Let's face it, managing employees in a high growth startup can be very challenging. There’s often a tradeoff between cost and consistency on the one hand vs. accountability, speed, collaboration and customer centricity on the other.
- How do you make sure you are building the most valuable experience?
- How do you get faster when you grow?
- How do hire and retain the best people in the world?
- Most importantly, how do you do all of this while making sure everyone thrives?
Max Eskell, Head of Product at Monese, diving into this topic and giving insights on what happens when you let your teams run the company instead of telling them how to do their jobs.
With 14+ years’ experience in digital products Max has incredible stories about how his principles of running his team will help turn Monese into the next Unicorn. Implementing the flattest hierarchy any startup has ever seen has had a huge impact on people. Some people can handle this unique culture, others can’t, which makes hiring extremely challenging, but all the more valuable when it comes to a successful and sustainable hire.
16. Hire the best PLs we can, and keep raising
the bar
Monese becomes the place to
be for product leaders
Establish a reputation
Put the teams in charge and make
the leaders accountable
Empower the teams
Teams have the capacity and
capability to build world-class
products
Build world-class products
Build dedicate, co-located and
aligned teams and give everyone
the best guidance, feedback and
support
Build high-performing teams
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22. TOP TIPS:
Do not copy us
Think holistically
Make trade-offs explicit
Make alignment explicit
24. Monese
- Why the company exists, the problem it solves (mission)
- Provide financial freedom for people to live, study and work anywhere in the world
- Where the company wants to be in the future (vision)
- The main account for millions of people in fifty countries all over the world
- What people in the company value (values)
- Collaboration
- Passion
- Moving the solution forward
- What is important to the company now (goals, OKRs)
- Confidential
- How the company makes money
- We win when the customer wins
- Clear and transparent
- How the company works
- Centralised, decentralised
- Formal, informal
- Hierarchical, flat
- How people treat conflict
- Hunger games, radical candor, conflict free
25. Make trade-offs explicitly
We value:
- Accountability
- Speed
- Customer centricity
Over:
- Cost
- Consistency
- Control
Notas do Editor
The Gordian Knot is a legend of Phrygian Gordium associated with Alexander the Great. It is often used as a metaphor for an intractable problem (untying an impossibly-tangled knot) solved easily by finding an approach to the problem that renders the perceived constraints of the problem moot ("cutting the Gordian knot"):Add an anecdote here - use Mastercard story
How do you make sure you are building the most valuable experience?
Most valuable experience
Value = Delightful, adds revenue & hard to copy - Gibson Bidle
Monese team principles:
Alignment - understand who we are and why we exist
Dedicated - know the most about the customer, the product and the code
Co-located - all you need in one place
Empowered - the team decisions what to build, when
Alignment
We are solving a clear problem - allow people to be free
Why the company exists, the problem it solves (mission)
Where the company wants to be in the future (vision)
What people in the company value (values)
What is important to the company now (goals, OKRs)
How the company makes money
How the company works
Centralised, decentralised
Formal, informal
Hierarchical, flat
How people treat conflict
Hunger games, radical candor, conflict free
Dedicated
Team have all they needed to get 99% work done in the team
No fighting for resource
No budgets
No requests/cases/politics
Expertise
Product - consistent, holistic experience
Code - what to refactor, how long things will take, make work faster
Customer - segments now and future
DEVOPS
Changes are fast
No hand-offs
Changes are cheap
No meetings/committees
Co-located
We are humans
See eachother every day
Hundreds of small interactions a day
Trust
Solve problems quickly
People do not feel left out
Empowered
The team are the best people to make decisions if:
The team know the most about the customer
The team knows the most about product information
The team knows the most about the code
The team gets information the right context others (leaders role)
Tools not rules
Split how and what
Have a stable core
Hire the right pepple
Separate straetegix from tactical
Tools not rules
Rules are used as a crutch ‘I followed the rules’
Rules stop innovation ‘This is how it is done’
Split what and how
What - teams
How - chapters
Have a stable core
You cannot have chaos and ambiguity everywhere
SoS
Review
Hire the right people
Strong execution/reliable
Do not need to train or upskill
Mature
Diverse in thought, background
Strategic & tactical
Strategic - need more thinking
Tactical - just execute
Build a flywheel – self sustaining
Hire most passionate & capable people
Raise the bar each time
Only hire who have downloaded, use and critique the app
Reputation for execution
Passion in purpose - free
build high performing teams
Need the best leaders (above)
Dedicated, co-located, aligned & empowered
Take performance management seriously
Have strong feedback culture
Empower the teams
Need leaders & high-performing , them empower
Hold people to account
Build world class products
Need all of the above
Lead them well (roll-model, feedback, coaching,