Hankering for a Handbook

Probably my love of company handbooks has something to do with the first ‘handbook’ I ever owned which helped me to navigate my responsibilities as a Brownie Guide (for a reminisce click The old fashioned Brownie Guide – Being Mrs C).  I poured over the pages studying how to best pack a suitcase (socks in the corners) and why it’s important to keep my nails trimmed. Once I had made my Brownie Promise at the sacred Fairy Pool, I was very serious about the commitment I had made – I promised that I would do my best, to do my duty to God, to serve the Queen, help other people and to keep the brownie guide law (which should be adopted as law of the land t.b.h. a.k.a. think of others before yourself and do a good turn every day).  The handbook provided a way to regularly remind myself about what being a good Brownie actually meant, so between Brownie meetings I would make sure that I revised the pages, genning up on all things Guide-like, delighted with my new purpose in life.

Company handbooks are very similar really, they are meant to provide a ‘new entrant’ with all of the information they need to become a successful employee within that particular company. Of course, like any good recipe book, they can also serve ‘old hands’ a sage reminder of some of your classic dishes – so they are not just for new people, they are a useful way to help members of staff keep on track with the ethos and practices of the company they work for.

The first one I came across, many years ago now, was the computer gaming company Valve’s’ – someone shared it in a Lean newsletter I received I think.  I refer to it often as a fab visual and standardised expression of a company which encourages employees to explore their creative freedom.

Valve have taken the time and trouble to codify their culture and operating system and it seems that it is one that is steeped in psychological safety, shuns hierarchy (it’s impossible to get rid of all hierarchy of course) and one that values what they call ‘T shaped’ people i.e. someone who has a very deep knowledge in one area of the business, but the curiosity and transferable skills of a ‘broad-range generalist’. This appeals to me greatly.

Another great handbook to have a look at is Duolingo’s https://handbook.duolingo.com/  Reasons why this company operating system appeals to me:

1. Focus on delighting customers (pg. 29)
2. Culture of Experimentation (pg.38)
3. Pursuit of Excellence (pg. 27)
4. Prioritising speed (pg. 34)
5. Cute pictures of their mascot owl Duo everywhere (pgs. numerous)

Most recently, thanks to Lean Start Up guru Eric Ries’ most recent podcast (which also gave me the inspiration for this blog – it’s always an excellent listen by the way) where Eric discussed with Sid Sijbrandij, co-founder and Executive Chair of GitLab (Ship Secure Software, Faster) their NEXT LEVEL company handbook which is literally ALIVE! Eric describes it as ‘the handbook to end all handbooks’ and it is open to all, right here on the internet.

https://handbook.gitlab.com/

Have a click about, IT IS FASCINATING!

In the podcast, they discuss (from about 28:30) how the 3000+ page book is truly the operating system of the company.  Interestingly however, Sid says

“The value of Gitlab doesn’t come from the handbook, the operating system, the value comes from the people within it (Gitlab) making really good decisions every single day.  Erm, the way that you structure those decisions, and kind of the guidelines we give people and how we communicate, erm, that’s in the handbook, and the trick to keeping it up to date is that .. if you want to change something that is in the handbook, the only way to communicate it, is with a change in the handbook”.

It’s basically the mother of all standard operating procedures (SOP), where, in the great spirit of a good SOP, everybody has the opportunity to feed into the standard and it is reviewed regularly, like REALLY regularly, many times every working day.  By helping everyone to have access to that standard, and to suggest an update directly using the handbook itself, its basically THE most effective way for the entire company to benefit from any kind of improvement update. It’s a standard operating procedure on steroids, fuelled by the connectedness and the instantaneous nature of these superfast internet times.  It’s not totally the Wild West, there is page ownership and you have to request acceptance of a change from numerous quarters and so:

“Making a change in the handbook is going to be more tedious than (suggesting something new in) a Powerpoint, but it’s going to be easier for other people to consume it, it’s going to be better thought out and you won’t have to keep reinforcing it all the time because there are 3000 pages in the handbook … nobody is going to consume that.  So instead of having to make a change over and over and over again, you make one change and people can find that information really quickly”.

In the podcast Eric Ries gently pushes along the lines of ‘but what about those new senior hires that come along and state that they just can’t work like that, that their system is x, that’s why they are good and that’s what they were hired for’ type arguments, rejecting the discipline of handbook use, but Sid pushes back to suggest that the system is so useful that the employees already within the company will naturally reject ‘the rejection’ of the system that means so much to them.

There are so many dreamy things about the company: their values; their transparency; their belief in trust and the importance of de-centralised decisions; their customer centricity – it’s an amazing listen.

Noticing that Duolingo and Gitlab both have very similar URLs, I asked ChatGPT if it could share some other company handbooks with me – and lo, it would seem that the ultimate organisations appear to all be software developers (who probably all use Gitlab).

When I’m teaching on the Vision, Mission and Values module of our Help to Grow programme I always make sure I mention how important the process of ‘codifying what makes their small company special NOW AND BEFORE you grow’ is.  It’s easy to protect what’s amazing about your small company when you know and trust everyone, when you are all bought into your company’s purpose (whether that is explicitly articulated or not). It becomes harder to protect what’s special the more new people start to come and work for you.

If you are successful and you want to grow, then why not start writing your own handbook to help new starts to understand you better?  There is a joy and strength to sitting down with your colleagues to express what makes you you, you will discover things that you didn’t even know were the special ingredients for your success and as Sid says:

“What’s the most important thing in your company? It’s your people, because your people change the processes and they produce the product. What’s the most important thing (about this), of course retention is super important, but mostly recruiting. Can you attract the right people? A public handbook is an amazing recruiting tool. So many people joined Gitlab and say ‘hey you know what, at our department I was referencing the Gitlab handbook many, many, many times and now that the time has come for me to make a career change, I’m like, I’m just going to work at the place that actually writes the stuff that I’m referencing the whole time, because what is better than working there, because I think, you’re right about a lot, but also, I have some ideas about some changes …’