Wanna Grow?
Not hitting your metrics? Can't seem to get anything released to PROD? Laying people off? Worried about your business?
Uncomfortable Honesty is a core value.
In that vein, want to know why you're not growing? Gird your loins, cuz this one's gonna hit you where it hurts.
The talent on your team is sub-par. Everyone says, "we've got the best team", "I'd put them against anyone", "we the best music", and yadda yadda.
The problem with this is it isn't true.
If it were true, you'd be releasing major, metric-moving features to production every week like clockwork.
If it were true, your handoffs between team members, departments, and divisions would be as smooth as the gold medal-winning 4x400 team.
If it were true, your metrics would be hitching up, not flat or down.
If it were true, you wouldn't be doing layoffs.
If it were true, you'd have the best people in the world begging to work on what you're building. They'd be thinking about it at night, on the weekends. They'd be talking about it.
It wouldn't be forced. It would be organic word of mouth. No marketing campaigns, no ad buys, no SEO, no growth hacks, no "community building".
Nah, you'd have a team of killers just executing in a way that doesn't feel like work. They wake up every day to play and push the frontier forward.
The numbers are in the rearview because by the time the rest of the world catches up, you're already a decade ahead.
The problem is when you put a team of A players in a team of B, C, D, Z players. Oy, frustrations build like a teapot boiling so hot, it's screaming at you.
People don't want to work anymore. Sure, people want to get that paycheck and so will do the thing you want them to do. Collect-the-check-ers. But they don't jump out of bed. They don't dream about it. They don't do it for free.
They don't do it for the love of the game.
There are only a few of these people left in the world.
If you're out there, holler at me. We need to collect the folks who are left.
Forward it to your friend if he/she/they/it/alien are on the same wavelength.
"We're on a mission" doesn't capture it. It just is. It's exploding out of us faster than we can capture it and manipulate it.