_Deep Work_, Cal Newport.
Ask HN: Texts to share with my co-founder re time-management and teamwork?
31–35 of 35 posts
Re: Ask HN: Texts to share with my co-founder re time-management and teamwork?
#32_Deep Work_, Cal Newport.
Thanks!
Will read that one myself first :)
Re: Ask HN: Texts to share with my co-founder re time-management and teamwork?
#33Sounds like a personality conflict to me, and you're using the techniques that would work on you (textbooks) to try to adjust his behaviour. That's not a healthy dynamic; you'd be better off trying to empathise with the guy and understand his perspective. Why isn't he enthusiastic to do what you want to do? Seems like he's dragging his heels and giving him information on time management isn't going to change his level of motivation. If you understood why he is not motivated then you could try to help address it.
Re: Ask HN: Texts to share with my co-founder re time-management and teamwork?
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
On point 1, just expect to have this conversation pretty frequently. It is not a technicality. If you tell people that you are a startup founder and it comes out that you're recently taking on partner level responsibilities of a 7 year old company, they're very likely to see these things as in conflict. You said you've "always helped a bit". If by "always" you mean since year 0, that's at least a little more compelli…
It is something that I have on top of my mind but even for the technicalities: - we are moving things to a brand new company now - there will be a new brand soon, old one would be left just for the domestic market (a very small percentage of expected sales) - working on new products, 80% of old ones would gradually be stopped So I guess we are joining forces to create something new but in a step by step way so we can…
Oh yeah, that's very different. That sounds a lot like founding and I didn't get it from your original post. May help to talk in terms of "refounding".
Re: Ask HN: Texts to share with my co-founder re time-management and teamwork?
#35Your post is a bit vague so I can't tell where the issue really is.
However, I disagree with the posts suggesting all the ways to force change. Instead I'd suggest that you consider whether the things he's doing aren't "wrong" but just aren't your preference.
For instance, perhaps he works 11-5 and you disagree and want him to do 9-5. He isn't wrong.
You say he doesn't want to use Discord. That's not wrong, it's your preference. Lots of companies use other tools. Perhaps you could learn to use whatever it is that he uses.
You say you want a common way to manage your priorities. Is that necessary? Why not just agree on the current goal and trust him to take care of his part?
After all you did say that he's at least relatively successful. And you did decide that you wanted to partner with him so you do see value in the company and at least some in him too.
Furthermore, it might even be great if you were the one to provide all the structure needed for the rest of the company that would give him the flexibility to do what he's good at. It'd be a great strength if you were able to work together separately.
Forcing change is difficult. Since you are partners even more so. There's only so much change capital you can expend so it's better to use it on the truly important things.