This creates a whole new set of challenges when it comes to getting work done.  Because information-based work is almost never done in a vacuum, most of us work in teams.  And a large percentage of those teams can go weeks — if ever — without seeing each other face-to-face.  Making this work well sounds like it should be easy given all of today’s technology: email, Skype, ooVoo, Twitter, etc.  But, as usual, the issue that requires the most management is not the technology, it’s the people.

Becky McCray of SmallBizSurvival recently posted an article on MyVenturePad discussing this very thing.  In “6 Tips for managing a distributed workforce,” she discussed several valuable tips in successfully leading a team that is all working remotely (presumably from their homes).  In addition to some of her great tips — ranging from reading The One Minute Manager to explicitly declaring the weekend off — here are a couple more items that I’ve recently been reminded are critical to the success of a virtual team.

Clarifying priorities.

All of us are familiar with the Scope-Resources-Time triangle and we get the relationship between all of them.  One of the most difficult things to manage through is when each member of the team is assuming a different leg of that triangle is the highest priority.  (This can be especially challenging when your priority is your deadline, but you’ve got team members who are perfectionists and want to spend time on things that could be considered enhancements, vs. the most critical requirements.)  To help manage that, I’ve taken to writing a one-sheet project summary for everyone — the client and the team, and the top of the sheet includes the prioritization of those three elements (including supporting notes).

Different projects have different priorities, and everyone needs to know what matters most in order to prioritize options and decisions.  A project leader can’t assume their team reads minds or is going to guess correctly.

Rules of engagement.

These are vital at an organizational level, at a team level and at a project level.  No need to be onerous about it, but it needs to be done.  Things like the Employee Handbook that Becky mentions in her post fall into this category at an organizational level, but having smaller versions at a project level is critical to keeping everything on track.

Things like predictable status updates and check-in times become more and more important to manage if you are working with a team spread across time zones and/or a client with a very formal schedule. This can also mean being explicit about when synchronous vs. asynchronous communications are needed.  There are some things that are just harder to do over email, even though that might be everyone’s preference.

Roles and responsibilities.

This can be part of the Rules of Engagement, but is also a broader question.  A common problem is having several people who are jacks-of-all-trades working on multiple things (this seems to be a particularly common quality among freelancers).  But the the problem which evolves is ownership.  Who is RESPONSIBLE for making sure certain things are handled correctly.

Talk through assumptions.

One of the hardest things about a distributed team is that you are very limited in your ability to witness a person’s reaction to a piece of information.  Whether it’s someone taking offense at a comment and getting angry, or whether it’s taking an off-the-cuff comment literally when it was never meant that way, we rely on face-to-face communications for so much of our understanding of how other people are perceiving what we say.

Figuring out how to do this via technology over distance can be really, really hard.  Rephrasing and repeating back what people just heard is a start, but recognizing that it’s necessary to make sure that people are not taking their communications for granted is a huge part of the leadership of distributed teams.

Ask, Then Decide

Not sure if members of your team prefer email vs. phone calls?  Ask.  Is your designer a morning person and your developer a night person?  Ask.  Does your client spend mornings in too many meetings to be available for questions until after lunch?  Ask.  If your designer uses a Mac, your developer is on Linux, and your client is on Windows, what tools do they like for collaboration?  Ask.  Skype or GTalk?  Ask.

Ask first.  If you do, not only will you be in a position to make better decisions, but you’ll also probably be surprised at how many new things you learn from other people whose experience can come in handy.  If it helps, create a questionnaire for each person to fill out when they join the team, and use that to craft a process that works for that team.  Early morning meetings are not going to be productive if you’ve got a team of night owls.  So make sure you ask first, and then plan.

I love so many things about the distributed team model, but some things simply are harder when working this way.  It is easy to take things for granted, to uncover (and then recover from) casual misunderstandings, and to rely on multi-sensory input to facilitate strong communication when you are working in the same physical space with people.  You can tell when someone is having a bad day, you can see when what you just said confused them, and you can hear how they discuss ideas and concepts in a more casual context to gauge how they are interpreting information.  We often forget how much we rely on casual interactions in the workplace to get things done.

