What you'll take away from this chapter:

In this chapter, we'll explore the ways in which you must be prepared for constant change. As George Bernard Shaw famously said, “Those who can't change their minds can't change anything.” That statement has never been more true. With the constant threat of disruption, the rise of artificial intelligence, and continued shifts in foreign policies, companies need to be constantly prepared for change. In this chapter, you'll learn about the importance of instilling a growth mindset to handle change, get more comfortable pivoting, and continuing to innovate.

When You Move Beyond the Startup and People Start to Silo into Positions

“Someone actually just said…that's not my job!” Hannah had positioned her hands on her hips, and looked at Maria, exasperated.

“Seriously? What did you tell them?” Maria raised her eyebrows. That wasn't a sentence she had expected to hear at her company.

“I asked her what she thought her job was.” Hannah crossed her arms, recalling how incredulous she had felt responding to the statement.

“And…?” Maria wanted to hear more.

“She said, ‘My job was described to me as sending emails to prospective clients and helping customers troubleshoot challenges over the phone.’” Hannah relayed with the same flat tone the employee had used.

“What did you ask her to do?” Maria wondered what could have prompted this type of exchange.

“I asked her to put together a report showing a master view of customer calls, and the types of issues they were having, so we could use it to better inform our development.”

“Well, that's a perfectly reasonable extension of her work.”

“Right—if I were her I would have jumped on it, to show the additional strategic value I could provide.” Hannah still couldn't believe it.

“Please explain to her that we expect everyone at this company to have a growth mindset. New tasks will come up, new objectives will be created, and we expect our employees to be able to pivot and adjust so that we as an organization can be prepared to pivot and adjust.”

“I hear you—believe me. I'll talk to her privately about this. She may just not be a good fit for the organization, but I think it may be worth doing a larger workshop for the entire team. I don't want one attitude to infect everyone else's.” Hannah thought that this was a potentially larger cultural issue for the company than Maria was articulating.

“That's a fair point.” Maria was still trying to process the story as Hannah walked out. She had always sought to do her best at every job and achieve more on top of what she was asked. She assumed that one should always be learning, which is partly how she ended up starting a company. As they were starting to hire more people, she was surprised that someone came on board with that type of attitude. She thought this might be a good conversation to have with Jill, who was really serving as an executive coach at this point.

“Maria—Hannah is right. You need to make this a bigger part of your culture.” Jill's voice was actually stern. She had made the trip over again after hearing the genuine concern in Maria's voice when she called.

“You can't bring on people who think they are there to just perform a task like scooping ice cream. You need to instill your core values and mission into the team, so that they continue to learn and build based on shared values and a common mission. As Carol Dweck pointed out in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, you need to create an organizational growth mindset.”

“Right—I guess I need to develop a growth leadership mindset to push this forward.” Maria started to think about how her own attitudes may have led to some of the behaviors she was seeing.

“Exactly. You know, there's a great quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the author of The Little Prince, on this one: “If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

“Right, I've heard that one…I think they use it at Netflix to keep people motivated.” Maria got the concept, but just putting feel-good quotes out to the team somehow didn't seem to completely fit the bill for what was needed.

“Maria, this comes naturally to you, but you've got a new thing to learn—how to instill the same growth mindset in your teams that you hold yourself. You don't want people in here working on a specific thing for a specific project that is assigned to them. You can't assume that just because you care deeply about this, everyone else here does, too. That's how people will leave this place, eager to go home to something they care more deeply about. You want people to share and buy into the mission of Starboard…When they do that, they'll do whatever it is that needs to be done to get there.”

“So this really is on me. I'm going to give this some thought.” Maria thought about the mental energy she used to spend on leaving her own job, And now here she was with her own company and its unique mission.

So Maria started brainstorming on how she could instill this type of aspirational focus and mindset into her teams…She knew she could do it.

* * *

Building for Organizational Success through Your Company's Mission

The exchanges described among Hannah, Maria, and Jill are not uncommon. As a founder, you'll tackle whatever needs to be done to achieve your goals. As you start to scale and hire people, you need to figure out how to make sure they are aligned with the company's mission. As Jill pointed out, you want teams to be passionate about your goals, not feel that they are merely cogs in your machine performing a rote task.

So how can you do this?

First of all, it's important to define your company's mission. The top-performing companies have missions to which everyone can align. These are statements that enable leaders to make decisions as to whether a given project aligns with the mission and serves as motivation for employees to know that their efforts are counting toward a great cause. You'll recall that, earlier, we discussed a vision for your company. A vision statement is where you are going. A mission statement is the core philosophy that informs your process and decision-making. It's the reason your company exists, and it will become the reason people want to work with you.

The following are some well-known industry examples:

• Tesla: “To accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy.”
• Google: “To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
• Whole Foods: “To nourish people and the planet. We're a purpose-driven company that aims to set the standards of excellence for food retailers. Quality is a state of mind at Whole Foods Market.”
• Third Love: “Every woman deserves to feel comfortable and confident.”
• Hasbro: “Hasbro is a global play and entertainment company committed to creating the world's best play experiences.”

Each of these statements stands on its own. They provide clarity to teams on what is important, and empower individuals and teams to think of new innovative solutions that could help fulfill those missions. For example, what if Tesla's mission was “to make a great electric car”? That would be the end of innovation. Instead, its mission of building a more sustainable energy allows everyone to expand their imagination and cultivate new ideas for the company.

Research shows that innovation happens when teams are able to collaborate and bring diverse experiences and viewpoints to a conversation. As a leader, you need to create a safe place where people are not just rewarded for completing a task, but they are celebrated for carving a new path, forging a new adventure, taking the company to a new level of success because they were inspired by the mission.

You can do this!