6y
Thanks for your honest feedback here. You’re totally correct that our founding team and some of our leaders here don’t have experience at other companies. This obviously leads to some gaps in perspective as we grow, and is a problem we need to work on. To help with this, we’ve started investing heavily in training for all levels of leaders: external coaching, training sessions, and growth plans. Obviously this is in progress, but it should help everybody here who leads others at Smile.
Trust is extremely important for us to be able to grow, so I’d like to address that. We’ve gone from a company size where everybody is hands-on, to one where people have to trust and lead. We haven’t been perfect during that growth and transition, including myself, but we’re always trying to improve - including AMAs, surveys, and way more regular feedback gathering to make sure we make Smile an amazing place to work. If you have specific feedback on how we can improve there, then please let me know - I’d love to hear it.
And in general, I’d really like to hear more about your experience, either in person or even anonymously. Please feel free to email me personally and we can chat. I think it’s natural that companies go through growing pains, but I really want to make sure we can learn from your experiences and feedback.
Mike
