I am sure you folks have realized that I’ve been “off air” for awhile. The combination of helping out Daily Grommet and joining Pixability has shriveled my capacity for writing to zero. But, I am getting back on the horse and definitely have a lot of material from the “startup trenches” to share.
So that all said, today I want to focus on some of the missteps many of us take in managing our most precious resource – people. I want to point out three major ones I have seen lately in the entrepreneurial community…
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I recently had a conversation with a friend about the importance of building a diverse team. It is a subject I spend a lot of time on, since my own personal experience and countless research articles have shown that a diverse teams deliver better product and increased efficiency. If you are interested in this research, follow professor Vivek Wadhwa on Twitter. He usually has links to it that do not require journal subscribtion.
Then my friend uttered something that I commonly hear – “are you saying you should engage in discrimination against the majority?” My answer that is: if that is what you call “discrimination”, then hell yes!
Not only should we avoid hiring clones of our current employees, but we should shy away from building an environment and employee benefits based on the “hot” formula that is only appealing to the majority. Hiring “blindly” and on qualifications alone is no longer good enough! Bringing great skills and knowledge onboard is no longer good enough! Every new person you add should bring in a healthy dose of a unique perspective, experience, culture, personal story, etc. The truth is – people like to hire others who are like them. So you must make an effort to hire outside of your “comfort zone”.
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I’m sure most of you have read my article “Time to end the frat house culture! We need more women in our midst.” I want to see more women in leadership roles and the ranks of techies, scientists, and entrepreneurs. This not only benefits society, but is also great for business (see my previous article for the data).
This article was inspired by several months of conversations with successful female professionals about the subject. I also had the pleasure attending a great event organized by MITX and Girls in Tech called “Lessons Learned: Women’s Careers in Review”. Here are 7 “commandments” that summarize everything I’ve learned so far:
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Call me old fashioned, but I cringe every time I hear another claim about how we are moving into the age of “careerism” and “just in time staffing”. Why? Because we always hear about this fad right at the tail end of every downturn. It’s like herpes spread by some “experts” who never had to operate a company.
I am yet to see a substitute for a loyal team – during bad and good times. Earned loyalty takes time to build, compared to need-based loyalty, so you must build a strategy to foster earned loyality long before you need to “cash it in”.
What do I mean by earned loyalty vs. need-based loyalty? Many people are staying with their current companies right now because of need-based loyalty – they have mortgages and car notes to pay. But this type of loyalty has no longevity because the company did not earn it. Yes, I said it: earning the loyalty is completely the job of the company and its leadership.
Progress is a #1 motivator for knowledge workers (money is not even in the top 3) and I think it is what helps keep people loyal. Here are some methods that could help build that earned loyalty…
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Apolinaras is a business operations leader with 12-year track record of helping companies manage growth, build diverse teams, harness technology, and get a lot more profitable.