A Seattle HR leader’s honest book offers practical insights into building a business without losing yourself

The dreamy side of Mikaela Kiner’s life is easy to see. He spent his most recent winter working in a small Costa Rican beach town, taking pre-dawn surf lessons, sunset walks on the sand, and Zoom calls with real palm trees swaying in the background.

But “The Reverb Way,” his new book about building and running the Seattle-based HR firm of the same name, is no postcard version of the story.

Kiner describes what happens when a new business drops to half its normal volume, as technology layoffs, a rocky economy, and the rapid rise of AI affect Reverb’s customer base. He suffered from insomnia to the extent that he could not go through the workday without sleep. His daughter, watching him meddle in clients’ problems, told him that she had never seen him so depressed.

The book is a candid account of the good times and the bad, detailing what Kiner learned over ten years of restructuring his career to support the life and company he wanted to create.

“I didn’t want to give the impression that running a business is easy,” Kiner said in a recent interview about the book on the patio of a Seattle coffee shop. “You can still get tired, you can still overwork, you can still lose energy, and you can still struggle.”

At the same time, he wanted to convey the fun and joy that comes from the freedom to do your own thing. Kiner spent 15 years in HR leadership at companies including Microsoft, Amazon, and Starbucks, often working 60 to 80 hour weeks, before starting Reverb in 2015.

“I chose to try to do something different,” he said. “And I’m so glad I did. I’m really, really glad. The key words are there you make a choice.”

“The Reverb Way” is her second book, following “Female Firebrands” in 2020.

The new book is part memoir and part leadership guide. It draws on Kiner’s business career and ten years running Reverb to provide insight into everything from hiring and outsourcing to performance management and company values, as well as the everyday tools to be productive and protect your time.

Useful takeaways

Here are some of the ideas from the book that resonated with me:

Park your ideas. Instead of chasing every good idea as it came, Kiner started putting them on a “future goals spreadsheet” and updated the list during quarterly business reviews. Some items are made as part of other programs. Some ended up being irrelevant. But the team stopped being pulled in a dozen ways at once.

Use your freedom. Reverb takes Friday through Memorial Day through Labor Day, with one person on call to check email a few times in case customers need help.

When Kiner asked to continue taking the official four-day work week, the team turned him down. They already had the flexibility they needed. Another worker has been going to the stone gym at 3 pm every day, and Kiner didn’t know, because the job was over.

Don’t apologize for your plan. Kiner writes about watching male managers canceling their children’s soccer meetings without explanation or apology, and realizing that she excused herself every time she was unavailable. His rule now: no meetings before 9 or after 5, and no explanation needed.

Build your own community. After being rejected from a startup company — perhaps, she suspects, because she listed family time as a personal value — Kiner created her own informal group of female CEOs called WISE. They meet quarterly, share business information, and support each other. Some are direct competitors. Friendship comes first.

Celebrate more than you think you need to. Kiner describes herself as a recovering perfectionist who was often hesitant to praise someone who does one thing well when they struggle elsewhere.

For leaders who struggle with this, he suggests a simple way to keep track: write down the names of your team members and add a tag every time you see them. His point: everyone needs to feel they are on the right track, probably more often than you think.

In that spirit, while the book talks about Kiner’s experiences, it also focuses heavily on the team that makes Reverb work, including co-owner and COO Sarah Wilkins, whom Kiner describes as the person who kept the company going through the worst of times.

What is happening now

As the book is about shrinking, things have changed since Kiner finished writing. In the weeks leading up to our most recent interview, he said, new deal volume increased by 50%, across technology organizations, nonprofits, and small businesses. Reverb is hiring consultants as well.

“I can’t really explain it,” he said, noting that the changes were happening despite inflation, high gas prices, and national upheavals like the Iran war.

AI is a common background and topic of conversation in their work. Kiner writes in the book, for example, about teams at other companies being told to double productivity with AI but getting little support.

In our conversation, he explained the divide: companies that use AI as a way to demand more, and those that bring people together, show them how to save time.

He is not worried that AI will replace the human side of his work. One of her mentors uses a term she likes: “coordinating workers,” referring to empathy, conflict resolution, and the work of helping people and teams get unstuck. He said that part doesn’t go away.

“I think there is room for all of us,” she said. “Me and the agents, too.”

“The Reverb Way” is available in paper and e-book versions.

Editor’s Note: GeekWire is a Reverb client.