Date archives "January 2008"

Teams

Great team…but lousy results?

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“Don’t lower your expectations to meet your performance. Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations. Expect the best of yourself and then do what is necessary to make it a reality.” Ralph Martson

You have got things going pretty smoothly by now. You have found the right people and you have begun work on your concept. A very important aspect which should be talked about in the first critical meeting that teams have is about setting objectives, goals and time-lines. If these are not put into stone at this stage what will happen most of the the time is predictable. You will start off by feeling great about the project, 2-3 months will go by and you will be still stuck where you started. This has happened to me quite a few times and believe me its not fun. There will be a lot of confusion as to why this is happening, people will begin to doubt themselves and the business and most importantly productivity takes a plunge. So make sure you have clearly outlined objectives, goals and times lines for everyone on the team before starting.

By following the identification step you will effectively give everyone a responsibility which they have made a commitment to reach. Milestones are great motivators for teams as well. For example, the team sets a broad target to get their company website up in 2 weeks. Person A is allocated collecting the text for the website, Person B is going to focus on the design and Person C is the developer who will compile it all in and make sure that it is user friendly and has stuff which will get people to remember your website. If I were a part of this team and say Person A is also the designated leader of the group (leadership is a whole other topic which I will talk about in the coming weeks) it is his responsibility to set performance updates from all team members every 3 days to ensure that they are all on course to make the deadline.

If you find during the first or second performance review meeting that Person B complains that he hasn’t really started, you can take measures straight away to talk to him as to why it is so and to work through the problems. Without these regular performance appraisals you will find yourself 3 days before the deadline with no design concept as Person B says that he didn’t have enough motivation or something which stopped him from delivering. You will now be in a fix and product launch will get delayed which will affect the team spirit as well as the teams attitude towards Person B and Person B’s own morale. You have to get into the habit of conducting performance review cycles through appraisals, 360 degree feedback or simple meetings on a regular basis.

Performance reviews are also able to identify those individuals in your team who understand the job vs responsibility concept. Say Person C is in charge of the technical aspect. During the first 2 performance reviews he says that he is waiting for the material from A & B before he starts. Is he taking responsibility for his role? No. His argument is perfectly logical, however if during the first two meetings he shows us our competitions websites and plugin’s he is working on to make our website stand out, here is a guy who is motivating the team to push itself further and increasing overall productivity.

So next time you are wondering why your team is not performing to its potential go through this checklist:

1. Are the objectives and vision for the team clear?

2. Does your team have to achieve a result and time specific goals?

3. When was the last time you did a performance appraisal for your team?

This should identify key pain points for your team and will be a first step in getting productivity back on track.

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Teams

The first critical discussion for most teams

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“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”
Henry Ford

You have come a long way since discovering yourself. Realizing what is important to you. Finding people who share the same core values and ambitions. A business concept is agreed on and you find yourselves prepping for one of the most important discussions that will shape how the team operates from here on out. Who does what? How much do I get for it?. Early on in my first couple of businesses we were usually all friends. So we would reach very vague agreements that pretty much everyone would be doing just about everything and we would split the equity of the company equally between everyone. At the time this seemed like a great idea, there was no conflict and this was the fastest way to get going. This is the greatest advantage of using this method when answering these questions. With experience though I have witnessed the dark side of this option as well.

Among the first things that usually happens with this agreement will be; some team members are pulling more than their own weight. This is also a natural progression as clear objectives for each team member are not given. Resulting in some team members realizing that they don’t have to do too much and can just tag along for the ride. I had this happen to me quite a few times. It becomes like Survivor , the TV show. People begin to form alliances and plan to oust members out of the tribe. It becomes unpleasant because before this venture we were all friends. Friendships are lost forever, confrontations are a common occurrence and usually something like 5 months down the line you have lost friends, money and even your passion to ever do business again.

After I learned this lesson the hard way a couple of times I decided to do research on the topic and find a better way to go about it. I have been using a method which I am still perfecting along the way. It provides a more structured approach to this common problem and it has resulted in reaching agreements which set out clear objectives, expectations and commitment.

There are a couple of key concepts that need to be agreed upon first. When starting any business every team member should understand that they are taking a substantial risk. Everyone in the team should believe 100% in the idea or concept. Before the business starts the idea is worth exactly $0. So having heated arguments about the millions of dollars you are going to make in the coming years is a bit premature and frankly making castles in the air. Once we have reached this stage we can move to the next.

There are a 4 key components which are involved in equity split up:

1. Commitment: Will the team member be full time, part time, work over the weekend or on a consultant basis.

2. Experience of the partners: Partners who have successfully sold companies, worked at a startup companies, have experience working in the corporate world, have gained expertise in a given field or skill set, have had international exposure in multiple markets.

