Good Space Paperclips?

Who you work with is more important than what you’re doing.


We did some soul searching last year. It was part of a big re-brand we’re doing, and it prompted us to nail down our brand identity.

Interestingly, by far the most important part of that has been the values piece.

The process of naming our three core values - and calling them out in each other - has brought a fresh energy, almost as if being propelled by a jet stream.

The point of this post isn’t to drone on about our values. But I’ll share them to give context:

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There are so many examples of tangible impact these have had on our day-to-day work.

We know when something isn’t landing, it’s because it doesn’t fit with our values. It’s probably too corporate, inaccessible or pretentious.

This is fascinating. Because it shakes up the traditional thinking that your vision & mission come first.

Jim Collins makes this point really well in Good To Great, with a concept he calls:

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The direction you go in might need to change over time. But if you’ve got the right people on board, who care about the same things, you’re able to adapt.

But agility isn’t the only benefit.

Jim says ‘The people in the Good To Great companies loved what they did, largely because they loved who they did it with.’

Your team are the people who you interact with on the most regular basis.

So it’s a simple equation really.

Love your team = love your life.

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A word on recruitment...

When I interview I assess the candidate against the three Cs:

Competency (are they suitably skilled for the specific job?)
Character (can you trust them?)
Chemistry (does the prospect of a meeting with them excite you?)

The first two are obvious. But I always need to remind myself to assess chemistry. And the best way to do this is through the lens of our values:

• Radically Welcoming: are they open, friendly, kind? Do they like people?
• Instinctively Joyful: are they light hearted? Taking their work seriously but not themselves.
• Proudly Independent: Are they an independent thinker, a believer in creative self-expression?

The description of the above is someone who would fit like a glove into the team. And someone we’d thoroughly enjoy working with.

I love the ‘what’ of our business (operating neighbourhood work clubs). But honestly with the team we’ve got I’d probably still be just as happy if we made paper clips. Because the way we would go about that would be to lean into our creative autonomy, find any excuse for fun we can, and aim to take radical care of each other and our customers along the way.

And I tell you, they’d be some damn fine paper clips.