5 Energy Sinks That Might be Draining your Startup’s Creative Energy (part 2)
This is the second article in a series about energy-draining mistakes that can derail startups. These articles are written based on real experiences starting (and sometimes failing) to build new things. You can find the first article here.
In the first article in this series, we reviewed the challenges of taking on too much, going it alone, and ignoring customers. This article takes a complementary take, revealing some deeper problems that can emerge as your startup grows.
Sink #4: Focusing on Process instead of Results
While foolishly building the “Maximum Viable Product” instead of Minimum Viable Product reflects too much emphasis on technology instead of customers, the similar error of focusing on process instead of results can stem from putting perfect execution ahead of actual progress. Common symptoms of this problem include pointless meetings, complex digital project trackers, or extraneous written reports, all requiring team members to waste time talking or writing about work instead of doing it.
“Done is better than perfect”
This problem can occur when leaders get swept away by new management trends — even highly beneficial ones, like agile methodology — but don’t understand how to thoughtfully apply these trends to the team’s existing workflows and culture so they actually add value. The problem is compounded when the management methodology is switched more than once, because with each change, teams need to ascend the learning curve generated by the new way of doing business.
I put one of my engineering teams through this “whiplash” of repeat process changes when I was less experienced, resulting in a weeks-long productivity standstill. It was only once we settled on a system that fit our idiosyncratic work schedules and personal strengths that we began to pick up steam again. In fact, I will guarantee that you will not find our effective work system in any management book — because we tailored it to fit our team and context.
Another common reason for overgrown focus on process over results is flawed team culture. When turf wars, management politics, or pie-in-the-sky strategies engender unrealistic expectations or defensiveness among team members, meetings descend into trumpeting sessions. In these rituals, team members waste everyone’s time and energy by listing off in detail their recent accomplishments, opinions, or process-based objections — not out of malice or incompetence, but because of fear of losing face. They are usually simply trying to justify their continued status within the team.
The way to end this vicious cycle is to repair team culture, ensuring that team members feel that they are valued, listened to, evaluated fairly, and given the resources they need to do their work. Most professionals would rather be doing good work than breaking their last PowerPoint into 17 distinct accomplishments for the weekly standup meeting. Give them that chance.
Sink #5: Ignoring Organization-Building
You’ve narrowed your scope, avoided entanglement in too much process, and are busily working away on your MVP — what can go wrong? The opposite of too much process: organizational drift.
As startup organizations grow, they change — new team members may bring different perspectives and motivations, divergent working styles, and fresh disciplinary approaches. The strongest organizations bootstrap guiding principles, processes, and guardrails to ensure the whole team continues to pull in the same direction as the enterprise grows. Failing to be proactive about your organization’s “operating system” can lead to disengagement, conflict, or burnout when team member expectations differ and there is no clearly accepted method to come to a consensus.
Organization-building can be divided into two distinct but highly interrelated categories of practices.
The first category covers the “heart” of the organization: why does it exist? Why do talented people choose to spend their time working here? How do team members relate to each other, and what values do we all hold in common? Big-picture visions should connect directly to shared organizational values and practices. A strong big-picture vision helps the team stay motivated; consistent respect for defined, humane team values builds the rapport and trust needed for your team to be successful long-term.
The second category of strong organizational practices can be considered the “brain” of the organization: these are the technical processes that keep the enterprise ticking. For example, a software enterprise may have defined structure around when new features are sent to the public. At one of my startups, our designers start the feature-building process by producing wireframes in response to identified user needs; after that, engineering builds the features, and then our senior engineering team signs off on the final code before it is deployed in staggered, scheduled releases. Motivated team members will far exceed expectations if given clear work processes to follow towards an inspiring and achievable goal
Thanks for reading. I hope these lessons learned from my career help you and your startup move powerfully towards your goals and minimize distractions. If you’re interested in bringing me on to help build out your company’s vision, feel free to get in touch with me at plainspokendigital.com
