Focus and Trust + What's New + Dog DNA Test
Updates, reflections and learnings from February 2023
On Focus and Trust
I’ve had a few magical experiences recently working with great people. People who can anticipate what’s needed and get it done without a ton of guidance. People who have raised my expectations of what a great team looks like.
Reflecting on this experience, I think there are two key things you need in order to set up a team up for radical success: focus and trust.
Part 1: Focus
People need clarity on what they’re doing and what they should be focused on. This helps your teammates prioritize their time, and helps you determine what could be delegated.
If you’re giving directions one step at a time without a longer term focus in mind, when someone finishes a task, how do they know what to do next?
It’d be like baking cookies and giving your partner one instruction at a time.
Measure two cups of flour.
Then they wait.
Add in a teaspoon of baking soda.
Then they wait.
But if first you lay out the entire project, with the recipe, you can trust them to carry it out themselves.
That’s part one: the focus, vision and strategy needed to say, “Here’s where we’re going.”
Part 2: Trust
Part two is the courage, the trust, the mindset shift needed to delegate some parts of the vision.
To make this more concrete, recently Trinsic launched a podcast. It was a major team effort that required a lot of focus and trust to make happen.
We found an incredible podcast editor who was able to take the audio files and put them together into finished pieces. Our content marketing lead Anna managed the execution of the project, setting the timeline and making sure everything happened on time.
I provided vision, editorial support and coordination around the stories, guests, and recordings, alongside our CEO, Riley, who hosted the interviews. Lastly, our designer put together a series of graphics for the cover image and announcements for the podcast.
Everything moved in sync. Everything happened on time, thanks to every person in the process being able to trust one another.
What I’m learning from this experience
As someone who just wants to get things done quickly, I’ve had trouble with the focus and trust needed to work in a highly effective team environment.
First, I like to just get started quickly and figure things out as I go. That approach works well as an individual, and not well at all when you’re working with a team.
Second, in the past I’ve preferred to just do something myself rather than trust someone else to get it done. Maybe I’ve been burned too many times, or maybe I haven’t done the preparation to set up the vision effectively. But oftentimes I’ll just get my hands dirty and finish something rather than delegate it.
But time is a great forcing function. With so much to do in a small, growing company, my time is very limited. So I’ve had no choice but to delegate, to trust and to prioritize setting a stronger vision at the outset so everyone knows where we’re heading.
Personal Updates
We’ve been back in our house, cooking meals at home, going to the coffee shops we love, and getting excited for spring.
It’s nice to be home and around friends and family.
It’s snowing like crazy in New Hampshire right now.
I’m heading to ETH Denver Tuesday February 28th-Friday March 3rd.
We’re turning around quickly and heading to North Conway, NH on the night of March 3rd for a weekend near the mountains and my first day snowboarding this year.
We have a few weekends at home in March for hopefully a few more days snowboarding before the spring.
We played trivia last Friday night and came in third place!
Dog DNA Test
We recently did a DNA test on our two dogs that we adopted back in November of 2018. We adopted them as a bonded pair, and had a feeling they were related in some way, but we didn’t know their exact ages, breeds or relationship.
The result of the DNA test indicates that Mavis (left) is the mother of Elvie (right)! Mavis is 100% Shih Tzu, and Elvie is part Shih Tzu, part Lhasa Apso.
Mavis does have some motherly tendencies, so the connection makes sense. People would always ask if they were sisters, and we would always say we weren’t sure, but now we can finally give a real answer that they’re mother and daughter!
Thanks for reading!
Until next time,
Zack