As soon as you move to a virtual team, many of the informal techniques we rely on to communicate are handicapped, if not out-right eliminated.  This means being much more deliberate about how we communicate with each other.  Given that the vast majority of the information exchange in human communications is non-verbal, this is a very counter-intuitive thing for many of us to do.  But if you’re going to make a virtual team successful, it’s something that you’ve got to train everyone — starting with yourself — to do, and do well.

Admittedly, this is a challenge in my life: I am, at my core, a workaholic. I am a product of an entrepreneurial family with a career in tech startups, where working 60+ hours per week (at least) was a badge of honor; I am compulsive enough by nature that it plays directly into both my work style and my ego; and I am a volunteer junkie who is the first in line to take on difficult new challenges that no one knows how to accomplish.

My husband and business partner is the opposite. While he can and has worked insane hours during various points of his professional life, it is not what he enjoys and it is not what he wants. And, for him, my over-and-above hours of work detract from our time together, which is not the trade-off he signed up for.

The VentureBeat article, titled “You work 60-hour weeks. Should your employees?” is probably made even more noteworthy by the comments left by readers. As is often the case, comments fall heavily into two camps:

The What Kind of Slacker Only Works 60 Hour Weeks? Camp — which is the modern equivelant to your grandfather’s old saying, “Back in my days, we had to walk to school a mile in the snow both ways…” It’s a sign of geek and/or entrepreneurial bravado to be the Michael Jordan of work hours, and demonstrate that you can push yourself longer and harder than those around you.

The Work Is Never Going to Love You Back Camp — who are the advocates of “work-life balance” and who are acutely aware of the fact that no one lies on their deathbed saying, “I wish I’d had just one more meeting…” It’s a sign of idiocy to this group that one would ever do anything as foolish as risk their health or personal relationships by refusing simply turn off the computer and leave work at a decent hour.

The thing that is most interesting, though, is that — as always happens in this debate — people over-look a simple, basic fact: different people need different things for different reasons.

In all the politically correct talk about “work-life balance,” there is something important that is often missed: some of us need to work long hours for reasons that have little or nothing to do with anything or anyone else. And, when we find ourselves in a work environment that does not place that demand on us, we will find a way to create it. Consider this:

Work People

• Get their energy from work.
• Derive their motivation from work-based accomplishment.
• Experience their strongest social connections to other people through work.
• Use the inertia of long hours to build momentum for accomplishing their goals.
• Find an intellectual stimulation and satisfaction in work that they don’t find anywhere else.

Life People

• Get their energy from social or personal activities.
• Derive their motivation from hobbies and social interactions.
• Seek social connections that are based on non-work interests, often as part of the respite from work.
• Require the break from work in order to recharge and return productively.
• Experience a wider array of sources that can lead to satisfying intellectual, emotional or psychological stimulation.

And while debates can wage about which side of the coin is “healthier,” it really doesn’t change the fact that my husband is unlikely to ever be an 80-hour-per-week-maniac and I am unlikely to ever be happy trying to keep my work week limited to 40 hours. We’ll each do what we need to do as circumstances demand, but what is native to each of us is different and meaningful for our own reasons.

The VentureBeat article recommends focusing on great results, not the means by which specific individuals arrive at those results. I’d agree with this approach, but take it a step further: it’s not enough to have this expectation of your staff. You have to find staff who want and thrive with high expectations.  Only hire people who like that kind of pressure and motivation.

A “life person” who is asked to work 60+ hours per week by their boss may technically put in the hours, but they are likely to trading in quantity at the expense of quality. For people who need off-hours to recharge their batteries, the point of diminishing returns comes sooner, and time put in working after that threshold is always less productive (sometimes to a costly degree).

