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A thing I like to do with values is invert them. If you don't still get something good then you're really just saying something bland and generic that any old c

by harryh 9y ago

A thing I like to do with values is invert them. If you don't still get something good then you're really just saying something bland and generic that any old company probably aspires to. Take Facebook's "Move fast and break things." The inverse would be something like "Take your time and do it right." Both of those values are great! They both have good and bad points and which one a company aspires to really tells you something about how they balance competing goals. This method doesn't work 100% of the time, but it's pretty good.

logicallee 9y ago
It sounds like you think that values should be a description of which of two reasonable choices a company wants its employees to choose... For example, a company's value as stated might be "Education and experience don't matter and the most junior employee can argue with architectural choices as long as they are willing to argue cogently and with evidence." Then if you "invert" it you get "Education and experience matter; give weight to other people's expertise, education and experience in a field." So both of them are "still something good", I guess. But a startup might choose the former. If I've understood your suggestion correctly, then the problem with your suggestion is that some cultural values are about things that tech startups get wrong, and the inversion is not any good at all. How do you invert something like "don't bully other employees or pick on them due to their belonging to some protected class - to overcome subconscious biases, if you do not belong to that class then stop for a moment and consciously treat them the same as if they belonged to the same class as yourself"? What is the "inversion" of this obvious cultural choice which is obviously good? Do you think that it is "bland and generic" just because it is obvious that it is right and its inversion is wrong? I don't think it's obvious at all, and I think a lot of companies get these cultural values completely wrong, and, for example, do foster an atmosphere of harassment. I want to get this comment away from the political so I'll make another, purely technical example: if a rule is, "make sure something actually builds before you check it in" then the inversion is "don't worry about making sure it builds before you check it in"? That's not "still something good" as you've stated, so...does it make the specific technical suggestion I listed "bland and generic"? So I'm not sure how helpful your rule is.
- harryh 9y ago
  dmlorenzetti & bryanlarsen both make the core point I try to get at in sibling comments to this one but I'll also dd that I think there are some useful things underneath your two specific examples: 1) I think a company that really epitomizes the point you are trying to make here is Slack. They seem to value diversity and inclusion more than any other SV company right now. This has probably helped them be successful, but to me it seems like they care about this value above and beyond the effect on their business. They want to make the world a better place and will expend resources to do so. Conversely I slick of PayPal back in 2000. Levchin has spoken explicitly about how they valued hiring a team of people with very similar world views and how that helped them avoid wasting time arguing and instead focus on execution. I've also heard stories about how engineers would literally wrestle to solve disputes[1]. These sound like very different companies! I can imagine people that would relish working at the former and hate working at the latter (or vice versa). Both quite successful though. 2) WRT building before you check in that obviously brings me back to FB's "move fast and break things." I dunno about breaking the build as I've never worked there, but I definitely know that for the longest time FB was very very cavalier about breaking their external API. From one perspective that certainly sounds like a bad thing, but on the other hand maybe that "move fast" part really was a big part of the key to FB's success? Perhaps some of the things that you think are absolutely wrong are just wrong according to your particular values. You should obviously want to work at a business that aligns with those values but perhaps there are other businesses that operate the opposite way and that oppositeness helps them succeed. 1. http://blakemasters.com/post/21437840885/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-class-5-notes-essay http://blakemasters.com/post/21437840885/peter-thiels-cs183-...
  - logicallee 9y ago
    You make interesting points. I do think sometimes there really is no trade-off. So why doesn't every company adopt that policy which has no trade-offs? Because they don't know or haven't heard of it, thought of it. Simply writing a sentence could make anyone reading that sentence slap their forehead and say "why didn't I think of that" and instantly adopt it with no resistance - a policy can spread like a meme to everyone who's ever heard of it, resisted by no one. Then if you read it about a potential employer you can say "great! they've already heard of it." You might think I'm being silly and that real values aren't like that - that I'm just not seeing the alternative viewpoint or trade-off. But I actually think there are a huge class of values like this. I guess that's just my opinion.

by harryh 9y ago

logicallee 9y ago

It sounds like you think that values should be a description of which of two reasonable choices a company wants its employees to choose... For example, a company's value as stated might be "Education and experience don't matter and the most junior employee can argue with architectural choices as long as they are willing to argue cogently and with evidence." Then if you "invert" it you get "Education and experience matter; give weight to other people's expertise, education and experience in a field." So both of them are "still something good", I guess. But a startup might choose the former. If I've understood your suggestion correctly, then the problem with your suggestion is that some cultural values are about things that tech startups get wrong, and the inversion is not any good at all. How do you invert something like "don't bully other employees or pick on them due to their belonging to some protected class - to overcome subconscious biases, if you do not belong to that class then stop for a moment and consciously treat them the same as if they belonged to the same class as yourself"? What is the "inversion" of this obvious cultural choice which is obviously good? Do you think that it is "bland and generic" just because it is obvious that it is right and its inversion is wrong? I don't think it's obvious at all, and I think a lot of companies get these cultural values completely wrong, and, for example, do foster an atmosphere of harassment. I want to get this comment away from the political so I'll make another, purely technical example: if a rule is, "make sure something actually builds before you check it in" then the inversion is "don't worry about making sure it builds before you check it in"? That's not "still something good" as you've stated, so...does it make the specific technical suggestion I listed "bland and generic"? So I'm not sure how helpful your rule is.

harryh 9y ago
dmlorenzetti & bryanlarsen both make the core point I try to get at in sibling comments to this one but I'll also dd that I think there are some useful things underneath your two specific examples: 1) I think a company that really epitomizes the point you are trying to make here is Slack. They seem to value diversity and inclusion more than any other SV company right now. This has probably helped them be successful, but to me it seems like they care about this value above and beyond the effect on their business. They want to make the world a better place and will expend resources to do so. Conversely I slick of PayPal back in 2000. Levchin has spoken explicitly about how they valued hiring a team of people with very similar world views and how that helped them avoid wasting time arguing and instead focus on execution. I've also heard stories about how engineers would literally wrestle to solve disputes[1]. These sound like very different companies! I can imagine people that would relish working at the former and hate working at the latter (or vice versa). Both quite successful though. 2) WRT building before you check in that obviously brings me back to FB's "move fast and break things." I dunno about breaking the build as I've never worked there, but I definitely know that for the longest time FB was very very cavalier about breaking their external API. From one perspective that certainly sounds like a bad thing, but on the other hand maybe that "move fast" part really was a big part of the key to FB's success? Perhaps some of the things that you think are absolutely wrong are just wrong according to your particular values. You should obviously want to work at a business that aligns with those values but perhaps there are other businesses that operate the opposite way and that oppositeness helps them succeed. 1. http://blakemasters.com/post/21437840885/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-class-5-notes-essay http://blakemasters.com/post/21437840885/peter-thiels-cs183-...
- logicallee 9y ago
  You make interesting points. I do think sometimes there really is no trade-off. So why doesn't every company adopt that policy which has no trade-offs? Because they don't know or haven't heard of it, thought of it. Simply writing a sentence could make anyone reading that sentence slap their forehead and say "why didn't I think of that" and instantly adopt it with no resistance - a policy can spread like a meme to everyone who's ever heard of it, resisted by no one. Then if you read it about a potential employer you can say "great! they've already heard of it." You might think I'm being silly and that real values aren't like that - that I'm just not seeing the alternative viewpoint or trade-off. But I actually think there are a huge class of values like this. I guess that's just my opinion.