Tag: team work

No idea

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While everyone talks about Salesforce buying Slack, it is interesting to look at how Slack came to be.

Its founder Stewart Butterfield really wanted to make a great video game. He first tried with a game titled Game Neverending. You have never heard of it, because it failed, but putting together a bunch of features they had developed for that game, Stewart and colleagues came up with Flickr. Which you might have heard of, and sold to Yahoo! for 20 something million dollars. Later on he tried again, this time with a game titled Glitch. Fortunately for him, that did not work either, and while developing the game, Stewart and colleagues had put together a funny tool for internal communication, that later became Slack.

The point is, Stewart had no idea. He did not have any great master plan to build Slack (or Flickr), any recipe for the success of his video games, any routine or ritual that would make him smarter, faster, eventually richer.

He was lucky.

And he was (probably still is) in the habit of doing.

Now you can go and read “The 3 steps to make your startup successful”, or “Rich entrepreneurs typically do these 5 things (first thing in the morning)”.

Or you can start shipping. You already know what and how.

[…] this, by the way, I think is the greatest software development methodology that’s impossible to replicate, which is, don’t think about what you’re doing, have no ego. There’s no speculation, there’s no, “I can imagine a user would want to.” To spend a minimum number of minutes addressing the most aggravating problems that you have, and just use it, and then see.

Stewart Butterfield, Masters of Scale

Ramble

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Be careful when you speak without having your ideas clear.

Particularly if you are in a position of power.

Too often half formulated ideas, biased opinions, personal preferences become some sort of a norm in a small, vertical group. And the norm is always difficult to challenge and to change.

You owe it to the people around you.

If all you can do now is ramble, now is a good time to let others talk.

P.S.: How worst is this nowadays with the widespread use of tools such as Slack or Teams! It would really be great if companies would stop to look at tools as solutions, and rather train their people in their usage and best practices. Companies are not ready for instant communication.

One on one

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Following up on a post I wrote a while back about meetings, some top-of-mind rules to make the most out of 1-1s.

Short and frequent beats long and sporadic – 30-45 minutes every week is optimal; 45-60 minutes every two weeks is doable; 90 minutes and more every month is ineffective.

Commit to being there – If one gets cancelled, reschedule for the next day. Be present for the duration of the 1-1. Never say “I have nothing for you today”, and for sure never ever make a habit of this. What you have to do after the 1-1 is not more important.

Set a broad agenda and be flexible with it – Write down 1 or 2 points you want to discuss, but keep the agenda open in order to allow stuff to emerge. Be ready to forgo the agenda completely if the situation demands it. Always start with some informal chat about the weather, kids, weekend plans, food, and other things that might make a connection.

Listen and ask – If you are the team lead, be ready to shut up. 1-1s are for the other person to express ideas, plans, concerns, issues. They are not for you to get updates or answers, nor they are to display how much you know and how thoughtful you are. When the other person struggles to open up, probe them with open questions: “what’s on your mind?”; “what have you learned the past week?”; “how would you go about it differently next time?”; and when they are done talking, “what else?” to unlock deeper layers.

Think outside the box – If at all possible (it usually is), get out of the office. Consider having 10 minutes 1-1s every day in front of the coffee machine. Pick up the phone and call the other person, instead of meeting on Zoom or Teams. Use 5 to 10 minutes to play a game together, or discuss a book you both read. The less you make it about work, the more the other person will be willing to let go of their and your role and connect in a meaningful way.

Absolute

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If we want to grow, we need feedback. And if we want to learn from feedback, we need to stop taking it as absolute.

It is human to want to protect one’s work, reputation, identity. But that often leads us to see feedback as totally negative (or totally positive). We need to be able to identify the pieces of feedback we can use to improve and grow, while at the same time leaving out the pieces of feedback that are irrelevant or that we do not believe in (yet?).

Start thinking about who is giving the feedback and how much of what they are saying you do agree with. Receiving feedback is a muscle that can be trained.

Culture

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I made a list of the happiest periods in my life, and I realized that none of them involved money.

We believe that it’s really important to come up with core values that you can commit to. And by commit, we mean that you’re willing to hire and fire based on them.

The ultimate definition of success is, you could lose everything you have and truly be OK with it.

People may not remember exactly what you did or what you said but they always remember how you made them feel, that’s what matters the most.

Our philosophy has been that most of the money we might ordinarily have spent on advertising should be invested in customer service, so that our customers will do the marketing for us through word of mouth.

Our belief is that a company’s culture and a company’s brand are just two sides of the same coin. The brand is just a lagging indicator of the culture.

Tony Hsieh