
What we did when our investors told us we weren't working hard enough - stereobit
https://blog.charliehr.com/what-we-did-when-our-investors-told-us-we-werent-working-hard-enough/
======
rdtsc
> I just don't see the urgency. It feels like a 10-5 culture, interrupted by
> lunches and coffees.

> To really achieve maximum results, we had to push our people hard so they
> were constantly out of their comfort zone.

> Fortunately, my co-founder Ben is a culture-building wizard.

> "We need to focus on creating a culture that has "high performance" at its
> core.

> Our mission was to create immediate results and discernible momentum.

> But we decided we were weak - in relative terms - at creating energy across
> the business

Are we sure this isn't a parody? It is reminding me of
[http://paulgraham.com/circling.html](http://paulgraham.com/circling.html). Or
say an article from the Onion about startup culture.

~~~
Jare
Thank you for saying this, I was worried of what I would see once I came back
for the comments. The signal-to-hyperbole ratio is near zero.

------
Animats
Here's their list of "behaviors", from their PowerPoint. (They could have put
this in the article, but no.)

\- Be challenged - This could look like: - Challenging and engaging in team
and company discussions - Picking up work that makes you feel uncomfortable -
Engaging in conversations where you feel out of your depth - Picking up new
challenges, not waiting for them

\- Give energy - This could look like: - Bringing energy to meetings -
Offering solutions to others’ challenges - Starting discussions from a place
of possibility rather than impossibility - Finding moments to support others
in the business, personally or with their work Behaviour 2

\- Drive for output - This could look like: - Always asking others if the
quality of your output is what they were expecting - Working until completion,
not just to your hours - Looking for ways to be efficient with your time -
Pick up more - don’t wait

\- Take responsibility - This could look like: - Recognising that if the work
isn’t delivered as expected, that is down to you - Owning your fuckups
publicly - Pushing yourself, not waiting for others to push you

\- Better yourself - This could look like: - Asking for feedback weekly and
reviewing it regularly - Acting on that feedback and communicating it with
others so they can hold you accountable - Self-reflecting on areas for
improvement, “how could I be better”

\- Be wrong - This could look like: - Looking to others to help you disprove
your hypotheses and assumptions - Flagging if you’re emotionally attached to a
decision - Looking outside the business to be challenged on your thinking and
for new perspectives

Notes:

"Drive for output" is a classic speedup.

None of those mention customers.

The company's product is a time and attendance system as a service, along with
personnel records. Not payroll, insurance, or retirement, though; they don't
seem to do the money functions. There's a "HR as a service" trend, and they're
a minor player. It's useful, but not high-tech.

This sort of adds up to "how to look like a tech startup when you're not,
really".

~~~
jjeaff
Wait, so if the tech isn't "high tech" enough, then it's not a tech company?

The vast majority of "tech companies" aren't doing anything groundbreaking.
They are using existing tech and tools to create tech products that people are
willing to pay for.

~~~
deogeo
Calling them tech companies is really stretching the meaning of the word, so
yes. Unfortunately, the term stuck for some reason.

------
y-c-o-m-b
My initial reaction was "these guys are crazy and have no compassion", but
honestly if this is what needs to be done to make their start-up get to a
necessary goal then maybe I can come to terms with that.

My biggest concern is this kind of "push hard" mindset and behavior becomes
normal for them even after they are a well established business. Even worse is
if this behavior is encouraged for all startups; one size does not fit all and
that's something shouldn't be forgotten.

I worked at Intel for a few years, "push hard" was the norm and it was
ruthless - they couldn't care less about my physical or psychological well-
being. That was the worst work environment I've ever worked in. I was
virtually at war with my colleagues every step of the way and no matter how
hard I worked or outperformed my peers, it was never enough. Terrible way to
run a company.

~~~
vvanders
Yup, and there's an actual business cost to that burnout. Turnover can be
brutal and if you push your key people too hard they'll leave and/or start
making more mistakes. You're also limiting your perspective to the subset of
people who can swing that sort of work/life balance.

There's a healthy balance to be found for sure but I much more subscribe to
DHH's[1] point of view than what was presented in this article.

