Jan Hlavsa (Fondee): We give each other feedback straight, and people deal with it

In this episode of the CEO na ostří nože podcast, we talk to Jan Hlavsa, who co-founded the investment platform Fondee with his wife Eva and Štěpán. He calls himself a little anarchist at heart. He gives people at the company a lot of freedom, but also a lot of responsibility. They can work from wherever they want and for as many hours as they want. The biggest risk, he says, is that people will work so much that he’ll have to order them to take time off.

Hlavsa starts from a simple question: what would it be like if he were in the employee’s shoes? He always hated micromanagement himself. In his experience, it leads people to do what the boss says and nothing more. Instead of thinking about how to do something as well as possible, they think about how to please. You can’t change people’s motivation through micromanagement; you can only give them room to grow. In the short term, that sometimes hurts, because people have to work out a problem themselves instead of being handed a solution. In the long term, though, it’s far more effective for the company.

As the team grew to around twenty people, pure anarchy turned into managed anarchy. Coordination was taking up too much of Hlavsa’s time and team meetings kept getting stuck on details. So Fondee hired a COO to handle day-to-day operations. That frees Hlavsa to focus on direction, investors and external relationships. Freedom, he says, only works when it comes with responsibility. The company’s entry into the Polish market showed this: people saw the big picture, stepped in beyond their own areas and delivered the project on time and on budget without top-down management.

The second key value is feedback. Every three months there is a 360-degree round, in which someone gathers input from everyone who works with a given person and then passes it on to them. “It’s always paid off for us to say things straight rather than sugar-coat them, and let people deal with it,” Hlavsa says. The hardest part is getting honest feedback on himself. Even anonymity doesn’t help much in a small team. That’s why he is careful about what he says. When a boss hints at their opinion, people tend to follow it, even if it’s wrong. When he isn’t sure, he thinks it’s better to stay quiet and let others speak.

But managed anarchy isn’t for everyone. People who left Fondee mostly couldn’t take responsibility and tackle their work proactively. Whether someone fits the team, Hlavsa says, becomes clear within three to six months. The rest of the team is held together by a shared mission and by an employee stock option plan (ESOP), which Hlavsa recommends as a way to get people thinking about the company long-term.

What else will you learn in the podcast?

• Why micromanagement leads people to do only what the boss says

• When a company needs a COO and how the roles of CEO and COO are split

• How quarterly 360-degree feedback works in a small team

• Why it’s so hard for a founder to get honest feedback

• Why it’s difficult to set KPIs for creative and business roles

• Why an ESOP helps people think about the company long-term

According to Jan Hlavsa, managed anarchy depends on people who can take responsibility and aren’t afraid of mistakes. If you find those people and give them room, you don’t need to tell them what to do. You just need to keep an eye on the direction, and sometimes the best way to do that is to say nothing.