3. What skills are they bringing to the table: Is a team member bringing a critical skill set to the business model? Do they have substantial experience in managerial skills, sales and marketing, public relations, technical/IT, customer support. Every team member should identify how they are going to bring value by being part of the team.

4. Money: Every team member needs to have skin in the game. Without it team mates feel you are free riding. So every team member has to decide what sort of money or sweat equity he/she is prepared to put into the venture.

Each component can be a allocated a particular weightage. Depending on what type of startup venture it is. Some are capital intensive others are experience dependent. Once a weight has been allocated you will be able to gauge in a much more practical way “how much should you get?”. After the venture begins you have to put into place performance benchmarks to ensure that team mates are actually doing what they committed to. This will be talked about tomorrow.

I hope this system helps makes the process of “who gets what” a little simpler and I wish you all the very best in your new ventures.

Teams

8 characteristics of ideal business partners

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“When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.” Japanese Proverb

After you have made a concentrated effort to understand as to who you are, you are now ready to go out there and start looking for the right individuals to partner with. This is a critical stage which will have a substantial impact on achieving your goals. Over the years I have either started or joined many business teams. There is a mental checklist which I run through when meeting my prospective team mates for the first time. This check list is made up from my own past experiences and also Jim Collins view on who “The Right People” (courtesy www.jimcollins.com) are.

1. The person must share the core values of the business or organization. These are the values which determine how the organization interacts, communicates and operates to reach it goals and objectives. For example there was a charity project for protecting the environment I was part of during my university days. There was a sales and marketing director who didn’t share the fundamental core value of compassion. He was in fact looking to profit from the project. Needless to say he didn’t last very long in the team. This just goes to show how important it is for you to probe and ask whether your prospective team mates core values are aligned to ensure that you are all on the same page and headed for the same goal.

2. The person should not need to be “managed”. When building your core team you need to find those individuals who are confident in their own abilities. If you are the more experienced partner then most definitely you will provide some guidance along the way. However if you are find yourself molding the individual into what you deem are the right behaviors then you have probably made a mistake during selection. These types of individuals who require constant support are draining and slowly become huge speed bumps for the organization. Make sure you select those individuals who have shown a capacity to operate on their own and have been successful at doing so.

3. The passion to become the best at what they do. There was a IT company which I was a part of a couple of years ago which was developing inventory management systems for the paper industry. Being a startup company we were naturally bootstrapping and couldn’t hire the best developers. However when filling a key role for project management lead for the team we selected an individual who had shown great potential during his university days and had great passion for his line of work. It worked out really well and the team flourished. So when you are making a key decision and may be limited by budget or geographic boundaries do your best to fill the seat with the person who has show the potential and willingness to be one of the best in that field.

4. Understand the difference between a job and holding a responsibility. This tip has helped me greatly in making some key decisions in recruiting partners. Say you are going to be hiring a developer for a new website to collect feedback for your product. You get the best coder in town to make it for you. He does what you asked for but users are frustrated because the website is difficult to navigate through or impossible to submit feedback easily. I know I have been in this spot many times. This is when you got someone who doesn’t know the difference. A coder who takes responsibility to make sure that users will be able to submit their feedback easily and quickly would have approached the project differently. So make sure when you are getting a partner who understands the bigger picture and is in line with it.

5. Would you hire the person if it were a hiring decision? This question allows you to look at the person from a different angle. Given that you know a substantial amount of the person would you hire him/her? When I get to meet people outside the workplace say at my squash game or at a charity that I volunteer at, you get to know a lot about the individual. When I ask myself this question when thinking about asking him/her to become a partner with me in a project it puts things into perspective. You begin to look at the individual impartially and can reach a more informed decision.

6. Does the person have a regard for rules, regulations and personal boundaries? I have learned this lesson the hard way as well. I came across what you call a super star performer. He excelled at a lot of the businesses he had been at. So if it were a hiring decision it would have been an easy one. However after working with him for a while I realized he had the sense that he was above any level of authority and did things which were ethically questionable when securing contracts and sales. We started to get complaints about his attitude from staff and customers and had to part ways. So when you meet a person make sure you get a sense of what his point of view regarding regulations and boundaries are even though everything else may look to be in place.

7. Professes a commitment to goals. When you are going into business you are looking for people who share similar levels of commitment as you do to the project. If you don’t pay attention to this aspect you will find yourself in an imbalanced partnership which could result in permanently jeopardizing your project. When evaluating prospective partners look at their past history and whether they were committed to the last projects they were on. Ask them about some of the big decisions they have had to make. Lastly if you are planning to take him/her on as a partner make them commit to particular goals and objectives and use them as benchmarks when performance will be appraised.

