Earlier on this week I was enjoying Tim Ferris’ podcast with Jim Collins.
(Tim Ferris is a v famous podcast host, author and angel investor. Jim Collins is a v famous author. He mainly writes about how companies become great. Links: Apple. Podcast Notes)
One discussion point that really resonated with me was “Build something that will work when you’re not there – build great mechanisms.”
My cofounder and I have been on a break from work for the last month or so. We’re working max 4/5 hours a week. And during this time, things have operated very smoothly. Not a single one of our users or clients has been able to tell the difference. Building something that will work when you’re not there is sweet and it’s just so critical for your peace of mind.
Here are a few things that have helped us get here:
PS It’s been a 6 year journey with many many mistakes and missteps made along the way. Also not all these ideas came from me - I’ve learnt a lot from my cofounder, my A+ HR lead and my head of content (who’s an A+ people developer and manager).
Hiring well and hiring for ability to execute. I hardly look at resumes. When people are applying for the job, I test them on their ability to do the actual work and I test them with live problems that we’re actually facing in the company.
Being very process driven about how you work as a team and having a strong onboarding process that instils these processes in new hires. Our onboarding process covers things like “how to write an email”, “how to take meeting notes”, “how to communicate with your manager”, “how to name files on Google Drive”, “how to send a calendar invitation.” We spend a lot of time teaching people how we work so that we all have a common way of working.
Here’s an example of the onboarding plan for a new member of our events/ programs teamBuilding a learning culture. In weekly department meetings, people are asked to explain something they learnt over the past. After big projects, we ask people to document what they learnt. We have a slack channel called #WeStayLearning to share interesting articles, blog posts, podcasts. We have a learning channel, where our HR leads shares tips on professional skills every week. Forcing people to be reflective and opening them up to new ideas consistently is key. Many young professionals in Nigeria lack exposure and you have to help them correct this.
Here’s an example of notes from our content teams weekly meetings (yes - people have to send notes after every meeting)Here’s an example of a weekly note from our HR lead
Having high standards. I don’t have two heads. I’m not special and so anything I can do, you to should challenge yourself to do. This is how I approach my team members.
Spend a lot of time developing your people. We do monthly group learning sessions. No money? No issue! You can use podcasts, free Udemy courses, blog posts etc as group learning material.
Example:Investing in your HR lead. HR is often seen as a dud department in Nigeria. I spent huge amounts of time developing and mentoring our HR lead, pushing her to move away from administrative HR to strategic HR. It’s paid off for us tremendously.
There’s so much more to share but I hope this was enough for now.
What tips do you have to build a sustainable organisation that works without the owner having to be present?
This is so helpful & great job on all of this! Love your point about investing in an HR lead - I will stop sleeping on this.
I am currently in the trenches of the early stage struggle.. A quote that shaded my entire being "If your business depends on you, you don't own a business - you have a job. And it's the worst job in the world..." - Michael Gerber (from The E-Myth Revisited)
I am keen to shorten this initial struggle period as much as possible whilst building out the team + processes, I really don't like suffering....gotten a few ideas from this. Thanks!!