The Operating Cadence

One of the biggest risks for startup companies is that they don’t operate fast enough. If you want to increase your chances of growth and success a real sense of urgency and fast execution is key.

But how fast should you actually operate? Read below to find out

At Uber our core values were centered around cultural principles such as: Superpumped, Be an Owner, Not a Renter, Always be Hustlin', Let Builders Build, Winning: Champion's Mindset, Meritocracy and Toe-Stepping - all of them focused on taking ownerships and moving fast. Clearly dictated by the speed of our founder Travis Kalanick.

You have to have a sense of urgency because everyone else does - Travis Kalanick

Doing this is easier said than done but if you fail to act with a sense of urgency - particularly at the earlier stages of a company’s lifetime you will be left behind by competitors who are moving faster than you are.

🆘 Signs that your organization lacks sense of urgency

Below are a few examples that your organization lacks sense of urgency

1️⃣ Marketing not able to turn around anything fast

• Being able to move swiftly and with short deadlines is a healthy sign of a well functioning marketing org in the early days
• Example: Sales needs a small ad-hoc flyer done. Pushback from the marketing org saying that: We are booked out with tasks for the remainder of this quarter but fill in this form and we will look at it for the next quarter. We need to be able to scope it out before committing to it.

2️⃣ Manager does not set deadlines for projects

• Your manager never sets deadlines for you or your team. In most cases deadlines should come from the manager and they should be aspirational. Without it many ends up floating around without any sense of time pressure. If there are no clear reasons as to why something need to be done by a certain time - setting an artificial deadline will also work.
• Example: The manager asks a direct report to do an analysis on churn but does not set any deadlines for when this is needed and does not do anything to create a sense of urgency. The manager might forget about the project during their next 1:1 and does not follow up.

3️⃣ No consequences for not hitting deadlines

• There should be consequences by not hitting a deadline otherwise employee will not feel the need to complete a task within the deadline. Ideally there should be a culture where meeting deadlines is rewarded.
• Examples: At a weekly team meeting multiple projects are falling behind plan. The manager does not ask to understand why deadlines were not met and does not get confirmation of new deadlines but simply keeps asking for updates week after week.

Sense of urgency - a super power that needs constant training

Sense of urgency is a super power that needs to be maintained inside companies. It is very easy to start moving towards becoming a mediocre company when it comes to speed of execution. And no great companies were build slowly at the beginning.

A phrase like: Why not do it tomorrow? Can easily translate into Why not next week and all of a sudden something which would normally take a day takes several days or weeks. So be careful of lowering your bar. Its a slippery slope and can slowly erode over time without paying attention to it.

Somebody would ask me if he could get back to me about something next week, and I would reply ‘how about tomorrow morning? Might be completely unreasonable, did not matter - Frank Slootman

Top down

I have only seen sense of urgency work well when it is coming from the top of the company. In most cases the CEO and founder needs to be the driving force behind the sense of urgency in how she or he manages direct employees, the way they communicate to the company and what they expect from employees. They must clearly communicate and act in a way that makes no mistake that they want people to move fast.

Without leaders driving the tempo in an organization, it will naturally settle into a lethargic pace. If you have ever worked in or with government, you have seen extreme examples of this. There is no urgency about anything, other than quitting time - Frank Slootman

If the CEO is not acting with a sense of urgency it will trickle down into the organization and slowly the entire organization will be working at the same pace as the CEO. Even individually motivated employees with a sense of urgency will over time deviate towards the standard set by the CEO and the exec team.

Once lost, impossible to get back

Sense of urgency cannot be inserted into a company later on. Once it is lost - it will have spread to all corners of the organization and be the accepted way to operate. It is very hard to start asking people to work harder and faster once they have become used to a slower way of operating.

This is why it’s vital to maintain a focus on a sense of urgency from the beginning and as long as it is possible. At Uber this persisted even when there were thousands of employees.

Clearly defining expectations for new joiners

One of the biggest mistakes I see high-growth companies make, is that they don’t clearly communicate what they expect from new employees. Ensuring that new employees are adopted into the way of working and maintaining a sense of urgency requires that managers are very explicit around expectations. It also gives the new employee a clear understanding of what is expected and how they should operate.

I have seen in many companies that this does not happen explicitly which means that the employee will default to whatever pace they are used to working at and the manager might be frustrated about the slow work pace.

• Communicate clearly to new employees how long you expect various tasks to take

Most successful entrepreneurs have a sense of urgency

Most successful entrepreneurs and startups have this trait - both in the founder and the early employees. It is one of the few advantages they have over incumbents.

I have seen this myself at Uber where even after we grew to several thousand people spread across the world - people where still operating with a sense of urgency.

• Frank Slootman talks at length about increasing velocity and creating a sense of urgency in his book Amp It Up
• Elon Musk is well known for his insane work ethic and short deadlines often driving the team to achieve extraordinary results
• Sam Altman underlines the importance of rapid iterations through his blog: Fast iteration can make up for a lot; it’s usually ok to be wrong if you iterate quickly. Plans should be measured in decades, execution should be measured in weeks.
• Mike Volpi just mentioned on a Logan Bartlett podcast that: being fast matters more than being able to correctly assess a situation
• Mads Johnsen recently shared why deadlines are so important when building product orgs
• Anders Krohn from Momentum (disclaimer: I’m an investor) shares all investor updates via loom at 1.25 the speed. It’s a small thing but it highlights a focus on rapid execution and sense of urgency.

And the list goes on and on.

Rule of thumb👍: “The 1 week” rule

So how fast should you operate?

At a fast growing startup no project should take more than 1 week to complete. This was the principle we used at Uber. It gave really clear guidelines and also ensured that no one were stuck with a project for several months. Either it was done in a week or you needed input to get it done the next week. For smaller tasks - lets say creating a deck or doing an analysis of an issue - it should be done in the same day.

• Projects: 1 week
• Tasks: 1 day

Disclaimer: Of course there are plenty of exceptions to this rule. Certain projects such as a rebrand, creating a legal process, working with a regulator etc. might take more time. But as a core principle for all product, strategy and operational roles I think it provides a good timeline - at the very least to complete the first set of milestones.