being an ‘a-player’ 🎯

more than a decade ago netflix kickstarted the ‘culture trend’ by posting their company culture deck online, as a way to communicate their culture to new and current employees, customers, partners++. ‘the most important document to ever come out of the valley’ as many would put it.

when we started leap.club, anand and i knew there is no simple formula for creating great company culture. you definitely can’t copy another company’s culture, but you can learn from how other companies have created meaningful and effective culture. having worked at zomato, we knew how important it was too. the founding team makes or breaks your startup — so over the last two years of building leap.club, we’ve taken pride in a bunch of things:

📌 being revenue first

📌 optimising for + rewarding execution and performance >>

📌 settling for nothing less than an ‘a-team’

but who’s an a-player?

simply put — the one who goes above and beyond to build — with equal importance on culture, consistent performance and the right intent.

over the last year i’ve realized that you do not need a high-performance culture to build a successful company. there are many companies without well-defined cultures that are growing slowly and steadily and that’s just fine. however, if you want to build a disruptive, high-performance company that attracts and retains the best talent, then you need to be deliberate about the culture you create. these strong cultures are demanding and hence they are not for everyone.

for us, performance and culture are both intertwined. the above statement maybe subjective from person to person and company to company, but in my personal opinion, an ‘a-player’ is an ‘a-player’ no matter where you put them. there are a few things that always separate these great ones from the good ones, and here’s my attempt at sharing what that means for us at leap (and in life):

• being a leader even when you’re not the leader: indra nooyi was at a leap.club workshop last week where she quoted you don’t have to be a ceo to be a leader, or to be viewed as a leader. if you’re managing people directly or indirectly, you’re a leader. and you become a leader because you’re competent. i couldn’t agree more — owning who you are and what you do, regardless of your position in the company, takes us a long way; and eventually exactly where we want to be. you might ruffle a few feathers on the way but that’s okay.
• ability to take and act on feedback: it’s extremely natural to get defensive, feel upset whenever someone shares honest/ no filter feedback. but an a-player trusts the intent, knows what to take out of it and acts on what will take them forward immediately. everything else is just excuses we feed ourselves.
• hard work > smart work: very unpopular opinion in today’s time, but if you want to accomplish anything, you have to start by working hard. building a reputation for hard work goes a long way. ones who understand this build a very solid leverage to work smart eventually.
• team > me first attitude: at leap.club we often say ‘leap over everything else’, and this is literally what we mean by that. surrounding yourself with people who will fight from the same team, problem solve > complain is the only kind of people one should enter wartime/ peacetime with.
• resilience: not overthinking, not getting overwhelmed and just showing up every single day is what this (often abused) word really means. it doesn’t matter if you make the best efforts, it matters that you make them daily, and that is the only thing that shows results.
• being ok with stretched goals: a 50–50 balance is a myth when you are obsessed with your mission and career. there is an asymmetric upside from being long-term focused in a sea of short-term thinkers, and an a-player always plays the long game.
• understanding you’ll make mistakes: and being ok with it. but also building a system to ensure one does not make the same mistake twice. if you screw up, you own it and aren’t afraid to ask for help.
• a thorough professional: no better way to say this really — great tat on emails, meeting promised timelines, being enthusiastic about work, over-communication at all times, exceptional quality of work with attention to detail, thinking two steps ahead, being on time, going the extra mile — simple things that will always stand out and never go unnoticed or out of style.

taking the liberty to share one of the best hacks to getting ahead early in your career that i read on twitter and think have managed to apply well in life → observe your bosses/ mentors; figure out what they’re good at + hate doing; learn to do it; take it off their plate. a super easy and clear way to add value, put up a win, and build momentum for your own personal growth.

and more importantly, in all the hustle, don’t forget to trust the process.