8. Integrity. This is probably the most critical yet most elusive quality to immediately identify. A person who has a high level of integrity will be one which will you can rely on and grow a successful business with. To be a good of judge of this characteristic however will take time and experience. I take Jack Welch’s advice here that if your “gut” feeling about someone is bad or you don’t get the correct vibes then it is best to go with that first presumption unless you are shown to believe otherwise.

By running through this checklist I have been able to select business partners with a lot more subjectivity. I hope this list helps out anyone who is looking to start up a new project. At the same time if you or anyone else has any key characteristics that they would like to share please do so in the comment section.
 
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Teams

How do I find the ideal partner?

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“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
Jim Rohn – Successful author and Self-made millionaire

You have the idea,passion and ambition. However to get to your destination you will need help along the way. This question is thus the next logical step to get your project, idea or business moving. There is no definitive guide which will successfully help you answer this question. I refer to two sources this question pops up. Jack Welch – Winning & Jim Collins – From Good to Great. If you haven’t read these I would strongly encourage you to pick them up at the earliest.

Over the years I have been part of many teams and have selected multiple partners for business projects. I was having a conversation regarding Jim Collins point of view on “First Who“(courtesty www.jimcollins.com). He has encapsulated a concept which was very abstract to me “How do great teams come together?”. I used to think that luck probably plays a big role. Then this point of view completely changed that. Now it is clear to me that before you set out to find that partner whether it be in business, at your job or even a life partner we have to pay very close attention to the people around us first. What sort of core values do they have, do they share similar beliefs and principles, do they take responsibility for their life and action and are they committed to making the lives of people around them and their own extraordinary.

To do this practically over the last few years I have identified people who I respect and admire for what they have accomplished in this life. I have spoken to them at great length about the principles they follow and believe in. This has resulted in a positive impact on the quality of my life as well as the progress in my business ventures. I am a firm believer in the law of attraction which states that who you get is not determined by who you want. It is determined by who you are.

So before you set out to find your ideal partner take a step back and take a deeper look into yourself first and the people around you.
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Inspiration

5 Basic Fundamentals of Success

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“A journey of a 1000 miles must begin with one step.” Ancient Chinese Proverb

1. Take 100% responsibility for your life: You are responsible for how you want your life to be. If you are constantly blaming external factors from limiting you to achieve what you want then you have to change. You have to examine how you are reacting to key events in your life. Are you ignoring feedback?, Blaming others for your mistakes?. You have to break away from these negative patterns and correct the way you respond to ensure you get the results you want. If you want to read more please click here.

2. Believing: Do you believe you can achieve all the goals you set for yourself? Do you believe that you have what it takes to make your business or relationship succeed? If you don’t then either you are not doing what you ought to be or you are not taking responsibility for your own life. All of us need something to believe in. This becomes your guiding light to take you to places where you never thought you could. I personally believe that I have all the key qualities for being an entrepreneur which are “Passion” & “Ambition”. Every project I undertake I ensure that these core values are infused into the team and that we all believe that we have what it takes to succeed. If you want to read more please click here.

3. Taking Action: Do you plan endlessly about the business you want to start? Waiting for the right time? Unfortunately there is no such thing as the right time. Successful people are highly action oriented. Talking about plans and idea’s is very easy but committing yourself to doing it is another ball game altogether. You have to step out of your comfort zone, learn how to rely on your “gut” and once you have decided on a path take that first step. Believe me thats the hardest one, after that it becomes much easier with all the feedback, suggestions and help you get along the way. If you want to read more please click here.

4. Confronting your fears: Is the fear of failure holding you back? This is a completely natural emotion that each and everyone experiences in our life. The key here is how we choose to respond to it. We can always go back into our shell and say its too difficult or that the time is not right. However if you want to achieve something out of the ordinary in life you have to confront the fears which are holding you back. Personally one of the fears I have always had is that of public speaking. Over the years however I have confronted it by taking classes and practicing in front of smaller audiences. I still have a long way to go but you have to begin somewhere. So confront the fears which are holding you back today and start to live the life you want. If you want to read more please click here.

5. Asking for Feedback and Using it Constructively: When we start any new project, business, relationship or job we usually make ourselves believe that we are doing the best we can be. This attitude sadly limits the rate at which we grow. An exponential catalyst to help us to learn and grow much faster is to ask for Feedback. You have to start asking your business partners, team mates, clients, friends and family as to how you are doing. You need to then constructively use this feedback to make life better for those around you and most importantly yourself. This will unlock your true potential and give you a whole new perspective on life. If you want to read more please click here.

