Scaling passion is critical for startup success
How two founders succeeded in scaling their passion to their teams
Starting a company is no easy feat. The road is filled with hurdles, sleepless nights, and countless challenges. One of the key attributes we looked for in founders when they pitched ideas to Area120 (Google's internal incubator) was the passion they displayed for the problem space. That fire was going to be what got them through the ups and downs of building a product. I can imagine the world outside the air-cover of a big company is even more challenging.
I recently listened to an episode of How I Built This with Guy Raz with GoodrCo. Founder and CEO Jasmine Crowe-Houston. If you haven't heard it, it's worth your time for so many reasons (link in comments). Prior to founding Goodr, she spent a great deal of personal time tackling food insecurity (aka "hunger"). It was through repeated exposure to the problem that she a) developed her passion for the problem and b) started to see an alternate framing and therefore an alternate solution. It's this passion and perspective that she brings now to a company that is making a difference at a foundational level. As she's grown her company, I'm sure she's scaled her passion to her leadership team and employees.
I'm on a mission to learn more about how these passionate founders have successfully scaled their passion and conviction to their leadership teams as they've grown their companies beyond the startup stage. Does the approach differ for "mission-driven" companies? Or do non-mission-driven companies even exist?
After prompting my network on LinkedIn I was connected with two founders (yup, that’s it — but still amazing conversations): Charmaine Green-Forde, SPHR, SHRM-SCP and Matt Wallaert. (Read more about the connection in the gratitude section below). As promised, here’s what I learned:
Caveat: It’s near impossible to replicate a founder's passion and conviction: My interviewees questioned the very premise of my provocation. “No one can do it like you do,” they said. A founder’s passion is unique and no one can replicate their level of excitement and commitment. If that’s agreed upon (I’m still not sure I agree …), then we can move on to discuss the practices founders can employ to make their teams care more.
Work to align vision, mission, and purpose: Share your journey and help people understand your motivation. This can be by telling them — but may be even more effective by showing them. Show how you developed your motivation by taking others on the journey with you. Help them experience what you’ve experienced. (I’ve got more to say about this at a later time. I think this has a lot of overlap with my earlier post, From Insights to Intuition).
Focus on building an emotional connection and intrinsic motivation: Make the team’s connection to the mission an emotional one — even better, make your connection to them, full of emotion. If they feel the mission, the motivation is more likely to move from being extrinsic (motivated by external factors) to intrinsic (deep seated internally). Don’t just get them excited — go deeper.
Help people to feel comfortable internalizing and expressing the mission in their own way: The mission may not manifest for others as it has for you. So — let them be themselves. Let them talk about how they feel about the mission. Give them a venue to shine. Support their unique interpretation by giving them the space to experiment and show you what it means for them in practice.
Clear communication and respectful leadership: One of the immediate responses to my LinkedIn posts was, “Passionate founders have the ability to proselytize their passion onto the rest of their company.” Yes. True. Make sure you are a clear communicator. And then follow that up with a leadership style that allows for others to see you embodying the mission.
Go beyond mission and connect on value: What is the value that your team connects with most deeply? Getting back to Point 3 above re: emotion — what gets them emotional? If they’re hyped around the business being successful, then build out that story further by talking about the value generated for the business. If they’re all about the effect that the product will have on people’s day to day lives, detail out that value.
Understand the “promoting” and “inhibiting” pressures and experiment with real outcomes: First off, what is it that you want people to do once they “believe.” Then, what do you think is going to cause them to “believe” more? What is keeping them from believing? Experiment with these pressures to find out how to tangibly have an effect on their belief. (e.g. You want people to work longer hours as a sign of their dedication; Does your change have an effect on their behavior?) Try various approaches to align with your team’s needs and see what produces the desired results.
Do you have more ideas on 1) who I can interview or 2) how founders can scale their passion? I’d love to learn. Please reach out to me at asif@listenlabs.io or find some time on my calendar by clicking on the button on my site: www.listenlabs.io. Excited to meet you.
Gratitude
Thank you to Guy Raz for continuing to inspire me with his work on How I Built This. Thank you to Jasmine Crowe-Houston for founding a fantastic initiative in Goodr and inspiring others by telling her story.
Sometimes all you need is a single conversation to completely transform how you think. Thank you to Carrie Peralta for introducing me to Charmaine Green-Forde, SPHR, SHRM-SCP. Charmaine challenged my thoughts from the very start of our conversation and we ended seeing each other so much more clearly. And thank you to Sylvia Long-Tolbert, PhD, MABA, MBA for introducing me to Matt Wallaert. Matt took what I perceived to be all art and made it into a science, complete with experiments and outcomes. Thank you for bringing a sense of practicality to my madness. It was a pleasure to meet you both and I’m looking forward to staying in touch.
