Our Values

Purpose

To get together with friends in our treehouse to make cool stuff.

Why?

Friends trust each other and we want to work with people we trust and respect.

A team that trusts each other can accomplish more together than anyone can on their own.

A treehouse is a special place. Our virtual work from anywhere space is special and it needs to be treated as such.

We want to wow our customers - we want to make cool stuff.

Core Values - Don’t have them, don’t join. Cross them, leave.

• Teams Come First
• Aim High, Fail Fast, Never Give Up
• Own It
• Transparency
• Strong Convictions Loosely Held

Teams Come First

• Teams self manage, self select, and candidly retrospect to continuously improve happiness and velocity.
• Everyone on the team is expected to pull together. They are expected to contribute synergistically.
• Everyone’s contribution builds momentum, no one person slows the team down. Everyone has faith and trust in the work of everyone else. There are no star individuals, there is the team, and what the team needs and expects.
• The team is fair and kind with each other, but not at the cost of what the team needs.
• The team is loud when things aren’t working, it isn’t getting what it needs, or someone has to go. It doesn’t pull punches. Candor rules.

Aim High, Fail Fast, Never Give Up

• We are fearless, but not foolish. We aim above our reach. We plan for failure. We measure iteratively along our path, and if an iteration fails, we know why, and what adjustments we need to make to put us back on track.
• Goals that are unobtainable, that bank the farm, or are months in the making with no validation are fools errands that aren't tolerated.
• Sandbagged goals that achieve the same old, that don’t push us to be more than we are, that distract us from making cool stuff - don’t belong here.
• Giving up and walking away from achievable goals that are just out of reach doesn’t happen. We are tenacious. We don’t make our failure someone else's problem. We own it. We own learning from the mistake, adjusting, and trying again.

Own It

• We take ownership of what we are responsible for, and then some - no one ignores a problem because it isn’t their job. No one throws stuff over the fence into someone else's yard.
• We don’t wait for a problem to be big enough to get noticed, or for someone else to tell us we have a problem. We find it, we fix it, we learn from the problem, and we validate the solution to make sure it stays fixed.

Transparency

• Tell the truth and share it so that everyone can independently act for the betterment of the whole.
• Always err on the side of transparency. Don’t be vague, misrepresent or worse, downright lie, just tell it like it is and make sure everyone that can have access to what you know, has access. Of course, respect personal privacy and if there are performance issues, compensation discussions or some other private information recognize that this information belongs to the individual and it is up to the individual to share it. Not you. But pretty much everything else that belongs to the company, unless specifically marked as confidential and not to be shared, or is half baked, should be shared.
• Knowledge is power and we want to empower everyone in the company to be able to independently act and make decisions for the betterment of the whole. People can’t do this if they don’t have the information they need to make informed decisions. Share the power.

Strong Convictions Loosely Held

• When the facts prove us wrong, we let our convictions go.
• We want to work with passionate people that have informed convictions about what they think is best. We don’t want to work with wall flowers who are waiting to be told what to do.
• But, at the same time, no one wants to work with a stubborn asshole who puts their ego into every statement that comes out of their mouth. We want to work with people who sincerely believe that they might not know the best path and that when presented with a counter opinion they don’t say “I disagree” and shut the conversation down. They instead respond with a question or an “and”. They believe in the truth more than being right. They ask "why" a lot. They seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Guiding Values - Coaching moments.

Continuous Learner

• Never stop educating yourself and your team.
• Change is the only thing we can be sure of. If we all learn a little bit each and every day, and take the time to share and teach what we have learned, the collective learning of the teams, and the company, accelerates exponentially so that we are never left behind.
• Learning is our, and your, competitive advantage. Your advantage? Yes, yours. Your education is your greatest asset. It returns on that investment while you are here at the company or wherever else you take it. You need to be continuously investing in yourself, both within your company time, and your personal time. Your passion for learning needs to be extended across your whole life. Learning isn’t something you do for work, it is what you do.

Work Smart

• Deliver your best for the least effort.
• Everything that needs to be done has a maximum return on investment. If you spend too much time on something, more than it requires, then the return on investment is diminished because you overspent.
• If you spend too little time, didn’t give it what it deserves, the ability of whatever it is to generate a return is compromised. It won’t earn what is expected.
• And if your work isn’t your best work. If you have missed too many things, caused your co-workers to review and correct your work too many times, then regardless of whether you have under, or over invested, you have now compromised your team. Your coworkers are now distracted by what you should have been doing in the first place. Their work is diminished by having to cover your work.
• When asked is this your best work? Say yes because you know you have made just the right investment and there is no need to drag your coworkers through multiple iterations to find and correct what you had wrong, or that you missed.

Push Decisions Down, Seek Advice Up

• Encourage growth and learning. Not reckless action.
• If you have a decision to make, a decision that you have made countless times before and are more than comfortable with, give that decision to someone else that stands to learn and grow from having to make that decision.
• But let’s not be arrogant and reckless. Everyone, even the most experienced of us, needs advice and mentorship. Regardless of who is making a decision, the newbie or the old hack, they always seek advice from someone with more experience than them, and if failing that, a peer. You must always look for a quick check, a confirmation to make sure that you haven’t missed anything.
• No advice sought. No decision made.

Disagree and Commit

• No pocket vetos.
• Only through disagreement and conflict can the truth be found. Look for it, mine it, encourage it. Conflict is good. Let those with opinions be heard, encourage it, and encourage them to find mutual understanding, but, if the strong convictions can’t be swayed to one common path, be decisive, the decider decides.
• And when the decision is made all parties must agree to support the deciders choice 100%, regardless of what their position might have been. There will be no undermining statements, sideways comments, or quiet reversals. Everyone, absolutely everyone, stands by the decision and commits. Without question.

Multiply, Don’t Diminish.

• Everyone is smart. Label their genius, and let them lead where they excel.
• Name the “owner”. There can be no confusion.
• Be clear about the outcome the owner owns and is accountable for.
• Describe what we want, not how to do it.
• Stop answering and keep asking.
• Frame problems and situations, don’t solve them.
• Wait for them to decide. Don’t decide for them.
• When we fail, embrace and examine the failure, extract the lessons learned, and celebrate them.