Yes, there are always going to be times when the realities of a business require additional time and work, but I think the focus of a boss should be on finding staff whose workstyles fit what you need, rather than trying to turn who you have into someone they are not. In the end, that approach is just asking for trouble, because not only will you always be frustrated — frustrated at having to ask, frustrated by feelings of disappointment and frustrated by the results you get out of people — but you’ll also be setting your team up for failure by creating a situation that runs counter to their individual needs.

Ultimately, you can’t change a person. And asking someone to behave in a way that is fundamentally counter to their nature is never a long-term solution. So my advice is to focus on the fit first. Jim Collins refers to this as ‘getting the right people on the bus.’ If you are a workaholic who likes achieving the impossible at the drop of a hat, then an employee who rolls into the office at 10:00 and rolls out right at 6:00 is probably going to drive you crazy — no matter how much amazing work he gets accomplished in that eight hours.

Author Pamela Springer advises that growing a business — particularly in the earliest stages — is best fostered by focusing on your people, your strategy and your capital. In that order.

She then goes on to discuss cultivating your team in the ways best suited to evolving your business. And while she warns that on-the-job training is expensive, she also points out that skills aren’t always everything.

I see new startups struggle with this question daily. Serial entrepreneurs with a good network that includes lots of other serial entrepreneurs tend to gravitate towards experience born of the excessive scar tissue left behind by a track record of startups.

Or they immediately jump to the other extreme and go with fresh talent, right out of school with almost no experience whatsoever. As with anything, there are pros and cons to each.

Experience Pros
The #1 advantage to experience, of course, is using hindsight to help navigate the dangerous waters of the startup world. Someone with the right experience can help predict, dodge and mitigate the landmines that someone who has not been through the perils of this world cannot possibly foresee.

Experience Cons
The biggest disadvantage I’ve seen to experience is an unspoken assumption that what worked before will work now. This is one of the most dangerous ones, and often the hardest to combat, because someone who has been successful with a particular approach in the past is usually inclined towards using it again in the future.

The second biggest disadvantage I’ve seen to a track record of experience is ego. A few successful turns in some great roles at some companies with flashy brands (or really big exits) can sometimes inflate an ego beyond reason — making the experienced person in question not only hard to work with, but also potentially inclined to take credit for past successes that they really didn’t have anything to do with.

Tactically speaking, the biggest obstacle that small businesses and startups often face trying to hire this demographic is very simple: money. Experience tends to command expensive rates, which is often beyond the reach of a new venture.

Talent Pros
The biggest pro of fresh talent is that, if you help develop it, not only will you build great loyalty, but you’ll also reap untold surprises in areas you can’t ever entirely imagine. My favorite part of working with fresh, young talent is that they are often fearless, curious and a constant source of pleasant surprises.

Talent Cons
This is a bit less of an issue since the economy collapsed than it was before, but the biggest con I typically encouter when it comes to young talent is boredom. There are plenty of things about routine, daily operations that can be tedious and boring, and if that’s all you have for your young talent to do, then be prepared for them to exit about as quickly as they arrived.

All in all, there are reasons to consider going either direction, depending on the role. But also keep in mind that, especially in small and privately owned businesses, the personality of the founder/owner has to be factored in.

There are a lot of qualities that Millenials poses, which are not always as effortless for Gen X and older. Things like collaboration, a dependency on technology, and a craving for work-life balance are all bigger factors for them than for some of us who are older. So if you’ve got a CEO who calls the shots without a lot of input or debate, then an older demographic might be better about rolling with those punches.

On the other hand, if you have a more democratic organization that likes to do a lot of brainstorming and hashing through ideas, then — speaking as one of those “older” demographics — it’s often something that Gen X and older find frustrating, and an abstacle to quick execution.

I think the important thing to remember is that building a good organization really requires pulling from both pools of resources. If you stick to only one or the other, then you run the risk of building a lot of blindspots into your business without having the 360 degree vision to recover. So pick and choose.

