Month: July 2013

Are you in love with your company?

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I know it's not Valentine yet but I'm full of ...
Photo credit: Wikipedia

I have a confession to make: I fall in love with companies. And when I do, I obsess about them. I read back blog posts. I stalk employees and founders. I gather as much information as I can about them and subscribe to their mailing lists. If I’m in touch with people from that company, I occasionally pull out past emails and cuddle up with them at night.

Okay, maybe not ACTUALLY cuddle up with them at night, but you get the picture.

I often fall in love with the company where I work, and even after I leave some companies, I maintain my obsession. I pull out my old HubSpot sweatshirt (that says “we bleed orange” on the back) and wear it when I’m feeling blue. And you will pry my Kindle out of my cold, dead hands (not that I’ve left Amazon, but I just wanted to make that clear).

Being in love with my company gets me through the rough spots. Nothing is perfect, and sometimes I have tough days. You know, when I’ve overslept, been yelled at three times, and had my computer crash all before 10am.  When I have a chance to catch my breath after a rough spot, I can step back and remember why I fell in love with the company, and it provides me with a much-needed attitude adjustment.

When I was in legal, I wasn’t always in love with my company. I was, however, massively in love with the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA). My love of ILTA got me through the days when water poured through the server room or the SAN crashed hard. And then that love just wasn’t enough any more and I moved to HubSpot.  After I’d been at HubSpot for a while, I realized it was just like being at an ILTA conference EVERY DAY. The difference between being in love with an organization that had a yearly conference and being in love with a company where I worked was, well, night and day. My energy level quadrupled, and my tolerance for crisis went off the charts.

I have to ask: Are you in love with your company? When you step back from the day-to-day BS, do you love it? Do you still believe in your gut that your company’s mission is right? Are you obsessed with your company’s future?

If you’re not, why are you still there?

Does your staff feel safe?

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CSF-Safety Vest & Triangle Kit
CSF-Safety Vest & Triangle Kit (Photo credit: redi-medic)

I was recently reading an article about why Agile implementations are failing (yes, I’m a total geek), and it got me thinking about safety. I haven’t thought much about safety explicitly (beyond being an Amazon Safety Czar for my floor, which is different from emotional safety – I have a bright orange vest :)), but now I realize how important it is for your team to feel emotionally safe at work.

If your staff doesn’t feel safe, things might get pretty rough.

  • They won’t trust you or your company. Everything you ask them or tell them goes under a skeptical magnifying glass and is hyper-analyzed. They may become hyper-critical
  • They’ll probably start looking to leave. Honestly, the moment I stop trusting my company, I brush up my LinkedIn profile and start checking TheLadders for likely postings.
  • They’ll stop telling you things that have gone wrong. They’ll be scared of your reaction and will delay telling you any bad news for as long as possible. For me, this is a nightmare situation, because I sincerely value the opportunity to work through issues WITH my team.

I’ve been thinking of ways to identify when folks don’t feel safe, and I’ve come up with the following:

  • Defensiveness. A few years ago, I found myself getting weirdly defensive whenever I received any feedback. I thought I’d gotten beyond a lot of defensiveness in college, but it was back with a vengeance. In retrospect, I firmly believe it was because I had stopped feeling safe with my boss. Because I expected to be attacked, I responded defensively to everything.
  • Lack of communication. Sure, sometimes folks are just quiet, but if you start not finding out about things that go wrong until MUCH LATER than they knew, guess what’s probably happening?
  • Work ethic nosedive. Heaven knows, I have no issue with Facebook use at work, but if a geek stops producing and never seems to be looking at work stuff, you probably have a problem. It’s most concerning to me when I see a shift and can’t come up with a reason for it (e.g., burnout or home “stuff”), since it could be a safety issue.
  • Crankiness. Do you have a geek who just seems to be a sourpuss? Okay, so they might just have dealt with a cranky user, but ongoing crankiness may be a sign of a safety issue.

I haven’t been thinking about this issue for long, so I’m sure I’ve missed things. What other safety warning signs are there?