Once you have mastered these basic fundamentals you are on your way to achieving anything you want in life.

p.s To all my loyal readers: The last day of every week will be a recap. This will help in reinforcing the concepts as well as being a review page for those who want a quick review. I want to thank each and everyone of you who read everyday and for all the emails and comments you sent. It was greatly appreciated. Thank you.
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Inspiration

How do you think I am doing?

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“Feedback is the breakfast of champions.”

Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson – Co-authors The One Minute Manager

We have begun our journey and have equipped ourselves with the fundamental building blocks that will increase our probability of success by many folds. Now is the time in an entrepreneurs life when it is entirely up to him/her to decide how long it takes to reach their goals. During my first couple of entrepreneurial experiences I remember working a ton of hours to figure out why we were not hitting projected targets. When we were together with the core team everyone would just be talking about how we are missing projections and most likely the service we are offering doesn’t have what it takes to succeed.

Around 3 years later I discovered a catalyst to speed up just about any process in the world. It was “Feedback”. Given there are two types of feedback a positive and a negative one, we respond to each in a very different manner. We naturally want to hear all our positive feedback and when someone gives us a slightly harsh critique there is usually a couple of ways we respond:

– We hold our head in our hands and quit whatever we were wanting to achieve

– We unleash hell on the person who gave us feedback either in an expressive or non expressive manner

– Or we simply just ignore it and move keep moving most likely in the wrong direction

Now we have to simply change the way we digest feedback. I personally think feedback is one of the primary reasons why I have  achieved a level of success in such a short period of time. If you meet any team I ever work with they will let you know that my favorite line is:

“So what do you think about ……?”

We have to shed our fears of asking people advice, critique or suggestions. We have to use the feedback in a constructive manner. If you keep getting feedback that “You never can make it to meetings on time” maybe you should get some help in the area of time management. “You always get angry when a mistake is made” you need to re-evaluate how YOU give feedback. An employee, partner or customer doesn’t want to hear it in a tone where the entire message is completely lost. So if you want to increase the quality of your life, business or relationship exponentially start asking today:

“How do you think I am doing at….?”

p.s please leave a comment if your reading this to let me know how I can improve this blog or any other suggestions to make this blog a better site for you. Thank you

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Inspiration

Fantasized Experiences Appearing Real

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“We come this way but once. We can either tiptoe through life and hope that we get to death without being too badly bruised or we can live a full, complete life achieving our goals and realizing our wildest dreams.” Bob Proctor – Self made millionaire, radio and TV personality, and success trainer

We are now nearly all set to embark on our journey to success, fame and glory. When beginning any new venture, project, job or relationship we are going to have to confront our fears. This is just a natural progression one takes. Its usually this fear of the unknown which stops us from taking steps towards our goals. Fortunately for us these fears we face are all usually a construct of our imagination. It could be due to previous bad experiences, being too self aware not wanting to fail and a host of other reasons. Luckily we are in control of what we want to feel and imagine so have the ability to stop the FEAR as well as they are nothing but.

Fantasized

Experiences

Appearing

Real

During my journey as an entrepreneur I have faced quite a few of my fears and still have many that I want to overcome. One of them which I still struggle with is Public Speaking. I have now overcome my fear of speaking in front of say 30 odd people. Its when the numbers start to exceed 50 and you are in a large auditorium I still have a problem containing my nerves. When you identify a particular aspect that you have trouble overcoming what I like to do is first to.

1. Identify the fear and the most importantly identify what scares you about it. For me; I fear the audience will think I have no clue what I am talking about and will likely create an incorrect image of who I actually am.

2. Replace the image in mind which scares you, so I have started replicating the times when I feel I am in total control of an audience when I am speaking and I feel the connection with the group.

They key is that you have replace those scary images with its positive opposites. Then repeat until all the fear is gone.

The fact of the matter is that if you want to achieve something extraordinary in life you are going to have take some chances. You have to trust your gut and just go with it. You will be surprised how far you can get with an attitude like that. You will fall along the way but that is how you are going to learn how to pick yourself up. So take your chances today and confront the fears which have been holding you back and start to live the life you have always wanted to.

“If you can’t, you must, and if you must, you can.” Anthony Robbins

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Inspiration

Lights…Camera…ACTION!

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“What we think or what we know or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.” John Ruskin – English author, art critic and social commentor

You have got it all going, the goal, the planning, the team but somehow you are not gathering the traction you need to move forward. This unfortunately is something that many people experience throughout their life. The reason being; too many people like to talk big and make grandiose plans but when it comes to actually DOING them; this one step separates the people who are successful from those who are not.

