🧭 Where CREDIT is due

GitLab’s CREDIT values have been incredibly influential on my approach to work for many years. The content in this blog post has been on my mind for the last few months, ever since I chose to leave GitLab. The recent changes at GitLab (including the retirement of CREDIT as the company’s values framework), the ensuing conversations with current and former team members and responses from the community inspired me to finally start writing my thoughts down. Since today would have marked my sixth anniversary at GitLab, it feels like the right day to publish this.

In a way, this blog post gives me a place to process the way things were, but that’s secondary. My primary purpose is to share with you how GitLab’s CREDIT values can be put into practice by anyone.

I don’t want to shy away from how difficult and stressful work can be; I want to do the opposite. Growth comes through enduring, persisting and thriving through adversity. In this post, we’ll focus on how to improve our abilities to face the various and inevitable challenges ahead.

The six CREDIT values provide a helpful guide to decision-making and problem-solving that’s helpful and relevant to professionals in any field. For each of the values (collaboration, results, efficiency, diversity, inclusion and belonging, iteration and transparency), I’ve identified key points, best practices, questions to ask yourself when using these values as a guide and reflections on my experience.

🤝 Collaboration #

An effective collaborator is good at seeking help and is worth asking for help. Where possible, they are also thinking about helping others to improve their approach to collaboration. Think of this as the modern workplace version of “teach someone to fish…“. Give a peer the answer and they can solve the problem in front of them; teach someone how to find answers and they’ll be able to solve that kind of problem themselves in the future. The wording is a bit clunkier than the saying but the principle is sound.

Being good at seeking help includes stating the specific problem you’re trying to solve clearly and succinctly. Your problem statement should include a set of questions and enough context. This helps others understand why you’re asking what you’re asking. Show your work, as in math class. After collaborating on a problem, summarize what you’ve learned and the next steps you plan to take. This lets your colleague confirm you’ve understood. Misunderstandings can be addressed sooner rather than later.

Being worth asking for help is especially important for leaders. When folks leave a session or interaction with you: did they learn something useful and applicable beyond the specific situation that brought them to you? Do they have a link to where they (and others) can go learn more or independently solve problems like this one in the future? Do they have clear next steps to help them with the problem they came to you with?

Adjust your approach as the situation demands: don’t let your desire to educate get in the way. Simply put, know when to just give people a quick answer without a whole lecture.

Similarly, know when to go sync and when to stay async. Organizational culture can shape and influence norms around this. There are times where agreeing to requests to “let’s just jump on a quick call right now” makes sense. These requests are always granted at the expense of something else, usually with a priority unknown to the requester. Be especially wary of such requests when the ask or problem is not clearly stated. Set a time limit for checking in on progress against the problem. This helps ensure you have enough time to get back to doing your best at your planned priorities. These time management techniques around calls often go without saying but this kind of thing is easy to forget when panic and urgency reign. Urgent is not always important; now is not always better. I say all this in the spirit of effective collaboration.

Say “thank you”! Expressions of gratitude should be sincere and specific. Where possible, include a link so observers can appreciate what you’re thankful for. Make a point to save a screenshot when other people say “thank you”. It helps to build the practice of thanking people when they’ve really done something to merit it. I would challenge you to start a #thanks channel at your organization if you don’t already have one.

🥅 Results #

One of my first questions was “what happens when the values conflict?“. The existence of the values hierarchy and the placement of Results at the top provided direction on prioritization among the many things we consider important.

The first thing I want to mention is something I’ve written about before: tenacity, persistence of purpose, keeping at it. Notably, this is not the blunt “just keep doing the same thing” approach. You need to adapt and adjust your approach, move steadily and stubbornly towards the goal even in the face of obstacles. (Everything is best in moderation. Keep the stubbornness in check by learning the difference between a roadblock and an impasse.) This is the motivation and grit that’s rewarded by immense satisfaction of “phew, that is done”. Tenacity often requires one to do things that should not be necessary or even feel unfair. The comfortably tenacious person understands that sometimes getting things done also means doing things you shouldn’t have to do. I am moved and inspired by the tenacity I saw on display at GitLab.

Focus on impact. Measure outcomes — not activity. By focusing on what matters and eschewing that which doesn’t, we keep the whole team moving forward. Leaders are encouraged to say what, when and why and trust the team on how.

