Creating an Award-Winning Company Means Making LOTS of Mistakes —Here Are Some of My Most Regrettable People Mistakes

Out of all our accomplishments at MovingWorlds, this recent award from Escape the City as the best company to work for might be the one I'm most proud of.

While a big part of this award connects to our commitment to social & environmental impact, I'm not going to talk about that today because we have big news related to that in the coming weeks... Instead, I want to focus on what I believe is the hardest—and often most overlooked—job for entrepreneurs: Creating a safe, encouraging, energizing, fun, and high-performing work culture.

Luckily, I get to work with pretty incredible people that are patient, reflective, and believe that if we work at it, we can keep improving. Our award as "a best company to work for" has very little to do with what I have put in place, and is instead a testament to what some of the MovingWorlds long-timers have initiated to prioritize culture and team health above all else.

The roots of this award go back to our founding days with Derk Norde who believed there was a way to build a more fun and purposeful workplace - even if virtual. To Mariusz Kukawski who introduced concepts like #nonviolentcommunication and #possibilitymanagement. To Nafessa Kassim who taught me the importance of mindfulness at work, and supporting it for others. To Cole Hoover who laid the foundation for effective peer coaching (and so much more). To Milleigh Vo who labeled and explained my unconscious bias and taught me to take learning into my own hands—and was more patient with me than I deserved. To Cami for reverse-mentoring me to uphold principles and values even when it meant a hit to revenues. To Alexandra Nemeth who emphasized the importance of vulnerability at work. To Flavia Speiski who demonstrates a #growthmindset perhaps better than anyone I've ever met. To Rebecca Mitsch who showed how strong structure and operations can be an enabler for culture and performance. Katie Hale for exploring whiteness so generatively, and helping others do the same. Kelsey Reed for demonstrating the power of Scrum in a ridiculously short amount of time. To my Board for asking more questions about the health of our team and our impact then about the health of financials.

But even with really strong intentions and team members, we also had MANY missteps. I made many missteps. In fact, not a month goes by where, upon learning more about myself, I feel a desire to apologize to some of our team members, especially from the early days, who had to cope with some inequitable workplace practices. Strangely... vulnerably... I also have a pang of guilt associated with this award because it doesn't recognize the people in the early days of MovingWorlds that ended up with a workplace that wasn't as good as they deserved. Leading people comes with great responsibility, and even with the greatest of intentions, we mess things up... and because we're working with people, that means our mistakes have real consequences on real people. This is why I think entrepreneurs—especially social entrepreneurs—need to focus more on creating better workplaces: because our work can make life measurably better for the people that we touch every day.

The job of entrepreneurs is not to get their teams to be productive. It's to create a safe, rewarding, energizing, and fun workplace where people can do their best work.

Years ago, with a less developed understanding of my whiteness, bias, maleness, title/role —and resulting privilege—I made MANY managerial mistakes... So while I am really excited about today's recognition, I also want to share a couple of the mistakes that offered me the greatest learning in hopes that it can help you manage & lead better, too:

??♂? I told a female colleague that she should speak up more in meetings without assessing how my own actions that made that impossible (I just posted about this actually: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/markhoroszowski_stop-criticizing-women-and-start-questioning-activity-6922900871404027904-efIb)

?? I "heard", but didn't "listen" to, nor act on, feedback about my management style which was creating unnecessary pressure and anxiety for team members. Instead of embracing a "Think Again" mindset, I instead tried to justify my actions based on the business's bottom line or my busy schedule.

?? I took the AMAZING "Accidental Diminisher" quiz from the brilliant Liz Wiseman from her book, #multipliers, but then ignored the results which showed that I have a number of "diminishing" habits. Instead of using this moment to empower change, I tried to talk myself into believing that Liz's assessment wasn't designed for the challenges of entrepreneurship so some of its concept's only applied to other leaders, but not me.

?? I repeatedly, and sometimes still, say the wrong things to teammates in the wrong moments, most regrettably during times when employees are stretching themselves and deserve encouragement and coaching instead of critique. Too often, I prioritize my own emotions/reactions above team members' and forget to use the GROW Model.

?? I made the team read "Thanks for the Feedback" (one of the best business books + "make life better" books I've ever read), but then focused on what other people should change instead of thinking about what I needed to change. This, perhaps, personifies what I see the most, especially with male leaders, who ask others to change to fit in without first showing by example that they can change. Indeed, changing your natural behavior and mindsets for the benefit of a team is REALLY HARD, and bosses mistakingly believe that everyone around them needs to change, without examining their own actions.

??? Sooooooo many more...

BUT amidst the failures, there are also a couple of really important things we got right: Early on, Derk Norde and I insisted on creating a direct, transparent, flat, and open environment where people were encouraged to share their feelings, to provide feedback, and to speak openly. When we saw room for improvement, we developed better policies. When it still wasn't good enough, we did some training and peer coaching. Then we started measuring it to track progress. And we're still not done improving.

Creating a "best company to work for" is not a destination, it's a journey.

As just one example, two weeks ago, I received more feedback from my team about some management and collaboration habits that were creating friction points for some team members. My initial internal reaction to the feedback was defensiveness, a little pain, and a desire to tell my team members how they should change their behavior to cope with it... Luckily, I kept that inside, and my external reaction was to listen, ask questions, and 5-Why the feedback (here's the mural board where it happened)

What I learned in the process is that as humans, we all know that we're not perfect, and we don't expect others to be perfect, either. BUT, if we continue to invest in creating a high-trust and safe environment, then we create a place where open dialogue can help us get to the root cause of things that make work not energizing, not productive, and not fun. And, once we get to the root cause, we see that most issues are not human issues, but actually, system and company culture issues. And here, I'm very lucky to keep learning from Mary Miller who has the most sophisticated, impactful, #humancentered, and strategic view of #culture that I've ever heard or read about. 

As I look back on my mistakes, there is actually one other mistake that I didn't mention above that I keep making: learning from others. Indeed, one of my favorite quotes is "That humans do not learn from the lessons of history, that is the most important lesson of history"

That humans do not learn from the lessons of history, that is the most important lesson of history

As leaders, when we make mistakes, it has direct effects on people, and as such, we should strive to learn as much as possible from others.

At MovingWorlds, one of our values is "People First". This human-centric focus is as much a part of our commitment to our users as it is to employees. If you take away anything from our success on creating a "great workplace", please hear this: Focussing on your people, even when creates more work for you in short-term, is the best time you can ever spend in the long-term.

To everyone at MovingWorlds, past and present, thank you for your contributions to this achievement!!!!