Eric's Blog

One thing that makes me happy is interacting with other happy people.  I interact with my coworkers more than anyone outside of my immediate family. I happen to really like all of my employees, but even if I didn’t, I’d still want them to be happy for purely selfish reasons.

Here are things that I think make all people happy:

1. Having our needs met
2. Feeling understood, respected and valued
3. Feeling like we are making progress
4. Feeling like we are making a contribution
5. Receiving unexpected gifts

Additionally, there are differences between people; one size does not fit all:

1. Some people want clear expectations and structure others would feel stifled and thrive in a more open-ended setting.
2. Some people want to know all the whys and hows for their assignments others want to be unburdened by those details.
3. Some have ambition for their next job and some are enjoying the moment.
4. Some people prefer excitement and some prefer security.

Bringing these things to a business setting starts with basic, everyday interactions.  Do we demonstrate care for each other? Do we listen to each other?  Sometimes I have to ask someone to do something unpleasant.  I find it helps to be straight about it, don’t try to pretend it’s not unpleasant.

Here are some specific things we do to address the above:

1. We review our relationship with each employee every 6 months.  This is equal parts the performance of the employee contributing to the company and the performance of the company in supporting that employee.  It is usually accompanied by a raise in pay.  If we feel that a raise of less than 3% is justified, there will be specific reasons given.  We could, of course, be more generous with starting salaries and more stingy with raises, but there is good research that shows that the level of lifestyle is much less important to happiness than the year-over-year increase in lifestyle.  It’s more efficient this way.  Plus giving people raises is fun.  Why not do it twice a year?
2. We give fairly generous vacation time.  The scale starts at 15 days per year for new hires and goes up from there.  Additionally, we explicitly state that a lack of vacation time is not a good reason to pass on an interesting opportunity and additional time can be worked out.  We considered unlimited vacation time, but felt that would burden people who thrive with more structure and clearer expectations.
3. We do not have any employee ownership or formal profit sharing.  Not everyone wants to understand the difference between profit and cash flow.  What we do instead is a year-end gift.  Sometime after early November, employees open their bi-weekly paychecks to find 3, 4, or 5 weeks worth of pay in it.  The timing and amount in intentionally unpredictable.  If people know in advance, it ceases to be a pleasant little surprise and just becomes part of the budget.
4. We strive to resolve all conflicts in a direct, timely and caring manner. Being involved in conflict or being out of integrity are major drains on happiness.  Avoiding conflict doesn’t make it go away; it festers.  My experience is that people know when they’ve made mistakes, or been unmotivated, or allowed personal life to interfere too much.  It is actually a relief for these things to be acknowledged and a plan is made with someone else to get it resolved.

Being able to continue to make our employees happy, is a major motivating force for me.  If we can’t have growth as a company, our individual progress will stall as well.

What makes you happy?  What am I missing?

Up Next 4/9: Find the Point of Ambivalence

 

 

If I haven’t made this explicit yet, my goal is not to wring every last penny out of deals.  There are lots of things you can read for that.  This is about getting more than enough and being happy.  A wise man once told me, “I’ve given lots of people sweetheart deals. Somehow, I seem to keep ending up with more money than them.”

By “aim for second best” I really, truly mean get less than half. Make the other people involved richer than yourself. Deliver more value than you receive.  Enjoy the value you are getting, but fall completely in love with the value you are generating for others; make that the reason to wake up in the morning.  I find it more motivating than “more for me.”

Here is why:

1. If a potential deal doesn’t generate enough value that I’d be perfectly happy with 40% of it, it’s just not a good enough opportunity.  If I need 60% to make it worth my while it’s just going to end up contentious and no fun.
2. We all have a natural cognitive bias that makes our own risks seem larger and the risks that others are assuming seem smaller.  What seems to me like 40%, is probably objectively closer to 50%.
3. When I’m in love with the value I’m generating for others, when the focus is there, I have an easier time communicating that value to them.

Obviously I can’t let things get too lopsided or that’s no fun, but in moderation, the short end of the stick just has more fun. Plus, it is a helpful corrective for my competitive inclinations.

Up Next: Happy Employees

Negations are often depicted as contests of will and cunning between opposing sides.  That’s not what makes me happy.  When I do it, we are all on the same side working a puzzle. The challenge is to discover if a deal exists that makes all of us happy and, if so, what does it look like exactly.  It’s not a game of chicken; it’s a game of creativity and communication.  That’s much more fun and productive.  I really try to constantly “hold everyone in the light,” a Quaker saying meaning a genuine concern and wish for their wellbeing.

In the negations to form Green Filing, my future partner said, “I’m starting to think we can’t make a deal. You make good points about assuming more than half the risks and bringing more than half the value, but I’m realizing that I won’t be happy with less than half.  I don’t want to feel like I’m working for someone else.”  That seems like an impasse, but it was actually the breakthrough.  That statement accomplished several things:

1. It demonstrated self-awareness, openness and insight, rare and valuable things. I wanted the person who could say that on my team.
2. It allowed me to reinterpret some things that were said earlier that had irked me.
3. It showed us both some important attributes of what a deal would have to look like, snapping a few pieces of the puzzle in place.

What was left to do is to apply creativity to square that circle.  One of the advantages of business relationships over other types of relationships is that it is not considered rude to inject some current or future cash to get over obstacles.  Long story short, it’s been eight years and we’re both happy.

One critical component is to establish early that you are not going to make a deal that doesn’t make you happy as well.  Seems obvious, but it can’t be taken for granted.  An important event in this most recent negotiation happened a couple months before it started.  This company approached us for a temporary, stop-gap solution and we politely turned them down.  Also, during this negotiation they kept pushing for us to produce more detail about how we were going to solve some problems.  We had to be firm about what crossed the line into design.  Design work is real work, which happens after a deal is signed.  None of this needs any acrimony of sense of threat. The happiness has to be mutual.

Instead of lists of demands, I chose to see information about how to make them happy, important puzzle pieces to be thankful for.  That shift in mindset takes a lot of the stress out.

PS. I never lie and very rarely withhold information.  More honesty leads to less stress and more happiness.

PPS.  I’m making this sound easier than it is.  I’m currently in negotiations with a friend.  She is raising money for a significant project.  I believe in her and want to help fund the project.  As you can see the sides are not far apart, this is about as easy as they come.  The deal is not yet finalized.

Up Next: 2/9: Aim for Second Best

I’m going to try to post one of these a day for 10 days.  What follows are the things I try to keep in mind as I go through this adventure, trying to build happiness.  They have been gleaned from personal experience, the stories I’ve heard first hand, books I’ve read.  Unfortunately, I have not done a very good job of remembering what came from where.  Some of this is probably a rehash of things other people said better.  Some of you might read something you told me.

One book I would definitely recommend is “Getting to Yes” by Fischer and Ury.  Quick read and on point.

I want to give a special thanks to Roy, without whose wisdom, example and guidance I never would have gotten started and Ray for many years of mentorship and friendship.

Also I want to acknowledge all the people close to me who have started their own companies, businesses and non-profits. You know who you are; tag yourself if you want others to know: Roy and Jim, Ray and Nick, Chris and Mark, Paul, Leila, Chris N., Anne, Frederick, Jen and Tom, Viki and Lee, Naysan, Charlie and Alan, Don … I’m sure I’m forgetting someone important. Apologies in advance.

Up Next: 1/9: There is no “other side”