Get my Free Meeting Agenda Jumpstart Kit<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nTactic 4: Set clear team expectations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
This was something that took me a little bit longer to learn as a founder the first time around, but it’s something I started to really understand as I matured and just became a better leader. Whether you’re a startup founder or an early manager, you need to make it clear what your team is all about. What’s in your guys’s DNA? Are you the sort of team that does whatever it takes to get the job done? Are you the sort of team that values work-life balance a lot or whatever it is you need to make sure that that is clear to every single person in your team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, in my case, early on, I used to work really long hours and so my team would follow my example and work really long hours. But what I learned over time in one-on-ones and other conversations was that not every single person works well that way. And so they were simply following the example of the leader in this case, but they weren’t actually doing their best work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Figuring out specifically what works for your team and what doesn’t work for your team in creating sustainable work is really important for effectively managing your startup team. Not keeping a close tab on this really costs me in my first few years as a manager. In fact, almost every single person on my first version of my team left me after a year because they were burnt out and overworked from that culture that I had created. However, it was from taking that sort of feedback, both the qualitative and the quantitative feedback of people having left, that I was able to build up a more sustainable culture in which in the following years, people stuck around and they loved their work. And we were able to be highly effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As you start to think about what this might look like for you, it might mean something like making sure that people take coffee breaks throughout the day, making sure that you check the vacation tracker and seeing who hasn’t taken a day off recently so that you can maybe encourage them to do so. Whatever it is that you need to do to support your team, you need to identify what expectations you’re setting for your team and then actually live through with those expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tactic 5: Build up a backlog of stories or themes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
When I was scaling up my team, I found it to be really helpful to have a single big lesson or takeaway that I could share the end of every single week in our weekly meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This would be a time for us to take a step back from the day-to-day work and reflect on the impact we were having for our organization and for our customers. And it was during this time that we were able to connect things beyond just business, but also life things that we could take away from our experiences together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, there is a common Chinese saying that goes along the lines of Bi Xu Chi Ku. And essentially what that means is “you have to eat bitter in order to understand what it means for something to be sweet.” Without truly enduring hardship, you don’t really truly appreciate the work and accomplishments that you come to realize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, in my case, I brought this saying up in an end of week team meeting when I was talking to my team about some of the hardships we were going through at that particular time in our business, because our growth had stalled and we had just gone through a round of layoffs. It wasn’t a fun time for anybody, but we needed to understand the road ahead of us and what we needed to overcome as a team in order to get the business back on track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having these key themes or stories would become really important to my team. In fact, a lot of team members, even after they had left our business had mentioned how important these sorts of themes and lessons were to how they viewed their work and what they did on a day-to-day basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s incredibly powerful for you as a leader to understand the power of story in order to motivate and lead your team. When you think about the experiences that you’ve had in building your business or whatever it is that you’re working on, I want you to think about how you can relate those experiences in the future to new employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, more recently with my CEO, I’ve been talking about how important it is for her to be sharing those early stage stories that she and her co-founders had to go through in order to get our business to where it is today. It’s only by sharing these sorts of early stage stories and trials and tribulations that your team members will truly understand what your company is all about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Big takeaways<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
There are two things that I want you to remember when it comes to managing your startup team:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- The first one is make sure your meetings and your materials are predictable. If your team doesn’t know what to expect from you, then you shouldn’t expect anything from your team. It’s only by having clear expectations that you can actually have a highly performing team.<\/li>
- The second big takeaway is to make sure that you’re keeping a close pulse on your team. It’s only by truly understanding what each individual person on your team is going through or the overall morale of the team that you will be able to effectively manage them. Create systems for yourself to keep tabs on this and also, make sure that you check in with them on a one-on-one basis so that they feel supportive.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
If you liked this article, be sure to check out my YouTube channel<\/a> to get new videos every single week. I’ll help take you from zero to self-starter as you grow your business, get more customers, and hone your business acumen. Also, feel free to share this with anybody that you think might benefit from learning how to manage a startup team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n