Teams & Growth

Death Zones, Comfort Zones and Growth Zones

When you are a very small team, anyone leaving is betrayal and it is hard to reconcile, even if you end up actually better off with the person leaving the team. You are always better off with people leaving the team but you don’t know it yet as you are afraid. Unless it is a case of your co-founder leaving to another country because he has to go get married and he is dragging you along but you stubbornly resist.

Then there is actual betrayal. Sneaky people without a spine who think they know the secret sauce and would be better off doing it on their own. It hurts you not just because you had faith in them that was shattered. It hurts you because it becomes harder for you to trust the rest of the team unless they all hate the traitor more than you do and you are the only one pleading for them not to go on an all out vendetta. But you still worry about traitors as you can’t prevent those who left from polluting the minds of those who stayed. Your model changes, you change and all innocence is gone.

When you become a larger team, you start worrying about payroll and other team dynamics. Managing people becomes 99% of your job. The 1% time you devote to growing the business is what pays the bills then you wake up one day, get an epiphany and fire all 21 of them.

The day you fire the first person is the day you truly become an entrepreneur. They say hire slow and fire fast, but it is a double edged sword. The fear of firing by a leader is not a good way to motivate teams, the best way to fire is for the team itself to fire assholes. If there is one book on team management I love, it is “The No Asshole Rule”. It is a gem on how to deal with unwanted office politics and those who start it.

Usually assholes don’t work alone, they have co-conspirators. The team knows where the assholes are hidden, they just round up the assholes and fire them or encourage them to leave.

When your team learns self correction, you also enter a dangerous zone called “The Comfort Zone”. People are prone to selecting people who agree with them or who have similar beliefs. Dissenters are not encouraged even when they are actually being truthful. Healthy conflict becomes rare and you end up with a “kumbaya environment”. The “No Asshole Rule” can then be abused and you actually end up with more turkeys than eagles. It is very very easy to slide into the comfort zone and it easier to slide from there into the “death zone”.

The “Growth Zone” does not happen by chance or by itself. It takes a lot of effort to sustain it and you must constantly destroy and recreate even as you grow. You MUST NEVER EVER get complacent. You must inspire, educate, comminicate and innovate. You must lose sleep and be paranoid because “Only The Paranoid Survives”.

Growth Zone teams don’t give a flying gnat about the market or competition. They driven to prove to those who have left the team that they had (and still have) no imagination. Most people who leave to do the same thing elsewhere actually have no imagination. Growth teams have imagination, they are inspired by the future as they are in touch with it. They just don’t see the future, they want to dominate it.

Growth zone teams don’t always agree with each other on direction but they are willing to take risks to test assumptions or prove each other wrong. They are also quick to adapt when there is need for course correction. They are lean, mean, hungry and passionate.

Everything I have learned about growth and teams in 20 years is counterintuitive. People work best when left alone and not when they are “managed” or “herded”. People who leave do not always take others with them, in a great place, they actually inspire those who stay to prove them wrong.

Sometimes it is also best to fire entire teams to achieve growth than to fire a few people. When people leave your team, be happy because it allows you to see what they were unhappy about and make changes. Never beg anyone who wants to leave to stay as it is denial.

Growth comes from new thinking and not refurbishment.

Companies grow when people grow in maturity and not just because of leadership.