Unless you make a conscious effort to get out of your comfort zone, nothing is going to happen. When you take an action step you make a sub conscious commitment to move forward. You start a series of event like the ripples when a stone hits the water. These will provide you with valuable feedback, attract the right people to your side, people will take you more seriously and things which may have appeared difficult to start out with will slowly unravel into manageable tasks. You will most certainly make mistakes along this path, learn from your mistakes. They will be the most valuable lessons you will ever experience in life. I was involved in a project a couple of years ago. I was being pitched to invest in a new concept store for an industry which was thriving. The plan looked great but in that first meeting I didn’t get the correct vibes from the person who was going to head the project. However the numbers looked way to good for me to pass up on the opportunity. Well I guess you can imagine what happened, 8 months later we were closing shop as the partnership was just not working. Ever since that day I have relied on my “Gut Instinct” a lot more.

That lesson may have cost me but I strongly believe that I learnt something which will be invaluable for the rest of my life. So there is no shame in failing, just remember to learn from the mistakes you make along the way. Don’t make excuses to wait a little longer, there will never be a perfect time. Get up and enroll in that course today, get that gym membership, start that company, write that business plan, go back to school. Just make sure you DO IT NOW!

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Inspiration

Life is all about one thing

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“You can be anything you want to be, if only you believe with sufficient conviction and act in accordance with your faith; for whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.” Napoleon Hill – Author of Think and Grow Rich

That one thing is believing. Believing that you can achieve what your desired outcome is, believing that you have the capability to do just about anything that you put your blood, sweat and tears into. I was taking a course in entrepreneurship while at university when we were shown multiple examples of how entrepreneurs are repeatedly bombarded with negativity about their “ideas to revolutionize the world.” The story that I was able to connect with a lot was how FedEx got it start.

It was in 1965 a Yale undergraduate Fredrick Smith wrote a term paper on how the US postal system was inadequate to deliver time sensitive shipments to its destination. He came up with a business model which incorporated an airborne delivery network which would be able to cater to this market. His prof however is said to have graded his paper with a “C” for his crazy idea. However that didn’t stop him to setting up Federal Express and successfully implementing his model because he believed in the concept. Today FedEx’ing deliveries is something we all take for granted. This story really helped strengthen my resolve and now whenever I am embarking on any new venture I make sure first I believe in whatever I am doing and then make sure my team shares the same passion. Once you achieve this state it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

So next time you are undertaking a new project or learning something new, remove the negative “I Can’t” and replace it with “I Can”. Have the right attitude, seek feedback and the world works in mysterious ways to ensure that you will get to where you want to.

Start believing in yourself today!

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Inspiration

E + R = O

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“You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself.” Jim Rohn – America’s foremost business philospher

The title of this post caused a major fundamental change in the way how I viewed life. Essentially the formula stands for:

Event + Response = Outcome

How many times have we blamed a certain event for the lack of your results. We get involved in a vicious cycle where we start blaming external events and become victims of them and are left feeling helpless. We blame our team mates, business partners, bosses, co-workers, political climate, environment, traffic, computers, internet and just about anything to convince ourself that we are not the ones to be blamed. The fact of the matter is that all of this circumstances do exist in the world we live in. It is how we react and adjust accordingly what matters.

That is where the “R” or your response comes into the equation. When you experience an outcome that you don’t want in whatever you are doing or experiencing go back and analyze yourself as to how you could do it differently.

For example if there is a particular co-worker at your workplace which you feel is limiting your growth or is making it difficult for you to work at your optimal. Instead of just cursing the day he/she was hired or transferred to your division and telling your friends how awful work has become; we need to change our response so that we get the outcome we desire (which could be to go back to a normal working environment where you feel you can work in a productive and optimal manner). So in this case we could either talk directly with the person who has been troubling you, if that doesn’t work you could talk to the manager of your division and as a last resort you can bring the problem to the attention of the HR director. Either way we must always strive to align our thoughts with the outcomes that we expect.

In business there have been times when we have launched marketing campaigns that we thought were brilliant and were surely to succeed. However when the results weren’t there I always remind my team to analyze every step of the campaign and to get feedback as to where we may need to alter our strategy. In life we will always come across road blocks and it is very easy just to stand there and wait for someone else to move them. Sadly in most circumstances if you want to move forward the onus is going to be on you to move it out of the way and move forward.

By doing this you will be taking 100% responsibility for your life. You wont be blaming external factors rather you will using them to get valuable feedback and changing your responses to make sure what you get out of life!

So do you take 100% responsibility for your life?

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