Transition is Scary

One thing to keep in mind as your startup firm grows is transition can be very scary.  You had two founders who became ten employees who became fifty employees and now all of a sudden you are a company.

For some of those early employees, the transition might be scary. They might feel out of place.  The new employees, new role, new responsibility might make them feel hamstrung.  Might make them feel uncertain.  Maybe they have never been in a role like this before?  Maybe instead of having a focused team in one spot, you are opening up branch offices in different cities so coordination and communication will be totally different.

I don’t think you need to be a “B Corporation” to treat employees well and to manage transition.  Just lead with some emotional intelligence and transitions can be seamless.

I was thinking about transition today because of our puppy Archie.  We have spent the last three weeks up in the boreal forest of Minnesota.  Archie would wake up in the morning, hop out of his kennel and onto the deck.  He’d jump into the forest and do his business and be off the leash, chasing squirrels and chipmunks all day.  He had a friend, our daughter’s dog, and they were inseparable.

We drove back last night and Archie was reticent.  This morning my wife took him out and he didn’t want to walk.  The sounds, the park and the city were scary.  Even though he was perfectly happy there for the two weeks that we were here before he went up north.   He also has a harness on for the first time, so that’s a bit scary to him.

I think building a culture in a firm starts on Day One.  One of the things I encourage founders to do is share a cleaned up board deck after board meetings with their team.  This helps them get a handle on where the firm has been and where it’s going.

As your firm grows, I think it’s important to have open discussions with older employees about what is going on and what the expectations are for them.  It helps to track it with software like JuvodHR.  But, it also helps when the founder takes them aside and has a cup of coffee with them.

Do not ignore the human touch when you are building your company.