Your Startup Incubator is Doomed
By: Josh Feldman
A startup incubator’s purpose is to train and equip the next generation of leaders to succeed in scaling big ideas. What if the incubators themselves are missing the mark on the most important part of leadership?
How are we teaching leaders, founders, and change makers how to be well while doing well, from the start? How are we preparing leaders and their collaborators to thrive despite the challenges of 21st century leadership?
Every incubator has an important opportunity to integrate into their models how individuals and systems can be best designed to create and support thriving leaders, workers, and cultures. To do this well, they need to break the rudimentary binary of rest and work, and embrace a way of thinking that will catalyze the future: Effectiveness. Spacious productivity. Healthy workplace design. Wellbeing. Rest as infrastructure.
We don’t need to look far to find examples of programs that have embraced this way of thinking: athlete training.
The system that allows pro athletes to inspire us with 100% effort on game days is not hustling to the last minute before they enter the field, but rather thoughtful, intentional recovery time closely attended to and structured by coaches and a team of experts. When coupled with practices where coaches focus on 60-80% in daily training, and support systems for all parts of health, these athletes prepare for their game far better than many CEOs prepare to scale ventures.
Coaches are actively focused on recovery because it gets better results. Brett Bartholomew, NFL strength and conditioning coach, shares,
“Rest is a weapon. What was once seen as a weakness is now a strength. There are all kinds of ways to recover, what I call regenerative strategies.”
High-performing athletes are seeing themselves in these practices, too. Amber Burfoot, who is currently training to set a record for running marathons in eight (8) consecutive decades, sees the clear returns on a care-centered approach:
“Recovery starts with smart training and understanding your body’s natural rhythms and cycles. How many easy days do you need after an intense day? How many weeks can you train hard before taking a break? How often can you race? If you listen to your body and are honest with yourself, you’ll be able to answer these critically important questions.”
With these examples as inspiration, the incubator programs that prepare leaders for the workplace design of the 21st century can easily and successfully integrate solutions to prepare the next generation of sustainable leadership:
Incorporate well-being training into every aspect of leadership programs
Articulate the well-being goal and view from the start. It should be a top three priority of the program. Here is some thinking on developing a rest ethic, which boils down to this: when leaders understand their own rest ethic, they can decide what type of culture they are building and modeling.
Leaders experiment during the program with practices to optimize work based on the latest research and integrate them into their work style and workplace cultures. Check out Protocols by Andrew Huberman as a start.
Leaders need coaches just like athletes. Fund executive coaches for your participants from the start, with at least monthly sessions.
Model practices of well-being in the training
No 14-hour training days. Divide learning modules into time blocks based on how people learn best. Short experiential chunks, with breaks in between. If programs do this well, the leaders themselves can start to envision what their days, weeks, and months can feel like if rest isn’t an afterthought for them or their teams.
Model shorter meetings at work: 50-minute hours. 25-minute half-hours. Decompression breaks between to reflect and integrate.
Share and train on best practices for org-wide guardrails (vs. boundaries)
Guardrails are limits that organizational leadership takes responsibility for implementing (and modeling) in their workplace, with the goal of creating the conditions for better results and effectiveness for their team. Boundaries are limits that individual workers can put up to protect their own needs. Healthy workplaces have both.
Share case studies from leaders at similar places in their journey and a couple steps further. Even better if those leaders are in the room to discuss how they have created great places to lead and work.
If you’ve ever been a part of a leadership program, you can probably note exactly which ones felt exhausting vs. those that felt empowering - or better yet, restorative. The best programs are working to create a more equitable society - diverse participation, perspectives, experiences - all while centering care as an integral part of leadership.
I’ve seen the effects that cascade when we don't prioritize leaders' and the full organization's well-being: burnt-out and unwell leaders who are harmed by being taught to hustle at all costs. Incubators that perpetuate the belief that hustle culture is the only way to success are at risk of extremely high venture failure rates. Sprinting is a great short-term strategy at the right times. Resting is its crucial companion.
Lastly, if training leaders in regenerative strategies to increase the success rate isn’t enough, try this on for size: it’s just more fun. None of us know how long we are here for. Let’s make sure to live this one beautiful life fully because it is the only one we have. One (easy) way to do that is to model, train, and support leaders in believing that work is a part of life, not life itself.
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Josh Feldman is the Founder and CEO of R&R: The Rest Of Our Lives