Hi friends!
Merry Christmas and Happy new year. I have started this newsletter in 2020 and hope to get better at writing and keep sharing snippets of my explorations as an early employee in the new year. I have learnt a lot this year and hope to keep this streak alive. Now on to the newsletter:
This fortnight, I will be talking about the top six principles that, in my opinion, are essential for the success of an early employee/leaders in startups. These principles, when applied, would help in perfect execution while maximizing the impact.
Know anyone in your circle who is struggling to work efficiently in an early employee's chaotic schedule. Why don’t you share this article?
Reference: Abstract vector created by vectorjuice
Life in a startup is chaotic and unpredictable. Priorities keep changing in an extremely rapid fashion, and the ToDo list keeps piling up. Too many meetings to attend (and many of these meetings are ad-hoc and not set up in advance) leave little time for us to execute the key initiatives. Some meetings get heated, and at times we feel we are always in meetings and not doing any work. All this and more lead to a feeling of not doing anything productive on most of the days and days seem to drift away. We feel that we are always trying to catch up.
I remember having an argument with my founder about too many meetings, and I can hardly do any work. She advised me to audit and see for myself if any of the meetings were unnecessary. I slowly realized that it is important to change my mindset and try to work within the constraints.
I have discovered and distilled these principles from the notes I made after consuming many tweets, blogs and articles. A key skill for an early employee is continuous learning and note-taking - I will dedicate one of the future issues to this skill. Let’s dive into the six principles to maximize output in the midst of chaos:
Principle 1 - Critical Thinking
Employees in a startup, especially the early ones, struggle. One of the key reasons is the lack of critical thinking. It is possible to develop and hone this attribute well. Like how you stretch your body in a gym, our mind needs to be tested and pushed with deliberate thinking.
Three simple things that we can do to improve your critical thinking skills:
Question assumptions - Every decision we take is based on assumptions. When the stakes on the findings are high, it is a good practice to revisit the assumptions. For matters related to long term strategy, we must test our assumptions thoroughly. The right questions might save years of effort and expense for the company.
Consider every alternative decision and assumption and work through the scenarios to make a better judgement. For example, if we decide on a customer persona, consider other possible personas and why they aren’t a better persona than we have chosen.
Reason through logic - For every argument, carefully follow the sub-arguments and downstream thoughts. Are we making the right inference at every step of the idea? Do we have proper reasoning to make a sound conclusion? Understanding these reasonings would stretch our thinking limits and add a dash of criticality to your thinking.
Diversify thought - Get different perspectives and points of view. If we are engineers, we must understand the opinion of the marketers. We need to spend more time with people who tend to disagree with us. Networking, meeting people and reading what they are writing and sharing with the world expands our horizons of thinking. It’s more important to listen to others to develop critical thinking.
Reference: How to Develop Critical Thinking, Harvard Business Review, May 2019
Principle 2 - Clear Thinking
To develop clear thinking, it is crucial to be extremely conscious of our thinking and biases. Along with frameworks of thought, it is essential to master the mindset. A few points to be kept in minds for clear thinking:
Ownership mindset - make decisions as if we own the initiative and not assigned to it.
Long term orientation - take decisions for the long run instead of the quick wins.
Curiosity - be curious and understand what is happening around us and keep learning.
Self-awareness - having an understanding of our biases helps in avoiding any missteps.
Control over ego - keep ego at bay and be humble to accept that we are wrong.
Three biases to remember while making decisions.
The illusion of control is a bias that describes how we believe our influence extends to things that are beyond our scope. The belief that we can change our life gives hope. 2020 is the year that dispels this belief.
Our judgements are always relative and not absolute. We always compare and then decide. This is called the contrast-effect and is also why product discounts work so well.
Too many choices often confuse us, and we decide not to make any choice at all. This is known as the paradox of choice. Making decisions exhausts us, and thus we try to avoid or pass on the decision making process.
