Get In The Trenches
For every company, there are days when everyone needs to roll up their sleeves and get dirty. Sometimes that is figurative, where an executive might have to write some critical lines of code to get a software deployment across the finish line. But sometimes it’s literal: days when you wear clothes you don’t mind getting dirty, roll up your actual sleeves, and get to work.
Today was one of those days.
In my new role as the COO, err, CFO, err, CMO of my wife’s growing fashion business, I’m wearing a lot of hats. But, that’s par for the course in a small (and quickly growing) company. You don’t have a choice. Quite honestly, I prefer it that way…keeps the day from being boring.
My wife does it all, from designing all of the clothes to working out the kinks in the production pipeline to social media and marketing. But you know what else she does just about every day? She cleans. She sweeps. And she’s on the factory floor, every single day, arm-in-arm with the factory staff and knee-deep in the details of each production. No one is above or below any task in any company.
Today, we all got dirty. We had a serious deadline, and from the moment we stepped foot in the factory the entire team—office and factory staff together—were all in the boat rowing in the same direction.
Even when the stress levels were their highest, and 234 things more than we needed were happening all at once, we all stayed focused and worked with each other to get the jobs done. It felt good to say, “Great job. I know you’re stressed and having a tough time keeping things straight, but you’re doing a good job. Thank you.” Because we were all there working together. We were all stressed. (Make sure you’re giving that positive encouragement.)
My day ended on a mad dash through downtown Los Angeles, rushing through traffic to make the shipping deadline. When a red light left me four cars from the corner I pulled to my right through a public parking lot without slowing down and barreled onto the adjacent street, saving myself 3 minutes at a corner red light.
I needed every last second, arriving just as USPS was closing their doors. Fortunately, they know me and took every last package. We did it.
The best moment of the day was walking back into the factory and saying, “Lo hicimos! Buen trabajo todos!”
Team effort builds company character and forms bonds you can use as the structure to your company’s culture. But it requires that everyone knows when it’s time to punch in and get shit done. It requires that the CEO/owner is there too, and isn’t sitting on a beach in Mexico, sequestered, “because that’s how they get their best work done.”
Seventy-five percent of your day should be spent doing the things you’re the most dangerous at. But make sure there’s space in your day, every single day, to get out of yourself and help other people, to race across town to make a shipping deadline, or to go pick up lunch for a team who is busting their collective ass to help you and/or your company succeed.
Make sure you’re in the trenches when you need to be; hopefully, this goes without saying. Sometimes you have no business there. Sometimes you need to be doing what you do best.
But when you’re needed, make sure you’re there.
