Sitemaps
How We Secretly Lose Control of Our Startups
Should Kids Follow in Our Founder Footsteps?
The Evolution of Entry Level Workers
Assume Everyone Will Leave in Year One
Stop Listening to Investors
Was Mortgaging My Life Worth it?
What's My Startup Worth in an Acquisition?
When Our Ambition is Our Enemy
Are Startups in a "Silent Recession"?
The 5 Types of Startup Funding
What Is Startup Funding?
Do Founders Deserve Their Profit?
Michelle Glauser on Diversity and Inclusion
The Utter STUPIDITY of "Risking it All"
Committees Are Where Progress Goes to Die
More Money (Really Means) More Problems
Why Most Founders Don't Get Rich
Investors will be Obsolete
Why is a Founder so Hard to Replace?
We Can't Grow by Saying "No"
Do People Really Want Me to Succeed?
Is the Problem the Player or the Coach?
Will Investors Bail Me Out?
The Value of Actually Getting Paid
Why do Founders Suck at Asking for Help?
Wait a Minute before Giving Away Equity
You Only Think You Work Hard
SMALL is the New Big — Embracing Efficiency in the Age of AI
The 9 Best Growth Agencies for Startups
This is BOOTSTRAPPED — 3 Strategies to Build Your Startup Without Funding
Never Share Your Net Worth
A Steady Hand in the Middle of the Storm
Risk it All vs Steady Paycheck
How About a Startup that Just Makes Money?
How to Recruit a Rockstar Advisor
Why Having Zero Experience is a Huge Asset
My Competitor Got Funded — Am I Screwed?
The Hidden Treasure of Failed Startups
If It Makes Money, It Makes Sense
Why do VCs Keep Giving Failed Founders Money?
$10K Per Month isn't Just Revenue — It's Life Support
The Ridiculous Spectrum of Investor Feedback
Startup CEOs Aren't Really CEOs
Series A, B, C, D, and E Funding: How It Works
Best Pitch Decks Ever: The Most Successful Fundraising Pitches You Need to Know
When to Raise Funds
Why Aren't Investors Responding to Me?
Should I Regret Not Raising Capital?
Unemployment Cases — Why I LOOOOOVE To Win Them So Much.
How Much to Pay Yourself
Heat-Seeking Missile: WePay’s Journey to Product-Market Fit — Interview with Rich Aberman, Co-Founder of Wepay
The R&D technique for startups: Rip off & Duplicate
Why Some Startups Win.
Chapter #1: First Steps To Validate Your Business Idea
Product Users, Not Ideas, Will Determine Your Startup’s Fate
Drop Your Free Tier
Your Advisors Are Probably Wrong
Growth Isn't Always Good
How to Shut Down Gracefully
How Does My Startup Get Acquired?
Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught?
How to Pick the Wrong Co-Founder
Staying Small While Going Big
Investors are NOT on Our Side of the Table
Who am I Really Competing Against?
Why Can't Founders Replace Themselves?
Actually, We Have Plenty of Time
Quitting vs Letting Go
How Startups Actually Get Bought
What if I'm Building the Wrong Product?
Are Founders Driven by Fear or Greed?
Why I'm Either Working or Feeling Guilty
Startup Financial Assumptions
Why Every Kid Should be a Startup Founder
We Only Have to be Right Once
If a Startup Sinks, Founders Go Down With it
Founder Success: We Need a Strict Definition of Personal Success
Is Quiet Quitting a Problem at Startup Companies?
Founder Exits are Hard Work and Good Fortune, Not "Good Luck"
Finalizing Startup Projections
All Founders are Beloved In Good Times
Our Startup Culture of Entitlement
The Bullshit Case for Raising Capital
How do We Manage Our Founder Flaws?
What If my plan for retirement is "never retire"?
Startup Failure is just One Chapter in Founder Life
6 Similarities between Startup Founders and Pro Athletes
All Founders Make Bad Decisions — and That's OK
Startup Board Negotiations: How do I tell the board I need a new deal?
Founder Sacrifice — At What Point Have I Gone Too Far?
Youth Entrepreneurship: Can Middle Schoolers be Founders?
Living the Founder Legend Isn't so Fun
Why Do VC Funded Startups Love "Fake Growth?"
How Should I Share My Wealth with Family?
How Many Deaths Can a Startup Survive?
This is Probably Your Last Success
Why Do We Still Have Full-Time Employees?
The Case Against Full Transparency
Should I Feel Guilty for Failing?
Always Take Money off the Table

Do Societal Issues Belong at Work?

