It’ll be interesting to see how you guys figure this out

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Bo Burlingham’s book “Small Giants” covered 14 businesses that chose to stay small, as opposed to being bought out or going public, and the things they did to help them succeed.

There were a ton of great lessons in the book, and I encourage you to check it out for yourself, but a great one came from the company Reell. Two employees were having a problem, and took the issue to one of the two co-CEOs, Bob Carlson. After hearing the problem, Bob gave a simple response:

It’ll be interesting to see how you guys figure this out.

Reell was so successful because they had well-trained employees that were equipped to solve problems on their own, and Carlson was pushing for them to work it out themselves. They did, and everyone was better off as a result of it.

This kind of trust in their employees is part of what makes Reell such a great company. It takes time to build that kind of trust in your team, but it can speed up communication and it can help companies progress much more quickly.

Carlson likely could have offered his opinion and solved the problem, saving a bit of time for everyone, but by pushing his team to work it out themselves he helped grow more trust for the long run.

If you trust your team, let them figure it out.

Make the charitable assumption

by 2 Comments

Reading Time: < 1 minute

It’s easy to make assumptions about other people. If someone is short with you, they might be a jerk. Or maybe they just lost their job, or lost a friend. It’s hard to know for sure, but if your initial thought is always that they must just be a jerk, that’s generally a bad outlook on life.

This also pulls in a bit of the idea of sonder, the realization that everyone around you has an internal life as rich and conflicted as yours. They’re not just “that rude woman at Publix” or “the idiot in the Honda”, but people with full and rich lives, and circumstances that we don’t fully understand. They may well be rude idiots, but that’s a rough assumption to begin with.

In his excellent book “Unreasonable Hospitality“, author Will Guidara put it this way:

My favorite was “Make the charitable assumption,” a reminder to assume the best of people, even when (or perhaps especially when) they weren’t behaving particularly well. So, instead of immediately expressing disappointment with an employee who has shown up late and launching into a lecture on how they’ve let down the team, ask first, “You’re late; is everything okay?”

Maybe you’ll find out they have a flimsy excuse, but taking the high road and assuming the best in others will almost always work out to be better for everyone.

The output of courage is curiosity

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

It’s something I’ve never really thought about before, but in many cases it’s difficult to express curiosity without some degree of courage. On a recent episode of “The Long and The Short Of It” podcast, they unpacked this quite a bit. While it can be seen in a handful of different ways, Jen summed it up like this:

“I’m not a mind-reader but I’m pretty in tune with people, and I can almost guarantee you that there are people in that meeting who have an idea when someone says, “Bring me your creative ideas,” but they do not have the courage to share it out loud.”

This is one reason I’m so fortunate to have Ali as a business partner, as her EQ can notice situations like this that I might miss. There have been multiple times in meetings over the years where she’ll pause at the end, and ask a specific person if they have any thoughts to add, knowing that they likely do. A quick “no” is an acceptable response, but often that little nudge is enough to get them to share, and the ideas can be amazing. Being able to notice that in others is a powerful skill, and it helps to be able to bring out the curiosity in people that might be lacking a bit of courage.

We won’t always have someone around like that to give the nudge, so building the courage to express your curiosity is something you’ll need to do for yourself. I encourage you to listen that episode of their podcast, as it’s short and excellent and it does a great job of unpacking this concept.

A complaint versus a problem

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Problems can be a great thing. Really, that’s what most companies do — they solve problems for their clients. I’ve shared before that I want people to bring me problems, and I find people that can help uncover problems to be very valuable.

On the other hand you have people that complain, which is far less useful. In the book “The One Minute Manager“, the difference is summed up very well:

‘If you can’t tell me what you’d like to be happening,’ he said, ‘you don’t have a problem yet. You’re just complaining. A problem only exists if there is a difference between what is actually happening and what you desire to be happening.’

If you’re able to determine what you “desire to be happening”, you’re well on your way to solving the problem. If you’re just mad about a given situation, with no thought to what a better version of it might be, then that’s just complaining. Give me problems over complaints every time.

Work on development, not performance

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

It can be tempting to focus everything on performance and metrics. Whether I’m talking about myself and what I accomplish, or what I look for from my team. Ultimately, though, a stronger focus on development will lead to far better long-term results.

In his book “The Coaching Habit“, author Michael Stanier words it very well:

Focus on development, not performance. Performance is important, but you won’t empower your team if you’re constantly putting out small fires and forgetting the larger goals. Look for areas in which an employee can grow.

It’s hard to ignore performance, as that’s what pays the bills, but development can’t be skipped. It’d be like an NFL player resting all week so they’d be fresh for Sunday; it’d work well for a week or two, and then the lack of development and training would start to show.

It also leads back to some tricky questions such as “is reading work?“. I’m still in largely the same camp there, where I feel that reading is indeed work, but it’s also something I feel guilty if I ever do during “working hours” when I should be “really working”.

Fortunately, most of Stainer’s quote is easier for me to manage. Empowering my team is becoming easier and easier, as a consequence of them becoming more capable, but more importantly as my trust with them continues to grow over the years. Team development shows fairly rapid results, and I love every aspect of it.

Set them free to do their thing

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 2 minutes

When building websites, or really any kind of marketing deliverable, we have to strike an interesting balance.

On the one hand, we have a tight scope of work and a clear directive on what needs to happen.

On the other hand, we’re not always sure exactly what that looks like. If someone needs a new logo, we understand the why and the how, but at the start we have no idea how the new logo will look, which is the beauty of the process.

