I had a nice chat this week with someone I had met in the past and with whom I recently reconnected.  We talked about a wide range of topics related to technology, marketing, and the types of work we do.  I did not explicitly ask if I could reference him so in the spirit of "journalistic integrity" I will not but will definitely update the post when I get the green light.

One of the more interesting parts of our discussion was about doing "hands" work vs. "mind" work.  Although it would be easy to separate this as tactics vs. strategy that is not so much the case.  It is about being in the weeds to get something done like writing copy and delivering pitches to prospects, analysts, or journalists vs. spending cycles on what needs to be said, how to position the company, and who to target as a customer or influential all the while tracking performance and making tweaks.

The challenge, at least in a startup, is to focus on getting things done (hands) no matter what it is while keeping an eye on it through a strategic framework (mind).  Although it is a bit of cliche, I never ask anyone on my team to do something that I haven't already done myself or wouldn't be willing to do.  There is no time or cycles to spend on someone who deems tasks below them – this is radioactive in a startup so if you see it, address it immediately.

Given the speed, resource constraints, and workload in a startup, it is a definite challenge to balance these two types of work so think it about it as hands vs. mind and be sure to make time for both.