It’s really hard to define job titles in a small company. When a company has only 2 or 3 people working, everyone does everything. Or perhaps one person does everything and hires a few specialists to help. Either way, it usually seems silly for one of these three people to call themself “CEO.” A company that size simply doesn’t need a chief, an executive, or an officer. It’s all way too formal at that size. After years as “CEO” at Lullabot, I feel much more comfortable calling myself “Founder” at my new startup.

But as a company grows, people’s jobs become more specialized. It’s just the nature of group dynamics. After an organization hits about 7 or 8 people, each of us starts to crave an understanding of our context – our role – and how we fit into the system. No one can do everything anymore. So each of us starts to look for definition in our role – so we can feel effective and important. And in a larger group, it’s this context that helps give us a sense of purpose.

Yet, this transition can often be difficult for company founders. It seems sad and frustrating to narrowly define roles. After all, it’s the agility and flexibility of our team that got us here. We wouldn’t want to lose our experimental spirit. If we define Susan as a “Senior Back-End Developer,” does this really capture the extent of her capabilities? What do we do if the client needs some front-end changes? Or changes to the copy on the website? Defining these roles can feel like it boxes us in.

This is one of the reasons why many companies head toward more quirky and oblique titles like “Chief Troublemaker,” “Senior Cat Wrangler,” or “Digital Overlord” as a way of keeping things loose and making it easy to color outside the lines. I certainly don’t want to step on anyone’s fun company culture, but I have yet to see this level of abstractness work very well – especially as a company scales.

Likewise, it is often a challenge to find the right title for any given person. What if they don’t rise to the responsibility of this title? What if someone else comes along that might do this job better? Demotions are demoralizing. If we keep things abstract enough, or if we hesitate to empower someone with a new title, perhaps we could still have the option to demote them without anyone even realizing it! But that’s a bit of a cop-out, isn’t it? How can they be successful in a new role if they aren’t really allowed to embody it? And how can we judge their success or failure? It goes beyond the scope of this article, but some candid and honest conversations can go a long way here.

Titles empower us. They give us context. They give us authority. They give us responsibility, a sense of importance, and context. They imply trust and trustworthiness to coworkers, customers, friends, and family. Titles are a mantra. They give us a sense of purpose. They help us more clearly define our role and, therefore, they become a measuring stick by which we can calculate a job well done.

Being able to put “the” in front of a title is especially empowering. Whether this is the “Head of Marketing,” the “Director of People,” or the “COO,” it’s clear that we’re talking to the person we need to be. And it would be a shame to disempower that person by calling them, “Wizard of Light Bulb Moments.”

Titles should be clear. They should be simple. They should be conventional and self-explanatory. Employees should feel comfortable putting their title on a bank loan application or telling their uncle at Thanksgiving. 

Companies change as they grow. If we want to keep our culture intact, we’re going to need to put in some work to define what makes us unique and special. There are lots of other ways to express our company’s inventiveness, unconventionality, or joyous atmosphere. They will come through in our core values, mission statement, vision, employee handbook, and other expressions of company culture. These are more verbose, more intentional, and longer-lasting expressions that are more likely to stand the test of time. Meanwhile, we’re giving our employees the clarity and empowerment they need to be successful and feel a sense of satisfaction knowing they’re meeting the needs of their role.

Jeff Robbins is a business coach, mentor, and virtual business partner who works one-on-one with company owners and leaders to help them build vision and direction for their companies while building productivity, stability, and happiness for their employees and themselves. You can work with him too. Reach out to set up a free session.

We talk about my career transitions from musician, to web developer and CEO, to business coach and product lead; and my efforts to integrate these disparate perspectives. We talk about vision and core values. We talk about how playing in a band taught me lessons in marketing, branding, and group dynamics and the difficulties of democracy in small groups. We discuss my exit from Lullabot and transitioning the company to employee ownership.

It was a whirlwind of a conversation that touched on a lot of topics and captured a lot of my ideas and philosophies. I had fun recording it. I hope you’ll have fun listening!

Listen to the podcast here.

I’ve done a lot of “putting myself out there” over time. I’ve written lots of articles and led a lot of podcasts about everything from web development to remote work and – these days – business leadership, culture, and strategy. Prior to all of this, my career was writing songs, recording, and performing music – a career entirely defined by resonating with your audience.

But while I prefer to think of all of this effort as “connecting,” “sharing,” “putting it out there,” or “resonating,” the cynical truth is that this is “marketing”. Even worse, most of what I’m talking about here is “content marketing” – a term that has become synonymous with vapid say-nothing do-nothing content which exists purely to promote.

Worse yet, the majority of people won’t actually read what I’m writing. They won’t watch my videos, listen to my podcasts, or hear my music. While the title of this article will get to people via my newsletter or social media, the majority of those people won’t read the sentence you are reading right now. But that’s okay. They will see that I’m writing things. They might trust that this is a thoughtful article. They will be reminded that I’m still thinking about this stuff. And most importantly, they will be reminded that I exist. I will be present in their lives for some fraction of a second. They might see my picture. They might read the title. Hopefully, I’ll find a good image for this post and maybe that will draw them in. They might click to read. Or they might not. But that’s okay. I have been successful in reminding people that I exist.

I am a Business Coach. Most of my clients come through my network and word-of-mouth. People think of me because they remember that I exist. They know that I am passionate about this work because I keep posting my thoughts. They may delve deeper and hopefully, my ideas will resonate.

But 90% of marketing is just reminding people that you exist. It’s easy to get caught up in the details of our content. Your content should have a point of view and a purpose. It should have value and, hopefully, express your authenticity and passion. But the truth is that consistency and quantity are more important than specificity and accuracy.

With that in mind, keep your marketing simple and manageable. I try to keep my posts around 500 words – a manageable size both to write and read. I try to post once or twice a month. I’ll post a link on Facebook and people that I went to high school with will read the title and think to themselves, “Jeff Robbins is still alive. Still writing his things.” Bam! I did it! I’ll post it on LinkedIn and Twitter and send it out to my newsletter. Maybe it will stimulate some immediate opportunity. But if I’m simply reminding people that exist, then I’m doing what I need to be doing.

Do you have customers or clients that you want to remember you? What are you passionate about that you can share?  How can you design a workflow so you can share consistently? And knowing that most of your target audience won’t actually read your content, how can you keep from getting caught up in perfection and details?

Jeff Robbins is a business coach, mentor, and virtual business partner who works one-on-one with company owners and leaders to help them build vision and direction for their companies while building productivity, stability, and happiness for their employees and themselves. You can work with him too. Reach out to set up a free session.

As an organization gets larger, there should be an effort to treat everyone fairly. Rules and policies are created so that everyone knows what is expected. Then, when someone breaks a rule, it’s easy to point to a policy and say, “Nothing personal. You just broke the rule.” It reduces shame or anger and avoids the tendency to think that this is somehow a judgment of this individual’s character, personality, or other personal traits. It’s the same policy for everyone. Your boss didn’t just make this up for you at this moment because he doesn’t like you.

