What are the biggest wins for company leaders and what are the key lessons for startups?
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This was despite many industries facing financial and long-term uncertainty.
But instead of focusing on profits, their concern was about their people:
How are our people?
Are they traveling to visit family?
What is their family situation?
How are they going to handle working from home?
This helped companies boost morale, improve work-life balance and retain good people.
Cohn explained:
Executive teams invented daily stand-ups.
Part of this was the recognition that there was a lot of bad news in this evolving environment.
And people were isolated at home.
So keeping in touch was important.
Rather than simply bemoaning the challenges, they found ways to use those constraints to drive innovation.
As Cohn explained:
They said, were just going to use these six data elements.
And they werent sure if it was viable.
But people bought it, and they ultimately raised the price and perfected the product.
But I think in the past, it would have taken them years.
But as Cohn asserts, Any company that exists has a culture.
But one of the biggest challenges to culture during the pandemic has been expansion.
She gave the example of a company of 100 employees that shifted to working from home.
Eighteen months later, they hired an additional 100 people.
The challenge was that the founders and the initial team felt like the same company.
But new people didnt have that same context.
Remote companies need to be really intentional with the culture they want to create.
Cohn also contends that culture means two different things.
One is that we like each other, enjoy each other, and have good relationships together.
But according to Cohn, its also about, do we give direct feedback to each other?
Or do we kind of hold back?
Are we proactive people?
Is there a focus on valuing speed or thoroughness?
Those are the topics that people dont think about when they think about culture.
Cohn believes that great CEOs get a chief people officer if they dont have one.
And theyre thinking a lot about why employees continue to work for the same company.
The other reason is that they feel fairly treated, including financial compensation.
Good feedback
Feedbackis also an essential part of feeling valued at work.
If they feel successful, they want to stay.
