ESSENTIALS MANAGEMENT IN THE EYE OF THE STORM “I think it’s important for people to talk about what it feels like to be inside a scaling company because it helps people realize how normal their experience is — and identifying that experience as a leader can actually help your team,” says Graham. She saw so many people struggling with the same emotions during her time at Facebook that now she actually gives a talk to people on her teams about it. “I call it the ‘Give Away Your Legos’ talk,” she says. Let her explain. “The best metaphor I have for scaling is building one of those huge, complex towers out of Legos,” she says. “At ifrst, everyone’s excited. Scaling a team is a privilege. Being inside a company that’s a rocket ship is really cool. There are so many Legos! You could build anything. At the beginning, as you start to scale, everyone has so many Legos to choose from — they’re doing 10 jobs — and they’re all part of building something important.” You have so many choices and things to build during this early phase that it’s easy to get overwhelmed. There’s too much work — too many Legos. You’re not sure you can do it all yourself. Soon, you decide you need help. So you start to add people. That’s when something funny happens on a personal level and to teams: People get nervous. “As you add people, you go through this roller coaster of, ‘Wait, is that new person taking my job? What if they don’t do it the right way? What if they’re better than me at it? What do I do now?’” says Graham. “These are some strong emotions, and even if they’re predictable, they can be unnerving.” In order to get to a really high-functioning, larger team, you have to help everyone get through this roller coaster. If you don’t, you can end up with a real mess. If you personally want to grow as fast as your company, you have to give away your job every couple months. 54