What should Reonomy value?
The executive team had been working on a concrete set of company values. We wanted something that could help us grow the business and the team, but the work was not finished and I did not want to treat it as finished.
I asked everybody in product and engineering for an opinion.
The request went out before a short all-hands. There was an anonymous form for anybody who wanted to write privately about what mattered. The responses would come to me and feed into another values session the next day.
The anonymous part mattered because a company-wide invitation from an executive is not automatically easy to answer. Some people would be happy to challenge a draft in a room. Others might have a useful point they did not want attached to their name. I wanted both.
There was also a direct option. If somebody wanted to sit down and talk about the values, I would make myself available. I had just reworked my calendar around open office hours, so there was a practical place for that conversation to happen.
The question was deliberately open: what was important to them? That feedback would be used while we worked toward the final values.
The company was moving quickly. Roles were changing, the product and engineering teams had grown, and more of our work needed to be written down. Culture was part of that work too.
The note ended the same way most of mine did: thanks, let me know if there are questions. Fill out the form if that is easier. Come find me if it is not.
The values were still open. That was the point of asking.