In his book “Every Tool’s a Hammer“, author Adam Savage mentions a conversation with filmmaker Guillermo del Toro that I think summarizes this tension perfectly:

“How is it possible to manage a group of dozens of artists to keep to a cohesive vision? At dinner that night I asked Guillermo how he did it. “You have to give everyone complete autonomy within a narrow bandwidth,” he replied. What he meant was that after you get their buy-in on the larger vision, you need to strictly define their roles in the fulfillment of that vision, and then you need to set them free to do their thing. You want the people helping you to be energized and involved; you want them contributing their creativity, not just following your orders. Giving them creative autonomy rewards their individual genius while keeping them oriented to the North Star of your larger shared vision.”

It’s similar to something that David Marquet shared in “Turn the Ship Around“:

“The problem with specifying the method along with the goal is one of diminished control. Provide your people with the objective and let them figure out the method.”

The statement from Adam gave me pause, as it so accurately summarized how we do our work at GreenMellen. Ali and I set the overall scope, Brooke directs the path as the project manager, but then each creative (messaging, design and development, among others) is free to “do their thing”. They know the goal we’re trying to achieve, and they are all experts in their own area with the best idea of how to make sure their part of the project hits that final goal.

Guillermo wants to make sure that they stay “energized and involved”, which is certainly important, but I see a bigger piece of it being a matter of expertise. It would be ridiculous for me to suggest that Elena use a different font or that Ashlea work through a development issue in a different way. They’re far wiser than me in their respective crafts, which I’m exceptionally grateful for.

Being able to set them free, within the bounds of the overall project, is a great thing indeed.

Keep your issues in the open

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Similar to the idea of “bring me problems” that I shared last year, having a culture where problems are welcomed can be a great thing.

It reminds me of a story I heard about Alan Mulally and his work to turn Ford around in the 2010’s. One big thing that he did was encourage problems to be brought up and not stay hidden, as was common at the time. They had a small issue arise in one of the newer Explorer SUVs, and rather than risk a future recall, they delayed the vehicle by a few weeks and got the problem solved. In the past, Ford would have hidden it and hoped for the best to avoid the delay, but under Mulally they worked to bring problems to light and resolve them.

With this culture throughout the company, the quality of all of their vehicles improved.

In “The Hard Thing About Hard Things“, author Ben Horowitz shares a similar thought:

“Build a culture that rewards—not punishes—people for getting problems into the open where they can be solved.”

It’s easier said than done, because people are often afraid to bring their problems up in front of others for fear of looking weak or foolish. It can feel safer to keep them hidden and try to solve them on their own.

However, if you can develop a culture of bringing problems to the front, the long-term benefits will far outweigh the short-term awkwardness of the situation.

Great communication is built on trust

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 2 minutes

In his book “The Hard Thing About Hard Things“, author Ben Horowitz shares simple yet powerful way to speed up communication: trust. Ben simply says:

“In any human interaction, the required amount of communication is inversely proportional to the level of trust.”

The more you trust someone, the easier the communication. If you know their motivations, skills, and goals, you don’t need to babysit them as much and things can run much more smoothly.

On the other side, you can look at folks such as cashiers at fast food restaurants. Because those positions tend to turn over quite a lot, trust is never established and the workers have to follow a ton of very specific rules because they’re not trusted to make their own decisions.

Let them break the rules

It’s like I shared earlier this year with the policies that companies like Zappos and the Ritz-Carlton have where they specifically encourage their employees to break the rules. As Simon Sinek has said, “that’s what trust is”.

This is why we generally prefer full-time employees at our firm instead of contractors. We have some fantastic contractors, no doubt, but full-time employees allow us to build that trust. Our developer has been with us for years, and she knows she has the complete ability to make decisions on client needs, pricing, or whatever may come up. The reason is simple; I trust her to do what’s in the best interest of both parties, and she will. Her solution may be different than mine, but that’s fine because it’s based on the right priorities (and honestly, her solutions are very likely to be better than mine).

As a result, our communication is much easier. If you have employees that you don’t need to micromanage, it’s a beautiful thing. Trust takes some, but building it will make everything run better.

Only one person can change me

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

In recently reading the book “QBQ” (the “Question Before the Question”, which I discussed a bit here), much of it felt similar to some of the ideas in “The Daily Stoic“. The books come from completely different directions, but end up focusing on one idea — you are responsible for yourself.

QBQ had a few great quotes to help summarize this idea. First is the idea of stress and what can lead to it:

Stress is a choice, because whatever the “trigger event”, we always choose our own response.

I think he might have over-simplified a bit, as some people are literally stuck in jobs with horrible bosses that treat them poorly, but many find ways to shine regardless of the situation.

Next are some of his thoughts on communication:

Communication means not only being understood but also understanding the other person. The QBQ is “How can I better understand you?”

If you’ve ever read “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People“, this might sound familiar, as Habit 5 is “Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood“. Learning to fully understand the ideas of others will help both parties tremendously.

Taking responsibility for yourself is easy at times, but gets much more difficult when something feels like it’s out of your control. The more you can take ownership of every situation in your life, the more effective you’re likely to be.

The pretense of knowledge is our most dangerous vice

by Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

In his book “Ego Is the Enemy“, author Ryan Holiday spends a good deal of time essentially breaking down the Dunning-Krueger Effect and how overconfidence can be a bad thing.

Confidence, in and of itself, is valuable to have. When you become overconfident and your ego creeps in, it can often inhibit your growth. If you’re able to maintain an uninflated, unexaggerated understanding of your true abilities, you’ll be much more likely to succeed – because you’ll be prepared to put in the hard work.

As Holiday says:

“The pretense of knowledge is our most dangerous vice, because it prevents us from getting any better.”

Or dropping back to Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus:

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows”

Being confident in what you know is a great thing, and can be essential in many roles. If you need to convince your boss or a potential client of a particular path to take, you need to be confident in what you’re saying. However, growing that confidence to the point of ego will limit your growth, and over time that confidence will have less of a foundation of truth behind it.

Stay confident, but stay curious.