§ Internal · House manual
Standing Orders
21 entries · vI · 05 / 26
Standing Orders
How we operate at General Strategic.
Most firms run on personality. We deal in judgment, discretion and craft.
The kind of work that requires standards and discipline to those standards.
When those standards are implicit, they walk out the door when people do. When they're explicit, they compound.
These orders aren't aspirational. They describe what we do when we're at our best, and what we hold each other to when we're not.
How to use.
They're called orders, not rules.
Rules govern compliance. Orders define identity.
Grouped into six areas: character, team, thinking, the work, the craft, and recovery.
Most are stolen and adapted. All are now ours.
Read them. Reference them. Argue with them.
When reality shows us something new, we'll update.
The orders won't tell you what to do in any given moment. They tell you who we are when we do it.
CharacterHow we hold ourselves.
Return the trolley.
We don't abandon our trolleys for other people to collect and we don’t ignore abandoned trolleys.
Friction is better than fiction.
Truths can be uncomfortable, conversations difficult, and confrontations undesirable. All are better than comfortable fiction.
Failure is feedback is knowledge.
Failure has a single redeeming feature, it's the only time we truly learn and grow. Use it well.
Kill your own babies.
We must detach and be prepared to kill the things we birth, if not, others will end up doing it for us.
The teamHow we hold each other.
Don't piss on the campfire.
There's a time to kill ideas. It isn't mid-flow.
Disagree and commit.
Argue hard, row together.
Steal the blame, share the credit.
Credit flies down. Blame stops here.
Run toward the fire.
The team remembers who showed up.
ThinkingHow we form a view.
The courtierHow we sit beside a principal.
Never outshine the client.
If we're the story, we've failed.
Map the room.
The client is one stakeholder. The room has more.
Hear the real ask.
The literal ask is rarely the real one.
Pick up the crumbs.
What matters is rarely in the brief. It's in the crumbs.
Find the yes.
The default answer is yes. The work is finding which yes.
Win the outcome, not the meeting.
Being right in the room is the consolation prize.
Absence sharpens presence.
Availability is not a substitute for good service.