Inspired by a recent blog post by Seth Godin, How we do things around here, I wanted to brainstorm and define the principals that guide how we at Counterweight Creative work, and interact with both clients and among our team.
Big thanks to Seth as always for his generosity and inspiration, I’d highly recommend checking out his original post.
We build everything we do on the foundation of kindness.
We believe treating people with empathy, dignity, and respect is essential to creating exceptional work over the long run. If the two ever conflict, we will side with treating people like humans.
If we had to choose between being known for doing the best work in our field and being the best people in our field, we’d choose the second. Luckily, being better people creates better work.
We communicate with openness and vulnerability.
We believe in radical ownership and will take personal accountability when things don’t go as planned.
We are generous with our praise.
We share our knowledge freely.
We will ask for help if we’re unclear, overwhelmed, or incapable for any reason.
If we don’t know, we’ll say so.
We don’t cast blame when something fails. Instead, we ask “why did this happen?” and “what can we do to ensure this doesn’t happen again?”
We give the benefit of the doubt.
We always answer emails to each other within a day, even if it’s just to say ‘got it’.
We pay invoices before they’re due.
We don’t miss deadlines.
We agree that all of our interactions are off the record, unless we agree otherwise.
We don’t use legalese, jargon, tricks or loopholes in our agreements. Instead, we’ll be as clear as we can and honour what we said, and expect that you’ll do the same.
We are intentional and specific about our work, and don’t do for the sake of doing. “Who is it for”, “what is it for?”, and “why are we doing it?” are the questions that guide our work.
If it’s not working, we’ll say so, and do it with specificity and kindness.
We are constantly learning and improving ourselves and the work we do.
We recognize that the work is important, but understand that the people involved in it are more important.
We expect a lot from our clients and our team, but expect more from ourselves.
We charge a lot but expect to deliver more than we are paid for.
We expect to fall short of these principals at times but we will always maintain them as our guide.
This is the first draft of what I’m sure will be an ever-evolving list. I’d love to see what principals are guiding the work you do, so please reach out and share!
Want to hear more about building an audience around work that matters? I think you might enjoy these reads!
https://medium.com/@jeremyenns/the-long-view-be7caefb98a7https://medium.com/@jeremyenns/the-long-view-be7caefb98a7
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