Interlude - Index of

Values and Culture | 87
When in doubt, look it up in the book. (Dan started his career
at IBM.) The downside is that it’s expensive to create and
enforce the procedures, and they tend to curtail initiative and
reduce productivity. The other method, which we chose, is
to make simple guidelines and then trust people. Deal with
exceptions as they come up. We wanted to be lightweight and
flexible, and if something broke, we would fix it.
When NetApp got big enough to hire its first internal
travel agent, the new employee decided to write a company
travel policy. It was dozens of pages long and outlined many
scenarios for when someone could fly business class, what size
car they could rent, what type of hotel they could book, meals
they could eat, and how to get managerial approval for all of
the above. It was so complex that we had a long discussion in
Dan’s staff meeting, trying to figure it all out, and whether
we agreed. I began to feel that the whole thing was countercultural.
What happened to simplicity and trust? “Why not,”
I asked, “just tell everyone that we are a frugal company and
people should not spend money foolishly. But they shouldn’t
show up at a meeting dog tired and jet-lagged just to save a
few bucks.” The official travel policy became “Use your common
sense.”
Even today, a decade later, employees can book travel
without their manager’s approval. If employees feel that they
need to travel to get something done, we shouldn’t slow them
down. There is an important distinction, however, between
“no preapproval” and “no oversight.” We do keep track of
what people do, and sometimes managers need to give lessons
about expense control. We’ve even uncovered cases of fraud.
One employee booked flights and sold them for cash. As long