In today’s world, this might mean something different, but in 2010, we had this value:

In our context, this was about being open and transparent. This is the text from the facing page:

No gossiping, no intrigue, no pussy-fitting around problems and no telling people what you think they want to hear whist privately disagreeing. We will be transparent in our dealings.

In a small company (2010 must have been 200-ish people), this made a lot of sense and I think overall we minimized politics. I don’t know this will ever be a “no politics” world for Redgate or any other, but we were better about publicly disagreeing.

I think we’ve lost a little of this over the years, as I see more people talking a bit inconsistently to smaller, private groups than they do to large ones. I try hard not to do this, though I’m sure my open-ness sometimes rubs people the wrong way.

I’m OK with some conflict. I’m also OK debating and disagreeing about what we do or why/how we do things. I think it’s healthy to do so.

I have a copy of the Book of Redgate from 2010. This was a book we produced internally about the company after 10 years in existence. At that time, I’d been there for about 3 years, and it was interesting to learn a some things about the company. This series of posts looks back at the Book of Redgate 15 years later.