It’s a daunting task writing one of our company’s first blog posts.

BLANKSLATE Partners turned one year old on May 1, 2016 and to celebrate that auspicious occasion we wanted to publish start publishing first thought piece. In the way of startups, we sat around, brainstormed some ideas and then said, OK, who wants to actually do this?  And by we I mean the three of us – the two founders and me, employee Numero Uno.  Having a smidge of experience blogging and a fearless attitude, I stuck up my hand and said “sure, I can do that”.  Somehow I am now writing a big chunk of the content for a weekly blog and, on those weeks when we are stalked by writer’s block or overcommitment, fearlessly curating content.

So I’m thinking, wow, will anything we put out there ever be as seminal as Netflix’ Culture Deck, which took on a life of its own, has been viewed more than 11 million times and is one of the most quoted documents on creating a culture of innovation?  Sheryl Sandberg was quoted as saying it “may be the most important document ever to come out of Silicon Valley.”  I’m all for setting lofty goals!

We batted around content ideas that would be relevant to us – a startup providing outsourced HR services to other startups.  But as I got the thought processes churning I kept coming back to what I believe is the single most important thing, and what draws me to other writers, regardless of topic. It’s writing with your own, authentic voice about things that really matter to you.

I love Courtney from Buffer who writes on their Culture blog.  Buffer resonates with her own voice, with her passion for the company and what they are doing and her posts are well written.   And thankfully they are not another Top [insert any number you want] list of things that will make you, or your business, successful.

So when people ask me what I think is the most important people advice for a company, I will paraphrase the inimitable Patty McCord, who was Chief Talent Officer of Netflix for 12 years and one of the co-authors of the aforementioned Culture Deck.  It goes something like this:

Give your employees the context to act like business owners.  Teach them to read P&L, understand a business plan and the difference between revenue and profit (hint: you can have revenue without profit but not profit without revenue). Make sure they understand what their part is in the machine of your company, what success looks like and how they directly contribute to that.  Then maybe they will start acting like an owner.  

You can check out Patty McCord’s TedTalk, “Lessons from a Silicon Valley Maverick” here.

How do you do this? Do you need lavish, expensive off-site strategy meetings? Maybe a lot of multi-page decks with charts and graphs? Hire some really expensive consultants?  Well maybe you could do those things, but you don’t have to.  It’s as easy as talking to your people.  That’s right, just talk to them. Tell them what’s important to you and the business.  Share your dreams and leave lots of room for those really great people you hired to add their own vision, because they are innovators and innovators don’t look back, they look forward and imagine what might be.  Remember what it was that got you so excited about your idea in the first place, then share that.  Trust them to come on the journey with you.

And do you know where your company will be in 3 months, in six months or a year?  You should, and so should everyone who works for you.  You may have to “test and iterate”, you may hit stumbling blocks and have to “pivot”.  But you should have a roadmap, even if it has intersections and stop signs.

Then write it down, because in your head you are the only one who understands where you are going and how to get there. Get a great big chalkboard and diagram it for everyone to see.   Add timelines.  Nothing ever got done by people who said “we will do that someday”.  Create deadlines for yourself, the business and everyone who is a part of it, because in the real world that is the only way that sh*t really gets done.  Everything else is just talk.  And once you have a roadmap, with deadlines, start filling in the tasks that each person has to complete to make those dreams come to life.

In the HR world there are all sorts of complicated technical terms for this process of helping every single person in an organization understand what’s imperative, not just important, and what they have to do to make that happen.  But it’s been done badly so often that the Why of goal setting has been lost.

Why do we believe this stuff’s important and why do we think you should do it?  Because we want, to once again paraphrase Patty McCord, everyone to come to work every day and contribute with their hearts, minds and creativity.  And the only way they can do that is if they believe in your dream as strongly as you do and if they understand, with crystal clarity, how what they do every day makes that a reality.

At BLANKSLATE we are on our own journey (and yes we have a roadmap!) and we hope to share what we believe, what we learn and yes, sometimes even our professional expertise with you. I know how I contribute to the plan and I just had a WOW moment when I realized that, after many years, for the first time I’m actually getting paid to do what I love – writing.  Talk about motivating and empowering your employees!

 

Happy Birthday BLANKSLATE, it’s been a rock and roll first year, thanks for bringing me along, I can’t wait to see what the next year brings.

 

All pictures are from the ridiculously talented Ryan McGuire at Gratisography and free of copyright restrictions.