But there are also aspects of running a business that requires a personal approach: a gut feeling; a “vibe”; or an inspiration. There’s an amount of magic, inspiration, and passion that needs to go into determining a vision or identity for the company, as well as deciding who to hire, and which clients or projects to take on. There is no algorithm or policy which can imagine the future. This often requires a leap of faith.

Additionally, algorithmic, policy-based decision-making can unintentionally suck the humanity out of otherwise inspirational moments. It’s one thing to say, “I see how hard you’ve been working. I want you to know how much it means to me and the company as a whole, so we’re giving you a 10% raise.” It’s entirely another thing to say, “As you may know, we have a policy that when you exceed an 80% utilization rate for 3 months in a row, you receive a raise based on the current profitability of the company. So you’re getting a 10% raise.” The first is personal, connecting, appreciative, and perhaps delightfully unexpected. The second is emotionless, automatic, and seems a lot more like an obligation than a celebration of success.

That being said, I’m not arguing for purely passion-based decision-making. There should be guidelines, metrics, and documentation to keep things fair. When one employee asks, “Why did she get a promotion and I didn’t?” you should be able to give a cogent answer. But it doesn’t necessarily need to be quantitative and impersonal: “She’s been doing a great job. People seem to really like her. And I felt like she’d be the best fit for this new position.”

The quick rule of thumb is this: Positive things should be more personal. Negative things should be more algorithmic.

Things that need to be more fair should have a policy, even if there may be some discretion built-in. Hiring, firing, benefits, and vacations should all have a policy. There should also be policies in place to avoid discrimination and ensure inclusiveness. But policies might include qualitative metrics like, “We want to hire people who inspire us,” or “don’t be a jerk” – with a lot of room for discretion. 

Things that are intended to inspire, surprise, or delight might be left with an intentionally unclear or unwritten policy. Don’t lose the connection, appreciation, and emotion that can come from the more positive things such as promotions, bonuses, or celebrations. If you’re just acting on policy, these things lose their specialness. 

For the more negative, sticky, or persistent things, automation can really underline the impersonal algorithmic nature of a policy. Setting up an automated message that says, “This is the automated bookkeeping robot writing to let you know that your invoice is overdue,” brings a lot less drama than the email which says, “This is the company CEO. Where is our money?” Likewise, “Beep boop! Time to get your timesheets in,” feels better than the more personal alternative.

Another thing to note: democracy is not an algorithm. Voting is an act of passion spread out to the entire group. This can be a good thing – if perhaps part of your hiring process is to have employee candidates meet with a group of their potential coworkers who get to participate in the decision about who they might work with. Or it could be a bad thing – if perhaps you were to have these same people vote on who to fire.

Ultimately, your position on this scale between algorithmic/policy-based and personal/emotion-based decision-making becomes part of the organization’s culture. Too far in one direction and people will leave because no one seems to care. Too far in the other direction and they’ll leave because nothing seems fair. Care vs. fair. As companies grow, they tend to become more conservative and move towards a more algorithmic approach. This certainly protects against a lot of negative nasty stuff that can come up in a growing company. And it can take years to build these systems and processes. But be careful not to let the algorithms eat the connections, celebrations, surprises, and inspirations that are part of a vibrant culture.

So are there things that happen in your organization that feel too personal or emotional? How about not personal enough? Introducing – or removing – algorithms in the form of policies, systems, metrics, or automations might just be the adjustment you need.

Jeff Robbins is a business coach, mentor, and virtual business partner who works one-on-one with company owners and leaders to help them build vision and direction for their companies while building productivity, stability, and happiness for their employees and themselves. You can work with him too. Reach out to set up a free session.

As we’re sitting on our metaphorical dock, planning our metaphorical journey, we can attempt to calculate forecasted wind speed. We can attempt to understand the tides and currents expected at various points in our journey. We can plot out a journey on our map and examine depth charts. We can try to plan our trip to minimize corrections, adjustments, and inefficiencies. But the deeper we get into the minutia of our planning, the more we identify new details and data to consider. How do we plan around existing traffic and slowdowns? What about the multitude of unexpected issues that may come up? Whales? Mermaids? Sea monsters? The more we plan, the more we feel unprepared. The more we plan, the more we panic. We get caught in analysis paralysis. How could we possibly plan for everything?

The answer is simple: don’t. Don’t plan for everything. Plan for what you can plan for. Then get the boat off the dock. Get into motion. Head out into the water and expect the unexpected. Have trust in your future self to deal with new issues as they arise. Have trust in yourself to continue to learn and make adjustments based on trial and error. In reality, there will be no direct line between point A and point B. It’s all a matter of course correction. Expect to remain present and adjust your heading as necessary.

Most of all, don’t feel bad when you need to course correct. These adjustments are simply a sign of progress. The worse problem is when you assume that you’ve planned for everything and, out of respect for your plan and the time that went into it, you fail to adjust your heading when things inevitably fall off course. Course correction is not an admission of failure, it’s simply part of the journey.

Jeff Robbins is a business coach, mentor, and virtual business partner who works one-on-one with company owners and leaders to help them build vision and direction for their companies while building productivity, stability, and happiness for their employees and themselves. You can work with him too. Reach out to set up a free session.

I used to joke that the greatest thing about running my own company was that I couldn’t be fired. However, as it turns out, it also meant that I couldn’t quit. Owning a company is a lot like having kids. It’s a long-term commitment; an obligation. It becomes a part of your identity. We have a lot of control over HOW we do it. But we often don’t have a lot of control over WHETHER we do it. Leaving is not really an option.

So we control what we can control. We lean in, get creative, and add ideas. We add clients or customers. We add employees. We add sales pitches and marketing assets. We add website updates and photographs of our work. We add weekly and daily meetings. It’s exciting! We add onboarding and training. We write proposals. We add bookkeeping and tax accounting. We’re getting things done! We keep an eye on our market and try to forecast the coming weeks and months. Should we say yes to this project? Should we hire this person? Will the work keep up?

Each of these things is a brick we put into our metaphorical backpack. Some are small and some are larger. Some feel like an effort. Some feel like fun. But they all weigh us down – slowly – brick by brick by brick. At first, we don’t notice it. It’s thrilling to have this responsibility and control. However, over time we begin to feel the weight. We build muscles and become stronger. We become more skilled at carrying the weight. Or maybe we just try to ignore the discomfort. And we can always just valiantly brush off the effort as “no problem.” But the weight is still there. And as we add more and more, eventually something will break. We will hurt emotionally. We will hurt physically. We will burn out.

A lot of my coaching work is finding and acknowledging the heavy weight we’re carrying. It’s about digging through and assessing what we’ve put in the backpack. What do we love? What do we hate? What can we take out? Can we delegate some of these things? Can we collaborate? Are there ways that we can carry things more efficiently? The work is also about accepting that each brick, each task, each responsibility has a weight that we should recognize as we agree to carry it.

