18-month plans and why you should have one.

In August it has been 18 months since I joined Huspy. I am very happy to be part of an A-Team, not satisfied with the status quo, and invested by the main Venture Capital fund in the world: Sequoia Capital.

But why am I writing this LinkedIn post regarding my first 1.5 years at the company, but I didn't say anything when I completed my full first year?

Because 18-month commitments are very important in our careers, even more in startups, where it can be very dynamic.

12 months is not much time and 24 might be a lot.

About 5 years ago I read about this idea in a book called "Lean In:" by Sheryl Sandberg, former COO of Facebook, and I never forgot about it. A simple piece of advice that I take not only in regard to work but also try to apply in my personal life.

When you are hired at a company, there is a certain "rampage" period, where you have to understand the business, create and cultivate relationships, understand the scope of work in depth to actually generate value, and so on. In general, people will be in "full speed mode", really FULL, after one year — At Huspy I think it's 2 months :)

That is, only after this period you will be able to generate maximum value for the company. And that's why the People teams focus on reducing talent turnover. Basically, the company has invested a year in you, now is the time to give back the best returns and help the wheel to turn smoother.

After a year, you have 6 months to continue delivering a lot, but at full speed. 18 months is your first commitment.

But what then? Evaluate whether you want to repeat this commitment for another 18 months. Do you like the people? Do you enjoy working in this market? Are you happy? Do you feel constantly challenged?

If the answer is YES, RE-commit.

Another point I've noticed over the years is that 18 months might also be a very interesting point of inflection for employee motivation. In my experience, the eNPS tends to drop for employees with more years in the same company, especially in Startups, where the pace is swift. (Do you feel the same thing?)

But why does this happen?

It is after the 1 year period that people will start to think, even without rationalizing about the framework I've mentioned, if they are in the right place, if their initial expectations have been met and if the expectations for the future will be too. That energy from the beginning usually is not the same, the person needs to find other motivations inside the company, and keeping the flame lit will also depend on self-motivation and the work environment policies the companies need to create.

In the end, it's really about managing expectations: Did you think you would grow faster? that would be earning more? thought that your boss would never be that stressed with the pressure for goals? believed that the company would not grow as much in terms of people? that the work would be less political? that the goal would double but not triple?

We tend to look less at it in the beginning, we're super excited for the first cycle. After all, who starts complaining in the first month? It takes time to understand all the complexities a company can offer.

That's why it takes a lot of resilience. Creating a career of jumping from one company to another can be easier, but there will come a day when someone will ask you for consistency, how many times you recommit, how you externalized to your manager that you were not satisfied, how many times you thought about giving up but really LED the change around you.

Generating results for years, quarter over quarter is not for everyone, but it is certainly highly valued by companies!

So to close... RE-commit.

Thank you Jad Antoun for having that first chat, the vision of the future and boldness always caught my attention. I proudly say that I re-commit everyday to this rocketship.

Thank you, Huspy team, for the highest bar I've ever seen, and for the biggest professional growth I could have in 18 months.

What about you, do you plan for 12 or 18 months? Feedback and comments are always welcome!

Murilo