible progress.

54.5% are more effective communicators

“Sama coaches helped our team present to our executive team and get their buy-in.”

Sama helped Volley leaders sharpen their communication, both in formal presentations as well as in day-to-day collaboration. Whether influencing executives, aligning cross-functional teams, or resolving tensions, participants gained the tools to communicate with clarity and confidence.

50% average improvement in relationships with colleagues

“Sama helped onboard new hires into a culture where folks feel very comfortable being very honest and candid with each other.”

The program fostered trust and candor within teams, helping colleagues build stronger connections even in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment. Coaches encouraged empathy, active listening, and constructive feedback. These qualities have strengthened Volley’s collaborative “play together” culture.

65% improvement in confidence leading initiatives at work

“Sama coaches encouraged our teams to share cool, new, innovative ideas. People want to dive into projects and pitch ideas that you wouldn’t normally see.”

With the skills and confidence gained from coaching, Volley team members have gained confidence in proposing and owning new initiatives. They shoot their shots. While this has been a company value at Volley since its conception, providing key team members with coaches helped turn this value into actionable impact.

64% are confident they have the tools to progress in their careers

“Sama matched people with coaches who have worked in the same industry and have done the same job as them.”

The ability to choose coaches with relevant experience made career guidance highly practical and actionable. Employees gained strategies that were not just theoretical but rooted in the realities of their work, giving them clarity on their next steps and the confidence to take them.

Culture Impact

Volley cares about its people and supports them in their development. It encourages an ownership and growth mindset. It can be proud of the collaborative and excellent culture it has built and continues to build. 

Volley’s company values are truly embraced, they are lived behaviors. Shoot Your Shot began as a way to encourage bold ideas, but with coaching, it’s now about personal growth too. Team members are using it to take on ambitious projects and new challenges, often inspired by conversations with their coach.

Play Together has also evolved as Volley grew from a small startup to a larger team. Once about simply helping each other, it now means thought-partnering on complex challenges and co-creating solutions. Coaching has helped employees strengthen collaboration skills, see challenges from new perspectives, and move faster together.

As Volley brings in more senior hires from larger organizations, coaching helps them adapt to a fast-moving, ambiguous environment. Leaders are learning to take initiative, influence without authority, and apply Volley’s values in new ways, embedding them into everyday actions that keep the culture strong.

Want to see these results at your company?

Get in touch with Sama to learn how human-centered coaching can elevate your leaders, wherever they are. Book a call here.