Values and Culture

Our Values

Desired Outcome: If User Dao is to be a remote decentralized organization, it needs to be clearly stated what we stand for, and how we expect people to operate since people will be working more independently, and with fewer examples of in-person modeling of behavior. Agencies are a people business. We want to make it clear what we stand for so we attract like-minded people to work with us, when they have other options.

Good to know: company values are statements about how you approach work; how you treat colleagues, customers and users; and what your company stands for.

Our goal is to create an environment where the best ideas can be born, shared, and grown to help our clients capture value and advance Web3. As much as possible, we want the ideas we launch to make the world a better place - richer, healthier, and more educated. The values we believe are necessary preconditions to allow the best ideas to flower are a bias-to-action, curiosity, low ego, customer focus, low power distance, collaboration, and diversity.

Bias to action

We believe that “perfect is the enemy of good.” Waiting for a better solution often means that the benefits of a solution are delayed, and solutions are too complicated, and hard to maintain. Also decisions are progress. The sooner we make a call and pick a direction, the sooner the real journey of doing the thing begins, and that is where the real learning happens. Plan are worthless, planning is invaluable. We want to be thoughtful about our choices, but are ruthlessly open minded to pivoting if that data shows suboptimal results.

Low Ego

Everyone needs to feel good about what they do and that they add value, but customers don’t care who gets credit as long as the thing adds value. When the quality of an idea can not be separated from the person who presented it- bad things happen. Our goal is a combination of humility (because most of even my best ideas will be wrong) with confidence (but together we can will be eventually be successful by iterating and following where the data takes us)

Curiosity

How does this work? Why is this happening? How does this relate to this other thing? These are the questions which excite us. We love learning about our clients businesses, their customers, and products. Curiosity is the fuel which sustains us on the journey as we research, develop, and iterate.

Customer focus

Organizations stray when they start letting their internal gravity overpower the needs of their customers. In order to be a long-term project which will provide us all a living- we need to be customer focused, and ruthless about it. That means research (know what the customer thinks and feels,) leveraging the best available data in all our decisions, distributing authority to act to front-line staff, adopting a test & learn mindset to everything we do

Low power distance

Power distance is the willingness of people at the bottom of a hierarchy to accept that shit rolls down hill. “I can be overruled not because I am wrong, but because someone else has a better title” We believe this a poisonous environment for good ideas. There is a phrase in africa- the higher the monkey goes up the tree, the more people can see his butt” People who have a test & learn approach have a natural distrust of authority since most of even our best ideas are wrong. Everyone in the company needs to show leadership. Share ideas. Develop followers, and be a good follower yourself.

We can’t be a consensus-driven place. We have too strong a bias to action, but we should minimize hierarchies, and show respect to everyone’s ideas.

Collaboration

Our clients' problems aren’t easy to solve. Otherwise, they would have solved them themselves. Engineering cultures often have a mythos around 10x developers, and that engineering is where value is created. We think these attitudes are harmful.

In basketball, having a leagues best player is the most important element in winning. A team can build a dynasty on the backs of a single player like a Michael Jordan or a Lebron. In soccer, the team wins by having most dependable worst player. A Messi or Ronaldo can't score enough goals to make up for a teammate who causes turnovers, or passes poorly.

We are playing soccer.

Culture

Desired Outcome: If culture in a company is what people do when no one is watching, it is tough to be deliberate about what a culture is, and know if we are veering off our intended course. So apologies if this sounds hand-wave-y, or like some HR bullshit but we thought it would be best to be explicit about it.

The reading which I found most illuminating about culture was Hofstede who was trying to describe how working cultures differed in different parts of the world. He broken culture down into six dimensions. It may be useful to describe where we think User DAO should fall along these dimensions.

Hofstede's Six Dimensions of Culture

• Power Distance Index (high versus low).

• Individualism Versus Collectivism.

• Masculinity Versus Femininity.

• Uncertainty Avoidance Index (high versus low).

• Long- Versus Short-Term Orientation.

• Indulgence Versus Restraint.

There are no good or bad poles in these dimensions. As in many things, the dose makes the poison.

Power distance

We already spoke about power distance in the Values section. So not too much more about it here. We value low power distance. People naturally create hierarchies, but they should be minimized generally. The one exception is that when acute crises occur hierarchies are more useful to take direct action quickly.

The band can be consensus-driven always. The fire brigade can be consensus-driven inside the firehall, and more hierarchical when fighting a fire.

Individualism Versus Collectivism

Will add detail here

Masculinity Versus Femininity

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Uncertainty Avoidance Index (high versus low)

Will add detail here

Long- Versus Short-Term Orientation.

Will add detail here

Indulgence Versus Restraint.

Will add detail here