What's your secret sauce for building a great team?
See people as individuals, not CVs. It’s very easy to slip into this for example in recruiting, when you find yourself sorting through dozens of standard CVs that all begin to look alike. What I like to do is to ask open-ended questions that give candidates a chance to present their character in a unique way, for example: Which tools/apps could you not work without and why? How do you imagine the perfect workplace? What’s your dream job?
What's a skill that we should pay more attention to in the workplace?
Written communication. It enables async work like few other things, and the more comfortable people feel in expressing their ideas succinctly in text, the less need for looms or zooms or rooms. I also apply this to the example hiring questions above: letting candidates answer in text for the first round of questions.
What motivates you to work as a leader / entrepreneur?
To save human civilization. Haha 😅 I’m still surprised how uninspiring leadership still is in many companies, and how many problems of the world remain unsolved. It amazes me how the peace in our world seems stable and fragile at the same time. I believe we need empathic leadership and bold entrepreneurship to save our world from unsustainable behavior of all sorts.
What should leaders understand about their own role and responsibility?
The rules are not yet written. It’s up to us to design not just our tech stacks but also our cultures, habits, and what it means to “work” at all. Don’t take anything for granted! There are too many common misconceptions about how organizations function, how leadership supposedly works. We are free to do it differently, to do it our own way.
What book do you recommend the most?
"The Meaning Revolution" by Fred Kofman. It influenced my leadership style the most. I realized that you can achieve a high level of trust and high performance at the same time. It’s not an either/or between (over-)empowering or (micro-)management but the right dose of both that gets you furthest.
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Here’s More, From Other Founders Around the World
What should leaders understand about their own role and responsibility?
Your own time and energy is the most precious resource you have. Use it wisely, and learn what gives you energy, and what saps you. In the early years of building something, you need to throw a huge amount of time at it - and do many things you perhaps don’t like doing. But as you scale, it’s vital to take a step back and build a business that can grow rapidly beyond the time you put into it.
What shift in perspective has allowed you to see things differently?
It may sound simple, but realizing and truly understanding that we are all different and driven by different things has made a significant impact on me. This insight has changed the way I approach relationships and leadership.
What’s a guiding principle that informs the way you build and run your business?
One of our core values at Cozero is radical candor. It is the idea that the willingness to repeatedly enter uncomfortable situations to speak the truth benefits everyone in the long run. We believe that in order to grow and improve as an organization, we need to create an environment where our team is not afraid to challenge processes and decisions. Making this a core value guides us in difficult situations when it’s not clear which road to take.
What's a mistake that you're happy you've made?
I'm happy I chose a highly regulated market, even though it was tough. It taught me a lot about patience, attention to detail, and the importance of doing things right. These lessons have made me better at what I do.