Tucked in The Checklist Manifesto, an already quick read, is a little manifesto for any learned profession. The author—Atul Gawande—calls them the four expectations of a learned profession. Our occupations require a significant amount of learning before, during, and outside of work. Gawande proposes that all learned professions have a definition of professionalism, a code of conduct, a set of expectations:

1. The expectation of Skill: that we aim for excellence in our knowledge and expertise.
2. The expectation of Trust: that we take responsibility for our own personal behavior and that of our team. 
3. The expectation of Selflessness: that we put the needs of those who depend upon us above our own. 
4. The expectation of Discipline: that we follow prudent procedures when functioning with each other.

Discipline vs. Selflessness

Gawande makes the case that of all expectations, discipline is the hardest. If a code of conduct speaks to our values and is a choice, Gawande argues that discipline is the hardest to master and the easiest to miss. However, I would make the case that for hyper-growth startups, it is selflessness that’s the hardest to practice.

Selflessness is the willingness to help when someone is struggling. When you see something falling through the cracks, it is the desire to call it out and fix it. Most importantly, if you see someone trying their best, the willingness to be that hand that pushes them along the finish line. Selflessness, more than discipline, makes us better at our jobs.

Selflessness is the willingness to help when someone is struggling. When you see something falling through the cracks, it is the desire to call it out and fix it.

Startups and watching for Apathy

A learned profession is a shared profession and thereby needs selflessness to perpetuate itself. When the company is young, it is easy to build a shared sense of purpose, a strong calling, a mission. There’s plenty of work to do and not enough people to do it. As such, selflessness is easy because you’re a small search party all by itself, a small group of renegades out to prove the world wrong. This creates high cohesion that cements individual selflessness. If this team is young, there’s another dynamic at play. When we are young, we are fresh, helpful, inquisitive, and need experience. Therefore, we are more willing to be selfless. As we become experts, that need appears to go away and sadly at the cost of selflessness. Here is how it happens:

1. We become highly skilled and specialized.
2. We stick narrowly to our domains.
3. A “not my problem” mindset sets in.
4. There is silent disengagement with the larger team.
5. There is diffusion of ownership.
6. Apathy sets in.
7. Nothing gets done.

This personal apathy leads to highly tribal teams that create loosely coupled organizations. If a leader is not watching for this shift, it is already a massive problem by the time it becomes noticeable. The very actions that brought you to your scale have killed your teams, their potential, and your company.

You’ll see some early signs of this apathy. There will be increased departmental silos. These silos will create their processes. The processes will then live in perpetuity long after being rendered useless and usually sunset only after a catastrophe. Peter Drucker calls this organizational obesity—when a process has to prove its ineffectiveness to be killed. He recommends instead having processes demonstrate their effectiveness and at regular intervals.

Checklists & Process Review

One way to monitor for process effectiveness is to break down processes to their checklists and review them frequently.

A checklist done well is precise, efficient, and easy to use. This also makes them easy to review. This review process has to be part of a regular organizational cadence (a sprint retrospective for example) if we are to fight the silent disengagement that results from personal apathy.