Emotional Debt - How Avoiding Hard Conversations Compounds Into Company Killing Resentment

We all know this, and yet we all do this. We often avoid hard conversations, and the pain we go through avoiding them is worse than actually having the conversation. In this clip from The Startup CEO Show, Matt Jones, who specializes in coaching co-founders, talks about the emotional debt that accumulates inside a company, and more importantly, inside the founder's minds when we avoid having the hard conversations with our co-founders.

I completely agree. And I really appreciate the point too of holding your co-founder to that same standard because I agree that not only is it demotivating, but I mean, that sends like such a negative signal because it's immediately undercutting, you know, whatever type of cultural process you're trying to establish. Yeah. So, and that, that just compounds, right? Like if you don't fix your problem before you scale, you will scale your problem. And so in a situation like this, I often see teams where, you know, there, there could be a reluctance again, especially due to the fear of, of how this might impact their friendship. I, I also work with teams where they're, you know, related or they're dating or whatever the case may be. And so when there's a fear of, of kind of giving this difficult feedback and it, it compounds— and this is just a brief, uh, tangent— I call this emotional debt. Because what it, you know, these, these little moments, uh, where there's misalignment and something's not being discussed, it ultimately ends up building the frustration. It acts like a magnet where all these other negative thoughts and feelings come, uh, and, and kind of coagulate is the word that came to mind, into, uh, it kind of hardens into resentment, uh, and that resentment is, is quite toxic. And so then it'll come out in these, these more intense ways that then kind of actually creates the very problem you were trying to avoid, which is pushing the person further away. I bring all this up because if you're not giving that person, uh, feedback, it, it, like we were saying before, it isolates them, it decreases their probability of success to continue scaling, and then, yeah, it kind of demotivates everyone else. And so I agree that this actually is a massive problem if you're not being proactive in some of these conversations. And so if you're making exceptions for your co-founder, you're ultimately doing a net disservice to your company. And I see a lot of teams, I work with a team presently where this has been a problem for the last 3 years. And the, and the, and they're, they're still reluctant as a, as a co-founding team to face it. And yet it's leading to employees burning out, to employees kind of playing this parentified role of intervening., and it's, it's actually toxic and it's contributing to their lack of success.

Yeah, no, makes, makes a ton of sense. I'm curious, you know, you've come at this focus that you have from the psychology background, happened to get connected to some, some co-founders, found this fascinating. Now you're in this startup world and, um, whereas I came at it totally differently, I was in the startup world. Since the '90s. At this point, it's all I know. I'd be useless outside of that context. And so I'm just curious, like, what are your observations on the startup world? Because I think we do some batshit crazy stuff. Like, there aren't other verticals where you just, I don't know, set a few million bucks on fire every month. So it's like, yeah, what are your thoughts about this crazy industry that we're now both in?

There's elements of it that I really love and appreciate that feel aligned with, uh, like, like the teams that I love working with are, are those with who are led by people who at their root just want to grow. And it's, it's not, it's like, I want to grow personally. I want the business to grow professionally. I want to make an impact on the world. Like just everything is about growth. And so that means doing self-work along the way to make sure that I can fulfill this mission. That's something that I find deeply inspiring and that, that deeply resonates with the core of my being. There's also like kind of, you know, some, some shadow material here that I think is challenging in the startup space of Um, you know, whether that's, uh, kind of avoiding our own relational traumas and wounds and trying to, to kind of get away from them through this, this achievement and grandiosity. There's also like in this space, one thing that I find really frustrating is, you know, just within my work in particular, a lot of teams will give me testimonials but make them anonymous, not because they're not proud of the work, but because they're afraid of sending a negative signal to investors. And so I think And there's like this, this stigma, like, oh, we're going to say that there's something wrong with us, uh, but by kind of endorsing this work, when in fact I could argue the opposite, uh, not doing something is far more of an issue. Uh, doing something about it is definitely going to improve the likelihood of success. And so I think that there's elements like that where, uh, I think part of my biggest challenge are the ways in which I see some hypocrisy or misalignment between supporting founders and saying, yes, we're pro-founder mental health. And then on the other hand, you know, the way that some of the, you know, perhaps also from the VC side of things, you know, there's different incentives. And so some of those are not always in complete alignment.

Hey, thanks for listening to the Startup CEO Show. If you'd like to connect with me, be sure to visit my website at markmacleod.me or follow me on LinkedIn at TheMarkMacLeod or Twitter @MarkMacLeod_. And if you want to tune in again next week, be sure to subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you next time.