![]() Renita: So how do you find these people who have a growth mindset, who want to challenge and be challenged? That’s why we need these human interactions, where we don't only talk business. You know how you work yourself up into a frenzy when you're mad at someone and then when you see them in person you're like, ‘Oh, they're not the devil.' Renita: Wow, it just goes to show how face-to-face conversations can release the build up of tension. And Rik was right that we need to meet once a week in order to talk personally." At the end of the day, I’m super happy here. The next day he sent an email basically saying: "That was a really good talk. We would regret it, of course, but we will find somebody else.’ I changed my costume 100 times during that conversation, Renita, going between 'I understand you, I hear you, I appreciate you' and 'If you want to threaten us, you can leave the company. Bring a list of things you’re not happy about and we are going to sit in the same frickin’ office and talk.'Īnd for four and a half hours, we talked. Originally, we had said we would meet in person once a week, but he had resisted and I let it slide.įinally, I told him: ‘We need to talk, and not on Zoom. It was the middle of the pandemic, so he was working offsite. Rik: One of our employees - someone we really value - was demonstrating some unproductive behaviors, complaining to others on the team, but not to Sebastian or me. Renita: Right, we miss all the personal asides, the body language. That’s to facilitate what I call 'coffee communication,’ where we can run into each other in the kitchen or queuing for the printer, to create opportunities to talk about personal things that help us understand each other.īecause if you’re chatting online about an IT problem, you don't say my newborn baby was crying for the last three days, I'm not feeling so good. Here in Zurich, we're setting things up so that everybody is in the office a minimum of two days per week. And in-person connection is crucial, especially in our combination of circumstances: tech work is often remote, crypto favors decentralization and the constraints of the pandemic on top of all that. Someone whose ego isn't so fragile, who’s okay with being challenged and doesn’t have to know all the answers. Renita: So we're talking about a different kind of leader. At least in a startup where you need to be learning fast as hell. If your team members are not demanding at all, then something's wrong. Rik: Yes, but when you see on a daily basis that it's working, that gives energy back. Renita: It takes self-awareness and energy to manage that constant push back. It's impossible if you don't have a strong sense of yourself. You need to be showing these diverse facets - strong and flexible, masculine and feminine, etc. It's hard because when you’re working with smart people and they're frickin’ challenging you on a daily basis. So, as a leader you need to be a chameleon, to adapt to the situation, but also stay true to yourself. If we say, “Yeah, but for you we make an exception…" So people appreciate when we stick to our values. He smiled and said, "I would have been very surprised and told you that I'm not coming if you now would have offered me a lot more." “Well, I can go on the cusp of that range,” I said, "but we have an open salary policy so if I pay you much more than the others you'll need to deliver much more and this will not work at all." ![]() He did the calculation on his calculator and said, "Yeah, my other offer is 1.5 times more." ![]() For example, in one interview with a developer, I explained that we have an open salary policy and showed him the range for the IT team, including my salary. Rik: Yes, and they really care about values and transparency. ![]()
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