[1] [https://basecamp.com/books/calm](https://basecamp.com/books/calm)

~~~
heyjudy
Yeap. There's only so much people can or will give without feeling used,
resentful, bitter and/or bored of being overworked and told to work harder.
It's also another example of why not to take on investors: their interest
aren't ever aligned with the founders. Their goal is to make lots of money
soon, and they don't care if they stress and burn-out 1000 people to get
there. If you want sanity, move with some impatience but workaholism isn't
healthy.

------
Tomis02
I'm not sure the people doing the actual work would agree with the CEO, author
of this train wreck of an article. Not that anyone would tell that directly to
his face.

> Our team are ambitious. They want to learn and grow quickly. By not pushing
> them we felt like we were letting them down as well. And they knew it too.

Yeeeeeeah, I'm just going to go ahead and disagree with you there, Rob.

~~~
marktangotango
Indeed, the lack of in-line comments from the do-ers is telling!

I get what the author is going for though. I’ve been a dev in do little,
coffee break, nerf gun shooting, drone flying office. That company never
changed the culture and fired almost everyone. Squandered a $30M investment.

It’s a hard hard change to pull off. The author is trying to sugar coat it,
but someone’s got to be a hardass at some point.

------
eximius
In their slides:

> Work until completion, not just to your hours

Sorry, but no. If I wanted to work more, I'd get paid hourly.

~~~
EliRivers
I'd take it, so long as it cut the other way too. Done with the week's work by
Thursday lunchtime? See you Monday morning, have a nice long weekend.

It rarely seems to cut the other way, but I understand in some companies it
does.

~~~
IshKebab
Yeah that doesn't happen because then they'll just give you more work.

What tech job has work that can be "finished" anyway?

~~~
EliRivers
I can think of software that was finished well before the latest version was
released. If the people who were paid to work on that were simply sent home
(with pay) instead, they'd be better off, the software would be better and the
users would be happier.

------
ashildr
I’m currently development manager (or whatever the proper English title may
be) of a small team putting the last touches on a niche BI product. We have
our first relevant customer and of course had to do some crunch time for a
week away from our companies office to some parts. Other than that I don’t
WANT us to work overtime but to stay healthy in every way, that means if you
have a burning you can of course check in something in the evening, but I’ll
message you, thanking you for your work and reminding you that you are
supposed to spend the evening with your kids / mso. We may need to work
overtime for a while to fix some fuckup one day, but until then I‘d consider
it a bad sign.

------
everyone
The poor dumb author. Sounds like _both_ of the conflicting work setups he's
torn between are terrible.

1\. Silicon valley style enforced fun. eg lol we're crazy here look we have a
ping pong table.

Its hard to get anything done in these places, constant distractions,
meetings, open plan etc. + I'd be happier if they just payed me the money they
wasted on frivolous crap, cus getting paid is _absolutely_ the main reason I
show up to work on your thing, and not just work on my thing.

2\. Putting in the hours.

As a programmer I personally reckon I have c. 4 hours per day of really really
high quality focused work in me (depending on the day) Forcing myself to code
when I am not in the zone would just result in worse code, more bugs, more
regressions, more work to do later. I would lose time overall and have a worse
product. (Aside from the effect of just the longer hours) it would also hurt
my motivation as the codebase would begin to become nasty + a chore to work
on.

Ive found doing a reasonable amount of top quality work every day, and never
crunching, is what gets stuff out the fastest.

------
nightfly
"To really achieve maximum results, we had to push our people hard so they
were constantly out of their comfort zone."

Sounds like a great way to increase burnout/turnover...

~~~
jamescontrol
Yeah, I stopped reading at that point.

------
t0mbstone
Investor: "Your employees are only working 10-5. You need to crack the whip on
your slaves so they work harder and make me more money."

CEO: "Ok, how can I spin this so my employees don't get angry at me. Oh, I
know! I'll make a presentation and write a blog article!"

The article represents just about everything wrong with the startup world and
the cult of workaholism. The toxicity and brain washing is real.

~~~
gnulinux
Yeah right "startup culture". It's not like tech industry is systematically
affected by this problem from smallest startup to largest Mega Corpo. It's not
like if you're a software eng it's seen very normal to work 9 to 6 and
occasional overtime plus weekend work. When I work in a startup at least I can
talk to my manager as a friend and say "I'm under the weather today, won't
make it to work"; whereas in Mega Corp big managers are unreachable aliens
living in Saturn managing their assets and "this is company policy".