One of the first operating principles to really click for me was bias for action. When you’re ready, do it. Learning to identify one-way door decisions and approaching them properly adds safety to this action-oriented approach. Plan your work and then work your plan. Don’t act recklessly but also don’t wait just because. Always make sure the right folks know what’s happening (or can find out). This transparency informs folks and permits them to raise objections while ensuring you can continue moving towards the goal.

💡 Efficiency #

I love aiming towards excellence at work. I also love having time to ride my bike during the week. Focusing on efficiency (which can be seen in the motivation for all other values) helps teams to get things done — and then go home. By seeking efficiency humanely — more compassionately than ruthlessly — we grow teams that find a sustainable approach to achieving results. To borrow another well-used metaphor: plan like you’re running a marathon, not a sprint.

Ask yourself “what’s the smallest worthwhile step to take?“. You can still do more but this question helps to guide and prioritize so you can make the best use of that very precious finite resource: time.

Enough. Another important concept in the pursuit of efficiency is understanding what “enough” looks like and being OK with it. You have to know what “good enough” looks like so that you know what “above and beyond” looks like. Do “enough” where you can so you have bandwidth to be extra when that’s the right call.

Reuse. When you do invest time, maximize the impact by sharing what you’ve done so that you and others can reuse it. Efficiency is not exclusively a race to minimize time spent. The other side of it is thinking about how much leverage you can get from the time you do invest.

I find efficiency to be the most closely linked value to all of the others. Excellence through efficiency is at the heart of what I seek to convey.

🌐 Diversity, inclusion and belonging #

This can feel like a tricky thing to actually do at work and everyone will approach this differently given their learned experience. Even so, I think there are plenty of things that anyone can do to foster inclusivity and (even better) belonging on teams and across organizations. Sometimes, it’s easy stuff like being mindful of time zones (the Time Converter at dateful.com is great for coordinating times on geographically distributed teams). Sometimes, it’s tricky — and hopefully less frequent — situations where one must understand how to best proceed in situations where “oh no, someone should do something” and that someone is you.

On being that someone who has to do something: in many such situations, the “something” I needed to do was to speak up. Though this sounds simple, actually being the someone to do this simple act requires courage, especially when speaking truth to power. A well-timed, well-phrased message can help folks to understand the impact of their actions and offer them a better path forward. From experience, I can tell you this works best when you remember the power of positive intent. When you are the someone who should do something, remember that the right answer might feel incomplete or unsatisfying. That’s not necessarily a sign that you’re missing something; it’s a sign that you are one person trying their best in a complicated situation. Recall that there might be multiple correct responses. Ask someone you trust for a second opinion.

If you’re looking for additional resources to guide your thinking in these situations, everything I’ve heard, read and discussed about Crucial Conversations has been worthwhile. Explore where you land on the wheel of power and privilege as you consider how things impact you and the impact your words and actions can have (regardless of your intentions).

Be welcoming. Make a point to welcome new joiners to the team and the organization. Augment the onboarding process by making sure folks are connected with the information, people and processes that will help them thrive on their journey. Meet them where they are at. It’s impossible to know everything so be kind when someone reveals that they don’t know something. They’re one of today’s lucky 10,000, and that’s exciting.

Be a mentor; get a mentor. The topic of mentorship is too large to address in full here but formal and informal mentorships can be help folks find their way to a sense of belonging at work. Employee resource groups (ERGs) are great for meeting folks outside your business unit. These folks can be great advisors since they offer an impartial sounding board.

I want to take a moment to talk about “guys”. Although I didn’t take note when I heard the word “guys” before joining GitLab, I was not immune from the impact of the sometimes exclusive nature of the word. I want to share an anecdote here to illustrate why clearer and more inclusive language is better.

I was the only woman on a team of UNIX engineers responsible for maintaining the hardware and software for a collection of HPC clusters. One day, someone from the team responsible for data center operations asked on Slack “hey, we need help — any UNIX guys around?“.

I didn’t know what to do — I froze.

Were they looking for help lifting something? Like, were they specifically looking for “someone from the UNIX team but not Brie”? Or, was it a UNIX-related problem that I could help with? There was no context to help me understand if I should interpret “guys” literally or figuratively.

