Unlike most 10-year-olds, we can teach you a thing or two.
Honestly this is one of the most emotional things I’ve ever had to write. The Bureau means everything to me. It’s given me a purpose in connecting others. Together, we’ve created a community that is unbelievably giving. I’ve watched as we’ve helped shops avoid layoffs. We’ve shared insights on creating healthier cultures, improving processes, crafting better agreements, and literally working together to win projects and achieve things we never could have done alone. We’ve also picked each other up off the ground when things have gotten rough.
So thanks to all of you. Below are some of the most important lessons I've learned over the last decade of being a part of this amazing community.
10 lessons from 10 years
As someone who's been here from the beginning, I've seen the common sense learnings and the big breakthroughs that have shaped the way the Bureau community handles its business. And while I could write a book, I'll keep it to some tasty nuggets that we can dive into deeper in future issues.
What we do is really hard
One of the things I learned quickly was that I wasn't as bad at my job as I thought. It turned out that the work we do can be really challenging.
There are many paths to success
It's great to learn from what's worked for others, but that doesn't mean it's going to work for you. And on the flip side, what didn't work for someone else may work like gangbusters for you.
When we shift our mindset from creating to protecting, things start to fall apart
We are creative creatures and finding new ways to improve what we do keeps us healthy. When we start to protect our past successes our vantage point gets narrower and our blind spots grow.
Soft skills matter
People get fired for being hard to work with way more than for being incompetent at their job.
When bad people stay, good people leave
One bad apple does indeed ruin the whole damned bunch. If you let a toxic employee stay expect to lose a star or two.
Clients are not the enemy
It's so easy to blame a client, but when you do you give away all of your power. Clients want us to win because then they win too. But when we don't maintain trust things will get rough.
Core values matter
If we don't know what we stand for how can we decide what to do in both good and bad times? How can the right people know they want to work with us?
We have to believe in ourselves before anyone else will
It's about being confident, not cocky. And it doesn't mean we're right all the time. It means we know we bring value to our teams and clients.
Almost all problems start with poor communication
In business and in life when we can't communicate clearly we end up with misunderstandings. Speaking clearly, listening and confirming expectations can keep projects and relationships from going off the rails.
When your company grows key people are going to leave, and that's ok
A lot of collective experience shows us that valuable players start to leave when the team reaches 20 employees. That's because those who were there at the beginning had a different vision of where the company was going.
Together we can accomplish so much more
This is really the promise of the Bureau. Wherever you are in your journey you know less about some things and more about others. And when we can share and support each other openly there is nothing we can't do.
Yeah, I threw in a bonus one for you. I mean it's been 10 years and there's a lot we've learned together. These are the lessons that have resonated most with me, I'd love to hear what you've gotten from being part of the community.