Clarifying Confrontations

Whenever you try to do something new a confrontation is inevitable.

This inevitability is literally baked into the daily reality of start-up life, but exists just the same in any other established business whenever anything without a defined process is attempted.

In start-ups you begin with zero processes - every action literally creates a new process. If you are a company of one, these confrontations are just with yourself, but when you add even one or two other employees the confrontations are never ending.

While most people assume confrontations occur when it's time to make some big, difficult, important decision, in reality - and in start-ups in particular - they arise more often when it comes time to decide or take action on some mundane issue.

Take today for example.

Last week it was decided that Cent should Tweet more to help start spreading its unique brand and message.

Great. Of course everyone agreed, but no one defined how that should happen (note: in hindsight this 'how to proceed in excruciating detail' probably should have happened - lesson learned).

So that takes us to today where I came up with a little Tweet based on an article another employee shared the other day. I sent him a draft, he made some edits, I suggested a slight modification, and he pulled the trigger (since I don't have admin privileges).

As soon as that happened a third colleague jumped into the Slack and asked why they weren't consulted about the Tweet first.

Short answer: there was no process.

This individual had a few suggestions and wasn't super thrilled about the tone we used in the Tweet. It's important to note that this person has been the voice of Cent until now, and his demand to be included in the process heading forward was totally on point.

So what happened?

We set a new process for Tweeting: in the 'Tweet Bucket' tab I had set up earlier in Airtable, we applied a 3-gate system. Now anyone can suggest a 'Draft' that can either get 'Discarded' if it isn't right or 'Reviewed' and polished before getting 'Tweeted'.

One of the qualities I admire the most about Cent is the high level of quality and simple yet solid nature of the product. This has been achieved by a relentless focus on small details.

If we want to convey this quality in our Tweets, we need a process that will help us craft quality Tweets in a consistent voice and tone.

I am so happy that I was able to be a part of a minor confrontation that clarified a new key process in the Cent Slack today. In fact, I hope that we get into many, many more in the days, weeks, and months ahead;)