Avoiding a fear state during startup team transition
When a core team member leaves, how might we keep calm to carry on?
Your superstar product manager just let you know that they’re ready to move on to another opportunity in a few weeks. Founder spiraling ensues. When navigating the constantly changing tides of building a startup, it can be particularly jarring to lose a core team member who’s been in it alongside you.
how DO you…capitalize on this transition to right-size your internal ops?
Simply – reflect and record.
Why This Works
While all too easy to turn on scramble mode, putting up a new job posting, and reassigning existing responsibilities, this transitory state provides an ideal opportunity to assess team priorities, output, dynamics, and experiences. This is not a problem to solve; it’s an opportunity you can seek and take advantage of, even if you’re a team of less than 10.
But why it really works is that it takes everyone out of a fear state and systematically resets the team's emotional response to be calm, reflective, and reenergized (which is probably exactly what you as the founder and your team will need).
Why Do This Now
Revenue-driving and customer satisfaction will always be your priority as a nascent company with a ticking clock toward depleting resources. Putting off this work until a new hire arrives or once a new team is established will inevitably push this initiative well below the other ever-important initiatives that are keeping the lights on. Prioritize this at the moment it occurs to make the most of the transition.
how We Do: Reflect & Record during team transitions
Tools 🛠️
Ensure your wiki’s up to snuff: Initiate a full review of team wikis in Notion, Google Docs, etc. to ensure you’re context capturing into your documentation where others can use it, and not in brand new transition docs that live in a completely different location.
Let the tech document for you: Leverage tools like Loom or Scribe to combine visual and written documentation to reduce questions and future confusion. No tutorial is too small!
Get the meeting robots involved: Stop kicking them out of your Zoom and turn on your Otter, Fireflies, Parrot, or Hoop to make sure you’re capturing conversational context and tasks from team members that are floating around Slack, meetings, and other docs.
Pass off your PM tasks: Project management tools will be full of old projects and tasks without context for new hires. Ask your team members for a review of old projects and tasks so new assignees have appropriate context and can fold outstanding work into their workflows.
Double check permissions: Is your product manager the account holder for your Canva? Or an event planning tool? Or Linear? Ensure permissions are passed off appropriately.
Rules (Process) 📝
Current Role Assessment
Review the original job description that you hired your departing team member against, and compare it to what they are doing now.
Document what you think this role is accomplishing now. Without input from your hire, document the roles and responsibilities of this hire.
Request a current role state document from your hire, and a thorough list of their responsibilities today. Crucially, this should include everything they’re currently doing, even if it’s beyond the scope of their function. (If this superstar is running your weekly All Hands for the company, and doing generalist-y culturebuilding work, make sure it’s captured in the list).
Reflect on the three documents. What’s consistent and what’s not aligned? How has the role changed? Why? Has this hire accomplished everything you had hoped they would? Throw a 5 Whys at this question to get to the root of the effectiveness of the role within the org. What’s changed and what needs to improve (including team member aid, your support as a founder for this function, team dynamics, market dynamics and changes) when you’re backfilling?
Future Role Assessment
Embrace variability. Your startup team will change throughout the life of your organization – many, many times. This is a good thing, not a burden. The transitional work of finding new hires, ensuring they’re appropriately skilled, considering capacity and resource planning, all while preserving your runway and putting the right person in this seat when things might (will) change again can be a big burden. Consider forward-thinking talent models (like oAT!) to bring partners into your people and capacity-building processes to ensure you have the right mix of generalists and specialists on your team.
Reimagine your org. After your current state of reflection, review your org as a whole against your 6-12 month goals and resources. Who do you need to accomplish your goals? Should the role change? Is this indeed an FTE or can you consider partial resources to get the same outcome and preserve capital?
People 🫶
Invest in an assessment
While exit interviews are typically reserved for larger organizations, these are crucial for the existing team members of small teams who work quickly and closely together with others. This is a real opportunity to get honest feedback about your team members’ experience and exit reasoning, and if everyone reports to the founder, having an outside partner (like oAT, your exec coach/advisor, or a fellow startup founder) to execute this is crucial to reflecting and learning for future states.
Get interviews on the books from the rest of your team. This is the perfect time for a short people and culture sprint (or survey) to reflect on how the team is working, and ways to improve your “how We Do” for the future success and happiness of your org.
Prioritize the people experience across the board
Make it great for your departing hire. The peak-end rule states that humans recall the peak and end of an experience. That means for all of the great times your team member has had during their exciting work building with you, the experience you provide at the end of their time with you will be what’s remembered in the end. The startup ecosystem is small and relational - ensure an empowering and supportive experience as much as you expect that from your team member in kind.
Keep the team updated. Nothing is worse than finding out someone you work with is leaving in a random All Hands meeting. Be sure to supportively let team members know swiftly of the transition, and get their feedback on how you can support them, too.
Give yourself some grace. Transitions can be hard, particularly for founders who are holding it all together. Make sure you have support from fellow founders, coaches, or a good startup friend to take a deep breath and find space to face your fear state quickly so it’ll subside with ease.
Actually Actionable
Nice article. Now what?
Reflect on Team Dynamics: Take a moment to assess the current team structure and dynamics. Use this opportunity to identify gaps, strengths, and areas for improvement (1 Hour).
Update Documentation: Ensure all relevant documentation, including wikis, project management tools, and account permissions, are up-to-date and accessible to all team members (1 Hour).
Conduct Exit Interviews: Schedule exit interviews with the departing team member and the remaining team to gather feedback and insights that can help improve the team’s functioning (1 Day).
Communicate Transparently: Inform the team about the transition promptly and provide support to those affected by the change (10 minutes).
Leverage Technology: Implement tools like Scribe, Loom, Parrot, Otter, and Fireflies to document processes, capture meetings, and create tutorials to facilitate a smooth transition (30 minutes).
Reassess and Realign Roles: Review the current roles and responsibilities, and consider how they align with your 6-12 month goals. Determine if changes are needed and plan accordingly (1 Hour).
Before you go
Transitions in startup teams can be challenging, but they also offer a unique opportunity to reflect, realign, and improve. By taking a proactive approach, you can turn potential disruptions into growth moments for your team. Remember, clear communication, thorough documentation, and leveraging technology are key to navigating these changes smoothly. Don't forget to take care of yourself during these transitions – seek support from peers and mentors to stay grounded.
Writer: Britt