Trust-based teams
Our principles
Insanely greatDefault to transparency
Ultimately, if you want people to make smart decisions, they need context and all available information. And certainly if you want people to make the same decisions that you would make, but in a more scalable way, you have to give them the same information you have. Complete information also helps reduce the politics in an organization. One of the key drivers of politics in an organization is information asymmetry.
If you hire exceptional people and you trust them, it makes sense to give them all the context and information they need. This allows them to make better, more aligned decisions. It makes decision-making more distributed and scalable, which means decisions can be made faster. Individuals on the team enjoy more agency and freedom and they develop their decision-making muscle, which leads to better decisions in the future.
Transparency also helps create a shared sense of purpose and connection on the team. There’s less opportunity for politics and rumors because the information is available to all.
What this looks like at Whimsical…
- Open salaries: Everyone at the company has access to a spreadsheet that includes the salaries and stock options each person has.
- Open books: We share all company metrics, financials, and all board meeting updates with the entire team.
- Lead with context: Our goal is that everyone at the company knows everything of consequence. This includes our vision, strategy, financials, rationale for our goals and our roadmap, etc. We believe it allows everyone to move fast, have ownership, and make better decisions.
- No anonymous feedback: When we give feedback to each other, we put our names on it. We believe this allows for a healthier dynamic of candor and accountability. As Reed Hastings put it: “Only say about someone what you will say to their face.”