Our small businesses cannot afford the cost of these toxic corporate practices
“What is the purpose of a team meeting?”
“How to make a weekly team meeting useful for everyone.”
“What are we even supposed to do at a weekly all-hands meeting?”
These are all searches plucked from my early days of building the Podcast Ally team.
The answers might seem obvious to you, but my experiences at other companies didn’t exactly sell me on the value of team meetings.
At one job, the team gathered each Monday morning around a big oval table. We’d go around the circle, reporting on our work progress and challenges.
Inevitably, the CEO would tear one of us apart in front of the group.
Despite this, I had the sense that my fully remote team needed dedicated time to get to know one other and come together as a cohesive group. I started looking into how we could best use our time together.
I’d be happy to write about my experiments with our team meetings, but as you’ve probably gathered, this email is about so much more than how to run a useful meeting.
My corporate experiences gave me plenty of examples of what not to do with my team, and very few useful models to build on.
There's the CEO who routinely screamed and swore at her staff, driving someone out the door in tears on a weekly basis. I was one of her favorites, but all I wanted was to get out before it was my turn on the chopping block.
I interned at an agency where I was responsible for recruiting people to participate in a 2-week campaign that involved travel, daily press stops and a briefing at the Capitol – all without any sort of guidance. I did it, but looking back, all I can think now is how irresponsible it was for my supervisor to give me so much responsibility with so little oversight.
The worst moment of them all was a confusing and conflicting performance review, where I was told that I should speak up in meetings more AND that I had to learn when to sit back and be quiet. Uhhhh…what was I supposed to do with that?!?
If we’re not careful, we bring these toxic habits with us into the companies we create – because they're all we know.
You know group callouts don’t work to solve performance issues, but you sometimes do it anyway.
You would rather cut off an arm than keep Slack open all day while you’re working, yet you require it of your team.
You say you have an open door policy, but can’t keep the frustration out of your voice when a team member actually asks for help.
I get it. I truly do. It can be so difficult to regulate your emotions all the time and set the example for your team, when you’re also dealing with all the stresses of running a business.
And I’m not a mom, which means my personal mental load is so much less than most women.
But here’s the rub.
As a small business owner, you cannot afford the hidden costs of these practices.
You can’t afford to have team members hide problems from you, because they're scared of how you'll react.
You need your team members to bring all their creativity and attention to their most essential tasks, which isn’t possible with Slack notifications pulling them out of their flow states.
Nor do you have enough redundancy to make your VA feel like they can't tell you when they’re planning a career change.
These are all the inevitable results of the kinds of toxic corporate practices we’ve all become so accustomed to.
And it’s so frustrating to watch small businesses fall victim to these patterns, because it’s all so predictable.
Big businesses get away with it, because they have a lot of bloat and, let's face it, they can keep people just for the benefits.
Our small businesses can’t compete with education reimbursements or big annual bonuses.
But we can attract amazing people by offering a better place to work and then outperform our competitors by doing a better job of brining out the talent of our staff.
The business case for building a new set of leadership habits is strong.
But the truth is, I’m doing this work to make our small businesses a better place to work – for you and everyone who works with you.
Look, I’m not here to convince you that you need to build a team to achieve your goals. There is nothing wrong with solopreneurship or consulting or freelancing.
However, if you have hired even one part-time person, it is critically important that you deconstruct from any corporate programming you've inherited, because that style of command and control leadership will slow your small business down.
What habits are you deconstructing as you build your own team?