'Work ethic' vs. Relaxation in startups
Posted by ungraspiness Thu, 01 May 2008 06:14:00 GMT
welcome back mr. sun (beltaine is here)
This collection of paragraphs is about * BIG SIGH *
...working in startups however much of it might apply elsewhere. (Like there isn’t enough to read about this over-hyped topic on the web already).
Actually the following is definitely worth reading for the even slightly curious reader. It was definitely worth my time to write it (even though it’s one of my least favorite topics)
Here goes…
The middle class mantra, or what parents often tell their children(and what adults often tell themselves and their piers), what employers try to drill into their employees about ‘getting somewhere’ in life. It usually goes something like this, “Son/Employee/Friend, the only way to get anywhere in life is to work damn hard, hell that’s how I got my gold-plated watch for 25 years of service(or my 0.000001% of the company share pool). I’m proud of the fact that I haven’t slept for more than 4 hours a night in the last 10 years.”.
Strange considering that those who usually are truly ‘successful’ never seem to follow such literally brain-dead reasoning. However it’s often shocking that many startups have some kind of reasoning very similar to what our parents may have told us about ‘work ethic’. Not to say that the 20-somethings who get lucky never worked crazy hours or that they don’t work their asses off for 4 years(these days it can sometimes turn out to be even less than that, the youtube founders are a great example of this and who wouldn’t like to be in their shoes ?). They do but it’s hardly the mantra. As if working longer instead of just working smarter means greater success somehow.
The ‘work ethic’ train of logic pushing us to ‘work harder’ usually stops at the dead-end stations of thought such as ‘we need to work more hours !’, ‘our product needs more features !’ or ‘we need to be done today!’ . This is a slow(even sometimes a very quick) poison for most startups. In other words, good luck buddy !
Now by startups the author is hardly referring only to certain companies that describe what they do as ‘social debt-working’, ‘viral carpeting’, ‘crash-ups’ or whatever other 2006 startup-speak jammed so many starry-eyed founders heads that they didn’t stop to think about their clients and product.
That brings up an interesting detour: clients. Now by giving clients what they need or want I don’t mean doing whatever they ask, the gap between those two things are like the distance from earth to Saturn(pretty damn far apart one might say resulting in large time sinks). Clients/Users might say something like ‘please give us a super-widget that can do X to the power of infinity things, pretty please!, if you code it by tomorrow we’re sure that you would put every other startup out of business because OH MY GOD it can do everything and more than any other web site can !!!’. Yes they may say that type of thing, even get on their knees and beg you for the ONE TRUE ‘DO EVERYTHING’ WIDGET or threaten your web 2.0 being to the core by promising to never visit your site again and to tell all the kids on the playground to do the same. What I’ve noticed is that no matter how much people say this, often they will do the complete opposite if you give them a few features that they really like using. The widget with the few good features is something they will actually get to see because you won’t run out of time AND they will likely use it long before the ‘DO EVERYTHING’ widget that’s half-baked sees the light of day(if ever). Successful startups have this in common, they solve one or two hard problems(sometimes they just need to push further toward a solution) to be successful. The ones that aim to solve all the world’s problems usually never make it. Please email me if you know of one.
This leads into yet another little detour: The startups that realize some level of success often have the least management. They don’t need to meet about having a meeting. In fact there will be little evidence(if any) of having to manage programmers or anyone else. If a startup hires good programmers then why do they need management ? If founders strongly feel they need to manage their programmers then why did they hire those programmers to begin with ? Who the heck has time to manage developers in a startup planning on actual success ? Yes, yes I know, hiring good(never mind great) programmers is very hard. But when you have even one of those kinds of programmers(the good ones also don’t require flattery just simple acknowledgment) you better treat them well, very well, because your company’s success depends on them being happy for a large portion of the time, DUH !
Also, when you have hired one or two of these kinds of programmers you really really really should let them decide on the next batch of programmers to hire. Unless you are as skilled/experienced as they are collectively and you spend most of your time coding in the company then take their advice, you’re paying for it after all !
Ok back to the main track:
An article from CNN dated 2006-03-16 called “Be smarter at work, slack off” had the following nuggets for founders(even though they were probably directed at managers)
“But it’s really, really hard, if not impossible, for the human brain to come up with fresh new ideas when its owner is overworked, overtired, and stressed out.
and..
“The physiological effects of tiredness are well-known. You can turn a smart person into an idiot just by overworking him,” notes Peter Capelli, a professor of management at Wharton.
and my personal favorite…
“Indeed, “the notion that busyness is the essence of business can only do us long-term harm,” writes consultant Tom DeMarco in a book called Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency.”
Forget multi-tasking, it’s one of the worst productivity killers. You don’t even need a neuro-scientist to tell you that just go read the excellent ‘Brain Rules’ by John Medina (ok, he is a neuro-scientist but the book is a well-paced read). Considering the strongest point in the US economy is innovation(and will never be mass production) why do managers prefer to manage as if things were an assembly line ? Archimedes, Newton, Einstein, Tesla and a long list of other creative guys always started with relaxation to get the mind into a powerful thinking mode. Another thing that stands out is that the article was written back in 2006 by CNN. If they get it then why don’t many startups ?
Let’s wrap this up on a positive note with some basic advice :
Get enough sleep, drink enough water and don’t forget exercise is incredibly worth it not just for your body but also for your mind(not to mention that it leads to the previous two). Increased oxygen flow to the brain cannot be underestimated.
Good luck !
(watch the complete 