Steve O’Brien

Working principles · 01—32

Mantras.

Hard-won mantras shaped through experience: building Newicon, working with teams and pursuing personal projects.

Some are original, some are borrowed or adapted from people and companies I admire. They are not commandments. They are prompts: useful ways to challenge an assumption, unlock a conversation or find a better next step.

01—08

Transparency and trust

  1. 01.Transparent by default

  2. Leave politics to the politicians

    Put your energy into producing the best work and outcomes for customers. There is no room for internal politics.

    Keep the organisation as flat and self-organising as possible. Flat does not mean leaderless. It means accepting the leadership of the person with the best context.

    There are no ladders to climb. Judge people for their contribution, independent of artificial grades or scoring systems. Politics often dissolves when people share more context and communicate more widely.

    Close mantra ↑
  3. 03.Be responsible, be free
  4. 04.Perception is reality
  5. 05.Questions are the answers
  6. 06.Be positive
  7. 07.The session musician
  8. 08.Toxic behaviour

09—16

Empowerment and growth

  1. 09.Be the change you seek
  2. 10.Be a coach
  3. 11.Give and receive fearless feedback
  4. 12.Continuous learning
  5. 13.Fail fast. Be experimental
  6. 14.Change is good
  7. 15.Make fast decisions
  8. 16.The what, not the who

17—30

Innovation and engineering

  1. 17.The simple, not the complex
  2. 18.All requirements are wrong
  3. 19.Challenge constraints
  4. 20.Don’t #!@$ the customer
  5. 21.Pragmatic, not dogmatic
  6. 22.Use first-principles thinking
  7. 23.Aim to be less wrong over time
  8. 24.I don’t know is a superpower
  9. 25.Build rather than buy core skills
  10. 26.Ask why, why, why, why, why
  11. 27.Automate
  12. 28.Organise around the value stream
  13. 29.Be bold and break things
  14. 30.Make it visual

31—32

Focus and communication

  1. 31.Async by default
  2. 32.Pick up the phone