The Things I F*ed Up This Year
Exactly one year ago, Grand Studio became an independent company. Without going too much into the details here, 366 days ago we were part of a design group called Moment. And now we’re not.
From a business standpoint, the last year was a rousing success. We exceeded every target we established for hiring, new business, and project work. Our company now feels more mature in a way that it certainly didn’t last year. I’m not sure what the dog-years equivalent is for businesses, but I think this one calendar year translates into 11 business years for Grand Studio. We know enough not to play with the stove, an adult would probably trust us to stay alone in the house for a bit, and we generally can be relied on to do our homework on time.
From a personal standpoint, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced as much angst, doubt and confusion as what I’ve lived through in the last year. On paper, my role didn’t change much between one day and the next. On the day before our sister office in New York was acquired, I was in charge of the Chicago office for Moment. The day after, I was in charge of the Chicago office for Grand Studio. However, those two roles feel totally different. Before, I was applying the plays from a very well established playbook, and there was lots of shared leadership and responsibility. After, I realized my playbook had huge sections that were blank, and, other than the support of my business partner Andrew, I was alone and had to figure this shit out. Or else.
Although I’m still very much in the middle (beginning?) of the process of figuring out how to build a run a design studio, the anniversary is a useful milestone to step back and account for the things I fucked up this year. I’m writing this in the hopes that I don’t make the same mistakes again, or at least to the same extent. I’m publishing this in the hopes that it helps someone else avoid those mistakes, too.
Here we go.
1. I failed to sufficiently acknowledge our successes
This one is a killer. All of us at GS have high standards: high standards for quality of work, high standards for the projects we will and won’t do, high standards for the people we hire, and hire standards for our own performance. While that’s certainly not a bad thing, I know I focused way too much, too many times on the amount of work left to do rather than on the amount of work we had already done.
In the last 12 months, we did great work for really, really cool companies that could choose to work with any studio they want and still chose us. We hired 6 people full-time plus another 4 long-term contractors, and, to a person, they will be or already are better designers than I am. We were profitable, and we shared that profit with everyone. Objectively, we are a healthy, successful company with lots of reasons for optimism.
This year I will spend at least ⅓ as much time feeling proud as I do feeling anxious.
2. I did not sufficiently focus or organize my time
I used to be a machine. I could sit down and work on one thing for hours. I would start something, and then I would finish it! I would make a list of all the things, and then I would do the things on the list in order! Now, not so much.
On any given day, realistically, there are about 50 things I could do. I will have time to do maybe 20. And I will have time to do about 2 well, maybe. I have learned that I am not good at focusing when I do not have a deadline or some other voice of authority that is applying order and structure to my brain and time. These days, it’s much easier for me to skip around my list somewhat randomly, and it’s much easier for me to get completely distracted and lose the thread entirely.
I have started doing a little mental exercise. I imagine there is a Hypothetical Other Business Owner asking me every day, “What is the thing I should do today to make my company more successful.” I have one HOBO item, a few secondary items, many little things, and then a big list of stuff I won’t get to. Going through the exercise of filling this out in the morning helps me to decide where it is most effective to spend my time. It also helps me to organize my day so I can focus on the important stuff in the morning (when I have the most energy) and the small stuff in the afternoon (when I usually want to take a nap). Today, I told my HOBO that he should probably finish the blog post he’s been thinking about, and here I am.
This year, I will follow the advice I would give my HOBO so that I can focus my limited energy on the shit that matters the most.
3. I spent too much time looking out at the world and not enough time looking in at my company
Activities that are externally-facing, like getting and doing projects, give us lots of opportunities for clear feedback. Are we doing the best job we can making things for our clients? We can (and do) ask them and they will certainly let us know. Am I doing enough of the right kind of business development? Our pipeline will tell you objectively and dispassionately. This feedback makes it easier for me to focus on these activities.
It’s a lot harder for me to get feedback on inward-facing topics like “How is our culture doing?” There’s no culture metric that I can rely on, and I can’t just ask one of our designers “How’s culture?” Part of the challenge is that there is no objective measure of good or bad, success or failure. Perhaps the bigger challenge is that it’s up to me and the other leaders of this company to define what we want our culture to be. These problems are ambiguous all the way through from start to finish.
I am only able to have my job because of the work of others. It is my job to make sure that the people I work with are able to be the best people and designers they can be. This job is fucking hard, but it’s why I’m here.
This year, I will value the time spent solving our inward-facing problems as much as time spent solving our outward-facing problems.
4. I didn’t listen as much as I talked, and I didn’t seek out enough points of view different from my own.
My job is to be a professional talker. I talk to inform, I talk to persuade, I talk to educate and I talk to encourage. I think that I am good at thinking on my feet and coming up with good responses to tricky questions. I’m comfortable and confident while speaking.
These are good qualities for a leader to have.
Recently, I have made the time to have a few conversations that don’t fit into any of the above categories. These are peers and colleagues who have experiences somewhat similar to mine. I’ve gone into these conversations without an agenda to persuade, entertain, educate or gain a business advantage, but instead just to listen, converse openly, and maybe learn.
Not only has the content of these conversations been helpful, but I have been reminded that a) I may not be the best listener and b) I can be over-reliant on my ability to work through problems on my own. I can be intellectually stubborn, and that stubbornness can lead to a kind of laziness and paralysis where I don’t invite others into my thought process: I have this hard problem in front of me that I can’t muster the energy to confront right now on my own, so I’m going to put it back on the shelf.
These are bad, maybe critically bad, qualities for a leader to have.
This year, I will have more open and open-ended conversations (e.g. talking AND listening) with my peers so that I can be a better leader and person.
I’m pretty sure a year from now I’m going to look back and reflect on all the stupid shit I did in year 2 of my company’s existence. I’m somewhat hopeful that if I am able to better acknowledge our successes, use the HOBO to focus, better articulate my thinking to my coworkers, and have more conversations with my peers, at least this year’s dumb stuff won’t be the same as last years.
