It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work

Promises pile up like debt, and they accrue interest, too. The longer you wait to fulfill them, the more they cost to pay off and the worse the regret.

If you want to know the truth about what you’ve built, you have to ship it. You can test, you can brainstorm, you can argue, you can survey, but only shipping will tell you whether you’re going to sink or swim.

Here’s what we do. Rather than demand whatever it takes, we ask, What will it take? That’s an invitation to a conversation. One where we can discuss strategy, make tradeoffs, make cuts, come up with a simpler approach all together, or even decide it’s not worth it after all. Questions bring options, decrees burn them.

Micromanagers tend to stay micromanagers. Workaholics tend to stay workaholics. Hustlers tend to stay hustlers. What we do repeatedly hardens into habits. The longer you carry on, the tougher it is to change. All your best intentions about doing the right thing “later” are no match for the power of habits.

We’ve also recently put a new profit growth-sharing scheme in place. If total profits grow year over year, we’ll distribute 25 percent of that growth to employees in that year. This isn’t tied to role, it’s not about individual performance, and since we don’t have salespeople, it’s not commission. Everyone shares or no one gets it.

So here’s what we do instead: We’ve vowed to distribute 5 percent of the proceeds to all current employees if we ever sell the company. No stock price to follow, no valuation to worry about. If something happens, we’ll share. If not, no need to spend any time thinking about it. It’s a pleasant surprise, it’s not compensation.

The quickest way to disappointment is to set unreasonable expectations. Ignore the Talent War Talent isn’t worth fighting over.

At Basecamp, we all do the work, so influence is most effectively exerted by leading the work, not by calling for it.

So something as minor as “Are we doing enough on Instagram?” can shoot Instagram to the top of the marketing priority list. It was a mere suggestion, but it’s taken as a mandate. “Why would she be talking about Instagram unless she really thought Instagram was super important?”