Should You Hire Workaholics For Your Startup?
The hubbub over Jason Calacanis’ post How to save money running a startup is completely absurd. Congratulations to Jason for causing a colossal sh*t storm where none should have existed.
He provides some great suggestions for things you can save money on. I’ve made plenty of suggestions on stuff you shouldn’t spend money on when starting a business but he’s got a few tips I hadn’t thought of.
What people seem to have reacted so negatively to was Jason’s point about hiring workaholics. He had so much negative feedback, he actually changed the item in his list:
Fire people who
are not workaholics.don’t love their work… come on folks, this is startup life,it’s not a game. don’t work at a startup if you’re not into it–go work at the post office or starbucks if you’re not into ityou want balance in your life. For realz.
And what exactly is the problem with that statement? Nothing. You should hire workaholics. They should also love their work and be passionate about what they’re doing. Workaholics alone are useless, because if they don’t love what they’re doing, their work will suck. All they’ll be doing is producing more of it…
I read Jason’s original point and thought, “What’s the big deal?”
Of course, I don’t know what Jason’s original intentions were with his suggestion (maybe he is a brutal slave driver) but here’s my take:
- You have to hire people who want to and can work hard. It’s not about how many hours they put in, sleeping under desks at the office, etc. It’s about a dedication to working hard, getting things done and seeing things through.
- You have to hire people who are passionate about the business. If they’re not passionate, they’ll fail you. If they are passionate but lazy they’ll fail you. They need to have a strong work ethic, a sense of responsibility (to you, their peers & the business) and they need to be passionate.
- You (as the CEO / founder of the startup) need to motivate passion. This is where Jason dropped the ball. Yes, he suggests fancy chairs and a good espresso maker. But in part, he suggests some of those “perks” to keep people at the office and working. That’s fairly common advice, but it’s stupid. You don’t buy employees lunch, coffee, etc. to keep them chained to their chairs, you do it to thank them for their hard work. You do it to bring the team together and develop camaraderie. You do it to inspire them, because you care. The more you care about your employees - and show that to them - the more they’ll give back. If they’re hard workers. If they’re lazy, or they don’t care, it won’t matter what you do. And you can’t afford to take time trying to turn lazy people into hard workers; so don’t waste your efforts or perks on them. Dump them.
37 Signals recently announced some changes to their work environment. One of those is a 4-day work week. In my mind, this is an effort to reward and motivate the team. You don’t think the 37 Signals guys are hard workers? 37 Signals is able to implement this effort because they work so hard. Whether you define them as workaholics or not is irrelevant, they’ve worked hard, put in their time, had success and are now able to benefit from that by implementing changes to their work environment.
Jason’s trying to force “workaholism” at his startup. And you can’t. It doesn’t work. You can’t throw money, coffee, food or fancy chairs at the problem. At the same time, passion isn’t enough. You need to hire people who are:
- hard workers
- believers
- team players (they need to feel a sense of responsibility to everyone on the team)
- active learners
- smart workers (you can’t measure a startup employee’s value in terms of hours worked alone)
- willing to go the extra mile … and then some (the closest thing to “workaholic” in terms of semantics)
I don’t think Jason wrote the post in the best way possible, but I also think the resulting backlash was way over the top. People are playing word games with something that should be more important than that — hiring top-quality people, building great teams and aiming for successful startups.
Startups need to run on the blood of workaholics, ’tis true, but you’re right to classify the breed of workaholic necessary — a dedicated, passionate, motivated and level-headed one. People who LIKE staying late, working weekends and sacrificing personal relaxation for fame, fortune, or at least the promise of being able to pay the bills in the very near future.
However, there’s a proper way to phrase everything, and coming across like The Guy Who Finds Nothing Wrong With the Puritans isn’t going to ingratiate Calacanis with the denizens of the real world, who DO value balance in their lives and (perhaps correctly) perceive the startup space as a place where antisocial people with self-worth issues go to get rich and die young.
To each, his own. And to the man making a fortune off the blood of the workaholics? The universe has a better understanding of “balance” than you do, so listen when it starts talking.
You are right. And so is Justin.
It seems the whole issue is one of communication. We should phrase the words carefully. Wanting a hardworking, passionate, team playing etc., worker is understood, and accepted. No problems there.
Perhaps Jason spoke a little harshly.
What I would really like to read more about is what a start up, with little money, big dreams and no name in the market place can do to help a worker achieve his dreams.
It would be great if you could give some thought and ideas on this.
Regards
A real interesting read!
I used to work in a startup where a substantial amount of money went into laminated motivational posters, a phone system, plants (including maintenance) and a matching office desk and wall unit with a built-in wine refrigerator and closet.
That being said, I thought Calacanis’ post was actually quite sensible. It’s unfortunate that people jumped on what could’ve been a few unfortunate hyperboles. For realz.
