Honing my Jedi skills
Mastering Non-Verbal Communication
Over the last decade, we seem to have forgotten that a significant share of our communication is conveyed non-verbally. Humans use facial expressions, body language, and other non-verbal cues to evoke emotion, meaning, and care. This type of communication is enormously impactful, particularly for founders.
For example, a simple message like “we could do better” can mean completely different things when written vs when communicated face-to-face. The feelings of care and mentorship that may be underlying the message are often lost in written form. Recipients of these messages can feel confused and hurt. When founders rely only on e-mail and Slack, the pain reverberates across the organization. There are many examples of these in the “toxic work environments” we keep reading about with increasing frequency.
This doesn’t mean founders shouldn’t use the written medium- but I find that written communication is often best used as a summary of talk points, or logistical clarifications. For anything that may cause an emotional reaction, mastering video and in-person communications can be the difference between a great culture and just a functional (or more commonly, non-functional) one.
This hack works for your personal life as well. Get out of the box and touch someone.
Manage to Outcomes or Process: Pick one
There has been a lot of talk on Twitter about work environments — how much founders should work employees, how to achieve great outcomes, and so forth. 2019 was full of coverage about the toxic work environments at companies like Away.
My mind hack about this is that founders must pick a path and vigilantly stick to it. You have two options: You can manage your teams to outcomes — this would involve implementing a tracking process like OKRs and giving your employees the flexibility to develop their own methods to achieve the goals — while still providing mentorship and collaboration opportunities along the way. Alternatively, you could manage your team around processes — coming up with railroad tracks that employees should observe — “your way” of running operations.
This decision isn’t always easy. In certain industries and functions, a process-oriented management culture may be the best path to results. At Bizly, we are still very focused on R&D and innovation, so we’ve focused on an outcomes-oriented management path. Regardless of which path you choose, consider a regimented program of positive reinforcement to get more of the outcomes you desire. This includes positive reinforcement around your own behavior- reward yourself for positive thoughts and outcomes and watch them multiply.
The art of untethering.
Tapping into your inner voice
When was the last time you left your phone at home? I tried it a few times in 2019. Well, I cheated because I kept cell service on my Apple watch (kids at home). The outcome was remarkable. At first, I felt deep discomfort with “free time”, felt lost staring at my surroundings, feeling awkward. But after some time, it was clear how programmed I had become. Every time I felt pain or discomfort, I avoided the pain and just looked at my screen. Repeating this action hundreds of times per day means that I’ve been programmed just like software is- I use my phone to deflect emotions that are uncomfortable to confront or process. We all do this. As a society. Hundreds of billions of times per day collectively across the world.
This mind hack is simple to describe but difficult to implement — just disconnect. Pick a time during your week to be in “Siberia”- to simply process the emotions. Realize that every emotion, fear, frustration, joy, or elation has a purpose behind it. Something for you to realize, change or adapt. This is nature at work. And we cannot keep avoiding it.
Self-care in 2020 isn’t just getting great sleep, exercise, nutrition and meditation — all critical activities — but it also includes unhooking from the screen and processing unresolved emotions at a deeper level for an extended period of time. Give your mind’s scrutinizing voice a name (I named mine Harry)… take the lessons it gives you, note the changes, and move on.
Fire yourself; win the lottery.
Give yourself a reality check
If you are a founder, you have to periodically fire yourself. I was inspired by this article. I’d like to do this every year around the holidays. Take stock of myself- am I still the right person to do this job? Would the company be better off if I hired someone else to do this? What does this company really need from me next year? Ask these questions honestly and openly and be ready for whatever the outcome may be. Founders don’t always have to be a C-level person in the company. Happens all the time. For me, I realized that to continue to be CEO at Bizly, I’d have to prune a lot of what I was doing. My job was shifting increasingly into keeping us focused, getting the right people on the bus, and allocating capital.
On the other side of the coin, you should also think about what you would do if you won the lottery and didn’t need the money anymore. Would you still build the startup? Would you retire and do something else instead? For me, it was clear that I would continue to work on Bizly even if I won the lottery.
Stop, Breathe, and Think
Our biggest job as founders is to reflect deeply and think about the big things that will drive the business forward. There are many micro-decisions, circumstances, management dilemmas, and other circumstances all around us at all times. If you don’t develop a dedicated practice of refraining from immediate action, you may rile up your teams and fail to see your strategies see the light of day.
Creating a“Stop, Breathe, and Think” infrastructure is critical. It is contrary to the immediate gratification tools that surround us — Slack, project management, etc — have provided accessibility to instant action. However, it is my opinion that instant action is the downfall of excellent leadership.
Finding a great place to store pivotal insights and discoveries — without taking immediate action — but rather, allowing for deep contemplation of those items prior to action, is the key to a happy and fulfilled management trajectory.
Bonus: Set the tone for the year
Our big theme for 2020 at Bizly was inspired by Ray Dalio and it is now our companywide mantra: “how do I know I’m right”? This is our theme to ensure that the best ideas win, we’ve worked to partner with thought leaders and experts, and that we’ve vigilantly tested ideas with the outside world. Our go-to method of cultivating ideas in 2020 is to simply “listen” as thoughtfully and intentionally as we can.
