# Core Values ## **Common Sense** **What we rely on chiefly.** Hätters are expected to be able to perceive, understand and judge certain matters as being reasonable, sensible or the right thing to do. If you’re unsure about something, ask. Nobody bites around here. ## **Be T-Shaped** We are keen on people who have a broad range of experience or ability (the horizontal roof of the T) and a deep expertise in one field (the vertical leg of the T). > An expert who is too narrow has difficulty collaborating. A generalist who doesn’t go deep enough in a single area ends up on the margins, not really contributing as an individual. ## **Ownership & Accountability** **At Mäd, Love your own, as they say. The more invested you are, the more involved you get, the more you are committed to making it happen. There are two types of ownership that we expect Hätters to have at Mäd:** * **Results**. Each individual should fully own what they do, and the results that they achieve. * **Shares**. We make committed Hätters into shareholders, making you truly an owner of Mäd. The idea is simple: to truly own your work, you should own your workplace. ## **Make it happen™** **Bias for Action** We prefer completed vs perfect. Analysis paralysis tends to happen when overthinking gets in the way. The rule of thumb is to take the most sensible course of action (preferably low to moderate risk) rather than wait for the stars to align perfectly in your favor before springing into action. ## **Ask for forgiveness, not permission.** It’s possible that the course of action you took diiiiiidn’t exactly work out – and that’s fine, we get that things go wrong and people make mistakes. The important thing is to learn from our mistakes, brush ourselves down, and get back to it. ## **Transparency** Mäd is see-through! Yes, we even publish everyone’s salary internally. We keep track of high performers and reward them accordingly. This sparks a discussion at times of what someone should be getting, but this dialogue is healthy and pushes everyone to where they want to be. ## Long-Term Thinking At Mäd, we’re trying to think in terms of five to seven years ahead. There is a huge competitive advantage in doing this, because everyone else is thinking about the next few months, or perhaps a year or two out, and so they make certain types of decisions. We think differently (i.e. long-term), and so we end up making decisions that don’t make sense in the short term – but make a whole lot of sense in the long term. People will misunderstand you when you’re trying to build something different, and we’re completely fine with that. ## Fun Let’s face it, we’re all going to spend a lot of time working together, and so it makes sense to build an environment where you wake up in the morning and actually *want* to come to work. We can only achieve that if we collectively work towards building a company that *intentionally* creates this environment. So smile, do great work, make friends, and [**keep it fun.**](https://giphy.com/gifs/xT1R9zHIitaU8u1qfu?utm_source=iframe\&utm_medium=embed\&utm_campaign=Embeds\&utm_term=https%3A%2F%2Fxn--md-via.com%2Fprinciples%2F) --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://process.mad.co/the-company/culture/core-values.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.