Wil Schroter

Do Societal Issues Belong at Work?

Caution — This is a topic people feel very strongly about. My goal here is to open up a conversation to help Founders and their staff to find common ground to build from.

Over the past year, there have been heated reactions to companies like Coinbase and Basecamp instituting strict policies to remove discussions about "societal issues" from workplace forums. This has subsequently spawned some really passionate discussions among Founders about where they stood on the issue.

The workplace is changing rapidly, as well as the voices within it, yet many Founders aren't entirely clear as to what is "normalized" in workplace culture and what is taking things too far one way or the other. We're all going to need to think through these issues very critically whether they are affecting us directly right now, or not.

This is a critical juncture in startup culture and leadership.

The Cost of Focus

Leaders of any organization rely on focus to get work done. When they see that focus get frayed by any distraction they get anxious and work to bring the organization back to focus. There's nothing inherently "wrong" with a leader trying to drive focus, and I'd venture to guess most folks within the organization would appreciate that goal.

The thing is, our focus ultimately has a cost, and sometimes, those costs are too much to bear.

We can't unilaterally assume that any policy that drives more focus is bearable. Focus doesn't trump all costs. If focus means we need the team to work 80 hours per week, we can't overlook the cost to their health, their relationships, and their mental well-being. We can choose to ignore that cost, but that doesn't make the cost go unpaid by our staff.

The same goes for people's free speech. We can silence their words in the name of focus, but that doesn't remove the cost of that action. These aren't financial costs that we can recoup later, they are human costs that require very different consideration altogether.

Oppression is a Broken Hammer

In the rush to regain this focus, and the frustration that comes with it, some Founders have taken to using the "hammer" to quell internal discussions around societal issues altogether. "Stop talking about societal issues at work and get back to work!" seems to be the implied and deliberate refrain from Founders.

The implication here is that we, as leaders, have some ability to control what people discuss at work. We have neither the right nor the ability, which makes using the "hammer" a useless tool to begin with which very well ends up creating more problems than solutions.

Let's start with whether we have the right to control what people talk about, which is part of the core of this discussion. We can't tell people what they can talk about, and to be fair, I have yet to meet a Founder who actually wants to oppress free speech, even those that are staunchly in favor of removing societal discussion from work.

Those that are in favor of preventing societal discussions at work focus on more work getting done — not necessarily the implied oppression that comes with telling people what they can't talk about. Yet when we shut down lines of communication, no matter what our intent, the result is always going to look, feel and act like oppression.

Compromise and Understanding

Ultimately in order to achieve both focus and free speech, we need compromise and understanding, two concepts our polarized world have become increasingly shitty at — but that doesn't mean we can't get better.

Compromise in this case means we have to realize that the world isn't going to mold to our preferences, no matter how strongly we feel about them, and the more we remain rigid, the less progress we're going to make together.
Understanding is the fundamental empathy we use to recognize that there is merit in other people's objectives, even if they don't neatly align with or agree with ours.

For staff, that may look like this "Hey boss, I do appreciate that you want to get work done here, but I have issues that are very important for me to express. How can I express myself without deep-sixing the work you're tasked with doing?"

For leadership, that may look like this "Hey team, I do appreciate these issues are deeply important to you. How do I keep people focused on work while providing a platform to express yourself?"

Perhaps that discussion, while very difficult, could have lead to an option to create forums specifically for expressing political views that others who were interested in could join. Or, perhaps it left the views out in the open, with some basic parameters on how to be mindful of others (and the workplace) around them.

What matters most is that the discussion doesn't get shut down on either side. What matters is that we step aside from our singular focus and consider what we need to do in order to create a common framework that actually works. There's room for everyone here, so let's create a seat at the table for all of us.

In Case You Missed It

What Problems Go Away With Time? (podcast) Running a Startup can be chaotic. But is it true that problems will go away with time? Some do, some don't. Learn how and when to align your expectations for the unexpected.

My Startup Stalled — Now What? If our startup has stalled, that doesn't mean we’ve given up on it, it just means we have to figure out where it best fits in our lives.

When Should My Side Hustle Be Full Time? Now that we're getting some traction on our side hustle, the real question is, when do we go all in?

Find this article helpful?

This is just a small sample! Register to unlock our in-depth courses, hundreds of video courses, and a library of playbooks and articles to grow your startup fast. Let us Let us show you!

Submission confirms agreement to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Already a member? Login

No comments yet.

Register to join the discussion.

Already a member? Login

Create Free Account