I’ve had the pleasure of working for companies “as diverse as the United Nations” during my career. These organizations have greatly benefited from having very diverse teams and are doing well even in this horrid downturn. Why is diversity important?
- Customers are diverse, so varied teams are much more likely to understand what your customers really want.
- Teams with a diverse demographic makeup will have different ideas, broader viewpoints, and a more diverse experience base – this is a sure formula for better decisions.
So, it is no surprise that I get the following question from time to time: how do you build a diverse team?
I am a firm believer that delegation is key to building a business. We can bring in all the technology in the world, but if we can’t delegate properly, our companies have no chance of scaling well. Without delegating well, you are bound to flat-line or even drive your company into decline. So here are the rules of delegation I like to use…
Back when I was working in Chicago at a late stage startup, I used to have great conversations with the president of the company about our various approaches to managing businesses. We shared war stories, ramblings about taxation in US and EU, and the software developers’ versions of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. But one thing that stuck with me was his statement: “this company will never own a foosball table, because every company I have seen own one went under months after purchasing it”.
A problem we’ve all seen too often is when a product or service is dreamed up, and no one wants to buy it. Most of us can list four or five examples of this right away. These duds should have been abandoned before too much time and money was invested.
Apolinaras is a business operations leader with 12-year track record of building scalable and capital-efficient operations for technology and professional services companies.