Where it all started
Things are complicated with the first employee ever hired at the company. You have to admire someone that is willing to take a risk on a startup by being the initial employee. The personal and professional blended dramatically during that time. I wasn’t present but I have heard numerous stories. I am not judging that things were murky as a negative, only as a fact.
This employee projects an extremely calm demeanor. With two insanely passionate co-founders, it makes sense to bring someone on that could roll with whatever was thrown at them in an unflappable way. For each stage of a growing business, you need not only the talent but the right kind of temperament. I do think this was a good choice even if the co-founders didn’t necessarily think of it the same way I do when they hired this individual.
Over the years, this employee has done so much work and transitioned in and out of training other employees. They were good at training because they are so incredibly mild mannered and patient. However, the employee appeared to become more and more withdrawn with time. Co-workers bring it up in various forms on a regular basis. This gets tricky though, because when you have someone that is so low-key how do you know if it is just their personality or an actual disinterest? The work output is a much easier path to evaluate than emotional investment.
Not everyone wants to rise up to become management. Some people just want to do their work and be done. Again, I don’t judge this as a negative, just a fact of differing values. How does that work in a growing company when people need to wear multiple hats and take the lead? What happens when employees want a raise but management doesn’t see them producing but feel indebted to them for the past? What do you do when co-founders have evolved their hiring approach but you have legacy employees based on previous choices? Loyalty is a tangled web.
This employee is known for rarely initiating any conversation with anyone. They aren’t shy just quiet. When you approach them and ask direct questions they will respond but you don’t necessarily get more than the answer to the question you asked. Hence, going into this one on one, I knew I would still need to lead. We talked about how they are buying a house for the first time and all that goes with that experience. It felt good to connect but I had this nagging feeling that I was going to get questioned about a salary increase.
Yep, it happened. The employee asked about a formal review and more money. I don’t have control over either of those domains nor do I want to now or in the future. I can, however, pass along the information and this is exactly what I intend to do. In the meantime, I continue to kick around the notions of loyalty, business needs, and individual personalities. It is also time to do research on these area and see what others have to say about all this.
