Startup Mantra
I once worked for a dotcom startup that gave me the full experience of that era. The technology was more vapor than substance. Both founders had not reached their 30th birthday. The business was funded by highly educated and clueless venture capitalists (VCs) who later brought in older and even more clueless outside executives to save the business. Ultimately, the company rose and crashed with the outgoing dotcom tide. It was actually all great fun and there were a lot of positive aspects of the experience including important and memorable lessons and friendships.
During the two year whirlwind, our young founder/CEO had a great mantra. I’m not sure if he learned it from a mentor or came up with it out of necessity. He was inundated with questions from other leaders, managers and employees. The questions were non-stop for two reasons: 1) the business model and the company’s existence was fluid from start to finish and 2) the founder made himself fully accessible to everyone at any level within the company. His consistent response to all of the questions was a stern, but encouraging “remember – don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions.”
This mantra was very effective on many levels. It trained employees to not complain. It engaged and empowered employees to think and create. It protected the CEO from getting sucked into issues employees were hired to handle. It was an admission that the CEO did not have all the answers. And finally, it created a sense of urgency.
It didn’t take long for employees to catch on. Everybody began to think more critically and creatively. The number of mindless questions coming at the CEO began to decline. The CEO began to experience better quality interactions with employees who came with ideas and solutions. Granted, some of these ideas and solutions were half-baked, so this led to the CEO’s follow-up mantra “Great, you’re in charge so make it happen.” The employee would learn quickly whether or not they had a good idea, and also whether they possessed the skills to influence others.
SIDENOTE
With these great mantras, you might wonder why this management style didn’t result in a success story. In short the business model was flawed and no reasonable amount of pivots would have saved it.
You can’t polish a turd
– dotcom Startup CFO
Dotcom Lessons learned
- Don’t join a bullshit business (unless you’re OK going for a ride)
- Don’t invest in a bullshit business, which includes businesses that can’t explain themselves
- Don’t go to your manager with problems, only solutions
- Have enough confidence in the solution that you are prepared to execute your solution
- Constantly evaluate the level of need for processes – not too much, not too little.
- You can’t polish a turd (this applies to business models, but also to people. Yep, just keepin’ it real)
Mantras for Managers
- Remember – don’t come to me with problems, come with solutions.
- Great idea. If I put you in charge, can you make it happen?