What would it feel like if you didn’t need to carry this backpack of bricks? This is a bit like asking a parent to fantasize about not being a parent anymore. “Ack! I can’t even imagine it!” But what if we just look at the good parts? Consider it an unachievable zen goal… or a thought experiment. What would feel good about not carrying that weight anymore? Are there ways that you could move towards that feeling in the near future? Are there tasks you could hand over or meetings you could stop attending? Are there responsibilities you could delegate or tasks you could hand off to someone more capable? Keep in mind that by spreading these responsibilities around, you’re providing opportunities for those around you. What could you do over the next year to alleviate even more of this weight?

Remember that the amount of weight you CAN carry in the short term is always going to be more than the weight that you SHOULD carry in the long term. Sometimes it’s enough to just stop saying, “no problem.” Recalibrate your threshold. You probably don’t need to be carrying as much as you are.

Jeff Robbins is a business coach, mentor, and virtual business partner who works one-on-one with company owners and leaders to help them build vision and direction for their companies while building productivity, stability, and happiness for their employees and themselves. You can work with him too. Reach out to set up a free session.

But it did leave me with some guilty feelings that we were hiding something from our team. What was there to hide? The money. The “profit.” It became like Voldemort. Do not speak its name. If we talk about the profit, people will want it. They’ll ask for higher salaries and bonuses. Or they’ll quit because they’re feeling exploited. So we shouldn’t talk about it. And we should take this secret money and keep it for ourselves? That sounds greedy and generally uncool. Hmm… maybe it would be easier if there was no profit at all.

“Profit” is a problematic word. Although this usually isn’t true, it implies “money that goes to the owners.” It is a quantitive word – relatively easy to calculate – a field on your tax form. It’s a word that can lead to short-term thinking and justify inhuman behavior. Many awful things have happened in the name of profit.

Of course, an unprofitable business cannot sustain itself. It is a business that will soon go out of business. But what if we shift our focus from the beginning of that first sentence to the end? What if we shift our focus from “profitability” to “sustainability”? After all, sustainability is the real goal. Profit is just a marker along the way to sustainability.

“Sustainability” is a much less problematic word. It implies long-term thinking and wider, more comprehensive goals. It is a more qualitative word – harder (but not impossible) to measure. It is people-focused and considers the value of job security, long-term relationships, and happiness. It is more holistic, all-encompassing, and inclusive.

Sustainability is something we can talk about much more openly. In fact, by talking about sustainability, we now have a much better framework for talking about profitability, discussing the finances of our company, and sharing some of the stress that comes around these. In a profit-focused company, growth might represent owner greed and selfishness. But in a sustainability-focused company, growth is more likely to represent diversification and expansion to offer more opportunities and benefits for everyone at the company. A sustainable company is a successful company – profitable, yes – but also set up for success moving forward.

The next time it comes up, try substituting the word “sustainability” for the word “profit”. I promise you, it will change the way you think about the future of your company.  

Jeff Robbins is a business coach, mentor, and virtual business partner who works one-on-one with company owners and leaders to help them build vision and direction for their companies while building productivity, stability, and happiness for their employees and themselves. You can work with him too. Reach out to set up a free session.

One of my maxims over the years has been “It’s not what you can do. It’s what you can get done.” Maybe “mantra” is a better word, because it’s something that I’ve needed to remind myself over and over. When it comes to most tasks, I tend to veer towards D.I.Y. However, I often find myself bottlenecking my projects as I realize my time, knowledge, or skills are more limited than I’ve acknowledged. And I can be slow to ask for help.

If you run a company, your clients aren’t hiring you for what you, personally, can get done – right this very moment – like some kind of pop quiz. They’re hiring you for the results you can get, cumulatively, and collectively, over the duration of your relationship.

As a company grows, so should its capabilities. This means hiring people and building relationships to expand and complement your own skills. That Venn diagram might not have a lot of overlap – and that’s a good thing! You might have a development background and now you find yourself hiring designers and content strategists. Some owners feel disingenuous selling skills and capabilities that may not have much overlap with their own. “I can’t sell my design team if I’m not a designer. They’re going to know I’m not a designer and I’ll look foolish.”

But remember that you’re selling your “company.” Let’s think about the various definitions of “company”. It doesn’t just mean business. “Company” also means the people around you. When you’re selling your company, you’re not just selling yourself; you’re selling your relationships, your associations, and your contact list, as well as your staff. You’re selling your ability to meet their needs – to get their project done.

This maxim is also a good way to get unstuck. When I find myself stuck on a task – something that I thought I could do, but I’m just not getting it done – I need to remind myself that maybe the solution isn’t for me to do it, but instead for me to find someone else to get it done. There’s no shame in that. If I shift my mindset from “doing it” to “getting it done” it changes my tactics, opens me up for collaboration, learning, or maybe just paying someone else to do it for me. Either way, it’s gets done. And at least for the moment, I’m unstuck and moving forward.

Jeff Robbins is a business coach, mentor, and virtual business partner who works one-on-one with company owners and leaders to help them build vision and direction for their companies while building productivity, stability, and happiness for their employees and themselves. You can work with him too. Reach out to set up a free session.

In the early ’00s, I started a band in the genre that we were calling “indie-rock-tronica”. In order to accommodate all of the synth tracks and drum-loops that we’d created in the studio, we performed with a pre-iPod mp3 player running backing tracks on stage. It quickly occurred to me that we could turn these backing tracks into full-fledged videos which would play in sync with the band. I enlisted several filmmaker friends to create videos. Then my brother Neil and I collaborated on a simple app that he built in a pre-Flash technology called Director. 

We started bringing a laptop and video projector to our gigs. As long as our drummer didn’t get off the click track, the videos would play in time with the band. Things on the screen could flash in time with the music or sync up however we wanted. It was pretty amazing. But if I forgot the lyric to the first verse, or I forgot that the first chorus was half as long as the others, and we were heading for a train wreck. Also, if a song felt too slow during a gig, I was looking at several hours of editing to change the backing track, change the videos, and re-output everything – just to try it a few BPMs faster at the next show.

So when Keith, the bass player in my latest band, 123 Astronaut, said, “Can we do that cool video thing that your last band was doing?” my first response was, “No way! I can’t play with a click track again. That was way too stressful.” But I’m an inventor at heart. I like solving problems. So my mind started going. What if I could make a system where the video could be played like an instrument? Instead of the performers needing to play in time with the video, what if we could basically edit together video clips in real-time on stage?

I’ve been looking for software like this for the past 25 years. The closest thing are VJ apps, but they tend to be expensive, complicated, and you can’t just drop in videos from your phone or downloaded from the Internet. Over the years, I’ve tried just about all of them, but they seemed to be complex-and-technical solutions that generated complex-and-technical output – good for electronic dance music – but misaligned for other genres where you don’t want the visual content to upstage the performer.

