This article was originally published by Built In .

R apid growth in a startup or small business is both exciting and daunting. Your team’s ability to bring a bit of order to the chaos can be the difference between flaming out or effectively scaling to become a household name. You will face decisions about whether to build, borrow, or buy your way to the next level. If your organization is like my last company, then you want to remain laser-focused on your customers and delivering them a high-quality product or service. That’s why we decided to buy off-the-shelf products to meet the needs of our back office, and we ended up learning a lot of lessons along the way.

I spent two years sifting through white papers and product demos for just about every HR and finance SaaS tool marketed to early stage startups. We were disrupting the laundry and dry cleaning industry through a convenient pick-up and delivery service. We had raised several rounds of venture investment, launched several markets, and scaled our team to over 120 people. Our rapidly growing headcount and geographic expansion pushed our beginner-level, “startup friendly” tools to their limits, and it was soon time for us to professionalize our HR and finance systems.

Although we believed that technology was going to give us a competitive advantage over our rivals and enable us to scale quickly, we made a lot of mistakes in implementation that distracted our team and burned key resources, neutralizing much of our advantage. We implemented an expensive HR platform, and everyone hated it, so we scraped it before our first annual renewal. We spent way too much money on consultants to help us restructure our finances only to revert back to the same process we had before. These missteps added up and we were soon spending an inordinate amount of time exploring new software instead of focusing on our customers and growth.

An old saying observes that “Smart people learn from their own mistakes. Wise people learn from the mistakes of others.” Hopefully, you can learn from my example and avoid these four big mistakes when you’re thinking of scaling your back office.

We let urgent problems crowd out important planning

At first, we were able to get by with some tools that are fairly common among seed-stage startups. As we grew, though, we started to hit the limits of either the system itself or our specific pricing plans. These urgent fires required quick action, and so we set off to find the best SaaS solution for our new problem. Our process was quick but fragmented, and we always seemed to chase just one more feature or tool that would really unlock everything. We had no broader strategy guiding our choices other than fixing the immediate problem so we could move on to extinguishing the next fire.

Solution : First things first: Assess the business’ needs and determine whether you want to use an all-in-one platform or custom-build a suite of SaaS products. If your organization is complex, and you have specialized needs, you can build an elegant Rube Goldberg machine, but only if you deeply research and plan first. If the company’s organizational structure is simple and headcount is low, I would recommend prioritizing simplicity and keeping the budget small. The key here is to not let the urgent get in the way of the important, and remember to be thorough in assessing your business’ needs. Doing so will prevent more emergencies over the long term.

We lacked a coherent data strategy

We fashioned ourselves a disruptive band of innovators taking on an industry that hadn’t updated in a generation or more. As such, we believed that adoption of technology and data-driven decision-making was our competitive advantage. Yet we didn’t have a comprehensive data strategy that detailed the types of data we should collect, its sources, or how it would be leveraged to inform decisions. We ended up with software that either didn’t capture the types of data we needed or couldn’t connect to our business intelligence tools.

Solution : Build your data strategy as a required subcomponent of your overall business model. At a minimum, your data strategy should include a detailed description of your KPIs and their component pieces as well as a corresponding data dictionary explaining the common definition, source, and the use case for the major pieces of data you plan to collect. This should be a living, cross-functional document that serves as a reference for any team that is looking to add new software. You will also need to include any requirements from the engineering team relating to APIs, webhooks, and SDKs.

We didn’t have a structured decision-making process

We based our decisions on pretty standard criteria like budget, value propositions, and features. Our diligence was thorough and deliberative, but our decision-making lacked structure. Some people on the team pushed for an all-in-one platform while others preferred to cobble together a custom solution out of many apps. Our discussions became anchored on this one facet of the decision, and we accidentally de-emphasized the importance of APIs and integrations. We didn’t stay true to our initial business needs assessments and ended up with software that wasn’t doing the job.

Solution : Build an evaluation scorecard based on the value you want delivered and be specific. Your evaluation criteria should be attached to a simple scoring system (1-5 or A-F) for quick comparisons. Next, you need to get creative and build different variants of your back office tech stack and then compare them. Your goal is to build options that are distinct based on your scoring system. For instance, you might prioritize the value of APIs in one course of action whereas budget takes precedence in another. Once you have three to five options, you should present the choices to a broader group to elicit feedback and ensure you’re not missing a key point. Then the process is as simple as scoring the different courses of action and selecting the software that scores best.