Reference: The Art of Thinking Clearly, Rolf Dobelli and Tweets by @ShreyasDoshi - PM at Stripe.
Principle 3 - Communicating Clearly
We might have brilliant ideas in our head, but there is no effect if we cannot communicate it to people. For a vision to transform into action, we must convince others about the effect it can create. A few tips from a person who teaches Quantum physics to 7-year-olds:
Start by meeting your target audience at where they’re. The target audience could be our co-workers or leadership. Know what they know and what they don’t know. Start from the point where their knowledge or context ends and build from that towards the idea. Don’t start from scratch and bore them.
Understand the different levels and backgrounds that the audience comes from - sales, marketing, finance, engineering etc. Frame the pitch so that the novel idea is simple for the audience.
Stay on the topic. Stick to the point and don’t digress too much into detail that is not directly relevant to the main idea. When introducing the concept for a large audience, stick to the broad strokes.
To go into more detail, go for a smaller audience who have skin in the game. Otherwise, put the point clearly, simply and if possible with some illustrations and examples. Don’t dwell on side-points which might be brilliant but of no value to the main idea. Expand the core idea with details, and deal with the peripheral points briefly.
Clarity over Accuracy. For a multi-background audience, it is alright to sacrifice accuracy for a bit more clarity. A simple explanation with 90% accuracy >> complex description with 100% accuracy.
Passion and Confidence. If the team can understand the passion and belief, we have in our idea, and the confidence about the outcome, they are more likely to resonate with us. Infuse energy and enthusiasm in the voice and body language, and maintain eye contact. (Do it consciously but not to the extent that it looks unnatural.)
Reference: Dominic Walliman’s TEDx Talk titled Quantum Physics for 7-year-olds.
Principle 4 - Flexible Consistency
Expect the unexpected. We would never have imagined that life would turn out the way it is now a year back. How do you maintain a continuous habit - reading, writing or learning something new? One miss demotivates you not to pursue the practice. A method that can help with this is - Flexible consistency.
Flexible consistency is building a routine with a small cushion for failure. What to do when we break a streak? It is simple - we pick it up where we left it off. These are a set of principles meant to keep you on track.
Plan for disruption. Don’t keep the habit or learning time rigid. If we can’t get it done in the morning, move it to the evening. If something urgent has come up this week, remember to schedule it to the next. Research shows that even when we miss one opportunity, the habit formation is not affected. A good idea here is to already build in redundancy - we decide to spend 30 mins on learning and keep aside two 30 min blocks in our schedule.
Fail like a scientist. When a scientist fails, he isn’t disappointed - he notes the failure and what caused it and moves on. Missed to learn a day - introspect on what blocked us, make a mental note of the trigger and resume the next day. Breaking the chain is fine - discarding it is not.
Schedule over scope. When we see a blocker coming along, stick to the schedule but reduce the scope. Want to read for 30 minutes and find it difficult to make time, read for 10-15 minutes. Convert the task to a micro habit. It might look trivial, but the mental victory in not breaking the chain boosts our confidence. Keep the flexibility to trade the intensity of the routine with consistency.
Reference: The power of flexible consistency by Anne-Laure Le Cunff
Principle 5 - Growth Mindset
Talent isn’t an innate gift; it is a skill that can be nurtured and grown. All we need is the will, a smart strategy and getting continuous feedback on our journey. If we feel we are improving with each day/week/year, we have the growth mindset.
Three common misconceptions.
I already have it, and I always have. Don’t confuse flexibility and openness with a growth mindset. It is something that is acquired over time. (In fact, it continuously gets updated.) Understanding we don’t have a growth mindset is the first step to acquiring it.
A growth mindset is just about praising and rewarding effort. Effort without any output is of no use. An outcome or learning must supplement effort to contribute towards growth.
Just espouse a growth mindset, and good things will happen. Risk-taking is fine, but having an awareness that not all risks pan out is important. It is a long-tailed process - most of the risks give pure learnings, and only a few give great outcomes. Understanding this aspect is absolutely key to developing a nurturing growth mindset.
