The Entrepreneur Success Story of Tony Jamous [Secrets of Building Two Unicorn Companies]

“What drives me is the mission,” says Tony Jamous, founder and CEO of Oyster HR, a business that, as Brendan puts it, is “stewarding the remote work revolution.” Oyster, Tony’s second unicorn company, works to allow businesses to hire anyone from around the world without restriction. With their needs fulfilled, companies can then focus on their growth. This starts with everyone establishing their mission, collectively and individually. As Brendan points out, being mission driven ensures that your business is solving an actual problem. Yet, so many workers don’t know why they are working in the first place. Tony regularly takes stock of how his employees feel working at Oyster and working for him specifically. What’s more, he encourages all leaders to check in with how they feel about themselves, to practice self-leadership before they attempt to lead others. 

Another important element of leadership, he says, is demonstrating full trust in that employees can and will do their jobs, meet their goals and provide value to the company. No one likes to be questioned, and while checking in with employees about performance is necessary and reasonable, the only way to attempt to micromanage is not to attempt it at all. Micromanagement leads workers to further question what they are doing in their jobs, which not only leads to burnout, but to the kind of disengagement that up to 75 percent of knowledge workers admit to feeling. Pay attention to the red flags of avoidance and procrastination around a task,Tony advises. 

Another major contributor to workplace burnout is the continued adherence by many companies to arbitrary and archaic work models. Oyster has a series of breaks and flexibility built into the culture to allow for quality of life while still achieving a high level of productivity. This notably includes eliminating unnecessary meetings–and their resulting emotional drain–and using Loom instead.

Quotes:

• “Today, it seems like we have an unlimited amount of opportunities because…we’re digitalizing the whole economy through all industries. So how do you choose to focus on and that’s the strategy process that you need to conduct.” ( 6:36-6:53 | Tony)

• “Being mission-driven increases your chances of success. You attract better people to your business, you create a better culture with the highest level of engagement, and you attract better investors and better customers.” (16:32-16:46 | Tony) 

• “Trust, in my opinion, has to be absolute and infinite because you gain nothing by questioning people. Nobody gains anything from adding doubt into the relationship.” (27:58-28:14 | Tony) 

• “Many people aren’t clear about why they’re working.” (43:00-43:05 | Tony) 

Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandell TikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan’s Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 

Connect with Tony Jamous: LinkedIn: @ Tony Jamous Check out Tony Jamous’ recommended book:

 The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek 

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780735213500

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