We didn’t have enough executive oversight

We signed a year-long contract with a big “all-in-one” HR platform that had a massive impact on our engineering, ops, and HR teams. Despite its integration into so many areas, the transition to the new platform wasn’t in the top five priorities for any executive at the company. Everyone had higher priorities within their own functional areas, and no one was assigned the responsibility to ensure that the acquisition and implementation were successful. Without that oversight, the roll-out date caught everyone by surprise, so we rushed the rollout of a clunky piece of software that everyone despised. We spent a lot of time and money doing little more than hurting the morale of the company; within months we began searching for a replacement, but the damage was done.

Solution : Assign an executive sponsor for any major new system implementation and hold them accountable for the selection, integration, and team training for the new software. If the system touches multiple departments like HR, finance, or business intelligence, the responsible executive needs to put emphasis on collecting requirements from each department and then making sure the integrations work smoothly.

Final thoughts

Hyper-growth companies are exciting! The constant change and evolution present an endless stream of challenges and opportunities. Selecting back office technology is often an afterthought in a hyper-growth company, and that’s understandable. There will come a time to focus on scaling, however, and at that moment a founder or executive should prioritize the successful implementation of new software. Heed the advice of John Wooden, who won 10 NCAA titles as the head basketball coach at the University of California–Los Angeles:

Whether you are building, borrowing, or buying back office software to support rapid growth, I encourage you to take it seriously, invest time in analyzing your business needs, and maintain focus until the new software is fully integrated into your company. You won’t regret solving this problem right the first time. I hope these lessons will allow you to build a plan for scaling your back office software with minimal distraction to your company so that you can continue to focus on your customers, products, and growth.

4 video meeting rules we should keep following in the office

2020 changed work — possibly forever. Millions of people started working remotely for the first time, and they learned it’s not quite the same as working in an office. I’ve worked remotely since 2009, and I’ve spent a lot of that time thinking about the etiquette of remote meetings, answering questions like when you should mute during a video call .

But as people start transitioning back into the office, I hope they’ll take some of the lessons they learned from online meetings to improve the in-person ones. Here are four video meeting rules that I think should follow us back to the office.

1. Say “go ahead” when you overlap with someone

Have you ever tried singing with someone over Zoom? Me neither, but regardless, it’s not really possible. The problem is lag.

Lag, the gap between when you start talking and when everyone else can hear you, is somewhat inevitable in video calls. The result: people talk over each other without meaning to. I’ve noticed a pattern — an improvised etiquette — that’s evolved in response to lag in meetings. It goes like this:

Two or more people start talking at the same time.

After a second, they both notice this is happening and stop talking.

One or both people say “go ahead” to the other.

One person goes ahead and makes their point.

This person, when done, asks the other person what they wanted to say.

It’s such a small thing, but I’ve seen it happen organically in several different contexts: work, church, Zoom happy hours. There are variations. Sometimes it’s another person entirely who follows up to make sure everyone gets a turn, for example. Still, the pattern is fairly consistent, and it works pretty well.

And the best part is that many of the people doing this aren’t even aware of what “lag” is. They’re just responding to the limitations of the tech in a way that feels natural. There’s no lag in real life, of course, but I think this habit should stick around regardless. At least, the intention behind it should stick around.

In my experience, people don’t really work to follow up on missed points during in-person meetings, and when two people start talking at the same time, one person gets to keep talking — the other doesn’t.

Going out of your way to let other people speak is a good thing, and so is following up to make sure everyone’s been heard.

2. Schedule time for socializing

There’s an awkward gap at the beginning of every video meeting. You know what I’m talking about: those couple of minutes where everyone is trying to log in and/or figure out why their microphone isn’t working.

This is why, at Zapier, we generally don’t formally “start” meetings until a few minutes after the scheduled time. This creates an improvised time for socializing, which makes video meetings more fun.

Some teams go further. Our content marketing team schedules an optional water cooler conversation after monthly meetings so that we can all catch up.

I’ve seen similar formats evolve in other organizations, and like waving at the end of video calls , a few minutes of scheduled socializing is a good way to fit a little bit of humanity into a virtual work environment that can be alienating.

But you know what? Offices can also be alienating and could also use some humanity. Most in-person meetings start with informal conversation, but intentionally allowing space for this will still be important as people get used to seeing each other again.

People should be encouraged to show up a few minutes early for a meeting, maybe, or there could be time for conversation on the agenda. We’ve all spent the past year or so learning how hard it is to feel cut off from each other, and I hope that changes how we interact in person.

Take a few minutes to see how people are doing — it’s worth it.

3. Accept multitasking

One of my favorite parts of remote work is the ability to multitask during meetings I’m only marginally involved in. I’ll admit I use Slack’s schedule feature to hide the fact that I’m working while listening to presentations that don’t impact my day-to-day workflow.

The reality is that most meetings don’t require my full attention. That’s why I often have a meeting on in the background while I work on something else. Sometimes I’ll start working during a presentation and realize that it’s relevant or interesting to me — and that’s when I start paying full attention. That only happens because I have the option of multitasking.

