I don’t believe in flapping my wings to motivate team members. Either someone is self motivated or not. What you hope to create is an environment where people know that their work matters and they feel candid enough to let you know when something is bothering them to the point where their excitement is muted. Work related or private. Your role at that point is to remove that roadblock.
Hard decisions are those you don’t want to make. It usually involves drastically changing a decision you made in the past. Shutting down a product or feature for which you have invested resources, time and for which you have put your own reputation on the line. Letting go that team member that you consider a friend. Making these decisions never get easy. You only hope you have the courage to make them when the time comes.
Culture is the backbone of any company. Culture is what drives behaviour – good and bad. When does culture start – right during the interview process. How you schedule them, what questions you ask, how quickly you make decisions, how you interact with colleagues during the process. All of this talks mountains about who you are as a company. Use it as an opportunity to attract the right entrepreneurs to join in the madness.
We’ve all read the books about Steve Jobs and other well known entrepreneurs. How they behaved, how they planned, what made them successful. Trying to be someone else doesn’t work. Learn who you are. Know what you are not. Only then can you be a leader.
Sitting for breakfast with Richard – my then VP of Sales at Tungle – he got to talking about Commander’s Intent. This resonated with me. Instead of mapping out a way to win the battle, commander’s intent aims at describing what is the outcome of a successful mission. This allows troops in the field to figure things out by themselves if the communication link to HQ is cut. I like and try to use this approach daily. Don’t map things out. Describe what success is. A smart team will figure out the way.