I pieced together a quick-and-dirty proof-of-concept on an old Mac laptop using some of Apple’s development tools and 123 Astronaut played a bunch of shows with it. Keith had a MIDI foot pedal in front of him and he could control the videos on stage. The verse started and we were flying over the ocean. The chorus came up, he hits the pedal, and we’re now flying over a field of flowers. It was pretty much as amazing as the click-track videos, but we could play fast if we wanted, and I could forget all the lyrics and just let the band vamp. The videos would loop until I remembered the lyrics and Keith hit the next pedal.

When the pandemic hit, the shows stopped. I watched a LOT of Netflix for the first six months. But in September, I decided to sit down and create a more robust version of this video system. I thought maybe it would take me a couple of weeks. But as I started prototyping and laying it out, I started realizing that maybe other performers were looking for the same thing I was – an easy-to-use but professional application to allow performers to control visuals on stage. I got really excited about creating the application that I’d dreamed about. But as any good product or software designer knows, it’s hard to make things easy to use. I’m now 10 months into my 2-week project and most of my work has gone into keeping the complexity hidden.

My goal was to create a musician-friendly, intuitive video/audio control system that is also professional, road-ready, and flexible. I wanted an app where someone with only a minimal amount of technical knowledge could take a folder with a dozen short video clips and images and assemble an entire set-list of visuals in just a few minutes. I wanted an app that a cafe performer could use to enhance their solo acoustic performance, controlling the visual elements with a MIDI pedal.

The result is Visibox. It’s an application for Mac and Windows computers. You can run it on just about any laptop. Connect it to one of the old video projectors your company has piled up in the supply closet and you’re ready to melt some eyeballs. You can use it with our without backing tracks or a click track. You can use it with our without a MIDI controller. You can connect USB cameras or use your laptop’s webcam and show that as part of your performance.

Download Visibox and try it free for 14 days. Let me know what you think. There’s an item in the Help menu to download the Example Project so you can get a feel for things quickly. Drag around the existing clips or drag in some content of your own. Hook it up to a video projector, a TV, or just a second monitor and run it in full screen.

You can get 50%-off Visibox through July 31st, 2021 with this code in the checkout:
FRIEND-OF-JEFF

I want to put a video projector into every tour van. I want to make video projectors standard equipment at all performance venues. Visuals like these are ubiquitous for arena performances, but with Visibox, club and cafe performers now have the ability to be as creative with the visual aspect of their performance as they are with the music.

Thanks to Darrel O’Pry for helping out with a lot of the heavy lifting in dealing with APIs, server infrastructure, and continuous integration workflows – and generally being my go-to-guy on this project. Also thanks to Brad Woodard for helping draft the logo and the overall look/feel of the Spaceage brand. And thanks to my wife Jennifer Robbins for helping with the Visibox manual, and generally putting up with me being hunched over my computer for the past 10 months.

I’ve got a lot of ideas for the future of Visibox as a product and Spaceage as a company. I hope that this 1.0 release is well received so I can put together a team to support and nurture it, and start to implement all of the other ideas I have to make this awesome thing even more awesome.

It’s important for a company to have a singular vision and clear leadership. It’s also important to have a diversity of ideas within a company – building from a wide variety of perspectives and opinions. In the end though, some kind of decision needs to be made for the company to move forward. Some decisions are well reasoned. Some are made with the toss of a coin.

The sum of these decisions is the foundation of a company. It’s what we build on. Who are we? What are we? How do we do what we do? Our decisions define us.

But the real test of leadership is what happens when our team of diverse thinkers calls past decisions into question. If our decisions are our foundation, do we see this as an attack at the foundation of our business? Do we question our skills as a leader and decision-maker? Or do we lash out at those who would dare to question our leadership skills, offer them severance packages, and invite them to resign if they’re not effing happy at our effing company?

It’s hard not to get emotional when we feel like our own people are keeping us from moving forward. We already made these decisions! Why can’t everyone just shut up and let us be done debating? It can feel like our leadership is being called into question. Do people not trust our decision-making skills? Why do they even work here if they don’t respect me? This shame and embarrassment often leads to anger or depression.

So how do we get out of this cycle?

First off, just because people are questioning some of your decisions, it doesn’t mean they are questioning all of your decisions. But this is an inflection point. It’s a test of your ability to be flexible and open-minded while your emotions are triggering your fight or flight response. Fear and open-mindedness are oppositional concepts though. Fear closes the mind. If we’re going to stay open-minded, we’re going to need to redefine the structures that cause us these negative emotions in the first place.

So what if we set aside this concept of the infallible leader? Let’s take down that facade. Give it up. Our decisions are not dogma. They are an accomplishment. They are a foundation. But any company that is open to growth is open to change. So we may need to make some changes to strengthen our foundation. And if we can admit some fallibility – some humanity, maybe we can open ourselves up for collaboration. This “criticism” of our ideas can become “collaboration” around our ideas. And if we include more people in our leadership process, we’re already growing.

When we are able to collaborate around decisions, we feel less personally responsible for them. If they are called into question, we’re less likely to feel personally attacked. We’re less like to feel shame and embarrassment, and we’re opening ourselves up to improvement, change, and growth.

Jeff Robbins is a business coach, mentor, and virtual business partner who works one-on-one with company owners and leaders to help them build vision and direction for their companies while building productivity, stability, and happiness for their employees and themselves. You can work with him too. Reach out to set up a free session.

But “puzzle pieces” probably isn’t the right metaphor. It implies that we’re creating a jigsaw puzzle, and all of the pieces are out there somewhere, pre-designed and ready to slot in place. What’s more, there will be some point at which we are finished – able to stand back and gaze upon the image of Hogwarts Castle with delight and a feeling of accomplishment.

However, a company doesn’t work this way. The pieces are unformed and organic. There’s no predefined design or instructions in the box. If a piece is missing, we can’t call the manufacturer and complain. And often, even after we’ve searched far and wide to find the right puzzle piece for our business, it doesn’t fit in perfectly with our architectural vision for the business.

Perhaps a more apt image is stonemasonry. Stones are organic. They come in all shapes and sizes. We know they won’t fit together on the first try and we’re going to have to get creative to make things fit together. If we’re building a stone wall, we can spend a long time trying to find exactly the right stones for our wall, or we can just start building with what we’ve got around us. Often, the stones decide the architecture of the wall. If we put a big one here, we’re going to need to find a few small ones to even it out. Maybe we can chip away and reform some of the rocks to a better size and shape, or we can leave them in their original form.

This is a much better metaphor for company building. It acknowledges our lack of control and the organic, unplanned nature of this type of architecture. We can spend a long time looking for the right person to slot into our narrowly defined job description. Or we can look at things more holistically, perhaps finding someone who doesn’t fit this job description very well, but who might help us build the company in new and more interesting ways.

