Proletariat Core Values: Week 3 – Take Responsibility
This is week three in my five-part series breaking down the core values we used at Proletariat Inc. I wanted to cover not just what they were, but how they were written, why they mattered, and how we used them in our daily work.
So far, we’ve covered Understand Why (curiosity and transparency) and Decide Fast and Iterate (action and learning). This week is about one of the most foundational ideas in any high-performing team: ownership.
The Core Value as Written
Take Responsibility
Own your actions and honor your commitments. Hold yourself to a high standard and be transparent with your team and our players. If and when that’s not possible, take responsibility and ensure your team is aware and able to support you. The way you do anything is the way you do everything.
Why It Mattered
Startups depend on trust, communication and follow-through. When you have a small team and big goals, everyone has to deliver, and if something’s off, it will impact the whole system.
This value was about more than just “doing your job.” It was about building a culture where people took their commitments seriously, owned the outcomes, were honest when things went off track, and knew when to ask for help.
We wanted to create a culture where people were rewarded for taking responsibility, not constantly looking to cover their own ass.
What It Encouraged
Execution over excuses: If you said you’d do something, you did it, or you let the team know why it changed.
Transparency over hiding problems: If you were behind, you spoke up early, not after a deadline slipped.
Do the little things well: Responsibility also means being detail oriented and caring about all the boring things that make for an awesome game, product, team, and company.
How We Applied It
“Take Responsibility” played out across the company in many ways:
In production and development: If someone couldn’t meet a deadline, the expectation wasn’t silence, it was transparency. We’d adjust as a team
In player communication: We’d own mistakes publicly. If we shipped a buggy patch or something broke, we’d explain why and how we’d fix it
In design and product decisions: We would delegate to the individual or team and let them take responsibility for both their work and the outcome of that work
In leadership: If leadership made the wrong call (and we did), we took ownership, especially in front of the team
This value gave the team permission to speak up early and created a culture of support instead of punishment.
What Made It Work
“Take Responsibility” only works if the team feels safe doing it. We built psychological safety first, so people could be honest about their mistakes. And we modeled responsibility at the leadership level, owning bad decisions, being transparent with the player community and the team, and fixing problems without finger-pointing.
“Take Responsibility” also requires leadership to actually delegate responsibility. We were not perfect at this but we constantly strived to improve our ability to delegate and empower the wider team.
And lastly, it requires that the team supports and trains people on how to take on new responsibilities. At Proletariat we worked to build a culture that invested in this kind of effort to help grow each team member.
Final Thought
The path to advancement in most careers requires taking on more responsibility. However, most companies lack psychological safety, are poor at delegating, and provide no support for the employee stepping into new/more responsibilities.
You can’t build a great team without accountability, but you also can’t build it with only shame and fear. “Take Responsibility” wasn’t about perfection. It was about honesty, integrity, trust, and owning your part while also being encouraged to ask for help.
(Want help creating your own set of values? Check out my guide on writing core values.)