Value Conflict Resolution Rules

When organizational values conflict, use these rules to decide.

Rule: Taste vs. Speed

When they conflict: A piece of content, product feature, or deliverable is “good enough” to ship but doesn’t meet the quality bar that represents Every’s best.

Default winner: Depends on audience.

Resolution:

  • Customer-facing content (articles, social, podcast) → Taste wins. Delay publication rather than ship something that doesn’t pass the three rigor tests or sounds like AI slop.
  • Software products (features, bug fixes) → Speed wins if core flow works. Ship v1, iterate. Known rough edges are acceptable; broken core flows are not.
  • Consulting deliverables → Taste wins. Client trust is at stake. Never deliver something that undermines our builder credibility.
  • Internal artifacts (CLAUDE.md, docs, Slack) → Speed wins completely. No taste gate on internal communication.

Example:

Katie Parrott’s AI tells detection flags an article as having formulaic transitions and hedging language. Publication deadline is today. Decision: We delay. The article goes through another revision cycle. Our readers trust us because we don’t sound like AI wrote our content about AI.

Rule: Builder Credibility vs. Revenue

When they conflict: A lucrative opportunity (consulting deal, sponsorship, content partnership) would require us to recommend, promote, or appear to endorse something we don’t genuinely use or believe in.

Default winner: Builder credibility. Always.

Resolution:

  • Builder credibility always wins. No revenue justifies undermining the trust that makes all future revenue possible.
  • No exceptions. We’ve turned down consulting deals that would have required recommending tools we don’t use. We’ll do it again.

Example:

A large enterprise wants us to consult on adopting a specific AI tool we don’t use internally and don’t believe is best-in-class. Decision: We decline the engagement. We suggest they find a consultant who actually uses that tool. We might recommend alternatives from our own stack.

Rule: Generalist Breadth vs. Specialist Depth

When they conflict: A task requires deep specialist knowledge that no one on the team currently has, and hiring a generalist won’t solve it fast enough.

Default winner: Generalist for permanent roles, specialist for targeted needs.

Resolution:

  • Hiring permanent team members → Generalist wins. We’d rather teach someone a specific skill than teach someone to think broadly.
  • Solving specific technical challenges → Specialist knowledge wins. Bring in external freelancers (e.g., Cora’s external senior full-stack engineer for complex infrastructure).
  • AI agents → Specialist by design. Agents can go deep in narrow domains; humans should stay broad.

Example:

Cora needs complex infrastructure work beyond what GM Kieran can handle with AI assistance alone. Decision: Bring in an external senior engineer (part-time, specialized) rather than hiring a full-time backend specialist. Kieran stays as generalist GM.

Rule: Play vs. Professionalism

When they conflict: A playful, personality-rich approach risks being perceived as unserious by an important external audience.

Default winner: Play, with audience awareness.

Resolution:

  • Articles and content → Play wins. Personality IS our brand. “Be sincere, not serious.”
  • Internal communication → Play wins always. Name your agents fun things. Use emojis. Have fun.
  • Consulting client interactions → Adjust to client culture. A hedge fund CIO expects different energy than a startup CTO. But never lose authenticity — even in conservative contexts, our warmth and directness should come through.
  • Legal/financial/contractual → Professionalism wins. Don’t be cute with contracts.

Example:

We’re presenting to a conservative financial services firm. Brandon wants to lead with our usual casual, playful style. Decision: We tone down the casual elements but keep the directness and builder credibility front and center. We don’t pretend to be a Big Four firm, but we don’t show up in hoodies either. The substance is unchanged; the packaging adapts.

Rule: GM Autonomy vs. Company Consistency

When they conflict: A product GM wants to make a decision that’s right for their product but inconsistent with how other products or the broader company operates.

Default winner: GM autonomy, unless it affects shared resources or brand.

Resolution:

  • Product decisions (features, roadmap, technical stack) → GM autonomy wins. Each GM owns their product entirely. Yash uses Codex+Claude in parallel; Danny uses Droid CLI; Naveen lives in Linear. That diversity is a feature, not a bug.
  • Brand and voice → Company consistency wins. All products are Every products and should feel like it.
  • Shared resources (design team time, infrastructure) → Company coordination wins. The design team rotation model exists because resources are shared.
  • Customer data and privacy → Company policy wins. Individual GMs cannot make exceptions to data handling policies.

Example:

Danny (Spiral GM) wants to implement a completely different onboarding flow that doesn’t match the pattern used by Cora and Sparkle. Decision: Danny has full autonomy on Spiral’s onboarding. Products don’t need to look the same. But if it touches shared subscription/billing infrastructure, coordinate with the platform team.

Priority Ordering (Ultimate Tiebreaker)

When multiple values apply simultaneously:

  1. Builder credibility — absolute priority. Never compromised under any circumstances.
  2. Taste over process — for customer-facing output. Our reputation depends on this.
  3. Ship and iterate — for everything that isn’t customer-facing. Speed is our competitive advantage.
  4. Generalist advantage — in hiring and role design. Shapes who we are long-term.
  5. Play as strategy — in culture and communication. Makes work enjoyable and attracts talent.

Agent Instructions for Conflict Resolution

When facing a value conflict:

  1. Identify which values are in tension
  2. Check this document for a specific rule covering the scenario
  3. If a specific rule exists → follow it
  4. If no rule exists → escalate to the relevant human (GM for product decisions, Kate for editorial, Natalia for consulting, Dan for company-wide)
  5. Present both options clearly: “Value A suggests X. Value B suggests Y. Here’s my assessment of the tradeoff.”
  6. Log the conflict and resolution for future rule creation (append to decision ledger)