Entrepreneurship

What’s the best use of a leader’s time?

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As a leader how you spend your time will make or break the success of ur company. I think here are the top three focus areas:
 
#Recruiting + Hiring
 
The team is the most critical aspect for the success of a company. And hiring has to be topmost in the lists, a cultural fit team with the best skill set in the given budget, requires a lot of balancing act for the leader.
But its the only way to grow and reach ur vision.
 
#Considering your team’s long-term strategy, vision, and culture
 
Keep thinking and driving the long term strategy and vision for the company, this will be the beacon for everyone to follow.
 
#Communicating the direction to everybody all the time
 
Consistently communicating with everyone to guide and show them the right path. If the driver of a bus is not showing the right direction how the team will move forward. Let everyone apply there skills, their forces but u need to be the director of them.

 

But how about for you? Do you find yourself spending time in these areas as a leader… or not?
 

How to build company culture…

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Culture is one of the most critical pillars that keeps standing in the ups and downs of a company. It defines the success and growth of the team and the company. 
 
Also wherever there is a team, a culture (good or bad) is already set within the team. Defined by the leaders and top management etc.
 
So how to build or rebuild a culture? Here are a few pointers:
 
#Personal accountability
 
You must model the behaviors and basic underlying assumptions you want to be true. Greatest shortcoming of a leader is wanting others to do something that she doesn’t practice it herself. For instance, a leader wants to set up “ownership and trustworthy” culture but doesn’t own her own weaknesses and expects employees to be upfront and own things. See the disconnect?
Others in the team will emulate what you do, so exhibit those basic underlying actions yourself and the team will follow.
 
#Consistency
 
Whatever culture we want to set, it should be consistent over a period of days, months and years to build it. It cannot be that one day we want ownership & trust, other days we want hierarchy and formal structure.
 
Also whatever process we want to follow to inculcate the culture, All hands meetings, one on one etc should be consistent. Yes, there will be learnings but the core process has to keep hitting the cultural attributes.
 
#Use All Mediums or Communication Channels
 
When companies buy Instagram followers, it proves the importance of communication through social media. In today’s environment, with the support of some advertising like bus stop advertising. We have different ways of communicating with the individuals or team. It can be meetings, remote video calls, internal social media, WhatsApp groups, etc.
 
Use all these to communicate the same core attributes, for example, if All hands meetings are for openness and gathering ideas, displaying an open culture of ideas. One on Ones and any team meetings should have the same theme, openness towards any ideas. 
Now, this is no grand formula by any means for creating the culture that you want. Shaping a company’s culture and tapping into a team’s basic underlying assumptions is more art than it is science.
But consider these three elements — personal accountability, consistency, and richness — in how you’re upholding the basic underlying assumptions you want to make more real.
Pick one, commit to it, and see progress build over time. Slowly, but surely, you’ll see the difference.

Capacity to Choose…

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We always have a choice.
 
Wherever, Whenever, Whoever we are, we always have a choice.
 
If someone is not listening to you, choose to persuade them or choose to ignore them. But its ur choice.
 
If you don’t like your job, choose to work for money, or quit and find a job which u like.
 
If things are not working according to plan, choose to fight or choose to change the scene, maybe u r not meant for the scene.
 
The most important part is to explore and find the right choice (And this may take a while) and fight for it till the end.
 
But there is always a choice…
 

Two Wishes…

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When you’re feeling stuck with your project, step back and grant yourself two wishes.
 
What will improve if you get these wishes? Put these in a piece of paper.
 
Now that you have got it, how to progress in the project. What are you going to do about it?

Short term vs Long term thinking…

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Short term thinking is around immediate needs and outcomes. It may be a span of a couple of days or months or maybe a year.
 
Long term thinking is much longer, spanning maybe around the next 5-10 years or more. It is more defining for our goals and careers.
 
