Introduction

Welcome to the Treefrog Handbook!

This handbook is designed to replace the classic (and legally required) “employee manual” provided by most companies. However, as per the Treefrog way, this handbook is designed to be an oblique solution to a necessary problem: getting everyone on the same page and rowing in the same direction, without the Damoclean Sword of draconian bureaucracy preventing our overall and individual creativity and thus ultimate radical success.

Ergo, these set of documents are open for any Frog to improve and make recommendations, openly and constructively, using GitHub as a collaborative technology. We are “open-sourcing” our expectations of one another in the same way one would manage a software product to ensure we have as much intelligent and compelling input as possible to maximize Treefrog’s growth and excellence.

We are one of the few organizations out there that you can never complain about working for, because the power to improve it tangibly exists and is only limited by your own input.

		Me and all my friends
		We're all misunderstood
		They say we stand for nothing and
		There's no way we ever could
		Now we see everything that's going wrong
		With the world and those who lead it
		We just feel like we don't have the means
		To rise above and beat it

		So we keep waiting (waiting)
		Waiting on the world to change

			- "Waiting on the World to Change", John Mayer

Be the change you want the world to be. The success of your career at Treefrog isn’t up to anyone but you.

Organizational Vision

This manual is organized into several parts.

The Goals of Treefrog clarify what we are trying to accomplish as an organization.

Then, the First Principles (the “why”) are the guiding principles of how and why we have chosen to build the company - the core concepts which drive our reason to exist.

The Philosophies of Treefrog drive deeper into how it is that we interpret these principles at a high level to ensure that we have compelling and well-thought-through rationale to make decisions as a team.

The Tao of Frog includes clarity on how we expect individuals to act as a member of Treefrog. These are guiding principles for the attitudes of the individuals working together at Treefrog as a team.

The Manual (the “how”) includes the rules and boundaries of working at Treefrog that all Frogs are obligated to follow. Each section of the “Manual” is composed of more than just “the rules”, beginning with a “spirit”, a “simple acid test hard rule”, and with detailed examples of interpretation and examples of how this rule came to exist. These are not arbitrary rules: each one has been thought out in detail, and deserves to be both defended and challenged.

It’s not a lie to accept that Sean Stephens (our CEO - hey, that’s me!) wrote and compiled most of these theories. But he’s not perfect, nor has he learned everything, nor can he anticipate everything or see every side of the cube all at once. Get involved! Make Treefrog the remarkable team it has the potential to be.

Table of Contents

1. The Vision and Goals of Treefrog
2. Tenets/Values
3. First Principles (The Tao of the Frog)
4. Core Philosophies
5. The Manual
6. Best Practices
7. Performance

Suggestions and Edits

As every Frog is required to read and agree to everything in The Manual, every Frog should be able to bring any issues/clarifications/improvements/additions as they see fit to the table. Just because you think it is right doesn’t mean we are obligated to add it to the manual; this document is a living document that intends to define the best possible way for Treefrog to be a principled business that genuinely makes the world a better place.

What you should not do is disagree with a concept in this book and then rally people around you in disagreement. This is not a Democratic Document, as we are governed by A Vision and furthermore Canadian Law. Instead, present a meaningful argument as to why you agree or disagree with a subject, and allow it to be discussed as a group.

This open-sourced idea is not a mechanism designed to appease everyone’s entitlements, but rather give us a unified and collaborative methodology by which to constantly improve, as is the Way of the Frog.

Last Official Version

Employee Manual 2009

The last “Official Version” is the one which all Frogs are required to sign and adhere to. As we change these policies - especially given all Frogs have access to and are encouraged to challenge and improve these policies - we will “crystallize” a new version which every employee of Treefrog is required to adhere to from the moment they are crystallized.*

* This also means you will be given reasonable warning when a “final version” has been crystallized.