What if the myth that your body renews every seven to ten years would be true? That would mean, that every decade we get the chance to reset ourselves, physically, psychologically, spiritually and emotionally. When enpact was founded, I never thought about its future time spans larger than 12 months. Now, we are closing in on our dozenth year of existence. In the early days, I called enpact my baby, which I stopped doing due to many reasons. Meanwhile, I became the father of two human kids, and engaged in other ventures too, as a consultant, partner or mentor. In these roles, I find myself asking again and again the following questions:
• Which skills and competencies do they need to succeed?
• How can we become our best possible selves?
Over the years, I started compiling potential answers. The result is this blog post. While being a founder has been a rollercoaster of ups and downs, I learned a lot about myself, others, human interaction, vices and virtues – you name it. In the end, Socrates said it best with: All that I know, is that I don’t know. With this in mind, take the following ten pieces of advice and insights with a grain of salt. The structure of the ten key learnings circles out. This means, it starts on the individual level, circling further out to teams, the organization and beyond. I am looking very much forward to receiving your critical remarks and thoughts.
I ATTITUDE
= Mindset
Is the glass half empty or half full? You probably know the anecdote of the two frogs, that fall into a bucket of milk, of which it is impossible to get out. The first frog notes this, states it, gives up and drowns. The second frog does not accept its fate. It kicks and swims until flocks of butter develop, and it is able to jump out of the bucket. Most of the time, what we experience, very much depends on how we look at things. The inspirational serenity prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr gives great advice in this regard. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.” As a decent human being, focus on things you can influence and impact, and do not waste time thinking about what others think of you.
II SELF AWARENESS
= radical honesty with yourself
Let us be honest and get ready for some tough love. You are terrible at most things! And, not half as good at the things you consider yourselves to be great at. Read these two sentences again!
Yes, this revelation sucks. But, better accept it fast. Does this hurt? Of course! But, it makes you grow and improves you. The best remedy for a successful business to thrive is to surround yourself with people who are better at the things that need to be done than you are. Or differently put: Get to know yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, and stop lying to yourself. Take personality tests, seek feedback, watch yourself on video. Then, focus on your strengths and be aware of your weaknesses. Finally, beware of the fundamental attribution error, that many leaders are prone to make: “If we succeed, it is because of me – if we fail, because of others.”
III FOCUS
= your most precious resource
Your phone, team, product, clients, investors, procurers, family, friends, etc., there are so many focus-vampires out there, that constantly want your attention. And this repeats itself, every single day. If you want to get things done, focus. Do not give in to distractions or give excuses. In order to succeed, you need to focus. If you want to put a whole in a piece of paper, the best way to achieve it is to concentrate all your power and energy in one finger and hit the paper fast. If you use more than one finger, your energy will get lost and you will fail. There are zillions of time-management advice books, but their essence is always similar. You need to do things intentionally. Be truly present in the moment. Only then you will be able to
concentrate, perform and achieve.
Depending on when your personal prime time is, make sure to use it wisely. Be it in the early morning, or in the late evening – it does not matter. What does matter though, is that you create (and implement) blockers for uninterrupted work.
IV SELF CARE
= Pay yourself first – but not in a monetary sense
It is crucial to look after yourself. Show self-love. Do things that give you energy. Start your day by doing something meaningful – for you. And, only you! It does not matter what it is, as long as it energizes you. Read, stretch, workout, meditate, play music, take a walk, paint, write – whatever your weapon of choice is, make it a daily routine to use it first thing in the morning for the first 30 minutes. You are at your best, when you are mentally and physically in good shape. Otherwise, everything else becomes unimportant, as it will go downhill anyway. The secret to a fulfilled – and ideally long, healthy – life is to build on these pillars: enough sleep, spiritual fulfillment, intellectual fulfillment, hobbies, friends and family and a healthy diet.
