Reevaluating Your Startup Team
My last post was focused on hiring “politicians” for your startup. Today I want to take a look at loyalty to the original team which in some cases can be another potential hindrance to a startup’s success.
Startup companies are fun places to work but they present some interesting interpersonal dynamics. Over the years I have noticed that great leaders are loyal to their team but they sometimes are loyal to a fault. Jim Collins in his book Good to Great discusses having the right people on “the bus and in the right seats.” I have seen CEOs let their early employees stay in a position mainly because they were in the organization first. These leaders were unknowingly sacrificing their company’s success. Many times the rest of the growing team sees this lapse in judgment by the CEO. The extended team might even interpret this as a sign of weakness or understand the culture of one of “face time” over results (never good in a startup).
Experience and skill should always trump (no, not the guy) time in a job or a company. If you hear someone say that someone has “always” done a job (different than hearing someone is great at their role) you might have just uncovered a potential sign where the management team (and in some cases the board) is not watching the shop. We all have skills and can add value to an organization’s growth but the role someone plays in an organization should be based on their merit, not on when they joined the company or their staying ability.
I have seen great leaders understand this concept and watched them move senior team members around to roles which will help the company grow. They understood how to leverage everyone’s skills to drive the business. At the end of the day results are what drive the business and true leaders (even the ones being moved around) understand this and help move the company forward.
If you haven’t done a reassessment of your team in a while, now is the time to make sure everyone is set up to best serve the company and is sitting in the right seats.
