How you should talk about your team

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

This is the correct tone to take when talking about your team:

The team’s commitment to this was profound. Many individuals spent multiple weeks, multiple times, living in China working with our suppliers. They were creating precision parts and designing a manufacturing line that would assemble, test, and package Otto units at scale. After a long day at the office, a dozen or so people would get on a nightly call to support the team in Asia. They then worked to provide fixes, updates or additional support so their colleagues would not be slowed. During our builds, standard work weeks became 6 days a week with often scheduled company-wide calls nightly and over holidays, vacations and weekends.

In my book, How To Destroy A Tech Startup In Three Easy Steps, I note that the leadership of that startup decided to focus entirely on how the team had been a disappointment.

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