The view from the StartUp Balcony
My name is Henry May, I am 29 years old and I’m from England. I am CEO of CoSchool, an education start-up in Colombia (South America) that runs character & leadership development programs for 10–18 year olds. I’ve been in Colombia for over 3 years and working on CoSchool for 2 years and 7 months.
Moments of getting your team together are precious, there is no denying that. We have Town Hall on the last Friday of the month, 30 minute Team Huddles on a Monday morning. News to share. Information to deliver. Deadlines to reach. Every second counts. Keep moving. Right?
So I have to admit it felt like it might be a waste of this precious time when, a few weeks ago, my team and I went up to “The Balcony”. We had done a few “Balconies” before — but just with the leadership team of 5 people. “What is The Balcony?” you might be asking. A few months ago, the idea emerged from a conversation my Coach and good friend, Diana, who (citing Ronald Heifetz I think) suggested my team and I would benefit from zooming out. Stopping the mad, dizzy dance of startup life for a few hours every now and again and moving, upstairs, to the imaginary balcony. To observe the dance floor: to look down and reflect, radically, on what is going on down there for each one of us. No mention of results, KPIs, sales, or iterations.
How are we feeling? What are we finding hard? What is holding us back? What are we hoping for? What are we scared about? What’s going on inside?
Leaving laptops and phones behind, we gathered around on our big comfy cushions. Team CoSchool on a normal Thursday afternoon at 4pm in North Bogotá. A handful of Directors, Managers, Coordinators, Assistants, our Graphic Designer: we were all there. On the Google calendar invite I had put something about ‘a space to talk through our emotions’ but I definitely hadn’t been clear. And as I sat down, amongst my colleagues, I was excited but worried. What would Diana say? Am I going to be able to set this up? What if this totally sucks and they go home wishing they worked for a CEO who actually knew what he was doing?
To explain the idea of the space ahead of us, I kicked us off. I referenced a time I had expressed my vulnerability (about 18 months ago I broke down in tears, microphone in hand, in front of over 100 people saying I missed my family: a pivotal moment for me). It’s not easy to talk about things like this in Spanish and I needed some help from my colleague Laura to set the activity up. Then it began.
What followed in the next 90 minutes was electrifying. My colleagues began to share, to open, to listen, to learn. Brave story followed by brave story, as the group seemed to inspire each other to push a little deeper, to be a little more authentic with every account.
“Honestly, I’m feeling a bit lost right now. I’m not sure what my role is here and I’m worried about the future. I can’t see where I’m going to be in a few months. I’m stressed about my financial situation.”
“This year I set myself a target. I don’t know if you guys noticed but I’m not that comfortable around people. I seem confident and everything, I like to make a joke, to mess around, but actually I’ve struggled to make long lasting friendships and relationships. I can’t seem to get into meaningful relationships.”
“I’m not ready to share this with you yet, but the next time we do this I want to tell you about the therapy I’m taking.”
“I know I’ve mentioned this before to a couple of you in here, but CoSchool kind of saved my life. A year ago I was depressed. I was lacking motivation. I would sit at home and do nothing. I used to sit on buses on the way back from class and just cry. I was crying for no reason at all. Just depressed. I thought about killing myself. I was in a hole. CoSchool — and working with you guys, your optimism…it’s changed me. I’m motivated now, I love working here.”
We smiled. I dashed to the kitchen to make the tea (you can take the English guy out of England…). I felt energy & love connecting my team that I had never felt before in CoSchool. I was thinking: this is a strong team. These are strong people. These are people that I want to work for. Far from being a waste of time, this was a phenomenal experiment to have undertaken.
In 2015, as we started to grow and achieve some good early results. I spent a lot of time talking about Robert Lencioni’s famous pyramid — trust at the bottom and results at the top. CoSchool is an organization built on trust, I proclaimed many times to whoever would listen. I’m the trust guy. Trust is my thing. It sounded nice, for sure. However I had a revelation during this activity.
Trust isn’t an action or a set of behaviours, right? Trust is the result of something: authenticity. If we want trust, we must first be authentic: we must be honest and vulnerable.
CoSchool is an organization that is relentlessly authentic and we’re building trust. Now that sounds amazing.
“I’m so proud to work here. Sometimes, I look around and I’m actually terrified I might not be the right person for this job. But when I see you guys, I hear you, you talk about your weaknesses, your selves …I feel I belong. I feel like anything is possible for us.”
That last quote was from me. Thanks for taking the time to read and if you want to continue a conversation with me, I can be reached on hmay@coschool.co I want to leave you with a phrase that I saw the other day that I loved: Culture eats strategy for Breakfast. Nom!
