

How We Got Through The "Trough Of Sorrow" - bbalfour
http://brianbalfour.com/post/41889194636/startup-culture-get-through-the-trough-of-sorrow

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kadavy
I'd be interested to hear some specific ways that Brian defined and maintained
this company culture. For example, what was one vision of environment, vision,
or values, and how did that affect an instance of hiring or process?

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technotony
How did you maintain the culture through the layoffs? Didn't people lose
friends etc? I'd love to know how you executed the layoff to maintain the
culture like this.

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bbalfour
That is an excellent question. Here is a quick answer off the top of my head.

As mentioned, the foundation for maintaining the culture was laid far in
advance. The tight relationships, respect/trust for each other, challenging
and fun environment, were all things that we created from the beginning of the
company.

If we hadn't of established those things I think everything would have fallen
apart.

That being said, I think there are things you can do during and right after
layoffs to ensure you don't damage your culture.

1\. Make the layoffs swift, fair, and respectful. The longer you drag it out,
the more damage you do.

2\. Immediately after the layoffs get the group that remains together to
explain what has happened. Reassure that there will be no more immediate
layoffs to quell any fears.

3\. Each manager after the group announcement should meet with their team
members individually to give everyone to comment or ask questions they weren't
comfortable with in front of the group

4\. Focus on multiple social team events in the immediate couple weeks after.
It is important that whoever is left gets use to the new smaller group.

5\. Present a new plan of action as soon as possible to get focus and buy-in.
More importantly show that you won't be repeating the same stuff that doesn't
work.

6\. Find and celebrate some "quick wins"

The goals of all your actions during and after layoffs is to build confidence
in the leadership and team that is left.

To answer your second question, to my knowledge people stayed friends with
those that got laid off. I still talk to many of them myself.

I hope this helps.

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btilly
#1 is very important. It reminds me, in a good way, of Machiavelli's advice
that if we must do wrongs, we should do them all at once.

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adamleventhal
Brian, your premise is interesting, but the post was spare on details. What
_were_ the remarkable aspects of your culture? Did you back into it or did you
_do_ something deliberate to inculcate that those aspects of the culture?

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dobbertime
Inspiring, thanks for sharing. What are some of the lessons learned in this
time?

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bbalfour
Well besides the lessons about culture that I talked about in the article,
there were plenty of lessons about how we should have managed the business
differently prior to getting to the trough of sorrow.

The virtual goods and social gaming market were crazy back then. It exploded
and came out of nowhere. In amorphous but fast developing markets like that
you need to maintain a structure that allows you to stay nimble in order to
take advantages of opportunities quickly until you find "the one." We had
taken money from the wrong investors, hired a couple of the wrong people in
the senior leadership positions, etc that really restricted this.

