Don’t let the process become the work

I read an article recently about a founder’s vision for his company and about building the kind of company he would want to work for.

His story about realizing he was more passionate about tinkering with his open-source side-projects reminded me of where I got to with my agency. 

After 20+ years, during the tail end of the pandemic, I was hearing a lot about “quiet quitting” and it terrified me. 

As I was thinking about how to engage and inspire my team to do and be better—to ensure quiet quitting didn't impact us, I realized I myself was quiet quitting from my own company.

It became apparent I was more passionate and inspired and energized by the one-on-one consulting work I was doing with merchants—sort of on the side—than I was building and running my small agency. I realized that the process had become the work.

Fir years, we’d consistently done good work but rarely great. It wasn’t simply that it wasn’t fun anymore; it wasn’t inspiring and we weren’t on a meandering branching path towards excellence but a straight path of hopefully-better-than-average survival.

So, I made a courageous decision after 20+ years and sold off the original New Zealand half of the agency and regrouped in New York City with just five of us—with renewed vigor to build an excellent expert consulting firm focused on deep Shopify expertise.

It wasn't enough. The process was still the work. And I was tired of building an agency when what I really felt called to was to solve deeper, underlying, first-principles kinds of system problems.

A year later, I made the really hard decision to wind down completely to going fully solo again—working as a consultant directly with my clients. No team. Minimal process. Right at the coal-face of the problems and solutions.

It was humbling—essentially becoming a freelancer again—but I loved it.

The couple of years back in the trenches guiding and advising clients were some of the most interesting and impactful—and, ironically, more profitable—than what was possible with a whole team.

I missed my team and I missed the people but I didn’t miss what the work had become.

The point is not that one can't build a successful agency. The point was that I realized that wasn't my gift or what I wanted or needed to do.

When the process becomes the work, it might be time to reevaluate what the work actually ought to be.

My heart was ultimately with Shopify itself.

I’d felt for well over a decade that the impact my small agency could have on the industry overall was minimal. The real work to change entrepreneurship—to “flatten the curve” and to “make commerce better for everyone” is happening with the tools and frameworks and systems we are building for our users—so the process doesn’t have to become the work for them!

For all of us—whether building tools or advising or doing work for users or clients—we should be asking ourselves this: how can we enable and unlock the gifts and skills and passions and creativity of those we serve?

How can we help them avoid the process becoming the work?