White Rabbit Culture
Freedom and Responsibility
Seven Aspects of our Culture
- Values
- High Performance
- Freedom & Responsibility
- Context, not Control
- Highly Aligned, Loosely Coupled
- Professional Development
Values
Many companies have nice sounding value statements displayed in the lobby
- Integrity
- Communication
- Respect
- Excellence
Enron went bankrupt from fraud, and it's leaders went to jail.
Enron had these values displayed in their lobby:
- Integrity
- Communication
- Respect
- Excellence
(These values were not, however, what was really valued at Enron)
The actual company values, as opposed to the
nice-sounding values,
are shown by who gets rewarded, promoted, 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 identify root causes, and get beyond treating symptoms
You think strategically, and can articulate 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 poise in stressful situations
Impact
You accomplish amazing amounts of important work
You demonstrate consistently strong performance so colleagues can rely upon you
You focus on great results rather than on process
You exhibit bias-to-action, and avoid analysis-paralysis
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
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.
Average performance, despite an "A for effort" results in severance, with respect
Sustained A-level performance, despite minimal effort, is rewarded with more responsibility and great pay
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In procedural work, the best are 2x better than average.
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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
The Rare Responsible Person
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Self motivating
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Self aware
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Self disciplined
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Self improving
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Acts like a leader
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Doesn't wait to be told what to do
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Picks up the trash lying on the floor
A responsible person 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
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Then you can continue to mostly run informally with self-discipline, and avoid chaos
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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
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As we grow, minimize rules
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Inhibit chaos with ever more high performance people
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Flexibility is more important than efficiency in the long term
Value of Teamwork
The more talent we have, the more we can accomplish, so our people assist each other all the time
Helping others is a priority, even when it is not related to the goals that you are trying to achieve. You are encouraged to ask others 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 seriously and try to respond and explain.
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"
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Control can be important in an emergency
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No time to take long-term capacity-building view
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Control can be important when someone is still learning their area
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Takes time to pick up the necessary context
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Control can be important when you have the wrong person in a role
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Temporarily, no doubt
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Three Models of Teamwork
- Tightly-Coupled Monolith
- Independent Silos
- Highly-Aligned, Loosely-Coupled
Tightly Coupled Monolith
- Senior management reviews nearly all tactics
e.g., CEO reviews all refunds, advertising, blog posts - Lots of multi-departmental buy-in meetings
- Keeping other internal groups happy has equal precedence with pleasing customers
- Mavericks get exhausted trying to innovate
- Highly-coordinated through centralization, but very slow, and the slowness increases with size
Independent Silos
- Each group executes on their objectives with little coordination
- Everyone does their own thing
- Work that requires coordination suffers
- Alienation and suspicion between departments
- Only works well when business units are independent
e.g., package forwarding and graded readers
Highly-Aligned, Loosely-Coupled
Highly Aligned
Strategy goals are clear, specific, broadly understood
Team interactions focused on strategy and goals, rather than tactics.
Requires large investment in management time to be transparent and articulate and perceptive
Loosely Coupled
Minimal cross-functional meetings except to get aligned on goals and strategy
Trust between groups on tactics without previewing/approving each one - so groups can move fast
Leaders reaching out proactively for ad-hoc coordination and perspective as appropriate
Occasional postmortems on tactics necessary to increase alignment
Highly Aligned, Loosely Coupled teamwork effectiveness depends on
high performance people
and good context
Goal is to be big and fast and flexible
Accept mistakes
High performers make few errors. When they do, they just fix problems rapidly. Inform others of impact if necessary. Asking for help if needed.
Not every problem should lead to a new process to prevent them. Additional process make all actions more inefficient, a mistake only affects one.
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. Joining arms and attacking the problem instead of each other.
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)
Vacation Policy and Tracking
We don't track hours worked per day or per week, so we don't tracking days of vacation either
We focus on what people get done, not on how many days worked. Just as we don't have a 9 to 5 workday policy, we don't need a vacation policy
Vacation Policy and Tracking
"there is no policy or tracking"
There is also no clothing policy at White Rabbit either, but no one comes to work naked
Lesson: you don't need policies for everything
Development
We want people to manage their own career growth, and not rely on a company for "planning" their careers
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.