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Clear standards create gravity
Posting a calendar, an approach to work, and the expectations for everyone around you brings clarity to everyone involved. The more the culture gets spelled out, the more some people leave. The people who fit move closer, and they are the ones worth keeping.
The compounding shows up in three places. Talent attracts talent, which opens access to great deals through the network. The team executes better and delivers better results. The expectations for who gets funded rise too, which protects investors' capital and directs it toward people who share the conviction, the passion, and the will to win.
The same pattern holds in sports. Kobe Bryant famously woke at 4am to train, so that an extra workout before everyone else's two-a-days would compound over decades and separate him from the competition. Those habits are the same kind of standard, held without apology, and held long enough to draw others in.
One argument for working this way is that when the work is big enough, focusing on the system, the business, and its impact can be the more compassionate choice, compared with managing how each individual sees you.
Why do clear standards make some people leave?
Organizational psychologist Benjamin Schneider proposed the attraction-selection-attrition model in 1987. It holds that people are drawn to organizations whose values match their own, that organizations choose the people who fit, and that people who do not fit eventually leave. Over time the group becomes more alike in what it values and how it works. Stated standards speed this up because the mismatch shows early instead of years in.
How do small daily habits compound over decades?
A small edge in training hours adds to itself because skill built earlier makes later practice more productive. Psychologist K. Anders Ericsson studied violinists at a Berlin music academy in a 1993 paper and found that the best players had accumulated more hours of solitary practice by age 20 than the less accomplished groups. Elite athletes show a similar pattern, with early and sustained practice separating those who reach the top levels. Kobe Bryant's reputation for early-morning workouts is one of the best-known examples in basketball.