The Team | Entrepreneurship, Bootstrapping A Business, Bootstrap Business, Start A Business

Rolling It off the Giants’ Shoulders

Friday, June 6th, 2008

Small businesses have a tendency to grow a little. The founders move out of the garage and into an office. Part-time and then full-time employees start to appear. Business goes well–and then it hits an almost invisible hump. Well before bootstrapping is over, the business is too big for the founders to run on their own. As the giants, the founders hunker down and brace themselves under the heft of the team standing on their shoulders. Somewhere in there, reality strikes. The team has to step forward and the founders have to roll the responsibility onto their shoulders. If the founders hold on too long, they collapse under the weight. If the team steps off early and isn’t ready, the founders watch as their fledgling company crushes their workers. When giants are working with humans, it takes maturity, balance, and vision to keep the company rolling forward.

“It’s tricky for the owners to let go,” Rich says. “You see companies where the owners can’t let go and it crashes and burns.” It takes maturity for a founder to do what is best for the business. Think of it. You’ve lost sleep over this. You’ve sacrificed family time (hopefully not all of it). Whatever it is you’ve done, you’ve poured your heart and soul into your enterprise. If the company grows, you can’t baby it forever–but by the same token, growth isn’t necessarily eternal. Walking that line means making decisions with your head as well as with your heart. You love the feel of that team standing on your shoulders. Each colossal step forward shakes the earth. But giant though you be, you’re still a mortal. Be mature enough to trust your team.

Trusting your team and shouldering the burden is always a delicate balance at first. They didn’t keep a futon in the office for six months. They have a steady income. They haven’t seen everything you have, so shifting the burden starts with little things. “A great example is this monitor,” Rich points out, one that had died a few days earlier. The team member poked his head into Rich’s office and asked what to do. Rich remembers how before, he might have dealt with the problem himself. Now? “What are you going to do about it?” he asked. Obviously the owners keep their eyes on things, but having your eyes on a project is different from being up to your ears in it. Ron adds that “one of the things we’ve also seen is that we’ve got guys . . . who’ve come from more of a corporate background. [Their] initial attitude is, ‘Those guys are the founders. They’ll take care of it.’” Ron shakes his head. “Some of it’s environmental, but some of it’s physiological.” Some team members naturally invest themselves in the survival of the business. Others need to learn. For both, there is only one way.

That way is the vision. Helping your employees catch this vision at the appropriate time keeps things rolling. “So oftentimes people look at the physical compensation,” Rich says. “Typically, that’s the smallest compensation in a company of this nature. What [our team is] using, five-year-college-grads couldn’t get the knowledge.” They need to lose sleep the way the owners lose sleep. They don’t just have to sweat deadlines; they have to sweat bullets. “Give guidance, direction, and incentive,” Ron says. Rewards or profit-sharing programs help take the team from balance to vision. For me, if I stick this out, I have a career path. If I don’t, I putter along and fizzle out. In bootstrapping, make or break is not one day or one deal. Make or break is the whole tenor of the work. Humans have to step down and race forward. Giants have to let work roll onto the team’s shoulders. When that happens, fire doesn’t belong alone to the bellies of the founders. Fire fills the office, the enterprise, and the vision of the future.

Posted in Rich Christiansen, Ron Porter, Loyalty, Bootstrap Business, Accountability, The Team, Peter V. Hilton | Comments Off

Learning to Love our Limits

Monday, December 17th, 2007

The last few weeks have been chaotic here in the office, and with things in life. In addition to working hard here, Erin and I are both about to face our last finals week of our undergraduate education. All of us are getting ready for the holidays, and I will be leaving town on Friday to be with my family in Washington. On top of all of this, I just got engaged and am now in the throes of stressful wedding planning. Now, typically I deal well with a busy life, I even enjoy it. But I am also a stress case. I get sick at least every couple of months from wearing myself out with worry and concern. Last Thursday the stresses of recent weeks seemed to be evident on mine and Erin’s face. As he often does, Rich took us to the white board and decided to teach us an important concept.
He said that for everyone there is an area of concern, and an area of influence. In our area of concern are things we cannot control, like the weather, or traffic, or others’ actions. People typically spend 80% of their time in this area of concern, a place we can do nothing about. What we need to do is focus on our area of influence, and not just right in the middle of it, but right on the perimeter. As we utilize our influence in this way, it will actually grow. Rich emphasized this point more on Friday when he asked me to take on a task that is somewhat outside my comfort zone, pushing me to use my area of influence further than I normally do. He again explained to me that if I push through these sometimes awkward tasks, they’ll eventually become natural, and my area of influence has grown.
This has been extremely helpful in my life the last few days. As I studied for finals this weekend, I started to do the normal overreacting thing I do. I began to think about when my finals were scheduled, wondering if I would have time to study in between. I learned that one of my take-home finals is due sooner than I thought. And I began to stress out about whether my flight home would be delayed, and I couldn’t shake images of sleeping on the airport floor for days. But as I thought about Rich’s wonderful lesson to me, I decided to stop wasting my time in this area of concern. All my energy has been focused on doing what I can do to prepare for finals, and today on getting caught up in the office before I leave for home. By leaving behind that area concern, I have been more productive than I ever would be in my area of influence. Learning to love our limits can actually help us to expand them.

Posted in Rich Christiansen, Erin Hattaway, Bootstrap Business, The office, The Team, The $5,000 Millionaire, Shanna Gale, Castlewave | No Comments »

Maintaining a Motivated Team

Tuesday, November 13th, 2007

I was out reading some of my favorite blogs today, and came across this over at the Young Entrepreneur.Â Carmichael discusses a few ways to maintain a motivated team.Â I especially liked the sections on a meaningful job and praise for excelling.Â He pointed out that most of us spend most of our time working: if our job doesn’t feel meaningful, neither will our lives.Â Who wants to go and do busy work all day?Â

As a business owner, it’s your responsibility to make sure that yourÂ employees have solid, credible work to do.Â They will take their task list as seriously as you take it.Â Everyone has a different role to play, but communicate each role clearly, and show each team member how they fit in, and why.

Also, it’s important to give praise when people have earned it, but don’t be too eager.Â It’ll mean less if you dole it out whenever you find yourself alone in an elevator with a team member, or asÂ a reaction to someone completing a project on time.Â Completing the project on time is their JOB.Â Â Praise exemplary work, and that’s what you’ll receive.Â Praise mediocrity, and well, you asked for it.

Posted in The Team | 1 Comment »

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