Inside Sanctus: Giving away your legos
Why resisting the urge to be busy could be the best thing you can do for your startup
“Well before we start to give you new stuff, take a few weeks, do an audit and see what else you think needs attention”
I noticed a drop in the pit of my stomach when George said this to me.
We were wrapping up a meeting about Operations at Sanctus. I’ve written about my role as the ‘shaper’ here previously.
Startup life in means change is the only thing that’s certain and, once again, I found my job in a state of flux. Pieces of my role had been given away and I was in Operations limbo.
I’ve been here since the scrappy beginnings when we were a team of 3. As we scale and grow Sanctus, verticals within the business are appearing. New business meetings once covered by George, our founder and myself as Head of Ops, needed a full-time person on Partner Development. Our growing partner network meant that I couldn’t give the Partners the attention they needed, so we found a Partner Manager to look after things day to day.
So there I was. A Head Ops with the two of the core pieces of her job given away.
So erm, yeah. I wasn’t feeling the most secure I’d ever felt.
I’m fairly early on in my career and this is my first role within a fast growing startup. A lot of things are new for me. I really relish the fact that I learn, adapt to change and get to think on my feet every day to solve problems. But, I find myself still having to ‘unlearn’ traditional ways of working within a business.
In previous roles I’ve had, the people I reported to made decisions on what my role would be next.
Anything short of being balls to the wall busy meant you were seen to be ‘not earning your keep’. As a wider culture, we use busyness as a badge of honour “Oh yeah soooo much on at the mo. You know how it is!” is a sentence I’ve definitely said. Sometimes it’s a shorthand for “I really can’t be arsed to go into the nitty-gritty detail of all the things on my plate at the mo” and sometimes, I probably did say it holding my chest a little higher. Feeling a little more important. In the modern world, it’s like busyness is next to godliness. Having a growing to do list can be interpreted to mean you’re needed and therefore, important.
So to be given the opportunity to actually sit in uncertainty and free time before I beefed up my to-do list made me feel kind of… nervous.
And would I be a team member at Sanctus if I didn’t dig into where those nerves come from? ;)
Have a read of this interview with Molly Graham on the ‘crazy hard’ work of scaling a startup. She refers to people needing to ‘Give away their legos’, meaning the need to part with responsibilities to take on new projects, as the team increases in size and your focus shifts.
In the early stage of your position at a startup, it’s so exciting! Look at this ‘lego tower’ we’re building, we can do so much! What would happen if I played with this block? But soon, the work piles up, busyness sets in an overwhelming amount of avenues present themselves. Needs for specificity in job roles appear- so people are hired to help out.
But then, here’s the interesting part. Nerves kick in. Those very nerves I felt in the pit of my stomach when George told me to take some time to work out what’s next for Ops.
The addition of people into a business, in places where you once stood, can make you feel vulnerable.
I certainly did.
I am so proud of our growing team and I trust them with the parts of the business I used to take care of. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit there was a chorus of “Fuck. What do I do now? Am I even needed here?” going round in my head.
But once I turned my ego and that fear-based voice down for a bit (read as, journaled, brought it up in therapy and in 1:1s with J&G. Let’s not front like it was as easy as closing my eyes and chanting “Om”) I could see the opportunity in front of me. I anchored myself back in my role of being the ‘Shaper’.
Here I was being given a gift that a lot of people aren’t lucky enough to have in their work.
Trust.
Trust that A) I was ready to move on to bigger and better things and B) that I was allowed to take my time and do that in the right way.
Graham states the antidote to these nerves in a scaling startup lies in being proactive to find a bigger and better lego tower to build. And when I was able to really look around our business, there were so many cool things to focus on!
Shedding the busyness of what had previously been my day to day, gave me clarity and the time for creative problem-solving.
When my attention shifted away from a never-ending to-do list, it turned macro. Now I was no longer snowed under with work, I could finally see the big picture of what we could achieve as a team.
I held 1:1s with the team to see what were the areas of inefficiency and there were so many things I couldn’t believe I’d missed. Juicy operational problems. Internal communication gaps. Processes that were sorely missing that could make us more stable, efficient and able to spread our mission even further.
By resisting the urge to be busy and cling to what my job had previously been, I’ve found new lego towers. Ones that will help Sanctus develop even further.
My advice if you’re in a similar position? Resist the urge to be busy. Busyness does not mean you’re important. If you’re being tasked with giving away your legos, take a deep breath and do your best to gracefully ride the waves as things transition. This is the new normal. Use the time you’ve been given to look around you to find a new goal to set your sights and talents on. Be passionate about your company’s mission and start building a new lego tower that can get you a little closer to the goal.
