Quitting your corporate job to join a startup? Read this.
The corporate habits I had to let unlearn in order to succeed in the startup space.
Learning something new can be challenging. Unlearning an old and firmly rooted habit is excruciatingly difficult. It’s taken me three years to turn myself professionally inside out. Going from stable-calm-corporate employment, to risky-chaotic-startup company building, I’ve had the luxury of gaining this awareness first hand. When I joined my first startup, I became distinctly aware of the habits I had formed over the previous six years in the corporate world. While I still value most of what I’d learned, I came to realize that some of these habits were just better suited for a different environment. In fact, the more time I spent starting up, the more I noticed that some of these habits were actually holding me back. So, I had to hit the reset button in order to change my mindset and make space to grow. Here’s what I unlearned in the process:
Unlearning to ask for permission.
As a corporate sales rep, I used to take pride in being able to secure high discount approvals, or get additional budget allocated to me for marketing initiatives. I understood the process inside out, and became effective at getting the internal go ahead quickly. The price I paid was the psychological dependence I formed for always needing someone to issue this green light before starting anything. This included my own ability to think and come up with new ideas. I allowed myself to have my creativity bounded within the walls of the process without asking why. You can’t always be waiting for permission to execute at a startup, you need to light your own fire, and push yourself to do things that haven’t been done before. You need to give yourself the permission you need to succeed.
Unlearning to make excuses by accepting the status quo.
There are problems everywhere, but rarely are people willing to do anything other than talk about them. The larger the organization I worked for, the easier it was for me to accept the status quo and find others to sympathize with me. This reinforced my feeling of being just a helpless victim stuck in the process. And then six months later I’d find that nothing had changed, and all I had left to console me were my excuses and my comfortable paycheck. Unfortunately, you can’t afford to just accept the status quo at a startup; or else soon all you’ll be left with is your excuses, but this time without a paycheck. Voice your opinion, embrace constructive disagreement, and try to make change for the better. Be accountable.
Unlearning to depend on instant gratification.
During my corporate days, I always knew if things were going well for me; raises, bonuses, and discussions of being on the ‘fast track to leadership’ were abundant. On the flipside, if I missed my sales target for a quarter, it became painfully apparent that some of those opportunities may be in jeopardy. Like a rabbit racing towards its carrot on a stick, or a dog doing tricks for treats, I was a coin operated sales rep dependent on my reward. Anything worth doing had to be have an immediate monetary benefit; one that was clearly visible and virtually right in front of me. At a startup, the immediate monetary benefits are often small in comparison, and any larger reward is a big risk and far more longer term. The satisfaction of solving a problem, driving growth, and impacting change you believe in has to be sufficient gratification for the short term.
At the core, there is a one fundamental shift from my corporate mindset five years ago, to the startup mindset I have now. I unlearned how to think solely for ME, and learned how to think more for the benefit of WE. As part of a large corporate organization, my mindset was always around how could I personally get ahead, personally secure my reward, and personally succeed in getting what I wanted. I finally understand why it’s so important to surround yourself by a team of people committed to the core goal and vision of the startup; the team ends up pushing each other to be better. Through my unlearning process, my mindset has shifted and I now think to myself: how can my actions help our customers, how can we build products to stay ahead of our competition, and how can I personally contribute towards growing the valuation of our company. I had to unlearn habits that were holding me back, to start growing again in a way that truly benefited my team and our startup.
Sometimes a part of a plant needs to die before the rest of it can start growing again effectively. While we’re often looking to learn new skills, sometimes we just need to focus on unlearning first.
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Image Credit: Dan Trunkman does a deep dive — iStockPhoto
