03 · Principles
How I operate
Eight rules I actually operate by, not eight I aspire to.
I. Find the human in the system. Every system I've touched broke in the same place: where its builders stopped seeing the people inside it. In any room, my job is to be the one still looking.
II. Warmth and standards are not opposites. I hold both at full strength, or I'm not doing either.
III. Say it in the room. I can tell a healthy environment from a sick one, and I'll name it out loud, warmly, aimed at actually fixing it, not just getting it off my chest.
IV. Let people arrive. Being right is a starting point. If an idea needs to find someone on their own timeline, I'd rather it get there without my name on it than not get there at all.
V. The scaffolding stays invisible. If you can feel the system, I built it wrong.
VI. Match the register. I have more than one version of myself, and I know which one the room needs, whether that's the warm and slightly irreverent one or the quiet one building in my head before I say a word. I'm wired for resolution; I just carry a lot of paths there.
VII. Transparency as a person, not a PR posture. I'll tell you what I'm building, what isn't ready, and what I don't know yet, in those words.
VIII. I build with the people whose morals match mine. Mission first doesn't mean people last. It means I'm looking for the ones who hold both at once. That's who I build community with, and I filter for it earlier every time.