V DISCIPLINE
= Manage yourself to be able to manage others
“Execution eats strategy for breakfast.” Sounds lame? Yes, but it is true! The best plan and hopeful wishes will lead to nothing unless you start implementing. One of the
best books and techniques in this regard is written by Sean Covey. “Four Disciplines of Execution”. It clearly states the four required disciplines in reaching any goal. They have
been designed for achieving goals and objectives within teams, their essence is equally true for the personal level. Apply them to your HR management as soon as possible. In short, they are: Focus on the wildly important, Develop leading measures that you can control and influence, Design a compelling scoreboard, Create a cascade of accountability. My key take away is to measure the effort applied. Because, if the anticipated effort is being executed, the achievement of the results is a question of “when” – and not a question of “if”
VI COMMUNICATION
= We cannot not communicate, so we better get good at it
90 % of the conversations we have are with whom? Ourselves! This means you need to tame your inner critic to become a coach. This being said, the remaining 10% of our conversations are crucial for our interaction with other human beings. Charles Duhigg wrote the fantastic book “supercommunicators” which I urge you to read. Based on his theory, there are fundamentally three types of conversations. Emotional, Social and Practical. Misunderstandings happen – when we are talking on different levels – which is what happens most of the time. In order to align, you need to become a good listener and adapt to the conversation at hand. Also, seek to understand in order to be understood. As a leader– you are always communicating and people will always look at your reactions. Control your emotions and respond – instead of reacting. But, no matter how good you get at communicating, be aware of the quadruple versions of every story: your version, my version, what the public believes happened, and (unfindable: what actually happened).
VII HANDBOOKS / YOUR PERSONAL WIKI
= Administration
Yes, I know. This point may be exaggerated initially, especially if only two or even one founder exists. But it’s good to have guidelines, processes, methods, communication rules, etc. before
your organization grows. This allows you to do things with excellence right from the start. Draft a written blueprint of your ideal internal setup and test it. Have it grown organically as you grow your company. Use it as the internal brain of all knowledge accumulated within your company. That you can later turn easily into WIKI (People do leave
unexpectedly and take a lot of knowledge with them) After reaching a specific size, it might be helpful to break the handbooks down into topics (e.g.Comms, HR, project management, etc.) and make them available in an interactive format. On the personal level, I started taking notes as much as possible on everything – but I wish I would have started earlier. Start journaling and collect information, insights, learnings, controversies about Books, movies, music, places, people, meetings, projects, thoughts, learnings, feelings, failures etc. It is very useful, to create your personal WIKI as this is a powerful extension to your natural brain.
VIII ROLES
= Descriptions, Expectation Management
One of the trades of over-performing teams is trust. Mutual blind trust. But how can that be established? Well, it first and foremost starts with clear roles and expectations. By this, I mean
that every position within your company should have: Both an overview description of what the duties and mandates entail and a clear list of recurring tasks that are part of that role.
It would be best to have an organizational diagram of how the company interacts, which reporting lines exist, and, finally, how you plan to measure performance. Then, you can also
translate your setup into salary bands. Within those salary bands, you do introduce different steps. Having this displayed transparently with regular check-ins with your employees will allow you to avoid one of our big mistakes at enpact. Do not shy away from doing this early! We did —and it was a bad decision. But it is transparent, fairer, and better for everyone if you have the above-mentioned systems in place from a very early point on.
IX NECESSARY EVILS
= Doing things you do not want to do
This is a hard one; I wish we had learned it earlier. At times – be it directly after hiring or years down the road – what felt like a match is not – or was no longer – a match. That can be due to many reasons: personal, professional, cultural, leadership styles, and attitudes on both sides, the employer and the employee. Letting people go is just something that no one wants to think about. And it is even more unlikely while your organization is still relatively small. But here’s the thing: You do want an escalation scheme and a grievance procedure as well as the contractual means for letting people go in place. Nobody one wants it, but you must have it.
When it becomes apparent that it is necessary to let someone go, tackle it sooner than later. Be transparent but direct. Suaviter in modo, fortifer in re.
X TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
= Never stop exploring
Life is fantastic. There is so much to do and only so little time. Keep your childish curiosity and challenge yourself to learn new things. Life-long learning also contributes positively to longevity. On the team level, we tried many different concepts. Internal learning cafés, external experts, educational leave, learning platforms. In the end, this is a tricky topic, since the more I live the more I am convinced that true learning and development can only take place via intrinsic motivation.
I hope you find some of the above useful. I only which I was able to execute everything in practice, as I know it in theory…. Looking forward to receiving your feedback
