My return to the internet this week was filled with too many articles and posts commenting on two distinct issues. The first was why ChatGPT can’t count the number of ‘R’s in the word strawberry (if you’re confused, please go learn about LLMs). The second were responses to an essay by Paul Graham called Founder Mode.
Not My Take
I’m really not qualified to discuss whether Graham is right or wrong, but I did want to comment on my take of the crux of most of the arguments. Most of the hubub centers around one bit of founder advice. Graham’s essay - recalling a speech from Brian Chesky, recounts this advice for founders:
Their advice could be optimistically summarized as "hire good people and give them room to do their jobs." He followed this advice and the results were disastrous.
Then the internet went into a frenzy of whether to give employees autonomy or to micromanage them” them and I tuned out.
A Framework
I’ve never been a founder. I probably will never be a founder. But I know how to run good organizations, so the fundamental advice in the article ticked something with me, and now I’m going to spiral down a rabbit hole that probably sums up to an “it depends” answer.
My variation on the advice above - which I think I stole from Steve Denning (even though I can’t find the quote in his books) is this.
Give people a framework they can work in, and then get out of their way
So now let me push the founder mode discussion aside as much as I can and tell you what having a leadership framework means to me.
Principles and Values
A framework is the principles or values that help guide the team on how they’ll get work done. Values (deeply held beliefs or ideals) and principles (rules that provide the foundation for a system of beliefs) can both be used to help provide that framework.
At Unity, for example, we had four company values that provided the framework for how we worked. In It Together (we worked with each other across the company, never against each other), Best Idea Wins (regardless of seniority, everyone’s ideas were equal), Users First (always do the right thing for the customer), and Go Bold (try hard stuff - even if you fail). For a while, these values provided a strong framework for how we got things done.
My Framework
For many years, I’ve stressed trust, fairness, and adaptability/learning as the base values needed for team success. Add to that the principles of Accountability, Psychological Safety, and Transparency (I wrote about this in Breathe), and it provides the framework that I’ve found teams can excel in. It’s not a blueprint, but it works for me - and I’ll continue to tweak and modify and evaluate the framework.
Without trust, collaboration and decision making suffer. Without fairness, teams won’t feel safe in making decisions and working together. Perhaps most importantly, valuing learning and adapting to change is critical for any knowledge work.
My Framework + GenAI
I try to walk the talk with this blog/newsletter thing. I write about things I believe, and things I see working. I was curious, so I fed all of my blog posts into an LLM and asked it to tell me about the Values and Principles of the author. What it came up with isn’t wrong by any means. I can’t argue with it, and it feels right (despite being nothing but a bunch of words stuck together by a computer).
Here’s what it came up with when I asked it, “what are some of the values and principles of the author?”
Values:
Trust: The author frequently emphasizes trust as a cornerstone of effective teams and relationships. Trust is seen as critical for collaboration, innovation, and organizational success. They value building trust through consistent actions, honesty, transparency, and empathy.
Learning and Growth: A recurring theme in the author’s reflections is the importance of continuous learning and being on a "steep learning curve." They value intellectual curiosity and the willingness to take on challenges that push their abilities.
Honesty and Vulnerability: The author values open, honest communication and vulnerability, seeing them as vital to building trust and fostering a productive work environment.
Self-reflection: The author frequently engages in self-reflection, valuing it as a tool for personal and professional growth. They use it to assess their actions and decisions, ensuring continual improvement.
Collaboration and Teamwork: The importance of teamwork is another key value. The author highlights how trust and collaboration lead to successful outcomes and better problem-solving.
Principles
Transparency: The author operates with a principle of being transparent in communication and decision-making. This is tied to their belief that openness fosters trust and accountability.
Empowerment: A principle the author follows is to empower others by providing them with the right tools and frameworks, then stepping back to let them perform. This aligns with their belief in enabling team members to grow and make meaningful contributions.
Resilience and Adaptability: The author operates on the principle of adapting to challenges and maintaining resilience, especially when faced with difficult tasks or steep learning curves.
Accountability: The author strongly believes in taking responsibility for one's actions and ensuring that teams and individuals are held accountable for results. This accountability builds trust and drives performance.
Iterative Learning and Improvement: The author follows an iterative approach to growth, both personally and organizationally. They believe in trying new things, learning from mistakes, and continuously refining approaches.
I like that this reflects who I am pretty well, but I admit that I’m a bit disappointed that Psychological Safety isn’t called out anywhere. Given its importance, I should probably write about it more to tweak the model.
Also definitely worth noting - what I’ve done above is a much better use of GenAI than couting ‘R’s in strawberry.
Implementing A Framework
Regardless of your framework, it’s meaningless if it’s not a clear and emphasized part of how your team does work. At a minimum, you need to define clear goals and boundaries, give teams the support they need, and continually celebrate the behavior you want to see.
Some tips:
Establish clear outcomes and objectives for the team
Provide guidelines on areas like budgets, timelines, and compliance to give teams direction, but without being overly prescriptive.
Ensure that teams have access to the tools, information, and training they need to succeed within the given framework.
Trust the team to make decisions on day-to-day tasks and problem-solving. Leaders should act as coaches, stepping in only when needed or when strategic pivots are required.
Encourage ownership - when teams feel ownership over their process, they are more likely to feel invested in the outcomes.
Give teams the space to experiment and iterate on their processes.
Offer guidance on demand - make yourself available when teams need help or hit roadblocks, but avoid unsolicited interference unless absolutely necessary.
When you see team members living the values or principles of your framework, recognize it. Thank them, celebrate it, or otherwise make sure everyone knows how helpful it is to work within the framework.
In the end it’s not up to me to tell you how to run your organization (nor should anyone really be telling Paul Graham that he’s right or wrong). We all do what works for us - and hopefully we all learn and adapt when we find things that don’t work.
Autonomy is important - actually critical for knowledge workers, but autonomy doesn’t work if you don’t balance it with accountability. A framework provides guidelines and rules that can help people be accountable - while we give them the room to use their brains.
-A
“Autonomy doesn’t work without accountability”. Getting this tattooed on my forehead.