I think companies should try to keep some version of this alive in the office. Maybe workers in the office should have the option to call in to auditoriums and conference rooms, or maybe we should just normalize people who aren’t core to a conversation working on their laptops during meetings. There’s a benefit to this sort of multitasking — it can keep people engaged without completely bogging down their calendar.

Of course, this takes trust. Managers need to believe that their employees are working on something relevant, not browsing Facebook, and to trust that their employees are capable of knowing when they need to pay attention.

That kind of trust is important in a remote context — it’s the only way the system can work. Companies heading back to the office would benefit from continuing to trust their employees like they do when everyone’s remote.

4. Maybe just have fewer meetings

Remote companies tend to have fewer meetings. Or, at the very least, remote companies tend to think about whether they need to have so many meetings.

This is a skill that takes time to develop — learning how to work asynchronously and which things you shouldn’t use meetings for are key to making the whole remote thing work.

For example: one team here at Zapier replaced their daily standup meeting with an automated Slack thread . This accomplishes the same thing a meeting would — prompting reflection and keeping everyone informed — in much less time.

Meetings can eat up a lot of time, and it’s worth considering whether that time is well invested — or if you could accomplish the same thing without a meeting. That’s as true in the office as it is over video chat, and I hope we all think in those terms going forward.

This article by Justin Pot was originally published on the Zapier blog and is republished here with permission. You can read the original article here .

Negotiation 101: How to get what you want at work, according to a hostage expert

If you’ve ever had to negotiate better work conditions or hold your own in the boardroom, you’ll know just how heated negotiations can get — and if this is new to you, allow me to set the scene.

Alice and Bob are holed up in a meeting room, participating in a relentless dance of back and forth, driven by the tone of individual wishes and desires. They both have a goal in mind and they’re motivated to reach it. The problem is that neither are willing to back down, nor do they know when to walk away.

You might think it’s crazy that hostage negotiation techniques are worlds away from those used in business, but in actual fact, there’s plenty you can learn from those with experience in crisis negotiations.

“By far the most common mistake in these situations is to jump straight in at step 4 — trying to tell people what to do — and it doesn’t work,” says Simon Horton , a hostage negotiator specialist.

“You have to go through steps 1, 2, and 3 first. And if you do go through those initial steps and step 4 still doesn’t work, it’s because you haven’t done the first steps well enough. So you have to go back to the beginning and start again,” he adds.

The FBI’s crisis negotiation tactics

According to Horton, crisis negotiators typically adhere to a standard framework known as the Behavioral Change Stairway , developed by the FBI .

In simplistic terms, this negotiating framework is broken down into five easy-to-follow steps:

Step 1: Listen, listen, and then listen some more — Ask a lot of questions, both open and closed questions, and prove you are listening by playing back your understanding. Human beings have a deep need to be heard and if you can show that you’ve fully heard them, you’ve gone half the distance to persuading them.

Step 2: Show empathy — Demonstrate to the other person that you’ve not only heard them but you also understand them. Acknowledge their experience, their emotions, and them as a person.

Step 3: Then build rapport — Building a relationship with the other person is crucial and it’s important to in-group, make them feel like “one of us,” as opposed to “one of them.” If you’re in-group, they’ll be easier to persuade.

Step 4: You need to put your own message across while you’re negotiating so that you get your desired outcome.

Step 5: If you’ve followed all the aforementioned steps correctly, you should now see a behavioural change, i your desired outcome.

“It is a deceptively simple approach but, when done properly, exceedingly powerful,” Horton notes.

How to act if things are seemingly going wrong

Negotiating is a skill and it’s important to be engaged throughout the whole process — not matter how tedious it may be.

Having your end-goal in mind is also crucial. “If you have your outcome clearly in mind, it should be evident whether you’re achieving it or not. If not, you can always ask directly — and this will gauge whether you are winning or what you need to do to make sure you do win,” Horton adds.

Having said this, Horton also points out that winning is not a zero-sum game.

“It is not about winning over the other person, so they lose. Your win is only likely to remain a win in the long-term if the other side wins too,” he explains.

With this in mind, here are few other things you can keep in mind should the negotiation fail to go your way.

If things get heated, take a break or schedule a session for another date. This way, you’ll have time to cool down and you can resume negotiations and focus on a more constructive approach.

Try and be cooperative and competitive throughout the entire negotiation process. You need to strike a balance between showing your goodwill and flexibility, as well as your resolve.

Be receptive but also hold your ground, if you appear weak the other side will likely use this to their advantage.

Negotiating isn’t by any means easy, but it’s certainly not impossible.