SeasonsAffect People & Companies
Affect People & Companies
Life is a sum-product of our actions & perspectives. There are good and bad choices that we all make to contribute to our overall purpose (or lack of). Plot these on a graph, and you have our overall happiness. For most people, this graph tends to move in cycles of ups and downs, or as many use the clichè — like a rollercoaster. And that is so so true. We go through life expecting to develop routines: things we follow religiously without considering the effect of nature. Our moods largely dictate our trains of thoughts and the capabilities of the decisions that we make.
As Jason Fried puts it, “People have seasons.”
So rather than try to fake nature out, it is best to accept that we go through things in a cyclical phase. Emotionally, that may mean some parts of the year we are really happy (summer) and others more insular (winter). Of course, these cycles are shorter than the traditional solstice months, and can even vary week to week, day to day, or even hour by hour.
Call these mood-swings. Sure. So how can you best deal with them? Accept them.
The same logic can be applied to how a company operates. Company’s, just like humans, go through different seasons.
And the only thing we can do about it, is expect it. And adapt.
I find it bizarre that founders and business leaders expect “blanket-strategies” to work when the dynamic of a company is constantly changing. During some time-periods, organizations may be all external — selling, selling, selling. But there are others, call them the winter months, when the priority of the company is to build products internally.
Knowing this, we can better build procedures that account for internal prioritization and mood-swings.
Being able to do this is a luxury, something that companies at scale have trouble doing. That is why companies try to stay small for as long as possible — so they can maintain a fluid culture. And its true, startups are able to handle these seasons much better than large companies.
Though, beneath the “flat-line” structure of a startup, there is always an overarching mission, built into the culture of the company.
Somehow, someway, founders must be able to balance that core mission with day-to-day tasks to best devise a roadmap for the future.
EVE is doing an incredible job maintaining this form of fluidity and rapidly iterating over ideas and workflows.
Companies that can remain agile better adapt to the future. Because after all, none of us can predict the future — but we sure as hell can pretend we can.
HEY! thanks for reading ~ Hope you enjoyed my daily post. Let’s keep the conversation going, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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By jordangonen on April 22, 2016.
Exported from Medium on February 17, 2018.