I have to share that this management framework is efficacious and is something that can be applied to growth.sg (when applied to Swapie/Gifting, change the performance to product). But I had this realization when my mind was on growth.sg. My interpretation to follow.
Part 1: People
I believe this must deal with intrinsic motivation, semi-intrinsic motivation, and a core focus on creating a safe culture that extracts vulnerability and open sharing of goals, aspirations, fears, and feedback.
Yes, we need to put people at the centre of business, but what does that really mean? It fundamentally lies in what keeps them coming in everyday, especially in a cut-throat, thankless industry, where criticism is in excess.
I believe we need to discover intrinsic motivations (IMs) and constantly reinforce them, almost reminding people of their life goals and why they wake up each day. We then seek to provide the environment for them to work towards these IMs (here we are not even concerned about bottomline).
Side track: Always putting people above all means engaging as a friend first then a boss. Find out what they’d love to do, and even encourage them to leave you (in the face of an offer from Ogilvy, Google, or the like) or ask for raises. Atypical of a ‘boss’, but we want to be a group that cares for them foremost.
Example: I recently interviewed a 9.9 star candidate (including the right motivation to work for an agency) who can only start 6 months from now and much as we want to offer her right away, I kept it open, allowing her to explore options, imploring her to take up Unilever/P&G offers if they come, and offering myself as a mentor.
Semi-intrinsic motivations (SIMs) deal with the less deep aspects of why people work – for relationships, for culture, for the ‘fun-loving, dynamic, vibrant environment’ and whatever fluff goes into culture decks. Of course, I don’t want to explicitly write in a culture code “we understand that people are psychologically + subconsciously motivated by relationships” – we’re all adults and know that relationships and loyalty are everything.
And more often than not, they’re built and destroyed by feelings, something harder to manage in a remote setting. It’s like being dealt with no trump cards in my hand. My strategy here is to disclaim every single feedback to be given, and proclaim everything is in the interest of the company. Of course, the latter employees care less. Circle back to IMs. Tough love.
Extrinsic – money & benefits – always round up. Our boundaries of ambition (格局) is bigger than that couple hundred dollars. Overestimate/report to the financial controller.
Safe culture extracting vulnerability means turning passive into active. I want people to come to work and share openly and freely what they think and feel, because it’s for the betterment of me (their supervisor) > their work environment > company’s profits > better work environment reinforced. Not sure if that flow is logical, but a rough sketch that I haven’t been able to articulate much.
About 1 in 4 are naturally loud, and 1 in 3 of them are adequately pensive to answer the question “how can your manager improve” properly. I haven’t met the 12th person. I consider myself the 1 in 50 who answers this question extensively with a confrontational passion and war cry pre/post, back at work. But no, no expectations here.
We also want a natural, authentic flow of conversation and articulation of opinions rather than mellow, administrator-type (we’re hiring thinkers, not typewriters). Previously in seeking compliance, many candidates in this category self-select themselves into the assessment process. Work gets done, nothing gets innovated, everything just flows, but no energy, and no excellence.
Some of the semi-successful cases get a vibe of ‘family’ and ‘coming home’ – maybe they just fit in? Or we are their home away from home? What keeps a 20-year-old in a company for so long? There must be something under the layers. That feeling, that warmth and comfort that they are in a safe cocoon.
How can we replicate the successes at swapie.co/gifting.sg and create that familial environment at growth.sg that naturally multiplies itself?
Koh Kang Liang 