“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” - Ian Maclaren, 1897
“Don’t be an asshole.” - Ben Metz, regularly
Conflict is inevitable. In any group of passionate people working on hard problems, strong personalities will always clash. We cannot stop disagreements from happening, but we can choose how we behave when conflict occurs.
Our goal is to always be mindful of conflict, to be mindful of the perspectives of others, and to consistently assume the best intent of those on our teams. We will argue, but we do not have to fight. To achieve this, we follow a handful of guidelines culturally throughout our organization.
Be kind
Everyone you see in your day is dealing with more than you realize. We do our best to leave it at the door when we come to work, but it’s not always possible to keep things completely separate. We have to allow for the situations of others and be sympathetic to their viewpoints.
Be humble
Arrogance can make it difficult to collaborate. Others will often respond to arrogance with inflexibility, which can directly lead to conflict. However, we also don’t want to vilify personality types that skirt close to arrogance. A diversity of personality types is necessary to generate the best solutions.
We try to be humble. If we’re not humble, we at least try to act like we’re humble. It makes interaction go smoother.
Assume the best
When you assume the best of your teammates, you’ll have the best interactions. Meanwhile, if you assume the worst, your teammates will meet your energy. This is why we assume the best of our teammates: we assume good intent, we assume the teammate worked hard and spent plenty of time thinking, and we assume that they’re using every bit of skill and knowledge they have at their disposal.
No whining
As we assume the best of our teammates, there’s no value in complaining when something goes wrong. When a decision causes friction, especially when that decision was made a long time ago, we don’t dwell on the decision or spend time being upset about it. We assume the decision was made with skill and intent and focus instead on fixing the problem in front of us. We don’t need to attack a decision to fix it.
Treat people with honor, respect, and dignity
At all times, be a good citizen and a good human. When people are treated poorly, they will dread coming to work every day. At all times, we should be ensuring that we are maintaining the best possible environment for everyone.
The event vs the story we tell
“There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means” - Ryan Holiday
Any interaction with another person has two components: the event that happened, and how we interpret that event. We have to do our best to separate the two in our mind and address only the content of what was said, not the intent we interpret behind it. We also have to do our best to ensure we’re sending the right messages when we communicate.
Sam spends two weeks working on a new library for the entire team to use. After releasing it into the wild, Quinn starts commenting on the library in Github. The criticism touches nearly every part of the library, pointing out decisions that are counter to the best practices used in the organization. Sam sees this feedback and tells their self a story, believing that Quinn’s criticisms are not just pointed at the library, but at Sam directly. Sam responds on Slack, insisting that Quinn’s criticisms are invalid. Quinn tells their self a story about this interaction, believing that Sam’s criticism is based on a personal grudge. Though both parties were acting in what they believe are good faith, the interpretation of personal bias has led the two into conflict despite no intentional personal attacks.
Language, tone, and posture
While we have to be aware of the stories we tell ourselves, there is also a responsibility on everyone’s shoulders to present their messages in a respectful, clear, and kind way. The content of a message can become obscured when you speak down to somebody, as the tone becomes the message. This can also have the unfortunate side effect of building your reputation poorly, making the story of your history dominate the conversation rather than any valuable contributions you have. Always be mindful of the reputation you are cultivating.
Taking your work personally
There is a philosophical question as to whether you should take your work personally. We believe that you should, with caveats. One of our biggest strengths as a group is that we take pride in our work. It makes our work better, but it means you tie your sense of self into your work. This means when someone criticizes your work, it’s easy to take it as a personal attack.
While it’s important to invest personally in your work, we need to cultivate the ability to move into ruthless objectivity when it comes time to critique our work. This is incredibly difficult, and the rest of our guidelines are meant to make transitioning into this point easier. However, there are a few tips we can use to make this transition possible.
- Be objective
- Be willing and able to see possible sticking points in your work. Remember that critique only makes your work stronger.
- Listen closely
- When someone gives feedback, listen intently to what they are saying and what they are not saying.
- Keep an even keel
- Be aware of your emotions, and analyze what is happening when an emotion rises to the surface.
- Ignore the story
- Be aware of the story you’re telling in your mind, and disregard the parts you’re filling in. Eliminate assumptions and ask questions.
- See the good
- Feedback and critique are tools to improve your work. Be sure to see what you’ve done well, and take critique for the gift that it is.
- Use the pause button
- If you’re unable to keep yourself objective, it’s OK. It happens to all of us. Instead of reacting, hit the pause button and circle back later. Just be sure to actually circle back.
- Broaden your perspective
- Sometimes, your work can seem perfect in your context. Feedback will often be showing you a context you don’t have a perspective on. Look at the wider picture and consider how this feedback might make sense from another point of view.
- Don’t get stuck in text
- It’s incredibly difficult to interpret tone over text. If things start to get heated, or if you’re unsure what’s being said, try moving to a communication method where you can see the other person’s face and/or hear their voice. Video chat is often ideal for this.
Remember our technological context
Decisions we make as a group degrade quicker than many others. Technological decisions that seem reasonable or even preferable may be hard to interpret just a couple years later. When you see a decision that doesn’t make sense, assume the best of those that made the decision and focus on solving the problem, not assigning blame.
“Choose not to be harmed - and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed, and you haven’t been.” - Marcus Aurelius