By defining our company architecture too clearly and narrowly, we can sometimes close ourselves off to organic opportunities as they present themselves. Maybe you weren’t planning on hiring a salesperson. But this particular person is a good match and she could open up a lot of possibilities for the company. You’ve found a big rock. Now you’re going to need to find some small ones to fill in around it.

Your job is filling in the gaps. As the company grows, you will have more resources to slot into the empty spaces. But there will always be gaps. And it usually falls back on you to either find someone to fill in or do it yourself.

Or maybe there’s some sort of a magic spell you could use to make everything fit together. Is it “expecto patronum”? No, I think that one shoots ghosts at people. Anyway, back to my jigsaw puzzle.

Jeff Robbins is a business coach, mentor, and virtual business partner who works one-on-one with company owners and leaders to help them build vision and direction for their companies while building productivity, stability, and happiness for their employees and themselves. You can work with him too. Reach out to set up a free session.

But I’d been playing in bands for a lot longer than I’d been running a company. I could spot good musicians quickly. Beyond that, I could see an expression of their personality in their work. I would get excited about the idea of playing in a band with them. After all – for me at least – putting together a band isn’t just about finding any old musicians to play with, it’s about finding players who are going to inspire one another and make each other better.

Then it hit me: You are a talent scout.

So what if you think of your company more like a band, a Broadway production, or a professional sports team? You need to see yourself as a talent scout, constantly scanning the horizon for the best people to work at your company. After all, what makes great entertainment productions or great sports teams great? Their people.

So let’s break it down to some things I’ve learned over the years.

• Be Proactive - This isn’t a passive process. It’s not enough to post a job on LinkedIn and hope that the best people will apply. The BEST people aren’t looking through job listings. You need to actively spread the word, reach out and tell people why working at your company is great. Keep a spreadsheet. Start a mailing list. If you’ve already got great people working for you, they probably know other great people.

• Be Selective - You’re holding auditions. You’re looking for the best person to fit into the given role. Not everyone is going to be the correct fit. Some REALLY GREAT people aren’t going to be the right fit for this job at this time. That’s okay. The more that you protect the quality and talent of your team, the more likely it is that people will want to be a part of that team. Selectivity also means that you’re not going to be able to make everyone happy. That’s sometimes a scary thought. But remember that it is possible to have empathy and compassion without needing to make everyone happy.

• Be A Fan - Be passionate and excited. This is about putting together a great team to do great things. “Great” is exciting. Let yourself be inspired. You can be inspired and excited without losing your ability to make rational decisions.

• Be Imaginative - You may recognize talent in people that they don’t recognize in themselves. Share your ideas and visions. Maybe they won’t resonate. But maybe they will!

• Be An Aspiration - If you’re reading this article – if you’re thinking about this kind of thing – you probably don’t want to build an average company. You’re aspiring for something more. You should hire people who aspire for something more. There’s another word for this type of aspiration: “hope.” Getting a job with your company should feel special. Maybe you’ve built a great culture. Maybe you’ve got amazing and inspirational customers and clients. But even if you’re just starting out, working with a team of hopeful people is something special in itself.

Jeff Robbins is a business coach, mentor, and virtual business partner who works one-on-one with company owners and leaders to help them build vision and direction for their companies while building productivity, stability, and happiness for their employees and themselves. You can work with him too. Reach out to set up a free session.

However, as a non-compiled language, most Javascript code ends up “out there” for the world to see. One of the first steps along the path for most web developers is to “view source” on a website and start digging around in the code. This is fine for a website where their product is their content. But if we want to create a software product, Javascript is at a disadvantage because we cannot hide our code.

By contrast, compiled code is converted to binary – the language that the computer processor speaks. This is how applications created with most “professional” programming languages are distributed. The source code is not distributed with the application. It is impossible for another developer to open the binary and recreate the source which created it. Generally speaking, binary code is hidden and protected.

Can we create binaries from Javascript?

The title of this article is “Creating Javascript Binaries For Electron” – so… can we create Javascript binaries? Yes and no. Like HTML and CSS, most front-end Javascript developers are developing for the web – which means having to target multiple browsers and multiple operating systems. So Javascript is delivered as text, which is then interpreted and compiled by the browser. So if you’re developing Javascript for the web, the answer is “no.” If you want to deliver cross-browser binaries, you’ll need to look into WebAssembly, which is usually written in C/C++, Rust, or another language.

But Javascript is compiled. It is compiled by the browser at the time of execution by the browser’s Javascript “engine.” Different browsers use different engines (and different versions of the same engine), so we cannot distribute a binary without knowing the exact browser and browser version that will be running our code. This isn’t possible on the web. However, since Electron applications bundle Chromium (the Chrome browser) as part of their distributions, we do know the exact Javascript engine that will be running the code.

Can we create JS binaries for Electron?

As you may have guessed: Yes! 

Electron uses its own variant of the V8 engine for Javascript interpretation. Node.js has access to V8 functions and is able to access the binary cache file. Bytenode is a library created by Osama Abbas which facilitates saving and loading of these binary files for execution. You can use it on servers and in situations where you can determine the version of V8 that it will be running on. I’ve recently written Electron support for Bytenode so that it can output binaries which will run on Electron’s unique version of the V8 engine.

I’ve also sponsored development a new Bytenode Webpack Plugin to do all the hard work of compiling your Electron code and bundling it for distribution (without including the original source). Herbert Treis Neto developed it and I think it’s a breakthrough for Electron. It allows you to convert your entire Javascript application codebase to binary before distribution.

The caveats:

1. Bytenode needs access to Node.js’ V8 functions in order to read the binaries. This will work just fine for your main process and any preload scripts. But you’ll need to enable nodeIntegration for webPreferences in your BrowserWindows. Alternately, you can usually move most of your renderer Javascript into a preload script wrapped around a document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded') listener. You’ll also need to set contextIsolation to false, or come up with a more elegant workaround.

2. The Bytenode Webpack Plugin will create conventional text-based Javascript “loader” files for each entry point which load the binaries. These are not compiled… but they also were not part of your original source code.

3. There are a few known issues with Bytenode. The main one to be aware of is that asynchronous arrow functions will cause crashes when used in rendering process code. You can simply convert these to function calls, or you could code in Typescript and output ES5, or you could use the Webpack babel-loader plugin to transform your arrow functions.

4. It looks like Electron is deprecating Node’s V8 library in the render process beginning with Electron 12. Bytenode still works for now, but we’re be keeping an eye on this.

How do I get started?

I’ve created an Electron Bytenode Example repository on GitHub. Start there! It uses Electron Forge along with Webpack to bundle applications suitable for distribution. Follow the README instructions and you should be up and running quickly.

Links:

• Electron Bytenode Example - a boilerplate “Hello World” example of an Electron app running on Bytenode, built with Webpack via Electron Forge

• Bytenode Webpack Plugin - the Webpack plugin which makes all of this easy

• Bytenode - the library which converts your Javascript code to binary and loads the binary files for execution at run time

We think we’ve ironed out most of the kinks, but if you find issues with any of these packages, please submit issues. Or better yet, create a pull request and contribute!

