The only question I ask while making decisions in business

If you don’t want to read further and just came here to read the answer, let me help you. The only question I ask while making a decision in a company is

Is it the decision that you would make, if it is your company / startup / child ?

Ok, for those who will continue reading, let me describe the problem and give a few examples.

I do like how basecamp behaves to their employees. They do trust them, they do give the freedom to each of them and most importantly they do care about them. The handbook of Basecamp which is online on github , states their culture and briefings about working at basecamp. The handbook starts with this very strong sentence

Everyone working at Basecamp represents Basecamp

This motto became my main working style since I first read this sentence. Everyone working in a company represents that company. If you work in a very productive way, you represent your company as a productive company. If you have bad code in your company codebase and no one cares, then the company has some shitty code base and everyone outside the company will think that your company sucks at coding. If you commute to open source and arrange meetups, then your company will be recognized as like that. From CEO to the most junior person in the company, everyone’s responsibility is to behave thinking of the company.

If you have a child, you will know that you have to take all your decisions carefully, with detailed thinking and most of the times doing what is best for your child but not for you. You would like to go to cinema or go out with your friends to have a night out but your child will be happier if you go home and spend some quality time with him/her. Any decision you make for your child, including the food to eat, the school to go, the toy to buy, the education to have etc is important and you will do it with thinking of your child first.

As we think companies or startups are similar to children especially babies, as they both need guidance, care, time, love and devotion. Even if it is not your startup and working in a very big corporate, still you represent that company and all the decisions that you made represent the company that you are in. And those decisions should be taken carefully like it is your company. So let’s rewrite our sentence again:

Is it the decision that you would make, if it is your company / startup / child ?

• If there a is a bug in the system but it is 2:00 am in the morning, will you stay up and fix that bug? thinking that it is my own company / child, Yes I will.
• If you have to work late for something that you promised to be finished, thinking that it is my own company / child, yes I have to stay late to finish that damn thing.
• If you have to take a vacation for some time, how long it should be? thinking that it is my own company / child if I need a vacation, I go to one. If I don’t need one, then I don’t go to one.
• If I have to use initiative to make something better, thinking that it is my own company / child yes I would do it and will deal with the consequences either good or bad.
• There is a candidate for your company that you have interviewed, will you hire him/her? thinking that it is my own company / child if it is the best or fits the requirement , I will hire but monitor / be close / help on every step to make sure everything is smooth.
• If there is a code you have to refactor, will you ignore it or fix it as soon as possible. thinking that it is my own company / child, I will either fix the problem on my spare time, or ask product owners to add this task to sprint.
• If there is plenty of code to be refactored which would take months to do so, will you ignore all or refactor all which would take months? thinking that it is my own company / child, I will start with the worst parts that changed more frequently or creates most bugs. As you can’t fix all the problems at the same time, I start with the biggest one and try solving one by one each week / spring /month but make sure everything is going well and be better step by step.
• How many trainings that the employee should take?, thinking that it is my own company / child, for every employee there should be an equal budget either 100$ or 10000$, and employee will be responsible to spend that training budget on anything that s/he wants. As company trust employees, employees will decide the best for them.

The list can go on and on but the key point here is any decision that anyone makes at any business, should be decided as it is the deciders own company and her/his future depends on it. By that way any problem can be solved easily and quickly I guess. Basecamp handbook can also be used while deciding I guess.

My last sentences will be about the company/startup owners, CEOs, company HRs and everyone that has a right to make any decision at the company. As the employees are expected to behave as if it is their companies and as they represent the company, each employee deserves to be behaved in a similar way. Best office, best office equipments, best tools, best salary, best training opportunities etc. If the decision makers creates a secure happy working environment like this, that will be the best intrinsic motivation for employees. So it is a two way relationship like basecamp does.

Cheers.