~~~
econner
We used to like it especially when management referred to their employees as
"resources" .. you know.. "we have 5 resources devoted to this". So we started
referring to ourselves as meat bags. "We have 5 meat bags on this project."

~~~
iamjaredwalters
In an effort to fool us meat bags companies have moved to the term "Human
Capital" in place of "resources".

------
paulsutter
Either you have urgency or you don't. If you need to figure out how to feel
urgency, you made a big mistake raising money.

> "I just don't see the urgency. It feels like a 10-5 culture, interrupted by
> lunches and coffees"

> Fortunately, my co-founder Ben is a culture-building wizard

~~~
DoofusOfDeath
It sounds like you've concluded that there's nothing they could do at this
point, and should just pack their bags.

How did you reach that conclusion?

------
sifoobar
Told them to start acting human or sod off? I can wish, can't I?

Trying harder is never the answer to anything. People already are doing their
best, whatever that means in a specific context. And however far from whatever
expectations.

Pushing harder might very well lower productivity overall, since everyone now
likes working there even less than before. And it's very difficult to regain
trust and loyalty.

------
bargl
I like a lot of what was said here.

What I liked a lot was that this was a culture about not wasting time instead
of working more. I don't know if the culture shifted to one where everyone
works more or one where everyone works while they're at work and meets the
goals they set forth in a higher expectation team.

I didn't read all 4 posts but I couldn't see where they talk about working
longer but mostly about focusing on being cognizant of what they are working
on and how they are working. This is super important on a team. You can love
coming to work and being PUSHED to work harder and more efficiently. For some
people that's great. I love the competition with myself of getting better at
something and I really struggle in an environment where I'm not being pushed.

Anyway it's a good read and while I didn't see anything about working more
hours I might have missed it in my scan, so please lemme know if that was in
there because I feel like that's a serious mistake for a company. They should
push people to work as a better team and individual not longer to make up for
a miss on the expectations of management.

------
everyone
[https://youtu.be/r8miwsWtzRw](https://youtu.be/r8miwsWtzRw)

Homer: (in his new role as supervisor) Um, are you guys working?

Employee: Yes, sir.

Homer: Can you . . . work any harder?

Employee: Sure thing, boss! (tapping of keys increases)

------
ryandrake
I love [1] how his reaction was “We instantly knew that he was right.” Rather
than pushing back a little responding with something like “What particular
business goals are at risk, and how does a ’10-5’ working culture result in
this risk?” Or “Are the downsides of pushing people beyond their comfort zone
(burnout, attrition) worth the potential upside?”

Hopefully he at least provided that little probing against this investor’s
observation. Otherwise it was simply like he was talking to God: “We instantly
knew he was right!”

1: (sarcasm)

------
gumby
They went for the short term. To me a "high performance team" is one that can
win the marathon, not the sprint (unless the boat is drifting towards the
waterfall!).

------
antoinevg
I kept expecting this to be satire.

/speechless

------
tschwimmer
Such weak management advice. Measure performance on outcomes, not on inputs.
Telling people to work harder just isn't effective in software development
contexts. In fact, it's often counterproductive because you'll get people
shipping poorly thought out, little-desired changes that have to be supported
on an ongoing basis.

------
pdovy
Seems to me like they are asking the wrong questions here. In my experience
people work hardest when they are coming in every day really excited to work
on a problem. If nobody is feeling that way towards the product then that in
and of itself should be a big red flag. I'd be skeptical you can pull
enthusiasm out of thin air with forced culture changes.

------
matthewmacleod
Good fucking lord, I kept waiting for the punchline but it just _never came_.

Make sure you read the whole thing - it’s a treat. Sounds like every terrible
Valley culture post squeezed through a Markov chain.

~~~
toufiqbarhamov
It sounds a lot like someone failing a psychopathy screening as well. The
crushing lack of insight and stilted writing style though, makes me wonder if
this isn’t some kind of parody.

Please be a parody.

------
fouc
10 to 5 is fine, if there's intensity. I think that's what the article
essentially concludes.

