White Rabbit Culture
Freedom and Responsibility
Our Mission
Our mission is focused on helping overseas customers buy from Japan. Our core strategy is to grow our shop, buying and forwarding service business, while maintaining our high level of customer care. We are continuously improving the customer experience and choosing, first and foremost, to solve customer pain with everything we do.
Vision
- To be the most trusted, customer-friendly way to buy from Japan.
- To enable Japanese sellers to reach the global market.
History
-
2003 White Rabbit Press publisher of Japanese language learning materials
-
2004 White Rabbit Japan Shop for hard-to-find Japanese language products
-
2005 White Rabbit Express a proxy buying service for Japanese products
-
2016 Blackship.com a Japan-based package forwarding service
Values
A company's actual values
are shown by who gets hired, rewarded, or let go
Actual company values are the behaviors and skills
that are valued
in fellow employees
At White Rabbit, we particularly value the following nine behaviors and skills in our colleagues...
...meaning we hire and promote people who demonstrate these nine
Judgement
You make wise decisions
(people, technical, business, and creative) despite ambiguity
You solve root causes, not symptoms.
You think about the big picture, and can explain what you are, and are not, trying to do
You smartly separate what must be done well now, and what can be improved later
Communication
You listen well, instead of reacting fast, so you can better understand
You are concise and articulate in speech and writing
You treat people with respect independent of their status or disagreement with you
*You maintain calm composure especially when collaborating
Impact
You accomplish amazing amounts of important work
You demonstrate consistently strong performance so colleagues can rely upon you
{CUT?} You focus on great results rather than on process
[awkward?] You exhibit bias-to-action, and avoid analysis-paralysis
(MVC - minimal viable change
better is enemy of the good enough)
Curiosity
You learn rapidly and eagerly
You seek to understand our strategy, market, customers, and vendors
You are broadly knowledgeable about business, technology and eCommerce
You contribute effectively outside of your specialty
Innovation
You re-conceptualize issues to discover practical solutions to hard problems
You challenge prevailing assumptions when warranted, and suggest better approaches
You create new ideas that prove useful
You keep us nimble by minimizing complexity and finding time to simplify
Courage
You say what you think even if it is controversial
You make tough decisions without agonizing
You take smart risks
You question actions
inconsistent with our values
(examples?)
Passion
You inspire others with your thirst for excellence
You care intensely about White Rabbit's success
You celebrate wins
You are tenacious
Honesty
You are known for candor and directness
You are non-political when you disagree with others
You only say things about fellow employees you will say to their face
You are quick to admit mistakes
Selflessness
You seek what is best for White Rabbit, rather than best for yourself or your group
You are ego-less when searching for the best ideas
You make time to help colleagues
You share information openly and proactively
Why do we care so much about high performers?
Hard work is not relevant
We measure results, not hours.
Sustained A-level performance, despite minimal effort, is rewarded with more responsibility and great pay
-
In procedural work, the best are 2x better than average.
-
In creative/inventive work, the best are 10x better than the average.
Imagine if every person at White Rabbit is someone you respect and learn from...
A Great Workplace is
Amazing Colleagues
A great workplace is not espresso, bean bag chairs, lush benefits, ping pong tables, or grand parties
Honors commitments
We do what we promise each other, our customers, and our partners
Our model is to increase employee freedom as we grow, rather than limit it, to continue to attract and nourish
innovative people, so we have better chance of sustained success
Growth Increases Complexity
Complexity
Chaos Emerges
Complexity
% High Performance Employees
Chaos and errors spike here - business becomes too complex to run informally with this talent level
Process Emerges to Stop the Chaos
Procedures
No one loves process, but feels good compared to the pain of chaos
Process-focus drives more talent out
% High Performance Employees
Process Brings Seductively Strong Near-Term Outcome
- A highly-successful process-driven company
- With leading share in its market
- Minimal thinking required
- Few mistakes made--highly efficient
- Few curious innovator-mavericks remain
- Very optimized processes for its existing market
- Efficiency has trumped flexibility
Then the Market Shifts
- Market shifts due to new technology, competitors or business models
- Company is unable to adapt quickly
(because the employees are extremely good at following the existing processes, and process adherence is the value system) - Company generally grinds painfully into irrelevance
Seems Like Three Bad Options
- Stay creative by staying small, but therefore have less impact
- Avoid rules as you grow, and suffer chaos
- Use process as you grow to drive efficient execution of current model, but cripple creativity, flexibility, and ability to thrive when your market eventually changes
A Fourth Option
Avoid chaos as you grow with ever more high performance people - not with rules
-
Then you can continue to mostly run informally with self-discipline, and avoid chaos
-
The run informally part is what enables and attracts creativity
The Key: Increase Talent Density faster than Complexity Growth
Business Complexity
% High Performance Employees
Minimize Complexity Growth
- Few big projects vs many small ones
- Eliminate distracting complexity (barnacles)
- Be wary of efficiency optimizations that increase complexity and rigidity
Note: Sometimes long-term simplicity is achieved only through bursts of complexity to rework current systems
Summary of Freedom and Responsibility
-
As we grow, minimize rules
-
Inhibit chaos with ever more high performance people
-
Flexibility is more important than efficiency in the long term
Efficiency
- Short verbal answers. Give short answers to questions, then the other party can ask more or move on.