One should bear in mind that these were money saving tips and not management tips.
Ben,
I wrote a post that keyed off something that Calacanis wrote, but wasn’t purely reactionary either. Managing any group of people to optimal performance is not something that can be boiled down to a single sentence, something I have learned the hard way over the years. Similarly, I have learned that hiring people is the easier part of the equation, it’s keeping the good ones that is hard.
Ben,
An interesting debate here. My view is that the tendency to work around the clock is tied to age. Young startups often hire young people, who don’t have a ton of experience, but will drink Red Bull like it’s going out of style and work like crazy.
On the other end of the spectrum you have startup veterans, who, at this point, may have families. These folks work less but work smart (or at least they should).
Personally, I take a mixed approach. It’s all about situational awareness: when there are urgent issues, priorities or deals - I’m all over them and will close them FAST. The rest of the time, I work smart and hard, but not crazy.
One final comment: the right startup leader can get peak performance out of a team regardless of their age. At my last company Terrascale, the team there worked around the clock. They’d go home for dinner, then clock back in and run tests on their code, fix bugs, etc. They (and I) were always on call.
It was not sustainable long term, but for me anyway it was a game changing experience. It elevated my game and made me a better, tougher operator.
So, Bottom line: there is no one right answer.
Most importantly, whether start-up or not, if your staff do not buy into the vision, they are not going to work hard. Can yo sell your vision, is the question.
Back in my start-up days, one of our investors said that there are two traits a person needs to be in a start-up - capacity and commitment. I always thought this sums it up.
To get people to join you itself is a big problem when you are a start up. The people who join, are usually the type who want to enjoy the excitement that a start up provides. They already have a vested interest to see the start up succeed. They would automatically work much harder than if they were to work in an established set up.
The problem is calling such committed workers as workaholics. They are most likely just wanting to see the starting problems solved and get the business on strong footing.
Interesting article! It can be hard to find really dedicated people at the start, so your job as the boss is to motivate them.
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Thank you for all the comments so far. I appreciate it.
@Jeff Nolan: Jason does have a way of “inspiring” others to write about him, or the subjects he takes on. It seems (and maybe this is for another post) that much of the benefits a company offers should be as rewards, and work more effectively that way, versus as motivation - since the best employees are already motivated enough. Any thoughts on that?
@Audiomecca Webmaster: Workaholics isn’t the right term, I agree. People that join a startup should already be committed enough to work hard when necessary, and realize that it will involve more work than another type of job at a more established company.
@Ben the best employees are motivated by a combination of working on something intellectually stimulating, working with smart people, and making money… in that order, based on my experience.
The rewards angle is interesting to consider, but I believe that the best employee satisfaction strategy is to constantly remove barriers that get in people’s way. Google is really good about this with their engineers, they create an environment that is as friction free as possible for people to exercise their creativity, while at the same time working in concert to execute on google’s mission.
[…] Yoskovitz of The Instigator Blog went deeper into the issue of whether to hire workaholics for a start up, and lists his choice of character traits he would want his workers to have. It is clear that we […]
@Jeff Nolan: I agree with you in terms of what motivates employees. And I agree that removing barriers is key to the satisfaction strategy. Being able to supply good equipment, the tools employees need, not bogging employees down with things they don’t need to worry about, etc. — allowing them to focus on the task-at-hand…
I think rewards don’t necessarily serve as motivation, but they do create a positive work environment. And that helps in creating an aura of interest around the company from other potential employees.
You want others (outside the company) congratulating new employees when they get hired. You know if that happens you’ve created a strong work environment and a good story/aura as well that’s permeating into the community.
start ups really do require a lot of work as well as a lot of “extra work”, thus requiring the need for workaholics, or at least efficient workers (people who can manage their time very well and know how to prioritize). good points made though
Thank you Ben.
great post Ben — the distinction between taking steps to chain people to their chairs vs. reward/inspire them is an important one!
I’m currently working in a “start up” and without the hard work of the whole team we’d be nothing. One person can bring you down so the points here are very spot on.
@VC Dan: You mean chaining employees to the desk ISN’T considered a reward?!?! Hhhm…
Great post. I guess it’s not the amount of work your employees put in, but the return for their work. It’s important to have people who believe in what their doing and have a clear purpose and goal for a startup. 4 good purposeful hours can be better than 12.
[…] top talent for startups is hard. In a recent post I weighed in on the debate about whether or not startups should hire workaholics. Within the comments on that post, Jeff Nolan said something very interesting (which may appear a […]
Everybody can be a workaholic at start-up if he believes he is a part of something important happening, something that wouldn’t be possible without his personal participation in it… But still, people should be encouraged all the time, not with coffee and chairs, they should see they will have career growth + better salary + job that keeps being interesting (changing quite a bit) as the dull monotonous job kills the wish to work even if well-paid (in most cases) and even in avid workaholics:)