In the face of feedback, don’t get defensive. Replace defensiveness with introspection, and we will definitely grow. We must identify the triggers for our fixed-mindset persona. Look within when we feel that this is something we are unable to do or accomplish. Have a conversation with oneself, revisit the learnings and start again to execute and move towards your goals.
Reference: What having a Growth Mindset Actually means?, Harvard Business Review, Jan 2016.’
Principle 6 - Debate Ideas Productively
We shared our ideas - the next step is to reach consensus. Keep the thoughts and ideas flowing, albeit in a controlled manner. Diversity nurtures innovation and helps people clarify their stand and make better decisions. The key idea is to manage a smooth flow of thoughts without turning them into shouting matches. Here are a few rules on how to debate productively:
All are on the same team. Keep reinforcing this message to keep the debate on track: Everyone has a common goal. We are teammates, not adversaries.
It is not about who wins the argument, or whose idea gets picked. We succeed when the idea creates impact. There is no hierarchy in idea-sharing. All perspectives are welcome.
Keep it all about the facts. This is not about the loudest voice in the room. It is about being the sanest voice in the room. Keep it logical. Keep facts and interpretation separate. If drifting away from the main issues, pause and reset. Focus on the quality of the evidence to steer towards a decision.
Please don’t make it personal. Judge ideas, not people. It is OK to change our side (in fact, everyone must appreciate it). Promote moving the discussion forward (instead of being right).
Be humble, listen more. Cultivate humility and be an active listener. Listen and respect every person’s viewpoint; Be polite in disagreement and humble in conceding when we are wrong. Develop the curiosity to understand the opposing point of view. Keep thinking in the other person’s shoes as we listen to them.
The key to breakthrough problem solving isn’t getting along well. It’s not getting along — well.
Reference: How to debate ideas productively at work? Harvard Business Review, Jan 2019
These six principles would help any early employee cut through the chaos and become a better contributor to the organization. Remember that we are the early hires for the company and hence what we do defines the startup's culture for the future hires.
So it’s time to get started on incorporating these principles.
Finds of the Fortnight
Lots of annual review threads are going around. This thread really resonated with me w.r.t the Future of Work 2020.
I love it when people share what they have learnt throughout the year. This particular article - 52 things I learned in 2020 blew my mind. Check it out in detail. My favourites - #14 ,#35, #38 and #51. Of course, every other point was too good (and could be a little uncomfortable for some.)
Here is a great resource on how to craft your tweets. I will use some of the strategies discussed and will share the results with you. (I love experimentation!)
And finally, this is something that I found serendipitously and made my day. If I have to caption this, it would be - When you don’t know why you don’t have product-market fit.
A Story that Seized me
Once Rabbi Zusha was passing through a town when it grew dark. He decided to take rest for the night and hence knocked on a door. An unkempt man opened the door, heard the rabbi out, and said, “You are a holy man, but I’m not an honourable man. Staying here might bring you disrepute.”
Zusha stayed not just one night but seven. The man was a thief, but he treated the rabbi kindly. When Zusha was leaving, he thanked the man profusely. “I’ve learned a great deal from you,” the rabbi said to him.“A rabbi learning from a crook like me?” The man exclaimed. “This inspires me to mend my ways and earn an honest living.”
When his pupils questioned him, Rabbi Zusha shared the lessons he learned from the thief:
He kept to himself what he did.
He took risks to attain his goal.
He was detail-oriented and made meticulous note of everything he stole.
He invested great effort.
He was swift.
He was always optimistic.
He was relentless and refused to accept failure.
My takeaway: Learning can come from anywhere, even from the most unexpected places like the house of a thief. It is important to keep our radar on to receive the continuous transmissions of wisdom from the universe.
Hope you liked this issue. Any thoughts, comments or suggestions? Any principles that you follow as an early employee? Feel free to reply on email or reach out to me on Twitter. If you think someone else will be benefited, feel free to forward the email.