[harryh]

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-...

[logicallee]

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.

[harryh]

I think they are a huge class of values like this too. I just don't think it's as useful to state them outright in a corporate values statement. String too many of them together and you get this:

https://www.ibm.com/ibm/values/us/

Just try to read it without your eyes glazing over. Can you even get to the end?

It's not that anything in the list is wrong or bad. It's just boring. It's obvious. Who cares? I bet 90% of IBM employees have never even read the damn thing much less ever actually changed anything about how they do their job because of it.

Great values statements are great because they are shocking, because they get people to pay attention, and because they actually get people to change how they do things. Move fast and BREAK THINGS(1). The god damn CEO telling employees to break things. That's how you differentiate yourself.

1. Sorry to keep using this example. It's just the best. I don't even particularly like Facebook but this is just a fucking great corporate values statement. It's so great that millions of people outside the company know it and have thought about it.

[logicallee]

I'm really glad you decided to link that IBM page because I can use to to show you that your "inversion" metric is one I really do reject.

I've rewritten the top of the document to invert it.

https://pastebin.com/YmKB0uNV

I stopped, but obviously could have continued to go through the rest of the document. So by your proposed standard of "is the inverted version still good" the answer is "absolutely". But that doesn't make these good values!

I agree with you that it is not a great document at all. Even though it can be inverted without any problem or challenge. I simply can't accept the inversion tool you proffered.

[barrkel]

I don't think you inverted the values correctly! For example, starting out with these:

• Dedication to every client’s success

• Innovation that matters-for our company and for the world

• Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships

The obvious inversion (to me) is:

• Dedication to every client’s failure

• Innovation that matters to nobody

• Mistrust and lack of responsibility in all relationships

But actually, the positive values as written are contradictory. What if there's a conflict between innovation that matters to the world vs a client's success - which comes first? Both are positive. But these values don't discriminate.

[logicallee]

I didn't introduce the idea of inversion, and if you look through this thread from the top you will see that I used it as defined by the person who introduced it, who called the above inversions (in a sibling comment to yours) "very good."

You might have missed it beecause there are a couple of conversations going on in this thread. Pay attention to the usernames.

Anyway for the inversions, I am playing by that person's rules and following that person's terminology, not simply negating these statements.

Some statements can't be inverted. (For example it's not possible to invert "don't murder your colleagues.")

[harryh]

You know....that's a really go rewrite you did. You have me pondering the usefulness of my tool. I'm not ready to abandon it but you've convinced me that it needs refining.

Thanks!

[logicallee]

Still, I started off making an entirely different point - (that there are many good values that can't be inverted) on which I think we were agreed. So in the end I really argued most strongly (and took the biggest karma hit on) for things we actually agreed on! So thanks for your discussion, too :).

(meanwhile all my other contri bributors

[logicallee]

(last line kept in error)