In her book Radical Candor, Kim Scott has a great line:
‘In some ways, becoming a boss is like getting arrested. Everything you say or do can and will be used against you.’
To be clear, she isn’t suggesting this is in any way unfair. She’s just describing the reality that as a manager, people will listen intently to what you say and scrutinise what you do.
It’s worth remembering, because if you forget it can affect your reputation and alter your ability to lead your team (even if temporarily).
One VP of Product at Shopify seems to have given us an example this week. In response to a tweet about a Canadian politician exploring working a four day week, he tweeted:
Now, as he went on to discuss in his replies, the basic point he wanted to make was that hard work should be celebrated. That’s all very well and good.
But he didn’t just say that.
Instead we got a tweet which:
- Seemed to endorse a 72 hour work week: at a time when one of the principal employee concerns is burnout, this isn’t a great look. More than that though, it conflicts with the company culture which Tobi Lütke, the Shopify CEO, is on record as trying to build. In this tweet thread, Lütke explicitly tries to bust the myth that ‘you have to work 80 hours a week to be successful’. Awkward.
- Defined a 4 day week as ‘not hard work’: tell that to Buffer, Atlassian, and all the other successful organisations who seem to be working plenty hard enough building great companies four days a week.
- Mused on what led to the development of the West: now there’s a pandora’s box if ever we saw one. Friendly watercooler chat about geopolitics, slavery, and exploitation vs protestant work ethic anyone?
We don’t work at Shopify, and the ramifications of this one tweet probably weren’t that great, but then again...
Now assuming we’ve got the right TWEET (fingers crossed…), it seems that at least some people at Shopify were unhappy with Nejatian’s comments, and it seems to have provoked some discussion about working conditions at the company.
Are we reading too much into one guy’s tweet? Possibly. But that’s not snowflakery, it’s exactly the point. When you’re in a leadership position, people will do precisely that and it can have unintended consequences.
Precise, thoughtful communication is a wonderful tool for being a better manager.
The opposite is, well, the opposite.
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