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What are your company's anti-values?

willsewell.com

131–140 of 274 posts

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#131

I don't see any clear meaning to the term "anti-value" in this article. It seems to imply that a "value" means "more". It does not. "Frugality" is a value of that is a behaviour deemed important to follow, it's not an "anti-value" (whatever that might mean). Similarly, "move fast, break things" means you value action and risk-taking. I was expecting "anti-value" to mean a behaviour deemed negative and to be avoided.

How is "break things" not a negative? That seems really clear to me and I think is an excellent example!

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#133

This mirrors Netflix's old culture slide deck[0] > adequate performance gets a generous severance package > We’re a team, not a family; We’re like a pro sports team, not a kid’s recreational team [0] https://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664/

What is adequate and what is the frame of reference? If adequate is average by some objective metrics and the frame of reference is Netflix itself then they would need to be terminating half their work force annually to make good. This sounds like braggadocio to me.

"Completed their tasks in a timely manner when asked" sounds good enough to me.

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#136
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, it's better to be a resource than the next level, which is a cost. I actively try to use people instead of resources in a conversation, have never understood the need to use resources as a word. Could be it's just a relic from the HR department.

I fight that same linguistic fight. People seem to pretty quickly get it and usually appreciate hearing the tone aet that “our company uses this other perspective; please use people words when talking about people.” I’ve noticed a pattern that this usage seems to be somewhat more prevalent in south Asians. (I mean this only as an observation on word choice patterns, with zero conclusion or implication on underlying t…

> I fight that same linguistic fight.

I don't even think it's a fight. I say "computer" when I mean computer, why wouldn't I say "people" when I mean people?

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares? Even giving credit to the point I think you're trying to make, the relevant comparison would be employees from underprivileged groups stay at Netflix as long, on average, as Netflix employees not from underprivileged groups.

Is that actually the case?

No idea! Certainly, their current DE&I reports are better than most tech companies ( https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-inclusion-report-2...), but finding turnover by demographic is hard. My point isn't "these cultural values do/do not conflict with DE&I", but that you were asking the wrong question even to begin to measure that.

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#138
post #80

A company always consists of individuals that have to make trade-offs, so to the extent it has a cohesive culture at all, it will have values that are expressed in those trade-offs. But values (or anti-values) that a company publicly espouses do not need to coincide with its actual values: a value statement of being inclusive does not prevent a culture of bullying, and a value statement of putting the customer first…

IMO the only way to have aspirational values is to make them part of perf/the job ladder. Most typical "value statements" ought to be descriptive.

A big reason why Amazon's leadership principles (LP) are so ingrained into its culture is because it's a part of every single formal process in the company. If not officially (promo docs, interviews), then at the least implicitly (corrections of errors [COE]).

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#139
post #70

One thing people seem to forget regarding tradeoffs is that it's possible to do objectively bad ones: It's possible to have neither a bias for action nor curiosity. Mentioning both values is a reminder to be on the efficient frontier. Further, you probably dont want to pick an extreme tradeoff. Getting a drop more action at the cost of huge learnings is a mistake as is getting very irrelevant knowledge at a huge cost…

Yes, it's possible to have suboptimal situations.

But no, communicating feel-good meaningless statements (like asking for people to both act fast without waiting for the details and to know the details about the consequence of their actions) is an infallible way to create apathy and move away from the Pareto frontier, not towards it.

Re: What are your company's anti-values?

#140

my old company had motivational posters plastered all over the place with these values: integrity, teamwork, excellence, fun. felt like i was in middle school again.

When my son was looking to buy his first house I noticed a lot of people putting motivational messages on their walls. These sort of things: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32630732796.html

I just don't understand some people.

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