When I started developing a commercial Electron application, this was the missing piece of the puzzle. How do you distribute your application without distributing its source code? Now we have an easy-to-implement solution! I’m really proud of what we’ve built and I’m happy to share it with the Electron development community.

~

Are you an Electron, Node, or front-end developer? Want to help make awesome software to help awesome musicians and performers put on awesome shows? We’re hiring!

When he’s not writing code, Jeff Robbins is a business coach, mentor, and virtual business partner who works one-on-one with company owners and leaders to help them build vision and direction for their companies while building productivity, stability, and happiness for their employees and themselves. You can work with him too. Reach out to set up a free session.

We read a lot of books about business and culture. Could we grow the company without losing what made it special? We listened closely to others’ stories of business success and failure. What made people happy? What made businesses thrive? What were the common mistakes? We had our own failures and mistakes. We had some successes too. We tried to take notes, learn from the mistakes, and build off the successes.

We tried to hire people who were better than us – people who could do what they were doing better than we could do what they were doing. We hired people who inspired us and people we could collaborate with and trust.

Over the years, we had a number of inquiries about buying the company. The first one was a surprise. We hadn’t thought about the company itself having monetary value, much less that anyone might be interested in buying it. We scrambled to put together documents that made sense of our finances, our growth, our brand, our value, and our market differentiation. But with this inquiry and others in the future, our own personal holistic value would always outweigh any offer from another company. We also had gratitude for the people who helped build the company and we didn’t want to let them down.

We had friends who had started companies in order to become their own boss. We’d then seen them sell their companies only to find themselves with a new, ultra-demanding boss of their own. The entire focus of their company would shift as the company ran its engine at full throttle to ensure a profitable purchase for the new parent entity. Inevitably, the culture would evaporate, and usually most of the employees would move along, leaving only a husk of a brand.

But what really stuck with us was the exercise of documenting our worth. If we could make ourselves valuable to another company, wouldn’t we also be valuable to ourselves? We started to get more organized about our finances and projections. To ensure that our employees would be taken care of if the planets aligned and we did sell the company, Matt set about putting stock options in place. It was a huge project and at first it didn’t feel like it had immediate benefits. But it did force us to put together a consistent valuation model for the company. After all, if we’re giving out options on our stock, it should be clear how much that stock is worth at any given time.

Having built the company around open source software, we found that open code tended to be cleaner, clearer, more secure, and generally more well-written than proprietary code that no one else was going to see. So we moved towards an open books model, sharing the company finances with the employees in a monthly report. We were now operating a lot more like a public company, not only acknowledging the business of the business, but tracking performance, value, and opportunity in an ongoing and transparent manner.

It was around this time that Matt read A Stake In The Outcome and we started thinking about an Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP) as a possibility for the company. We also expanded our leadership team, introducing director-level roles. Eventually our leadership team included Seth Brown (Director of Operations), Brian Skowron (Director of Sales), Karen Stevenson (Director of Technology), Jared Ponchot (Creative Director), and Addison Berry (Director of Education).

Lullabot’s Drupal training arm morphed into Drupalize.Me, a subscription training platform with streaming video. Several employees started working on this product full time and eventually, split off into their own company, Osio Labs, with Addison as CEO.

In 2015, Lullabot had grown to over 60 full time employees. But the company had a very difficult year. We spent month after month saying, “We’re going to need to do layoffs if things don’t get better.” The next week, things hadn’t gotten much better, but they hadn’t gotten too much worse. So we remained in this uncertain position, just a few weeks from possible layoffs. Week. after. week. after. week. It went on for months. It was VERY stressful. As the year came to a close, business began to stabilize. But I was burned out. It had snuck up on me.

It had been 10 years. We had a great leadership team in place. We had systems and processes in place to sustain the company. We had proactively and intentionally built a great culture. We had hired a team of the best developers, designers, and digital strategists in the world. We had stock options in place and we were starting to share stock with the leadership team. It was time for me to take a break.

I would eventually take an indefinite sabbatical and hand over CEO duties to Matt. Matt would eventually come to me with an offer to buy me out at the full valuation of my shares – a better offer than we’d seen through any type of M/A offer in the past. This would set in place a precedent for Matt and the rest of the leadership team to eventually sell their shares back to the company and create an ESOP where the company was wholly owned by the employees. No golden handcuffs. No faceless company taking over. No change in culture. It was an idyllic situation. We signed the papers at the beginning of 2017.

Lullabot continued to thrive. Another Lullabot product – a QA preview and test platform called Tugboat – started to mature enough to warrant a dedicated team. With such a strong leadership team in place, Matt was able to step away and dedicate himself full time as the CEO of Tugboat, handing the Lullabot CEO role to Seth Brown. 

Seth and Matt, along with the rest of the leadership team, continued to pursue the ESOP path. A convergence of economic, political, and legal factors led them to a sooner-than-later approach. And early in February, 2021, the company converted into a 100% employee-owned business, buying out the owners who had accrued stock over the years. The company also exercised all of the employee stock options, sending a surprise check to many employees who hadn’t paid much attention to the fact that they owned options in the company.

Now that Lullabot is an employee-owned company, current and future Lullabot employees will vest stock as they work. When employees leave, the company will buy back their shares. So at any given time, 100% of the company stock is owned by 100% of the employees.

I’m really proud of the company we built. I’m also proud of the way that we sold it. From the very beginning, “Inspire & Empower” has been at the very top of Lullabot’s Core Values. I’m glad that we found an exit that empowers the employees that helped us build the company. I’m proud of Seth Brown and the rest of the leadership team that has “gotten it” in a way that allowed us to relinquish control without worrying about the welfare of the company.

And lastly, I’m really proud of Matt Westgate, who I will always refer to as The Best Business Partner In The World™. Over the years, we’ve spent thousands of hours together on the phone and in person. We always made an effort to understand each other and rarely disagreed. I can’t remember ever having an argument with him. Matt is highly intelligent, fundamentally honest, mindful, and empathetic. He kept me grounded and as a true partner, he helped alleviate the loneliness that can come from running a company. We were in it together. I trusted Matt from the first moment that I met him and that trust has never wavered over the 17 years I’ve known him.

By becoming employee owned, Lullabot has 100% aligned the motivations of its shareholders with those of its employees. The conventional motivation of a public company is to “maximize value for shareholders.” This can create difficulty when that “value” is purely measured in money to people outside the institution. But when the shareholders are the same people who are doing the work, that “value” can also encompass non-monetary factors such as happiness, safety, and being proud of your work – while at the same time, everyone in the company has a stake in the financial success of the company.

I am a proud parent, delighted to see the Lullabot enter a new stage of growth and maturity. I no longer have control in the company’s future, but I couldn’t be happier about what it has become. And I’m excited to see what will become of it in the future.

