202407010952 Freedom and Responsibility

People must have the freedom to act and the responsibility to act wisely. Without the freedom to act, responsibility is pointless; the system decides what actions can be taken and the responsibility or lack thereof for those actions is vested in the system, not the individual. Without the responsibility to act wisely, the freedom to act is risky and unfair; consequences for those free actions have to be upheld, both positive and negative; accountability for outcomes and whether the act was taken with proper consideration lie on the free person.

Note that this doesn't mean that we all have to be risk-averse. Just because you are responsible for your actions, doesn't mean we have to exact painful consequences. We can create a culture that gives freedom, demands responsibility in return, and then is benevolent with punishment for bad outcomes. If the action was taken in good faith — responsibly — and didn't work out, we can accept that as one of the tradeoffs for the other benefits we gain from FNR. If someone makes an honest mistake, they don't need to be shamed, hurt, or expelled. In fact, this honesty and transparency about outcomes combined with the lenient forgiveness of failure is what drives true freedom to do, build, create, innovate, and achieve.

202106241548 Leaders work to remove obstacles and this is the way to do that and 202203241152 Ask for more from your people. This is how you teach people to 202211021054 Yearn for the vast and endless sea

Coming out of Netflix culture kind of, No Rules Rules etc.

Culture deck

A company's real values are shown by those who are rewarded, promoted, or let go. (page 8)[^hastings2009]

Vid

Honest and direct, requires no personal attacks and specific reasons. This is why the code isn't good, not this is why you're not good. Great engineers make mistakes, produce shit code, and make bad decisions; this is expected. If you expect otherwise, your expectation is factually wrong.

Freedom requires extreme freedom to be effective. Freedom to spend $50k in a way that will get you fired and then actually be fired.

Lean in to risk (freedom), don't go around gathering consensus and second guessing things, build the thing, do the thing, make it happen but understand that you have the responsibility to do the right things and the accountability for dealing with misses, mistakes, or total fuck-ups.

Taleb article

"Do Not Rock Bureaucristan" heading about critical decisions and freedom to make a difference or make changes as an employee.

Suresh article

Every little bit of uncaring makes the world a little bit worse, and once you're at a certain level of personal security then you have to own that.¹

In a similar vein, see 202407232030 The way you do some things is the way you do all things.

Sentiment

• 202208221321 I claim them all
• 202208221306 In the Desert

https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/culture-2009/8469957 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8ykNnIK1Ik