Short-term thinking has problems:
 

Mind loops: It leads to a lot of restless within and keeps sending us in mind loop. It can be for “Upcoming Exams” or “Appraisal review meeting” or “Job Interview” or “Shopping”.

No learning: It leads to prepare for Exams (Or an event for short term goal) for the purpose of getting good ranking not to learn from it. If I pass this exam I am set for life, which is not true. Even after getting good score in Exam or passing for Job Interview you have to work hard to succeed. Similarly, a failed Job interview does not mean failure in the career. 

End of life event(s) really?: It leads to disheartening feeling as if nothing is left in life because of single failure whereas if you fail that does not mean end of life. It just means you need to try harder or may be change your career path. Life is much bigger and have unlimited choices for us to choose from. 

Most of our time goes in Short-term thinking leading to Analysis Paralysis (Almost 99% time). And a lot of our jealousy, stress and immediate reactions stumps out from this.
 
Investing more in Long term gives us more power to realize our goals and attain success & serenity.
 

We should never forget these:

Short-term thinking repeated, again and again, doesn’t lead to Long-term thinking.

Short-term success may not actually lead to Long-term success.

Even though mind almost think’s in shorter terms, long term thought process and plan matters most in life.

 

Best Managers…

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Best Managers are exceptional at three skills:

  1. Trust: If you don’t build rapport as a leader, nothing moves forward.

2. Honesty: If you don’t speak the truth to your team, problems fester.

3. Context: If you don’t get everyone on the same page, confusion sets in.

All the other traits revolve around these, so if you can build these in your team, you got it right.

 

How to build the Best Team…

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“Best Team” is the holy grail for any company big or small. But it’s not easy to build a top-notch team. Here are a few things, that’s critical to build the “Best Team”
 
# Hiring:– Hiring is one of the most complex problems. Its a multi-billion dollar industry but still difficult to find the bests. It’s not about skill-set but a lot of soft parameters and that’s where we fail to judge most of the times.
Further budget constraints, timing issues – how to hire a skill-set at a particular time. Attitude & culture fit with the current team.
 
All this makes it much more difficult. So how do we hire the best person with the right skills, the right attitude, fits well with the team?
 
One solution is to always keep hiring, keep looking for talent, especially in the most critical teams. For example, if you are a tech company, always keep looking for good tech talents. Always!
 
# Invest in your best performers:- Focus on best performers they are your assets, nurture them to go the next level. With this, your team can grow in the best way possible.
 
# Layoff non-performers ASAP:- Don’t be scared to fire non-performers as soon as you know. Things are already in a mess if you have a non-performer.
Forget trying to mold them, giving them chances, you are wasting your critical time and money. More than anything it actually de-motivates the performers as well. Move on fast…
 
It gives another reason to keep hiring to replace the non-performers as soon as possible.
 
# Strong HR:- Don’t think of HR as a support function. HR is most critical for both hiring and creating productive teams. They help build culture, team motivations and help scale the team. Build a strong HR team.
 
# Build Team Top Down:- Hire the leaders first, invest time in hiring the best managers or team leaders. They can help you build the “Best Team”. This might be difficult because of budget constraints but whenever possible try to do get the Seniors or Leaders first in the team.
 
I find the above points very critical for the making of the “Best Team”, though it’s not full proof. Let me know your thoughts by adding comments below.

Roads or Buildings?

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Road: A road is a thoroughfare, route or way on land between two places to allow travel and communicate.
 
Building: A building, is a structure with a roof and walls standing in one place, such as a house or factory.
 
If you compare, buildings do not stay more than 100 years but roads do. Once a road constructed it gives unanimous approval to connect and travel forever. Buildings, on the other hand, begin to morph as soon as the owner or tenant decides they need to.
 
Roads are a platform in that sense whereas Buildings are utilities that need to be changed with age and time.
 
When creating an organization, technology or any kind of culture, the roads are worth far more than the buildings.
 
So how do we want to do things around here Roads or Buildings?