5 tactics to get your employees to act like founders tomorrow
What’s so special about founders?
Many things. Founders show great care, have a keen sense of empathy, take ownership of their actions and products, are transparent, break through barriers, are always looking for opportunity to create value, provide great leadership when times are tough, can solve any problem they might face, and hold a vision for the business. Good founders, that is.
Do your employees carry these traits? Do you wish they did? Why don’t they?
To be frank, it’s one of two things. Either you’ve hired the wrong people or you’re not leading them well. You are not going to learn about hiring in this article; rather, I will share some of the insights I’ve gained on how to lead good people to act like great founders. I hope these insights will give you a clear vision and a set of tactics you can apply to your business tomorrow.
1 Attract good people
Let’s start with the people themselves. It should go without saying, but, as there are many different types of people, it’s important to give a bit of qualification to the types of people we are talking about (and hopefully the people that make up your team). Going forward, I’ll refer to them as ‘good people.’
Good people are self motivated, have strong problem solving skills, they’re passionate for life and work, and they understand the powers of continual education. These are the people that should make up your team. Good people inherently want to achieve great success. They want to make a difference in the organization and the greater community.
The hard thing about good people, is that they could get a job just about anywhere, and they most likely know it. Now, your job is to create an environment they never want to leave. To accomplish this, ask questions and listen to your good people. Find out what these good people want in a work environment, give them the autonomy to choose their work (more about this later), discover things that delight them, and ultimately provide those things. Pleasing your people will allow them to make happier customers and create a stronger business.
Tomorrow: Ask three of your good people what they would do to improve their work environment.
2 Embrace servant leadership
As a leader, your role is to show them a path and help remove any blockers from that path. Instead of telling your employees what to do, how to do it, or assigning them specific tasks, ask questions that guide them to discover solutions themselves. This creates autonomy.
Showing them is not to hold their hands around each corner. It is not to tell them to go left when they reach a fork in the path. Showing is to teach them about corners and support them when they are not prepared for what’s on the other side. It is to give them the tools that they can use to take ownership of the direction they choose.
With ownership of their direction, and autonomy in their work, you will see employees give true care to the paths they choose. With support, good people will embark on ambitious paths; paths you yourself may have never even seen, and create rapid growth in your business.
Be a servant first. There are many roles you need to play as a leader, but first and foremost, be a servant to your good people. This is what I mean when saying that ‘your role is to remove blockers from their path.’
Empathize with your employees, know their passions and have a vision for where they are heading. Listen deeply for the things that are getting in their way — and then use all of your ability to get it out of their way!
If they need Quartet dry erase markers because the Expo markers are drying up quickly and don’t give enough weight to their writing, then get them Quartet dry erase markers. If making breakfast is taking up too much of their morning, then provide breakfast for them. This might seem like minor contributions, but they aid their success and show you truly support that.
Tomorrow: Take one of the answers from your previous question (what would you do to improve your work environment?), and follow through on it.
3 Be transparent, really transparent
At rhubarb, one of our core values is transparency. That means being open in our activities, design and communication. This feeds into every aspect of our business. We share decisions on financials, learnings from failed products, employee salaries, operating expenses, revenue structures, legal structures, investment vehicles, and hiring decisions, with every level of our core team from interns to senior level executives. We even draw all business models and metrics on the wall so everyone can see.
The benefit of this is that everybody then contributes to creating of all of those. They take ownership and feel empowered to make change. It saves a ton of time because you don’t have to explain each decision to each person, and it greatly reduces the need for HR intervention. It also removes unnecessary tension around why certain decisions are made and, therefore, you don’t have to deal with employees bickering. It largely removes politics from the workplace.
Tomorrow: draw your business model for the whole team to see (on a wall, whiteboard or projector).
4 Integrate continuous learning into everything
Invest in your people, products, and business — in that order. People are the foundation of any successful enterprise.
You are asking these people to help you build a business. Not a small task. This poses many great challenges, challenges your employees have likely never faced. That’s scary. To embrace and provide continuous education creates an environment in which people can take on these challenges with complete confidence. By investing in your people, you are supporting their growth and creativity. Remember, good people are committed, life-long learners. Feed that passion.
What does a life-long learner look like? Consider these two examples: the CEO and the engineer. The CEO has a library full of books sitting on their bookshelf. The engineer has a library full of books all sitting open on their desk. This is because the engineer is constantly pushing themselves to the edge of their expertise, and understands that to continue pushing that line they have to be constantly learning.
Create a space that allows your good people to thrive as lifelong learners.
Tomorrow: Ask three people for something they would like to learn. Create a thirty minute session to teach them, or research where they can learn it.
5 Compensate them well
I’m not just talking about money here. This is about creating a balance. Good people should be as excited to come into work as they are to leave. The previous points are all about making work and the environment in which it’s done, awesome. This point is about making life beyond work even more awesome.
Most people focus compensation solely around a take-home paycheck. Of course, this is important. Compensate good people to thrive in their personal finances. Equally as important are the benefits they receive (hint: benefits can sometimes be easier to provide and act as greater differentiators than just $$$).
Do your good people take public transport? Subsidise their transport expense. Do they like yoga? Provide a free yoga class. Do they hate dealing with the US healthcare system? Give your good people good health care.
Tomorrow: Find one extracurricular activity that many of your good people already do. Provide it for them at a subsidized cost or no cost at all (you can find up-and-coming yoga instructors to teach for very little expense).
Good founders have the ability to create value just about anywhere. With these tactics you will attract more good people that will own their work, office politics will be a thing of the past, your investment in human capital will show hockey stick growth, and your team will have happy lives. Now go out and build a full team of people that act like founders!
Originally published at www.rhubarbstudios.co on October 20, 2015.
