Etch-a-sketch brain
Even though I've spent the last 11 years making software for enterprise, I myself worked exclusively in startup environments. I've just wrapped up my first month back as an employee in a big company. It's been a long time since I've been the new kid, and wow, I had not realized the extent of my etch-a-sketch brain: Much of my knowledge of BigCo got erased after I founded a startup.
Here are four things I forgot, big and small.
#1: Elephants have long memories
In my second week of work, my boss had a holiday lunch for her whole team. It included a team trivia contest. Now if you know me in real life, you know that I have zero ability to play it cool in a trivia contest. It was only my eighth day on the job, but my new coworkers came away knowing exactly who I am. Sorry not sorry.
But here's what surprised me: even in the round where the category was "Microsoft history," I knew a lot of random stuff. I knew the internal codewords for most prior versions of Windows. I knew that NORAD moved the Santa tracker from Google to Bing in 2012. I remembered a lot more company trivia than I would have expected considering I last worked at Microsoft 12 years ago.
But even with that, the institutional memory of the people around me astounds me. At startups, there just isn't a lot of history, and what history there is has rarely been documented. But at big companies, all the 20- and 30-year veterans are happy to reconstruct the rationale for a particular decision or a specific piece of customer feedback.
This is both good and bad, but it's part and parcel of big companies.
#2: Change management is a real job
It is a lot easier to get 200 people to use a new tool or process than 1,000 people. By the time you're at 100,000+ employees, changing systems is the full time job of dozens or even hundreds of people.
Because Textio caused enterprises to make changes to their hiring process, I understood this, sort of. But while I was brought in for numerous leadership conversations, someone inside the organization had to do the work to get the org ready for the conversation in the first place. Getting buy-in for a big change is tremendously hard work.
I started my tech career as a PM, so I knew this first-hand. At one time, it was a big part of my job. I also had to figure out enterprise sales as a founder, which has some common elements. But I still forgot how many people can end up involved in even small decisions at big companies. And if you want any change to go smoothly, you have to do the work to manage it.
#3: Big companies are (sort of) like cities
The last time I worked at a big company, I felt that big companies were like cities: there are great neighborhoods and not-so-great ones, and your particular experience depends on where you hang out. You can be in a difficult company with a great manager and have a positive experience: good neighborhood. You can also be in a thriving company with a terrible manager and be miserable: bad neighborhood.
But I forgot that, in a big company, even two great neighborhoods can feel different from one another depending on who the mayor is. The best neighborhood for you depends on what you value. Does your team prioritize collaboration, or does it focus on removing barriers so individuals can move fast? Both are valid strategies that can make great neighborhoods, but the one you prefer depends on your role and personality.
The same is true at startups, of course, but the cities are a lot smaller. Which means that, at a startup, your day-to-day experience is much more likely to be derived from what the company is like as a whole.
I knew all this, but I forgot how much neighborhoods can vary even when they're basically next door.
#4: Startups have t-shirts, big companies have badges
Every startup I've ever worked with loves their swag. People wear their t-shirts proudly. They signify to everyone in the coffee shop, "I'm proud to be part of this cool company. Go ahead, look us up on the internet!" It's not quite like a t-shirt from your favorite band, but it's close.
At big companies, people mostly don't wear company t-shirts. But they do wear access badges prominently displayed on lanyards around their neck all over campus. Unlike the t-shirts, the badges are not designed for fashion and they aren't worn outside the company. But like the t-shirts, they are a huge cultural signifier. On campus, they say, "I belong here."
This is a long-winded and nerdily anthropological way of saying: Oh. I forgot that I had to clip a badge to my jeans.
Happy holidays!
Kieran
p.s. Check back next week for a special all-comic holiday edition of nerd processor!
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