Category: Blog

Gossip is a thing. That’s why facebook gained tractions. Because spying into people lives is such a powerful tool. It gives you the illusion of being god, while obviously staying _human_.

One thing the internet hasn’t lost while growing is the “Who we are” page. Every website has it, while I must admit that rarely I find something useful in that page.

What’s it for? Who’s it for?
I am inclined to think that it’s only a way to please our ego. To stop talking about products and start talking about why we’re so great, the people behind the curtain, us, the creators.

The “About us” existed since the dawn of the web.

Can we improve them? I suppose the implict answer is yes, we can. If I were to redo one today I’ll think more about the “what we stand for” and “what led us here”. A combination of the two would be my most plausible test.

What we stand for is something people might be interested in. Our values, our ideals, our dreams.
True dreams and values, not marketing ones. Not a meaningless page full of text, but empty on emotions and context.

No, I’m talking about real values, the ones that shook your heart. The ideals that keep you awake at night, the longstanding goals for a different world.

Those are some things people can relate to, they can dream of and engage with. Those can be a meaningful about us page.

An About Us page, that does talk about us: the readers.

Everyone wants to be first. First and better. The power owned by the ones standing in the upper hierarchy.

They want to be acknowledged as the best, they take pride in what they do and show that to the world.

In doing so they are guided by something deep that doesn’t belong to the work they are doing. It’s the ego, the desire to be the best.

After those people, there’s the second place. Those who are good, great, but don’t want to be at the top. They could if they had the intention, but prefer to stay hidden, to not shed light on their work.

They are humble, silent people that each and every day do not their job diligently, make the difference and show how it’s possible to drive the world without ego. They are not interested in winning but in doing good work.

They care about the result, not the power.

Who’s first then?

What happens when you put all your chips onto a bet? It happens that if the bet doesn’t go as planned you’re broke. End of the game.

It’s what happens when we have high stakes with an uncertain future. And as you might guess: it can go wrong.

Crying is the only alternative when you have no other choice. When you failed everything.

The alternative though might have been to be prepared to failure too. Have a plan b and a plan c. Because life rarely gives you what you want.

Ever wondered why you don’t use filler words when talking with friends but you start filling each speech with “uh” “eh” when you do it?

It’s the clear demonstration that it’s not because of the skills (afterall you can do it effortlessy) but because of the stakes, the stress, the preparation.

I’ve always been fascinated by how different companies manage critical issues, problems, etc.
How do they give credit to the people working there, how do they show their appreciations for the work they’re doing.
How they communicate a low performance problem or give perks to enjoy the day to day working life.

It’s a long list of things and many people do differently.
Taking some example from Tech Companies that share this information on the public you can see many different takes.

If you look at Gitlab, you’ll see a very precise, structured document (search Gitlab Handbook) with lots of information.
It is amazing when you look at it, yet it’s missing something.
In my gut I always felt like a piece of the puzzle was missing.

Yes, these handbooks are great, but they leave out a key part of the entire process: Being human.

And I realized it only when I looked at the best in class example of it, the handbook of Basecamp.

They recently shared a blog post with some addition to the handbook and what made a difference for me was reading how they manage issues with the performance of an employee.

That’s hard right?
Well, what they wrote is nothing unusual. There are 3 incremental steps and if you continue to fail, guess what? You’re up to discussing if basecamp is still a good fit for you.

What’s different is the last chapter which titles
“What’s the biggest, most important detail missing from everything above?”
And the answer is: Support.

Then they go explaining the human side of it. Because when you write by explaining rules of a high stress condition (“you’re not performing well”) it would be terrible to think of a simple “3 wrong shots and you’re out”.
Yet they took the time to write it, to show this human side and write it in plain words.

That’s the key part. The part where the company takes a stand and says “I see you. You’re not a number. I know you. I understand you and before letting you down I’ll do all I can do to help you”.
It’s not about being a remote first company, it’s not about being a successful business. It’s about being human and honest and vulnerable.

Because only this will make a difference in the end.

You can read the doc here:
https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/performance-plans.md