A recent National Geographic article explored sleep and some of the problems associated with lack of sleep.
Lack of sleep can be dangerous:
… Harvard’s Charles Czeisler. He notes that going without sleep for 24 hours or getting only five hours of sleep a night for a week is the equivalent of a blood alcohol level of 0.1 percent. Yet modern business ethic celebrates such feats. “We would never say, ‘This person is a great worker! He’s drunk all the time!’ ” Czeisler wrote in a 2006 Harvard Business Review article.
This finding matches up with what we’ve discussed about doctors. The problem gets hidden inside the data in the business world because the harsh measurements of death is absent; no one knows what would have happened to the Murphy account if the saleswoman had more rest. Plus, we don’t like to think about how lack of sleep impairs us.
The story I tell about lack of sleep is, of course, one from Ranger School. I think it was the last patrol in Florida phase, and I was the squad leader for a nighttime linear ambush. One of my team leaders was trying to tell me something, and he was literally falling asleep standing up, while he was talking to me. He’d drift off, stumble forward a step, catch himself, wake up, and keep talking. Amazingly I remember being wide awake at the time, and asking the RI about what you might do in just this situation. He basically said “you have to do whatever you can, because sleeping means dying.” Okay, he didn’t say the last couple words, but that lesson doesn’t have to be learned in today’s Army, not since Vietnam.
How might we put these ideas into practice? For one, if leaders delegated more fully to teams, then each team could function independently with the same task, conditions, and standards as the others (three sales teams covering the same region, for example). Let each team leader decide how to manage and lead her people. If the results are what matter, then let the results speak. Senior people shouldn’t get hung up on optics, particularly if the only reason is because it’s easier to count hours in the office than measure sales effectiveness or adjust for the quality of the leads.
So give your teams intentions-based guidance. Let the lowest-level leader decide how they’ll operate (in terms of schedule, responsiveness, mindset), and let the results speak for themselves once you gather enough data to smoke out the externalities that tough working conditions can create.
What is your number one fallback technique for taking care of your subordinates?
Tagged as:
employee,
leadership,
military,
productivity,
wisdom
Many of my readers have seen my “Five-minute General Counsel” blog post series.
The idea is to give readers an informed opinion that, while not specific to their situation, highlights some of the major issues involved in various decisions, such as whether to form an LLC or corporation for your tech startup. (Hint: read this first.)
What is free advice all about?
To some, these posts look like free advice, which makes no sense for a lawyer who gets paid for giving advice. But that’s only half-right at most. From the lawyer’s perspective, only specific advice is worthwhile — after all, you can learn lots of general stuff about incorporation, venture financing documents, and even (although rarely) about venture math from lawyers, VCs, and entrepreneurs (who are now VCs).
What I tell prospective clients is this: you need advice that is competent, focused, reliable, and dedicated. These other writers all fall short on one or more of these factors, and even my own posts have the fault, necessary though it may be, of not being specific to *your* exact situation. Even something as otherwise “standard” as the Delaware C-corp will not apply to certain tech startups depending on the business model, the resources available to the founders, and even the actual nature of the underlying business. Could I lay out some examples here? Sure, but even then you wouldn’t necessarily be sure that your situation fell within the general guidelines. And you wouldn’t know whether there is some other fact in your situation that would change everything, like a substantial spendthrift trust for your living expenses. Trust me: no VC is worried about that issue from your perspective.
If I can’t ever get “real” advice, am I wasting my time?
So why do I write if I’m ultimately doomed to fail by my own standards? Well, first, I think there’s no harm in having high standards. Second, my real goal isn’t, and can’t be, to give you THE answer. Third, what I can do is tell you most of the questions, point you to many of the factors, and most importantly, show you how I approach the issues and structure my advice.
Because what you need, what you come to me for, is trusted advice. I show you that I’m trustworthy by showing (not telling) you that I know what I’m talking about and by giving you lots of evidence of my mindset so that you can see what sort of service, experience, and advice you’re getting.
And that makes a difference for different types of work: putting a typical venture deal together requires a classic Silicon Valley approach: focus on the high payoff terms, put everything else within the zone of reason, and get the parties moving forward; on the other hand, negotiating debt with strict operating covenants and a *gulp* personal guarantee requires a classic New York City approach: no stone unturned, every phrase — representation, covenant, and condition — examined and pushed in your direction.
Please share any examples of when you got the “wrong” type of lawyer for work you needed. What do you expect from a lawyer — what’s just the price of admission and what closes the deal?
Tagged as:
blogging,
law,
personal branding,
wisdom,
writing