Jeff Robbins is a business coach, mentor, and virtual business partner who works one-on-one with company owners and leaders to help them build vision and direction for their companies while building productivity, stability, and happiness for their employees and themselves. You can work with him too. Reach out to set up a free session

But we always had a very blue collar attitude. Each success was simply a next step. We didn’t want to delude ourselves by overly celebrating minor accomplishments. We aspired for more. And the last thing we wanted to be was some parody of a 80’s hair metal band driving around in a limousine drinking champagne with a bunch of strippers.

However, in the early 00’s when we lost our record deal and the band slowly evaporated, I realized that by avoiding these celebratory moments, we were also avoiding opportunities to be grateful and to recognize the magic that was happening around us. Don’t get me wrong. We were certainly gracious and appreciative of those around us. But I don’t think I ever really took it in and fully appreciated it for myself.

So when I started Lullabot in 2006, I didn’t want to make that mistake again. I wanted to create a company with a culture of appreciation, elevation, and celebration. If someone is doing amazing work, let’s celebrate it. If an amazing client comes along, let’s recognize what a lucky, serendipitous, and magical opportunity we have been given. 

It’s so easy to downplay these magical moments and let them slip by. Pausing for appreciation might feel like self-congratulatory gloating. It might make people uncomfortable when it’s “no big deal,” or they’re “just doing their job.” It might feel melodramatic or vulnerable and you may worry that people will take advantage. But it’s a chance to mark the moment as something special. Sometimes it’s a result of skill. Sometimes it’s a result of luck. But either way, it’s special. Appreciate that shit!

Over time, I’ve become better at recognizing the magical moments, serendipitous situations, and lucky accidents. I’ve tried to become better at telling people when they’re important to me – recognizing their talent and skill – and recognizing and acknowledging those moments of joy. Sometimes it feels like I’m pointing out the obvious. But it’s rarely received that way. It seems like the obvious is rarely as obvious as we think. And even when it is, maybe acknowledging it makes it more real.

How can you make magical situations happen in your life and in your company? Who could you hire, or partner with, or work for – that would feel magical and inspirational? Are there already successful relationships or unique situations that you’re not fully acknowledging? When we spot the magic and give it positive reinforcement, we encourage more of it to happen. Magic begets gratitude. Gratitude begets magic. It’s a nice cycle to be in.

Jeff Robbins is a business coach, mentor, and virtual business partner who works one-on-one with company owners and leaders to help them build vision and direction for their companies while building productivity, stability, and happiness for their employees and themselves. You can work with him too. Reach out to set up a free session.

In retrospect, it was easy to watch the advancement of narcissism here in the US throughout the late 90’s and the 00’s. Narcissists were celebrated from Silicon Valley to Wall Street, and from Instagram to – yes – reality TV. Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Kanye West, and DJT don’t have a lot of patience for friendliness or consensus. They’ve got a clear vision and all you need to do is get the eff out of their way.

It’s easy to become enthralled with a narcissist. They’re so confident – so self-assured. It must be great to be able to make decisions so quickly and confidently. They’re quick to share their accomplishments and they save you time having to do any reference or fact checking. Just ask them. They’re brilliant! And they’re always right.

When it comes right down to it though, narcissists make us feel scared and unqualified. There seems to be a constant smokescreen around them. Maybe “gaslight” is a better word. It’s The Emperor’s New Clothes. This combination of confidence and confusion causes a lot of us to assume that their knowledge is just over our heads. “This person must really know what they’re talking about because they seem so confident. I should hire them so we can bring this expertise into my company.”

But narcissists are not collaborators. They’re not good teachers. They’re not interested in elevating those around them. Their presence in a company inspires a competitive, and even fear-based culture. You’re not really bringing their expertise into the company. That expertise, if it exists, will remain inside the narcissist and not be shared with others. And the more they advance – the more they are promoted (after all they’re the only one with this magic knowledge) – the more this culture of fear and competitiveness will trickle down into your company. 

But self-confidence is good, right? Experience and talent are certainly good. So how do we tell the difference between self-confidence and narcissism? In a word: empathy.

When you’re looking for people to hire look for a sense of humor, look for a confident vulnerability and openness, and look for empathy. Look for signs of a collaborative spirit. Do they talk in terms of “I” or “we”? Do they belittle others? Keep your bullshit detector charged and calibrated.

I believe that the next paradigm in work will be “trust.” The pandemic has forced companies to rethink how they work, how they collaborate, and how they connect. Trust is certainly the foundation of remote work. Trust is the foundation of flexible work. It’s a magical thing to be able to work with people you trust. When they’re allowed, narcissists will erode trust. They’ll chew it up and deny it was ever there to begin with.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t ever hire any “rockstar developers” or “bulldog sales people” in the future. The world will always have narcissists. But let’s stop enabling and encouraging them. It shouldn’t be cool to be a narcissist. And please – please! – stop confusing narcissism with talent or leadership.

Jeff Robbins is a business coach, mentor, and virtual business partner who works one-on-one with company owners and leaders to help them build vision and direction for their companies while building productivity, stability, and happiness for their employees and themselves. You can work with him too. Reach out to set up a free session.

At the time, CDs sold for about $12. We would stand at a table and sell them at our shows. We did in-store performances at record stores. We did radio interviews. We met with distributors and promoters and everyone along the chain – hopefully inspiring, connecting, and setting up the eventual perfect alignment of stars and planets for someone to be inspired to buy just one copy of our CD.

It was a lot of work. We weren’t a mass market band. We were an indie-rock band trying to make new and interesting music. 

So here I am standing in the cereal aisle trying to find some food to bring back to the hotel room. I’ve got a box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes in my hand and I’m looking at cereal boxes as far as the eye can see. Then the realization hits me. I have a vision of millions upon millions of boxes of Corn Flakes being sold all across the world. People eat this simple cereal every morning. Every two weeks, they buy another box. A box of Corn Flakes costs maybe $4. But a person could spend $100 a year on Corn Flakes… and thousands of dollars over their lifetime. The market isn’t targeted at outcast art kids misunderstood by society. It’s every house on every street in every country in the world. And Kellogg’s can crank boxes out as fast as we can eat them.

Compare that to all of the work that my band had done trying to sell one CD to one person… once. $12 and it’s over. Time to make another album. The comparison seems silly, I know. Both music and cereal are built on brand, habit, and even personal identity. But Corn Flakes is a mass market consumable. It’s different from its very conception.

But as I’ve found myself collaborating with coaching clients conceiving of products, services, and new lines of business, I’m often reminded of that moment standing in the cereal aisle. How could your business be more like Corn Flakes? How can you widen its appeal? What would take you to more homes in more countries? What would keep people coming back to buy more week after week, month after month? Is there a way your product can become a habit? How can you keep it simple and replicable?

