You haven’t thanked anyone in a week

Skepticism can be a slippery slope.

It’s a popular and powerful mindset in the startup world, specifically when it comes to tech companies. Founders pride themselves on never putting up with any bullshit.

That gives team members, customers, investors and other partners the impression that they’re worldly and savvy and challenging the status quo on the way to greatness.

Now, when it comes to keeping people accountable and getting results, this disbelief system is highly effective. I’ve seen it work at multiple organizations that employed me.

But there does come a point of diminishing returns. The question startups need to ask themselves is:

When we allow skepticism to become our leading narrative, at what point do we lose the plot on the bigger picture?

Because too much skepticism can quickly and easily lead to paranoia and paralysis.

If you’ve ever had a meeting with a product manager to review a new design, you know what I’m talking about. Hyper skeptical people have a tendency to micro optimize themselves, their teams and their projects into oblivion.

Oh, were you thinking of pushing that amazing new app feature this week? Sorry, but we’re going to pump the brakes and do another round of changes that will take the development team four more weeks of work, plus another week of design iterations, so you can just go ahead and adjust our entire product roadmap for the first quarter of next year to accommodate for that. What’s for lunch?

It can drive a person mad. Especially somebody like myself, who appreciates and practices as much curiosity and wonder as possible, but errs on the side of speed, which typically gets tempered by skepticism to a ridiculous degree.

Blech.

Another danger of a culture with a fanatical disbelief system is, acknowledgment takes a backseat to achievement. Skepticism trumps celebration.

Leaders get so focused on looking for problems, fixing them, getting top results, and moving onto the next issue, that they forget to take a step back and acknowledge just how far the team has come.

Reflektive is one of the platforms our startup uses for people management. It guides us through everything from performance management to employee analytics to company wide surveys, but my favorite feature is the dashboard reminders.

Every time you login, there’s a box that says the following:

You haven’t thanked anyone in a week.

All you have to do is pick somebody from your team, type a few words, and let them know you appreciate the great work they’ve been doing. No skepticism needed. Simply celebration.

How many people have you thanked this week? Are you overly focused on scoring points that you’ve forgotten to high five your teammates?

It’s never too late. Find a way to acknowledge their whole person at work, not just their role, and watch what happens.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Does your team need to contend with a skeptic who attacks their ideas at every turn, or celebrate with a cheerleader who roots them on?