How to speed up pace of work with team habits

Sarah wrote this nice piece on the importance of pace, especially in the post-AI startup economy. Here are some additional thoughts on amplifying PACE with habits, not just people. 

1. Real World teams are imperfect: While hiring the most amazing (i.e. intrinsically “high-paced”) people is important, it is also almost always a goal that none of us achieve 100%, especially in the early, resource-constrained stages of a startup. We don’t have the money, don’t have the “reputation”, or don’t have the time to get the perfect team in place. Start with this acknowledgement.

2. Believe in habits: Can team habits speed up a mix of “good and great team members” by 2-5X? I think so. People can be shaped by culture and habits to a remarkable degree, as long as they have the intrinsic minimums (the intrinsic minimums may not have manifested fully- maybe because they didn’t work in a demanding enough culture, or they were not encouraged/incentivized properly). Start with this conviction.

3. Habit # 1: “The 3 levels framework”. While interviewing and onboarding team members, the most important thing I do is communicate the 3 levels framework. It goes like this: Level 1 team members do what they are told to do well (Self Executing), Level 2 members take high level goals and break them down on their own and get the subsequent tasks done (Self Analyzing + Executing), Level 3 members set their own high level goals, break them down, and get them done (Self Planning + Analyzing + Executing). I then tell everyone that THIS IS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. It’s the only thing they are evaluated on. They are expected to spend most of their time in the Level 2 or Level 3 zone. Being in Level 1 is a problem. I ask everyone every week where they think they are operating most of the time (it’s better to let them realize than to tell them). PACE is often a function of what % of time your team spends in Level 2 and Level 3 execution mode. Anything over 60% overall time spent by the team in these two modes means a 2-5X improvement in high-velocity shipping of what matters. 

4. Habit # 2: “Everyone sets their own goals”. Yes, ownership and PACE are different. But they are related. Giving people goals kills PACE. Give them north star guidance. Give them space to fail. Whenever they ask for instructions, ask them- “what do you think?”. Or: “what do you think is the right decision that will enable the only thing that matters: an amazing user experience?”. Don’t give answers to team members- instead give questions. PACE comes from people exercising agency, and agency is a mindset habit, which can be encouraged. 

5. Habit # 3: Multi-functional, user-centric responsibilities. Often, PACE is a function of how aligned team members are aligned to a cross/multi-functional achievement of end user objectives. When people are siloed into functional responsibilities, they tend to get stuck and slow down overall delivery of user-centric stories/features/outcomes. E.g. all engineers in my team are also QA and product managers. My content manager is also the customer success manager. My engineering lead codes and designs. All of us test product like our life depends on it. The last 50 years of corporate culture have encouraged responsibility breakdown and complex org structures, and this is fundamentally an architecture that reduces PACE. Exponential speed can be unlocked by stacking 2 or 3 traditional responsibilities with every person in the team. 

There are many more, but I’ll start with these. Hopefully this helps..!