I was meeting with one of the folks that I mentor/coach today, and they started a great conversation around ikigai. That led to a question for me about some of my top values or principles in my work. Here are four that I discussed:

  • Enablement: I don’t want to be a bottleneck. My aim is to equip and empower others through education, tools, patterns, etc. so that they can take on more responsibility and help us all be more successful.
  • Mutuality: Decisions should include the context & perspectives of the stakeholders. Directly, if possible. I aim for win-win solutions.
  • Resilience: Solutions should account for issues of scalability, safety, and sustainability. We ought to design things such that they can adapt to change in graceful ways. Ideally, becoming stronger & better as they do.
  • Authenticity: I want be be open & direct without being a jerk. I aim to make it safe for people to be themselves, to speak up, and to do what’s right.

It’s probably no surprise that these four are strongly-interrelated.