Dear fellow Zcashers:
I think we should be focusing not so much on the plans or policies of the MGRC candidates as much as on getting the best people on board. Remember, any one committee member is going to have to get the rest of the committee (or at least a majority of it) to support their ideas, so any one policy idea is not going anywhere by itself. Once we have a team of five excellent people seated and working together, they’ll listen to the community’s input going forward anyway.
So here are my thoughts on — not what MGRC should do — but on what kind of people we should look for.
First of all I want to say that it is a great idea to elect the two candidates who are affiliated with Zcash Foundation and Electric Coin Co. Not only because they can help coordinate between the orgs, and can provide continuity while bootstrapping the new committee during the first year, and not only because they can provide effective oversight of the MGRC’s operations, but also because they are both fantastic candidates who have excellent track records of contributions to Zcash. (That’s Shawn “mineZcash” and David “alchemydc” Campbell.)
Now more generally, here are my thoughts about the qualities we should be looking for in every candidate:
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Integrity. This is obviously the most important. We can’t see into someone’s heart directly, but one thing we can look at is if someone has a long track record we can look at how they’ve behaved in the past.
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Constructiveness. This is the second-most-important quality. We need people who excel at understanding the perspectives of others, treating others with respect, and finding win-wins. People who bring out the best in others.
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Leadership. By this I mean a willingness to think big, to think outside the box, to make unpopular decisions, and to bring others along on the journey. I was inspired by this quote I read from Jeff Bezos the other day: “When we’re criticized for our choices, we listen and look at ourselves in the mirror. When we think our critics are right, we change. When we make mistakes, we apologize. But when you look in the mirror, assess the criticism, and still believe you’re doing the right thing, no force in the world should be able to move you.” Leadership is being able to simultaneously listen to others and to decide for yourself what you believe is right.
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Diversity. Not to satisfy any artificial notion of “quotas”, but because one of the most valuable assets that people bring to the table is their own unique experiences and perspective, and the ability to draw in their network and tie it into the Zcash ecosystem. If we add someone to the MGRC who has had completely different life experiences, and a vast social and professional network from a different country, a different industry, a different culture, different online subcultures, different language, etc., that adds more than adding another person who has a lot of overlap with the rest of the MGRC team.
Those are all my thoughts. I think we as the Zcash community are now in the enviable position of having to pick five people when there are way more than five top-quality candidates in the running, so I’m very optimistic about the future of the MGRC! 