{"id":426,"date":"2012-11-28T08:49:12","date_gmt":"2012-11-28T08:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scqa.hult.edu\/en\/news\/hult-labs\/2012\/november\/managing-people-mistakes-and-a-new-office-experience\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T11:04:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T11:04:58","slug":"managing-people-mistakes-and-a-new-office-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hult.edu\/blog\/managing-people-mistakes-and-a-new-office-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Managing People, Mistakes, And A New Office Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Making a mistake has one indisputable silver lining \u2013 there\u2019s usually a lesson to be gleaned. And if we take the time to digest it, we can potentially save ourselves from a headache (or grief) in the future.\u00a0 What\u2019s even better is when we get to skip the mistake-making part entirely and zero in on the lesson. An example of this is learning from our peers \u2013 or benefitting from the wisdom of our elders \u2013 because it can help us avoid taking one of life\u2019s inevitable lumps.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hult Labs recently came across a\u00a0New York Times<\/em> interview<\/a> that caught our eye. In the interview, Phil Libin, Chief Executive of the Mountain View-based technology company Evernote<\/a>, discussed some of the lumps he\u2019s taken in managing people, subsequent learnings, and how he transformed some of them into workplace policies to enable employees to accomplish great things.<\/p>\n

Libin did not set out to be the boss. He joined a start-up as a programmer, but wasn\u2019t as good as the other ones, so odd jobs fell to him. Eventually, he became the boss. He managed employees with whom he shared a strong work ethic and a supreme drive to achieve. This is when being the boss is easy. Everyone shares the same goals, everyone is truly engaged, and the company is making money. Life is good.<\/p>\n

The lumps started coming soon after Libin\u2019s company was acquired and he had to navigate his new department within a much larger organization. Suddenly, he was working with people who weren\u2019t on the same page, much less shared the same goals. And politics and personalities \u2013 heretofore non-issues \u2013 became factors with which Libin had to contend. His managerial muscles began to flex, and then strain. He realized that managing people was not as easy as he thought. And he became acutely aware that he did not have the tools or the training to be the effective manager he felt he needed to be.<\/p>\n

In his new company, Libin \u2013 older and wiser \u2013 has shaped the culture and working environment to banish as much as possible the dysfunction he experienced in the past. For example, the \u201cstatus symbols\u201d of seniority (an office or a sweet chair) don\u2019t exist. \u201cThey create artificial barriers to communication\u2026we try to have an organization that just helps you get your work done, and then it\u2019s my job to eliminate all of the risks and all the distractions so you can just focus on achieving.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Libin didn\u2019t stop there. He got rid of phones. That\u2019s right \u2013 phones. Everyone has a cell phone (paid for by the company), which effectively rendered landlines unnecessary. But Libin cautioned employees from relying too heavily on e-mail. \u201cOne of the things I\u2019ve tried to do is uproot any sort of e-mail culture\u2026we strongly discourage lengthy e-mail threads with everyone weighing in. It\u2019s just not good for that. Plus, it\u2019s dangerous, because it\u2019s way too easy to misread the tone of something. Libin advised \u2013 and continues to advise \u2013 his employees to talk to each other. Face to face.<\/p>\n

Another \u2013 let\u2019s call it an awesomely alternative \u2013 policy Libin introduced is unlimited vacation. He had observed that burned out people are simply not productive, and he himself wanted to avoid fostering a work environment that produced burned out people. What hasn’t changed is that employees are still measured on whether or not \u201cthey accomplish something great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Libin\u2019s workplace policies are based on one overarching philosophy: \u201cWe always try to ask whether a particular policy exists because it\u2019s a default piece of corporate stupidity that everyone expects you to have, or does it actually help you accomplish something? And very often you realize that you don\u2019t really know why you\u2019re doing it this way, so we just stop doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

To read more about Libin, his learnings, and the other cool stuff going on at Evernote, you can go here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of coleydude<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Make the most of what your career has to offer with a Masters in International Business<\/a> from Hult. To learn more, take a look at our blog 6 reasons why you should study business<\/a>, or give your employability a huge boost with an MBA in international business<\/a>. Download a brochure or get in touch today to find out how Hult can help you to explore everything about the business world, the future, and yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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