91 - Social Architecture - (Our) Values - Curiosity

Value 3/5 at Mayday

I’m writing about social architecture: the why, the components and the actions. I’ve covered Mission, Vision and Values at the top level as components. I’m running through our Values at Mayday. The first was Delight, then Ownership. Next is Curiosity.

Epictetus said “it is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows”. In a startup, as in life, there is so so much to learn. Hence the importance of Curiosity as a value.

There are three sub points we use in explaining Curiosity as a value:

1. Humility - the parent of all other virtues. Recognising that there is always something for us to learn. From customers, fellow team members, industry peers. Regardless of seniority or status;

2. Why - to continue to peel the layers of the onion until we’ve understood the root cause. This is both in service of opportunity (learnings for new things we can do) as well as safeguard (protection against inertia - that’s the way things have always been done);

3. Productive Paranoia - this is a term inspired by Jim Collins’ Great By Choice, as well as the legendary Andy Grove’s Only The Paranoid Survive. Anticipating potential threats and pre-morteming. So as to be able to pre-emptively act to mitigate the risks.