Values

I was chatting with the lads over at Cogent last Friday about our new venture and the discussion turned to company values. Most of us think of company values as those totally nebulous statements CEOs love to have plastered all over the walls in the vain hope that employees will feel as though being made to work ridiculously long hours was all for a good cause. Thankfully, Cogent’s values aren’t much like other’s and in fact Marty made a great point: values should be actionable in some concrete and meaningful way. Cogent’s values certainly appeal to me but I’m sure they won’t appeal to everyone. Financial transparency being one of particular favourites.

One of the less tangible values is “fairness and equality.” That is, treat everyone fairly and equally, as human-beings. Which got me thinking. It reminded me of “treat others as you would yourself” which I’ve always had a bit of an issue with. Not that I disagree with the sentiment, not at all, but something about it never sits quite right. After a little thinking I settled on “hold yourself to a higher standard than you do others”. I think it fits nicely with treating others fairly and equally.