Incorporate the open source philosophy into your life and work, understanding its four freedoms (use, see, modify, distribute). This approach fosters evolutionary dynamics and collective improvement, leading to long-term success by getting everyone working together on shared resources.
Obsess over creating an optimal environment for your team and community, considering factors like mastery, autonomy, and purpose. A positive environment, where individuals are challenged, have freedom, and work for something bigger, unleashes contribution and drives world-changing performance.
Shift from ‘remote’ to ‘distributed’ to foster an anti-fragile network where every team member has an equal ability to contribute, regardless of location. This mindset promotes resilience and equal contribution among all nodes.
Design your organization for asynchronous communication to unlock global talent, ultimate flexibility, and richer interactions. Use internal blogging systems (like P2) for discussions, allowing people to contribute their best thoughts at their own pace, thereby building institutional knowledge and improving decision quality.
Distinguish between reversible and irreversible decisions. Make reversible decisions quickly to learn through action, prioritizing prototypes and usage. Approach irreversible decisions (e.g., major hires, acquisitions, investor partnerships) with thorough deliberation due to their high cost of unwinding.
For significant decisions, actively seek out and gather contrarian or challenging ideas. This practice ensures decisions are rigorously defended, deeply informed, and less prone to groupthink, even if it means challenging experts.
In distributed settings, actively invest time and effort into building strong relationships with colleagues. Engage in activities beyond work-related tasks (e.g., games, shared discussions, virtual social events) to foster trust and connection, especially when physical interaction is limited.
Establish clear expectations for individual and team output to prevent unproductive busyness and overwork. This clarity acts as a filter, ensuring focus on important tasks and providing accountability.
Actively encourage and track vacation or ‘away from keyboard’ time for employees. Distributed work often leads to overwork, and ensuring regular breaks is crucial for high performance, well-being, and preventing burnout.
Cultivate an organizational culture that values clear written communication, recognizing it as a proxy for clear thinking. Filter for this skill in hiring and provide resources (e.g., books like ‘On Writing Well’) to help people become better written communicators.
Implement the practice of using shared Google Docs for real-time note-taking during meetings. This creates a transparent, live record, helps reconcile differing understandings, and serves as a powerful tool for effective meetings.
Strive to significantly reduce the number of recurring meetings in your organization. This frees up calendars, increases the velocity at which problems can be solved, and allows for more opportunistic, immediate meetings when truly necessary.
For lengthy internal communications (e.g., P2 posts), include a ‘TLDR’ (Too Long; Didn’t Read) summary at the top and a final summary comment at the end. This improves efficiency by allowing quick comprehension while still providing depth for those who need it.
Embrace the editing process for all written communication, recognizing that first drafts are rarely the best. This practice improves clarity and quality, encouraging more effective communication throughout the organization.
If you or a colleague feel disconnected in a distributed environment, initiate an open conversation about it. Collaboratively brainstorm and try different approaches to strengthen relationships and foster a sense of shared purpose.
Develop the habit of listening to your body and identifying where feelings manifest physically (e.g., pit of stomach, tense shoulders). This somatic awareness helps process emotions, prevents them from causing internal disharmony, and can provide non-verbalizable wisdom for better decisions and relationships.
Be mindful of your language to empower others. Instead of offering to ‘help,’ ask ‘What do you need for this to be a success?’ to shift agency and responsibility to the individual.
Actively seek opportunities to collaborate with competitors or parallel projects. By working together, you can create something greater than individual efforts, as seen in WordPress’s success by merging with other software branches.
Design your business model to capture only a small percentage (e.g., 5%) of the total value created in your ecosystem. This approach fosters a thriving ecosystem and ensures long-term sustainability by not monopolizing value.
Prioritize and make significant long-term infrastructure investments, even if immediate returns aren’t apparent. This foundational work is crucial for future growth, scalability, and adapting to evolving needs.
As a leader, directly address interpersonal conflicts rather than avoiding them. Early conflict avoidance can lead to significant organizational dysfunction and hinder growth.
Regularly interrogate and challenge your own limiting beliefs (e.g., equating ‘big’ with ‘bad’ in organizational growth). Questioning these assumptions can unlock new strategies and lead to a more effective and thriving organization.
Drastically reduce or eliminate the use of internal email for most communications within the company. Utilize internal blogging systems or other collaborative platforms for discussions and information sharing.
Incorporate belly breathing into your routine. This simple physical technique can instantly calm your nervous system and improve your overall state.