- Keep broadcasts short.
- Work in small iterations. Look to make the quickest change possible to improve the outcome. Instead of writing a large plan considering starting with the first step. Small iterations make it quicker to get feedback from others.
Value of Teamwork
The more talent we have, the more we can accomplish, so our people assist each other all the time to elevate everyone's ability and skill
Helping others is a priority, even when their goal is not your goal. You are encouraged to ask for help and advice when needed.
Anyone can chime in on any subject. The person responsible for the task decides how to do it but should always take the suggestions of others seriously and try to respond and explain.
Negotiate Success
- ideas on relationship with boss, seeking feedback, clarifying expectations
We're a team; not a family
We're like a pro sports team,
not a kid's recreational team
White Rabbit managers
hire, develop and cut smartly,
so we have stars in every position
The Keeper Test
Managers should ask themselves: which of my people, if they told me they were leaving, for a similar job at a peer company, would I fight hard to keep at White Rabbit?
The other people should be let go now, so we can open a slot to try to find a star for that role.
Context over Control
Context (embrace)
- Strategy
- Metrics
- Assumptions
- Objectives
- Clearly-defined roles
- Knowledge of the stakes
- Transparency around decision-making
Control (avoid)
- Top-down decision-making
- Management approval
- Committees
- Planning and process valued more than results
Good Context
- Link to company/functional goals
- Relative priority (how important/how time sensitive)
- Critical (needs to happen now), or...
- Nice to have (when you can get to it)
- Level of precision & refinement
- No errors (credit cards handling, etc...), or...
- Pretty good/can correct errors (website), or...
- Rough (experimental)
- Identify key stakeholders
- Define key metrics/definition of success
Managers: When one of your talented people does something dumb, don't blame them
Instead, ask yourself what context you failed to set
Managers: When you are tempted to ''control'' your people, ask yourself what context you could set instead
Are you articulate and inspiring enough about goals and strategies?
Why Manage Through Context?
High performance people will do better work if they understand the context
Investing in Context
This is why we do new employee on-boarding, why we are transparent about decision-making, and why we are so open internally about strategies and results
Exceptions to "Context, not Control"
-
Control can be important in an emergency
-
No time to take long-term capacity-building view
-
-
Control can be important when someone is still learning their area
-
Takes time to pick up the necessary context
-
-
Control can be important when you have the wrong person in a role
-
Temporarily, no doubt
-
Accept mistakes
If you make a mistake own it. Acknowledge it and fix it. Ask for help if needed. Inform others of impact if necessary.
Mistakes happen and will be forgiven. Hiding mistakes however is unacceptable.
When there is conflict, manage it
Some workplaces seek to avoid conflict, but we believe high-performance teams often deliver their best results when they manage conflict constructively. People are expected to stop fighting each other and to search for the right answer together.
Fight like you're right; listen like you're wrong.
Compensation Rules
- What could person get elsewhere?
- What would we pay for replacement?
- What would we pay to keep that person?
(If they had a bigger offer elsewhere)
We develop people by giving them the opportunity to develop themselves, by surrounding them with stunning colleagues and giving them big challenges to work on.