Future-Focused: How our new operating values will help transform Mozilla

At Mozilla, we talk a lot about transformation — especially when it comes to expanding our product portfolio beyond the Firefox browsers. While our family of products includes beloved platforms such as Pocket and our VPN alongside Firefox, there are plenty of fits and starts in our non-browser history, as well; our last big bet, Firefox OS, was discontinued in 2017.

Since becoming CEO in 2020, Mitchell Baker has encouraged us to think about how the growth we’re after will require mindset shifts — and not just in terms of what we’ll do next, but in how we’ll do it. As a mission-driven organization with a clearly defined purpose, we are skilled at describing the impact we want to make on the world; our mission and manifesto do just that. But we have far less practice talking about the behaviors  that guide how we work together. Yet it’s those systems that will enable us to get things done in new ways and successfully deliver the impact we want.

We knew those behaviors needed to change, because you can’t transform an organization’s results without changing how you get those results. So last year, we decided to pinpoint the mindsets and behaviors holding us back from innovation, and develop a set of new operating values that would enable the collaboration, speedy decision-making, and risk-taking required to carry Mozilla into the future.

Identifying our challenges

We started by talking to Mozillians throughout the company to try to understand the current state of affairs. Did they feel safe taking risks? Did they see colleagues embracing innovation, or were they protecting the past?

One concern that emerged was the shrinking space for curiosity and debate. People join this team because they believe in the mission — Mozillians are smart, passionate and have strong feelings about our work. But when those feelings are stated too aggressively, it creates a distracting “us vs. them” dynamic. We end up with an environment where people who have a different point of view, or even just want to ask questions, don’t feel comfortable speaking up. That’s not healthy, and it leads to lower-quality decisions. Diverse viewpoints are key to taking risks, changing course, and doing new things, and without them, we’ll keep getting the same results.

Another, ancillary issue was that Mozilla, with deep roots in the open-source community, is not historically a high-trust environment. When the people you’re collaborating with show their work at every step, you don’t have to take anything on faith. But in practice, a “transparency at all costs” approach, where everyone gets to weigh in on everything, can make it difficult to finish projects. People may begin to break off into small, isolated groups and make decisions on their own. The result is the opposite of the participatory community processes that open source was intended to foster.

Developing our values

Once we’d analyzed where we were, the next step was to map where we wanted to go. Based on the input we received, along with the ideas expressed in our mission, manifesto, community participation guidelines and our three year product vision (to become the trusted guide to a joyful internet) we worked to define the specific, concrete behaviors we needed to create a safer environment for innovation. It was an iterative process (more than 200 people contributed), and ultimately led us to the four operating values below — what we call “V.1.”

Each of these four values builds on the next. When we welcome differences, we create the baseline of safety required to build relationships — which then enable the trust we need to practice responsible participation — which in turn empowers us to move quickly, get creative and ultimately realize our goals.

Making it real

Late last year, we officially announced our new operating values at an all company meeting, with members of the leadership team presenting on, and sharing examples of, each. But we know activating these values isn’t as simple as writing them down or even having our leaders advocate for them; we need each Mozillian to truly integrate them into their day-to-day work. So we set a specific goal: for 75% of employees participate in a program related to the operating values. Then we made that goal part of our companywide KPIs (key performance indicators), which are tied to team bonuses.

Every new hire at Mozilla — an estimated 200 people this year — will participate in a program automatically; our new onboarding curriculum includes a workshop introducing our operating values, along with breakout sessions to help put the values into practice. And for existing employees, we recently kicked off a six-month program, with multiple options for online sessions each month. In May, we gave a quick overview of all four values, with fun exercises to help make each of them real. During the following months, we’re offering deep dives on individual values — and encouraging each Mozillian to identify the value that feels most challenging to them, then be sure to attend one of those sessions. In October, we’ll do a final wrap-up.

This kind of work happens brick by brick, and we know we won’t see change overnight. But our hope is that as we continue to talk about these values — to weave them into our presentations, to talk about them with candidates, to refer to them in our daily chats — the new mindsets and behaviors will start to take hold. They’ll continue to evolve over time, just like our culture itself, and neither will ever be perfect. But while these operating values aren’t a panacea for the transformation we’re after, we do believe they’re an important step forward. With healthier collaboration, more risk-taking, and higher-velocity decision-making, we’ll be better prepared to move into the next phase of Mozilla’s future — and be the sustainable, multiproduct, thriving company we know we can be.