Disagreed but committed
Jeff Bezos championed the principle “Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit.” This is one of Amazon’s leadership principles, which is about having the courage to challenge decisions respectfully but fully commit once a decision is made.
I will divide this into three parts and apply it to the tech startup that I had with my partner. First, the support part is the presence of the backbone. Don’t you agree that just as we grow older, this aspect of ours grows with you, rather slowly,. “Tajurba,” an Urdu word that I fancy, the experience in a nutshell is time dependent. Ofcourse, most of us live in protected environments and thus miss out on this and hence start operating in a professional world without it. So the proceedings of life become your set of tajurba, and sometimes it takes years to gather some and stand tall with them. I didn’t have one to boast of when I was put into a startup journey. Coming from a “service background,” as we call it in India, for the set of people who work in public service institutions where there were set norms about employment, remuneration, and retirement, the startup workings were bizarre. The assumption that there would be a clear understanding to make a decision or even to support a decision is atrocious. The only thing I knew then, by imposter syndrome, was to believe that there was a backbone and operate from there.
Did that help in navigating? I would think so. The adversaries of this journey, which it offers in an Indian context in contrary to maybe the Silicon Valley of the West, for tech startups are huge. This is to a lot of young people wanting to jump onto the bandwagon (the problem of many) and skepticism (judgment to ways of working of this ecosystem which is laced with uncertainty and fewer returns) and a false sense of vision orientation towards one solution or importance to tech innovation without considering other factors like the sustainability of business and long term plans and much others. Almost similar to an ostrich who is coding below the ground level can be the scenario when you are building a tech startup.
Now going to the next — mutazaad — Disagreement. As you don’t know a lot of stuff done in a startup, you would tend to have not agreeable views on the same. This disagreement would be laced with judgment for its failure or propensity of disbelief in the vision, which you can never envision as the founder. The startup founders actually live in their own cloud; until they prove that the solution works and that the product is viable for regular people and in their everyday lives. In effect, we are looking for proof of concept and returns from it, too early and without much patience to see it through with its evolution through all its versions. This disagreement can be a deterrent to a founder, who could already be bombarded with doubts about the product’s viability by investors or advisors whom he might be approaching to get funding or support. So, this disagreement from close quarters can be stifling, and much resilience is needed to wade through it.
Azm — Commitment: Once agreed, commit. Yes, it is a challenging proposition in the everyday world. Because the agreement itself is layered, you might have agreed to the fact to try the viability of a product in the market. Still, that agreement need not have considered different aspects like the workforce involved and their availability, acceptability of the product in a significantly changing market, and much more. So this unwavering commitment, which is very essential, is somewhat tricky.
If you see that there is a conviction on a particular direction even though there is no consensus, it’s helpful to say, “Look, I know we disagree on this, but I will gamble on it with you.” For this, the most essential is the quintessential backbone, which has 30+ bones and is stacked like a Jenga. Any one of them wobbly or is taken away on a whim can collapse the whole journey.
* I just fancied using Urdu words, so if they aren’t the right ones in the case of Azm or Mutazaad, please do forgive me and correct. Tajurba is a favorite, and it means experience. Urdu words are nuanced, hence this disclaimer.
