> <i>Talking to your cofounders and team - Sometimes, this looks like having coffee or grabbing a beer. Invariably, you'll be talking about work and how things are going. This is work because you need to know what's going on, and need to care about how your team is feeling and doing.</i><p>I can't stress the importance of that enough. I think one of my best decisions on GrantTree was, until recently, to have 121s with almost everyone in the company on a biweekly basis. This scaled up to about 20 people. Yes, it took a chunk of time out, but it was extremely well invested time, imho. I think it was instrumental in pushing through some very complex cultural shifts and getting to where we are now, which is that the company is basically self-managing and I no longer need to steer people in this hands on manner at all.<p>I strongly recommend this type of work. Someone may occasionally criticise you and say "but you're wasting a quarter of your time each week!" - you're not wasting it, you're investing it in the most valuable resource of your startup: its people.<p>I guess the reason many people might not do it is that it takes a certain humility to realise that your work output is actually worth less than investing that time in growing and developing the people who work in your business.