Principles are part of working in a team on a product. When you have an endless number of possible actions, it is easy to get stuck in endless discussions. Principles help a team move forward. They reduce chaos and cut down repeated debates.

But there is a problem with principles. People often understand them in a vague way and replace them with slogans that sound nice but work badly in real discussions.

This is a short reminder of what a principle means in practice.

Principles are not a set of nice phrases about all the good things. They are not about choosing between good and bad.

If you are choosing between good and bad, that is not a principle. That is basic common sense. “Do good quality work,” “care about the user,” “do not make nonsense,” “aim for the best” — these are not principles. This is pop management language that costs nothing and helps with nothing in a real argument.

A principle starts where two good options collide. Not good and bad, but good and good. Or at least acceptable and acceptable. For example, speed or quality, consistency or local exceptions, simplicity or flexibility, one shared approach or freedom.

If you are choosing between good and bad, that is not a principle. That is basic common sense. A principle starts where two good options collide.

This is where the real conversation starts. Because now the choice has a cost: you choose one thing and cut off the other. That is why a principle is not a slogan. It is a fixed limitation that helps reduce chaos.

A principle written in a populist way is useless exactly where it is needed most. It does not help when both sides are right in their own way and both have real arguments. It does not reduce discussion and it does not make the decision easier. It only creates the feeling that the team has clarity.

That is why a real principle should almost always sound a bit uncomfortable. You should feel the tradeoff. The limit. The tilt. The cost.

Not “we choose quality,” but “in the current market we more often choose speed over perfectionism, because being late hurts us more than shipping something imperfect.” Not “we value flexibility,” but “we are ready to lose some consistency to get faster local decisions.” Not “we love simplicity,” but “we would rather leave out rare scenarios than make the main experience harder for everyone.”

That is already a principle. Someone will clearly be unhappy with it. And if nobody can feel any discomfort from your wording, then most likely you did not write a principle. You wrote safe nonsense.

Another uncomfortable truth: do not create principles where there is no friction. If there is no disagreement on an issue, then there is no need for a principle. Do not turn everything in advance into “our approach,” “our philosophy,” or “our decision culture.” That is just filling the space with words.

A principle makes sense when the same discussion happens for at least the second time. Because at that point the team is again spending energy not on solving the problem, but on repeating the same argument about the rules behind the decision.

A principle is not a law of nature and not the truth. It is a chosen tilt. It exists not to be objectively right, but to make repeated crossroads cheaper to pass.

A principle is not “we are for all good things.” It is a choice about which of two normal options we will cut more often so we do not have to go through the same fork in the road again and again. If that is not present in the wording, then it is most likely not a principle. It is noise.