Greetings, Dragons!
I'm going to offer some general reflections on our newest articulation of the company values, recently shared by Ben and Francis in Barcelona, at the partner offsite, in May. These are not new values per se, but new ways of saying what we’ve always believed, just with different emphasis and inflection. I like the metaphor of old wine, new barrels. The container changes, but the substance remains. Any list or creed risks becoming stale and needs revisiting from time to time. Wisdom requires that we don't just assume the default. "What got us here, won't get us there." That's true for business strategy, for culture strategy, and for personal growth strategy. Our values are aspirational; they reflect the kind of company we seek to become.
Ownership
Meritocracy
Self-improvement
Transparency
Service
Communication
Myth & Wisdom
Strategy & Tactics
Ownership & Alignment
Self-Improvement & Excellence
Service & Partnership
You'll notice that words like transparency and communication have fallen away in the new 2.0 articulation; we still care about them, but we see these as contained in many of the new values. More importantly, you'll see that our values now come in pairs. The reason is that any value out of context can become a vice and needs to be balanced against another value. Ownership without alignment leads to chaos and confusion. Alignment without ownership quashes creativity, responsibility, and innovation. By putting values in pairs we're signaling that a value needs to be properly dosed. Knowing what dose to give to the right person in the right situation is wisdom, hence, our first value, the value of knowing how to weigh competing values. You'll also note that most of our values sound normal, except for myth. That's right; we want to be normal enough to be professional, but distinct enough to outcompete other normal, boring companies. With myth, we take our inspiration from companies like Disney that understand the enduring power of great, archetypal stories.
Myth and Wisdom: