Lesson from the universe

In December last year, I took up such a difficult and sometimes ungrateful business as managing a technical team in a startup. It is clear that in a startup at a CTO position you encounter a lot of different problems and often not even your own.

It is believed that the universe often gives us various signs, it helps. More recently, I received an unexpected, but very timely offer to read a book about Apples. I had a business trip from Irkutsk to both our capitals, the flight takes 6 hours. I armed myself with my old iPad, into which I had previously dubbed the book authored by Eugene Butman - “Retail in the first person” and was extremely surprised.



I have not come across such a fascinating reading matter for a long time. While still on the plane, I read a book and threw myself a series of critical remarks into my company's development strategy. From the text I received a very powerful positive charge of energy that drove me to work and work hard. These six hours of flight were by far the most productive in recent times: I read one and a half books (two and a half by the end of the day), worked on a strategic plan for the company’s development, and described in detail a number of new risks for myself. Most importantly, I made a number of important decisions for working with staff. All of this was prompted by the apple story of Eugene.

It is clear that Retail has never once developed software, Butman’s book is dedicated to business, or rather, the part about which software developers in principle should not think. But if you lead people or if you participate in a startup, then you have to think about: expenses, partners, hiring staff, offices and much more. By the way, right at the moment I write these lines while sitting in the northern capital of our country, my partner signs a lease for our first office in Irkutsk.

I chose the office for our small but proud technical team. Now, after reading the book of Eugene, in which a lot of attention is paid to offices, I think I made the right choice. In any case, the book made me look from a different angle at the place where my fighters would work.

Butman's book is like a story about how kayakers overcome the steepest route possible in nature. I already had experience in a startup and this is almost the same. Both of these situations most unite stories of relationships with people. The book is simply riddled with bloody wars for staff. And from each story you can make a lot of useful thoughts, for example:

“People listened, nodded their heads, and after the summer vacation four of them left. With a staff of fourteen, it was a disaster ... ... I'm still not used to separating work from personal relationships. These were people from my team, three brought Andrei, one - I. And I thought that on their part it was a vile betrayal, a stab in the back. Then, over the years, I changed my point of view on such things. This is work, this is business. People are part of the job. There are no friends, which means there is no betrayal. People are free to choose. I didn’t like their choice, but these were my problems ... ... Low salary, hard labor for the future - that’s what I chose for myself, and it so happened that for them. In the end, inviting people to my startup, I had to take care to pay them a market salary, and no one was obliged to delve into my problems. ”

I think everyone will find what he should think about after the course of this story.

The book also has many stories about relationships with foreign employees. For example, one story opened my eyes to a relationship with an employee at one of my previous jobs. Immediately after the plane landed, I called my receiver as the team leader and a good friend, and in five minutes I explained why the prima donna, which he inherited, should be dismissed. It was the following passage that played the part of sobering up with me:

“Why didn’t we see it right away? The fact is that at that time we still felt and behaved just like the provincials who came to the big city - “Europe, ah, Europe”. As soon as we got rid of this reverence and began to treat the staff as workers, not carriers of European culture, everything fell into place. People are different everywhere - there are better, there are worse. By human qualities, by professional. "Those who are worse must be disposed of, those who are better - to promote, motivate and help them."

On the whole, there are scattered throughout the book very useful lessons in management that I should go through and learn for many managers in companies that I know. For example, I was impressed by the story with David and how he solved the problem of delays in payments (this story can be safely applied to delays in terms of time and increasing transparency of relations with customers):

“David taught me an invaluable lesson again. For several weeks since the crisis began, every day in the morning he wrote a brief report on what is happening in Russia and in our company, and sent it to suppliers. These reports initially looked frightening, but the main thing was not their content, but the fact that we were not hiding. This favorably set us apart from the general background, when many companies simply stopped paying and “went to the bottom”. To hide from creditors and lick their wounds in silence is a completely natural desire when a disaster occurs. But the only right strategic decision is to maintain constant contact with suppliers and make them understand that, although there is no money now, you are making every effort so that they do not remain unprofitable. Then, in the next crisis, suppliers will trust you. ”

And the following story is just a role model for how to conduct meetings:

The work of our group was clearly organized, there was a work plan, we met twice a week, each question was assigned to one of us, the documents prepared for discussion were sent out in advance. Each had his own point of view, we were completely different in character, mentality and temperament, often disputes arose. The work was grueling. Something we did not finish, lacked experience and knowledge. But in sum it was a very high-quality and necessary work, it completed the transformation of the company.

Unfortunately, many meetings turn into stupid hours, due to poor preparation of the participants. It’s so hard to live with those whom one of my colleagues called duers.

The book focuses a lot on relationships with partners, personal relationships and reputation. I tried on a phrase from the book "The main thing that a businessman has is his reputation" and was satisfied with the result. The developer as well as the businessman also has a reputation and for an hour its value is no less important than technical skills. After the phrase “I was in Russia and saw the eyes of these people,” he said. “And I suggest believing them,” I think I did the right thing on a business trip to build personal relationships with future consultants and partners.

I warmly recommend reading the book by Eugene Butman - “Retail in the first person” from the publishing house “Mann, Ivanov and Ferber” to all those who are faced with creating a startup or running their own business. I enjoyed reading this book and it’s possible to go through the lessons that I learned while reading this book for a long time, but I will focus on the latter. After reading the phrase “Venia can do everything, but cannot do all at once,” I laughed for a long time, because it was very similar to me, and it was at that moment that I decided to hire another person to the team. Now I’ll finish publishing this post and dial its number to arrange a meeting.