Letter Bombs
Hi! I’m Molly. I write about what it actually takes to lead inside growing, changing companies: the frameworks that help, the honest truth about what it feels like, and the messy work of shaping a career that actually fits.
Lessons is where those ideas live — both the writing and the conversations around it. (If you want to learn more about how Lessons and the community work, you can read more here.)
We’ve all been there. You’re in the final stages with a candidate you’re excited about. They’re strong, they’re eager, and they could really move the needle. But then comes the ask:
“I need assurance I’ll always be the most senior person in this function.”
“I need to know that you won’t ever hire above me.”
“I want the CXO title, otherwise I’m out.”
In that moment, it’s tempting to cave. You’re desperate to close them. The ask feels small compared to the risk of losing them. And if you just say yes, the problem feels like it goes away.
Except it doesn’t. It just gets deferred. Claire Hughes Johnson came to speak to Glue Club recently, and as always, she left us with a lot to think about. But she had this one metaphor that has really stuck with me. She was talking about the reasons why she, Patrick, and John tried not to use titles or job scope in recruiting: “Giving out inflated titles or scope too early is like mailing yourself a letter bomb. It feels like you solved the problem in the moment, but a year later it explodes.”
It’s brilliant. Anyone who has done this (or experienced it on the employee side) knows viscerally what she is talking about. Promising someone something that you can’t control (because you don’t truly know what the future of your company or the team will require) is essentially like mailing yourself a letter bomb — and someday, it’s going to explode in your face.
Be Clear (and Relatively Unapologetic) About What You Can’t Control
Inside Glue Club, I talk a lot about this as a cardinal rule of management when you are building teams inside of growing companies: don’t promise things you can’t control.
