How the Fresh Tilled Soil Values Cut through The Chaos
When I started my first real job at a big corporation I was handed a sheet with the company values: CARE, CONNECT and CREATE (yup, all in caps too). It felt like someone had randomly picked three words from one of those fridge magnet sets. Another manufactured piece of corporate propaganda used to recruit the unsuspecting and suppress the inmates.
Values should provide guardrails for the better decision making, not make you feel you’re being reprimanded by a school teacher.
When we started Fresh Tilled Soil we wanted to create a set of values that would be meaningful, and that our team could find useful at work and in all other aspects of their lives.
1. Keep things simple
Life is complicated enough so get into the habit of editing out the crap and focusing on the things that really matter. Simplifying often means asking questions like, “why is this being done like this? Is there a simpler way?” It means challenging the norm. It means choosing to do more with less. It means fewer words, but with more impact.
2. Own the work
When you approach challenges and problems that these things are opportunities to grow and learn, you put aside childish blame-games. You develop a sense of ownership and responsibility for everything that happens in your life. When you do this, an amazing thing happens — you start to trust yourself. It’s often easier to place blame and responsibility on the outside world. We want to shake our fists at the sky when things go wrong but when we do that and ignore a deadline, a client or a team mate in need, we are doing nothing but harming ourselves.
3. Grow with quiet confidence
Like the now famous Keep Calm and Carry On posters from WWII, the best way to deal with any adversity is with a cool head. Courage is the source of confidence, not bravado or hubris. Courage gives you the strength to make tough choices. It gives you a confident voice and that means clearer more direct communication.
The most important thing it gives you is an opportunity to adapt. When you have the confidence to say, “I was wrong”, or “I need to change”, you give yourself permission to grow.
4. Make the team look good
The very definition of the word company is being with another or others, especially in a way that provides friendship and enjoyment. It’s a well known fact that when we are made to look good in the presence of our family, team mates, peers and friends we get a big physiological rush out of it. When you leave your ego outside and you ask yourself how you can make your team look good, amazing things happen. Everyday feels like Christmas.
After all, when we go into the face of a challenge knowing that your team has got your back, you become unstoppable.
We’ve worked and lived by these values for over 12 years. These values have helped us through some tough times and given us the guidance to deliver over 700 world-class product design and UX projects. Our values are timeless.
I recommend reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck and The Obstacle Is The Way for more insights into these values.