~~~
maxxxxx
A lot of companies aren't really that intense during work hours but instead
just want more hours. At my workplace I often feel that the workplace is set
up to constantly interrupt work so the only way to deal with this is to spend
more hours.

An incredible amount of work can be done in a week if the workplace is set up
correctly.

~~~
gav
I've had jobs where there's an expectation that you'll do 8 hours of work a
day, but they'll also put 4-6 hours of meetings on your calendar. Most people
end up staying late or getting in early to try to get some time to do
uninterrupted work.

This to me is a toxic culture.

I hate to use the old adage "work smarter, not harder", but I've seen so many
places where people are working hard--but not really making a lot of progress.
It's almost like you have to take the good parts of Taylorism and religiously
eliminate waste.

------
econner
In my mind the only reason to work crazy hours is when you find product market
fit: the ball is rolling down the hill and you're chasing it. That is supposed
to be what it feels like. Customers are breaking down the door because they
want your product and you're fighting to keep up with demand. And yes the
"best" teams work crazy hours because they already have product market fit.

I've worked at a startup that very clearly had product market fit and one that
very clearly didn't. In the former example the early employees worked a ton to
scale the product and keep up with demand. In the latter example, the founders
felt they needed to work nonstop in the mindset that hard work for the sake of
hard work would produce product market fit. I think it resulted in a lot of
thrashing. They kept focusing on minutiae in the product when probably taking
a step back, letting things simmer, and evaluating from a higher level would
have been really beneficial.

I think successful product development requires a lot of creativity, and you
don't get creativity by sitting in a seat for 16 hours a day because that's
what your investors tell you their best teams do...

------
nevir
I think they've done a pretty good job of codifying their values via the
slides at the bottom of the first article:

[https://www.slideshare.net/AmyCowpe/high-performance-
behavio...](https://www.slideshare.net/AmyCowpe/high-performance-behaviours-
charliehr)

------
iampno
The content was a pleasant read. The left and right margins on this blog
doesn't look right on iPhone 7/8 especially when identifying high performance
behaviors were numbered.

------
magnetic
His other article about mental health:

"The elephant in the room: how do you balance support for mental health with a
drive for performance?" \- [https://blog.charliehr.com/performance-
management/navigating...](https://blog.charliehr.com/performance-
management/navigating-mental-health-and-performance-management/)

------
kornork
I'm surprised by the negative comments here.

The article isn't about creating a burnout culture, or forcing people to work
long hours.

Imo, it's not a bad thing to try to cultivate a workplace where people act
with a sense that what they are working on is important and are generally
trying to improve themselves.

That doesn't mean that everyone has to have their A game on every day and
sprint to their bathroom breaks.

------
epx
The only reason I force myself to work beyond "inspired" hours is reckoning
that my clients should pay for average productivity, not only my best hours (I
bill by the hour). AND still I feel like cheating and end up not doing that.

~~~
Robin_Message
Bill by the day and the problem goes away.

Source: I do it; every post on setting contractor rates.

------
dabeeeenster
This is the third article Ive read recently on HN where I honestly couldn't be
sure if it was parody or not.

------
sdinsn
> To really achieve maximum results, we had to push our people hard so they
> were constantly out of their comfort zone

Ew.

------
tartoran
Tldr; Blah blah blah, work harder, give your best, squeeze out all your juice
mantra

~~~
commandlinefan
After 25 years working I've come to terms with the realization that, no matter
what I do - even if it's 10 times more than the people around me - they'll
_always_ ask for more. They're not telling me that I'm not working hard enough
because they don't actually think I'm not working hard enough, they tell me
I'm not working hard enough because they're soulless bloodsuckers incapable of
human emotion or empathy who are just idly curious if saying "you're not
working hard enough" will magically result in even more.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
The cult of hard work, it’s become a religion in the Anglosphere. If I was
being really cynical I’d say it’s because working to exhaustion removes any
original thought, it keeps the victim enslaved to the system.

~~~
ilamont
I used to call it "startup theater." In the ad industry it's called "struggle
porn."