I didn’t go home from that tour and change careers right away. I still appreciate the passion and art of creating music. I like inventing. I like connecting with people. I like getting inspired and hopefully, inspiring others. But maybe there’s a good balance somewhere between what feels good and what can be popular. Because if your business doesn’t stay in business, it’s not a business at all.

Jeff Robbins is a business coach, mentor, and virtual business partner who works one-on-one with company owners and leaders to help them build vision and direction for their companies while building productivity, stability, and happiness for their employees and themselves. You can work with him too. Reach out to set up a free session.

In 2013, I started Yonder as a conference for leaders of distributed companies to come together and talk about best practices for remote work. In 2016, Yonder stepped out from under the Lullabot umbrella and became a company of its own. I hired a few people and we started publishing articles and a podcast to advocate for remote work by helping company leaders understand the unique needs of remote teams.

We didn’t talk about how to find freelance remote work so you can work from the beach in Bali, dangling a carrot out for those wanting to find employment nirvana. Instead, we talked pragmatically about how to create jobs and expand the job market for all remote workers. Yonder was mission-based right from the beginning – built on the magical experience I’d had building a remote team at Lullabot. Remote work is better work. It requires more communication, trust, respect, empathy, and intentionality than we expect of conventional workplaces. But these are good things to have –  building stronger, more connected company cultures with better employee retention and job satisfaction.

As a company, Yonder started with a mission. I figured that we would come up with a business model as we went along. Advertising? Job boards? Consulting? More conferences? We experimented with all of them. Some were promising. Some were appealing. But in the venn diagram, there was not a lot of overlap between the two. We built a mailing list. I talked to a LOT of great people on the podcast. We ran an in-person conference. We ran an online conference. A lot of it was good. But none of it quite had that spark that it needed to blossom into something great.

The intrinsic motivation (aka the mission) was there. But the extrinsic ones just never came along.

Then COVID hit. All of a sudden, there was a split. On the one hand, the entire world needed information about remote work. On the other, Yonder’s mission and advocacy now seemed a bit naive. Remote work pundits came out of the woodwork. While once I’d struggled to find experts to interview on the podcast, now we were inundated by hundreds of PR people representing thousands of remote work “experts” who wanted to be heard. The world of remote work became a cacophony and I didn’t much see the point in trying to yell over everyone.

So just like that the intrinsic motivation was gone too.

Meanwhile, since my Lullabot exit I have been building my business coaching practice and it is very rewarding. I can tell that I’m helping people. There’s a proper exchange of commerce for services. I’ve got both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators!

So in August, I put Yonder on hold. We stopped posting new content to the website and the mailing list. And I haven’t missed it much. I feel like we did some great things with Yonder. But since putting it on hold, I feel like I’m onto even greater things.

We’re leaving all of our content up for the foreseeable future. We’re getting better traffic than we’ve ever seen. I still love talking about remote work. And who knows, maybe the planets will align for a working venn diagram in the future. But for now, I’m onto other things!

Subscribe to the mailing list at jjeff.com to keep up with my new directions and thoughts.

The smaller version was more collaborative, more connected, and more interactive. The larger version was more prepared, more of a broadcast, less connected, less collaborative, and less vulnerable. I would start on the annual State Of The Company talk weeks before and inevitably spend a sleepless night-before-the-presentation in a combination of preparation and worry, trying to form all of my thoughts and ideas to set the right tone for the team and the coming year. Yet, with all of this work and preparation, it never felt as authentic or rewarding as the less-prepared discussion-style talks.

Now that I’ve been out of the company for a few years and I’ve had the chance to coach leaders of other businesses, I’ve realized why I never felt great about those State Of The Company presentations. I’d exchanged presence for preparation. I’d become so focused and worried about being prepared, that I wasn’t really present. I was not being very interactive. I was not being very connected. I had no real idea whether my employees were on board or not. It didn’t feel like an all-together team effort, like things did when we were a smaller company.

Given, it’s difficult to be present with that many people at once. Having spent a lot of time in my life standing in front of audiences, it feels like the natural limit for that kind of interactive communication experience is about 32. (I like powers of 2!) But there are certainly ways to connect with a larger group. I’m a big fan of town-hall-style meetings, but that’s the subject of another article.

But how often do we inadvertently opt for preparation at the expense of presence – even with smaller groups of people? Fear or some sense of importance is usually at play: a client pitch; firing an employee; fundraising; or just a difficult conversation. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t come prepared for these types of things. But it can be difficult to remain present, especially if you’ve come over-prepared and you stay focused on your prepared materials. Are you listening? Or are you just reading from the script? Are you reacting in the moment? Or are you just plowing forward?

In the end, you’re more likely to remember the things you were present for than the things that you were prepared for. Likewise, the people around you are more likely to be present and attentive if you are present and attentive. So while we’re preparing, let’s not forget to prepare to be present.

Jeff Robbins is a business coach, mentor, and virtual business partner who works one-on-one with company owners and leaders to help them build vision and direction for their companies while building productivity, stability, and happiness for their employees and themselves. You can work with him too. Reach out to set up a free session.

But, the more successful I’ve become, the less clear defeat has become. When you’re working for someone else (or perhaps you’re working for the American people), they will usually make it clear to you when things are over. But if you’re an entrepreneur working for yourself, it’s usually not as cut-and-dried. We need to fire ourselves. Often, we need to step away to get some perspective. We need a sabbatical or a break. We need to talk to other people and gain some objectivity. We need to gauge the market – or perhaps just check in with our gut – in order to know whether it’s time to move on. We need to Marie Kondo ourselves and our project. Does it spark joy? Is it moving forward?

In a sense, we need to move on in order to know if we need to move on. Objectivity comes in hindsight.

Leadership qualities such as tenacity, vision, and the ability to rally people behind a cause usually help us move our projects forward. But what happens when there’s no moving forward? This dedication to our ideas can keep us going beyond what’s necessary or even sensible.

I don’t mean to say that moving on is easy. You’ll probably need to go through the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It’s best to try to find some emotional maturity and move through these efficiently. It’s never a good look for a leader to be stuck in the early stages of grief – whether you’re running a coffee shop or you’re the President of the United States. Stop whining and move on.

And maybe defeat isn’t really defeat. It’s not an absolute end. It’s an opportunity to do something new. Venture capitalists call it a “pivot.” Maybe you’ve got your next thing lined up already. But maybe that next thing is nothing at all. Aristotle says, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” Sometimes doing nothing is just creating space for something else to come along. This has certainly been my experience.

Are you holding onto something that you need to let go of? If you’ve had one good idea, you’re probably capable of coming up with others – especially if you open yourself up to the possibility. Or maybe you can just sit on a beach for a bit; figure out how to relax; and see what comes along next. But recognizing defeat and moving on gracefully is not only good sportsmanship, it’s also great leadership.

Jeff Robbins is a business coach, mentor, and virtual business partner who works one-on-one with company owners and leaders to help them build vision and direction for their companies while building productivity, stability, and happiness for their employees and themselves. You can work with him too. Reach out to set up a free session.