Communication

Most founders never really thought about how they communicate with their team.

You start out with WhatsApp, and then you get Slack licenses—I guess? It's what everyone does, right?

Yeah—and everyone is stressed out of their mind because they're drowning in chaotic chats.

That's not how calm companies work.

Because when you're out on a date with your partner and all you can think of is that unread message counter going up...there's no way you're going to give them the presence and love that they deserve.

It's time to flip this upside down.

Yes, good communication is what makes teams successful.

But the best communication is when you don't need to communicate at all.

Asynchronous messaging

Here's the thing: real-time chat causes stress and frankly, I think it's rude.

We call it "synchronous" because one person sends something and then waits for a response. Real-time chat only works if people are actually all there.

So it forces you to stay "jacked in." Because if you're away for a day, you come back with 397 messages from 6 conversations that happened and you have no idea what it's about.

The worst part is you don't even know if you should care! Maybe nothing in this conversation matters to you and you just wasted your mental energy trying to figure that out.

So what do we do?

You're going to have to force more structure on communication. Set some base rules:

• Every conversation is separate
• Every conversation has a subject
• Prefer being complete over being fast (think about who will read it later)
• Make it clear when a conversation is finished (and maybe even summarize it)

I'm a big fan of a team communication tool called Twist. At first sight it looks similar to Slack but it has all kinds of little interface tweaks that make those rules natural. People just start following them without you having to breathe down their neck.

This is how you take the stress out of communication.

Make it slower.

Make a clear distinction between "most conversations" and "urgent things" that need instant chat (of course there should be a space for that).

Make communication a superpower of your business by eliminating it.

Ready to put the three pillars together?