I like this anecdote because it’s a very low stakes way to highlight why using inclusive language (and saying why you’re asking) is important.

🔄 Iteration #

Iteration is notoriously the hardest value to wrap one’s head around and put into practice. The specifics of how vary a lot based on one’s role and focus at any given time. I’ve found it helpful to talk about iteration in comparison to change. An efficient, ongoing emphasis on iteration when possible can obviate the need for some changes. Well-managed iterations should feel less disruptive than drastic changes. Habits are good but ruts are bad. Assess and iterate as appropriate. Don’t be so tied to the comfort of the routine that you miss opportunities for iterative improvements.

Effective iteration often looks like having a plan, adapting it to suit, pivoting when needed, proceeding one deliberate step at a time and reassessing.

As before, ask yourself “What’s the smallest worthwhile step towards the goal?“.

We ask ourselves this when focusing on being both efficient and results-oriented. This question is rooted in iteration and shows how the values are linked and mutually supportive.

🔮 Transparency #

The fierce and deliberate focus on transparency as a default empowered and transformed my approach to work during my time at GitLab. Regular readers with good memories will recall the love I have for the liberating nature of intentional transparency even — and especially — when it’s hard.

Context is that which is scarce. By tending toward being public by default and sharing things as broadly as is reasonable, you enable as many people as possible to self-serve and be more autonomous and efficient. The link between transparency and efficiency is evident. Do the folks on your team have access to the information they need to do their jobs? Would they agree with your assessment?

In some corners, the degree of openness seen at GitLab might seem overwhelming. Being effective at being transparent means understanding that there are degrees of publicness and good reasons to limit access to information in the workplace. Where possible, be open. Petition for access to the information you need to be efficient — be sure to say why. Share information with the broadest group that you can.

An important part of being good at being transparent is thinking about how others can easily find the information you took pains to find or make available. Ask questions in public channels. If you have a question, there’s a chance that someone else does too (or might one day).

When you work to find an answer to a question, be sure to record it somewhere. In the future, others can benefit from what you found without needing to expend as much time and effort as you did. When doing this, consider “where do people look when X happens?” and “where do folks look for things like Y?“. In this way, the team becomes more efficient through individuals focusing on transparency. I rest most easily when I know I did my absolute best and folks know exactly where to look for more information should an unanticipated question or situation arise.

One of the most powerful and validating things about the transparent approach is hearing from someone you don’t work closely with saying “hey, that thing you wrote was super helpful, thank you so much”. I appreciate everyone who has taken the time to tell me that and I know there are two more for every one who took the time. Earlier, I challenged you to create a #thanks channel if your organization needs one. Now, I’ll challenge you to make good use of it and reach out to let people know if they’ve done something you appreciate.

💖 From the Heart #

Many of these principles might sound like standard good practices or plain common sense to you. Even so, I believe these things are absolutely worth stating out loud.

• Somewhere, someone is having their first day (ever!) at work.
• By stating our values, we are deciding what we are optimizing for. This aids in prioritization, problem-solving and decision-making.
• Saying “X matters” means “Y does not matter (nearly as much)“.

Besides, common sense is not common knowledge.

I’ve aimed to write a bit about how all of this theory works in practice. I think that’s more meaningful than just talking about how things should be. When I first became aware of GitLab’s values, I said to myself “either someone made a really cool looking Web page or these people really believe in all this goodness”. I was so excited to find out that it was not just a cool Web page. I hope you have a better understanding of how a cool Web page can be directly applicable in the real world.

Life is messy, work is hard and humans are complicated; no set of values will magically make life orderly, work easy and humans predictable — no matter how well-tailored they are. In challenging and difficult situations, I seek a principled way to structure my thinking, make tough calls and communicate difficult decisions. In these moments, at GitLab and beyond, the CREDIT values I’ve described above have been incredibly helpful. I think that’s the most succinct way I can describe the value I derive from this approach every day.

I’ve written here and elsewhere about savoring moments of happiness when you notice them since “this too shall pass” applies to good and bad things alike. If you, dear reader, worked with me at GitLab, I hope you know I am replete with happy memories of our time together: thank you. (Who is cutting onions on my website?)

🫶 Thank you for reading; be well.

— Brie