The two most important things my CEO taught me

My last CEO taught me loads of stuff, but, if I’m to remember the two most important things it’s this:

Look after your people. Live your values.

I’ve got this advice scribbled down and it sits on my desk as a daily, maybe hourly, reminder.

Last week was tough. We had to part ways with two of our staff in New York and we’re a small company right now, two is a big number, leaving a big dent. The decision was ours. Our ambition had gotten the better of us and we simply weren’t ready for their roles yet.

The decision wasn’t personal, but the impacts of the decision are so very personal. That’s something I’m really sorry for.

Going through the steps was a reminder to the harsh, can I say brutal, standard contract between employer and employee in the States. You can fire someone without reason, without notice. That’s it.

We’re a start up, two years since we launched our product and one year since we started selling it. Every dollar is precious and making financial mistakes sting quite a bit. But I could never tell someone they’d lost their job and have them leave not knowing where their next dollar was coming from.

Look after your people. Live your values.

One of our values is ‘Be Kind’. It may well be my favorite value as I think it will guide our moral compass, especially when shit hits the fan. For our two former teammates, we were as generous as we could be and as supportive as we could be.

The process of letting them go made me wonder, without any real clue, how many companies from startups to large enterprises sack employees ‘at will’ just because that’s all they’ve ever known? And it made me wonder what I might do every day habitually, because it’s all I’ve ever done.

So I’ve made another note to sit on my desk to remind me to think differently about some of the decisions I make, to see if it inspires another path, a better answer. And we’ll be sure to check in on the ambition barometer, the next time we hire a teammate.

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