If the Shoe Fits: When is “Startup” and “Innovative Culture” an Oxymoron?
by Miki SaxonA Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here
Two questions:
- Are you working to build a culture of innovation in your startup?
- Do you live the startup mindset of 100 hour weeks, all night hackathons, 24/7 availability and no time for vacations?
If you answered ‘yes’ to both you’re in trouble, because a yes to the second sooner or later will nullify the first.
According to Marc Barros, co-founder and former CEO of Contour, there are five actions you can take to avoid killing off your golden egg, i.e., your culture of innovation.
Here they are, with my caveats (follow the link to read the originals).
- Offer Unlimited Vacation: while this isn’t always possible, and may not even work, making sure your people, including founders, take real vacations, which means no email, texts or emergencies. They should last a minimum of three days, but a week is much better. And if having you/them gone for that time will really crash and burn the company you have bigger problems than you realize.
- Let Employees Work Remotely: in addition to working remotely physically whenever possible be sure to provide an environment that promotes mental remoteness. In other words, they don’t have to think/work/act like you to achieve the desired results.
- Ditch the Meetings: make sure that those you do have are short and productive.
- Nix Department Goals: goals at all levels—department, team, personal, should always focus on what needs to happen to achieve specific, major, annual company goals (never more than three).
- Give Plenty of Feedback: just don’t make giving constant feedback an excuse or cover for micromanaging.
One of the biggest actions that Barros doesn’t mention, but is implicit in what he does, is trust.
If bosses don’t believe that their people really do care that the company succeeds and trusts them to make it happen then they will be unable to implement any of this.
In the comments section, Mick Thornton, who worked at Safeco Insurance (definitely large and definitely old-line), talks about the success of the team he was on.
The biggest keys to success for our team was a manager that understood broad goals saying things like “Here’s what we want the end to look like, now go figure it out. Let me know if things start to slide or go south, otherwise work how you want to meet the deliverable.”
Image credit: HikingArtist
