Top 5 tips for starting your journey at CBH

"It's about nurses, nursing homes, and building a marketplace. It's pretty cool mom"

"A marketplace? What do you mean? Anyway, honey, what time do you clock in at the office?"

"Yeah, well, there's isn't really an OFFICE"

"Huh?"

Yeah.

You'll need more than a couple of conversations to explain to your mom what you do, but otherwise, CBH is a really fun place to work at.

It is, in essence, a giant experiment: Can we build a labor marketplace? Can we make it attractive for both sides of the market? What are the specificities of Health Care that need to be addressed?

Who do we need to hire to make this work? (Pss- that's you)

We solve problems from first principles instead of solving them through their perceived limitations. We believe that the concepts we invent should have as much power and freedom as possible to be made real- for example we want the best talent, so the natural approach is to recruit worldwide (we'll deal with the "how" later, and we'll limit the first approach only if we need to).

I'm not going to get excited here and tell you too much. I think part of the adventure is that you discover your own path while you build it. Also, just like the best iPhone you can buy, any specificity that I tell you here will be outdated in 2 weeks. That's why I'm kinda obligated to go a little conceptual on the takeaway…

1- Plan big, malleable, and fast

You're here, you're smart. We want your thoughts and visions. We grow fast and our circumstances change a lot, so consider that when you plan stuff.

2- If it's free and could be beneficial, don't ask permission - test it

Managing a big org with few people means that every individual must have more responsibilities. There are few experts, and a lot of potential: if you see something that could be beneficial for us, with a relatively low cost or for free (in time, money, effort, compliance risk…) - don't ask permission. Test it, document it, report the success/failure, move on accordingly.

3- Obligation to disagree and Obligation to build upon

We hired you because we value your criteria. If something's happening that you don't agree with, you must manifest it to the organization (be adequate on the "how"-  private calls tend to be a better place for discussion than "all hands" meetings). In every instance where you can, also propose an alternative solution.

Your manifestation/alternative will be heard and considered.

4- Socialize hard

We're all at home behind our computers. I'd love to walk up to your desk and share some of my mom's homemade cookies while we talk about the meeting we just had. We can't.

Call someone on slack every time you'd like to "pass by his desk to see if they're there to have a conversation". No shame or regards.

Ask your manager about the people you should know, and schedule welcome calls with them. Schedule welcome calls with other people that you find interesting, or that you'd want to learn more about.

Hop on #general and #fun if something interesting/sad/inspirational/funny happened with you and you think it's worth sharing.

Send some memes to your co-workers from time to time. Or a picture of your cat.

We can't socialize implicitly. Be conscious of that and do it explicitly. It will feel a bit forced and awkward at first, that's fine. It is our shared responsibility to build a community and a shared sense of meaning and belonging.

Be especially aware of this rule if you're managing a team. What you do impacts immensely the folks who are reporting to you.

(Also be aware of the other side of the coin- don't take it personally if someone asks you respectfully to limit the memes and messaging- find your own equilibrium)

5- Evolve

We're all in this together, doing a lot of stuff and changing constantly. Your relationship with CBH will be two-sided: you will change the organization and also be changed by it.

As you leave your imprint in the people, product, and processes, the natural flow of business and the new needs that come up along the way will require different things from you: it could be deep-diving into technical stuff more than you're used to, or learning a new database system, or temporarily fulfilling a position you didn't expect… You are not required to know everything nor to excel at everything. You are only required to put in the willingness to learn and evolve.

Because we're all learning all the time

I told you I'd get conceptual, don't look at me like that, ha!

Anyway, this is it. You also probably have too much reading to do, so don't let me occupy your time more than it's needed.

Best regards,

Eliseo Gil Zamora