Personally, I will usually start by defining my needs and expectations of the role, and then break apart the list and assess if most of the qualities I am looking for require experience to be successful (e.g. auditing, project management and maintaining client relationships), or if they are more inate (like strong communciation skills) or readily teachable (most standard business technology, meeting facilitation, etc.).

Of course, the real trick is, when you find raw talent — even if you don’t have a role to be able to hire them right away — don’t let them go. Find another way to build a relationship with them. Whether you can mentor them, find an internship for them, or connect them to other people who can offer them employment, your long-term best interest is in becoming a magnet for great talent — even if it hasn’t had the chance to prove itself yet.

Back in my Enterprise IT days, this was a common site. We’d all gather, sometimes multiple times per week, to put our heads together on our enormous multi-million dollar program. The kicker, though, was that 75% of the participants in the room were consultants.

One day, out of overwhelming frustration at how many hours per week I was spending in pointless meetings when I had real work to do back at my desk, I did a little round-the-table math, based on what I knew of the rates/salaries of the people in the meeting.

By the time I was done, I’d tallied that each team meeting was costing the company $2,500. Per hour. And not only did we have several of those large meetings per week, but subsets of that group would have anywhere from 5-10 additional meetings per week on top of that!

What was worse of all was the awareness that at least half of those meetings occured out of habit, and not out of an actual need to either make a decision or collaborate on the resolution to a problem. We were meeting for no better reason that so we could say that we met.

I was thinking back to his exercise when reading Barney Austen’s guest post on MyVenturePad, called “Meetings – A Total Waste of Time.” Of course, most of Barney’s points are long-standing reminders of the well-established rules of Meeting Management 101: have an agenda, make sure decision-makers are in the room, etc.

But as an entrepreneur what I am constantly struck with is the actual cost vs. value of a meeting. When someone else was paying my salary, this wasn’t something I was anywhere near as concerned with. But now, knowing that my consulting time is billed by the hour, I am acutely aware of the fact that any time I spend in a meeting is detracting from billable client work I could be doing. So that meeting time better be worth while, or I need to cancel it.

I have worked with some other consultants making the transition from employee to entrepreneur, and I’ve seen many of the struggle with the same thing: common patterns of behavior in enterprise environments are suddenly irresponsibly expensive in entrepreneurial ventures. And the new business owners who understand that are quick to adapt. But some struggle with it more, because it’s a common tool used to justify their job.

One of the best consultants I ever worked with once said to me, “I’ve been a consultant too long. If I don’t produce something tangible every day, I feel like I haven’t justified my paycheck.” As a result, she had the world’s greatest project documentation. It was always updated, it was always detailed and it was always extremely thorough. What it wasn’t was always necessary.

Bootstrapping a startup is a different animal. And finding the right people to work with is important, because the last thing a lean organization that is trying to be cash efficient needs, is unnecessary meetings burning through time and resources — especialy in the cases that those resources are paid by the hour.

A simple rule of thumb: only schedule meetings if there is a decision that needs to be made, and then only include the people needed to make the actual decision. Even more importantly, don’t let Outlook or Google Calendar’s default settings drive you to automatically scheduling it for an hour. If you think that getting a quick decision is possible, then keep it to half an hour. (Side note: new teams tend to love me, because I am the queen of the 15 minute meeting. No matter how long I schedule the meeting for, my goal is always to be done in 15. And I usually am.)

There are, of course, other types of meetings. But, as an entrepreneur, everything that I do in my business should be tied back to tangible, measureable results. So while a sales meeting, a vendor meeting or a team member feedback session could be extremely important, an entrepreneuer should always stop and do a time management inventory to make absolutely certain that the purpose of the meeting is clear, and that it can be served based on the list of confirmed attendees.

If it’s not, the answer is simple: change the meeting. Cancel it, reschedule it or just change whose coming. And if you think that seems like a waste, then I challenge you to add up how much that meeting is costing you. Then decide whether or not it’s worth it.

One of the things that many entrepreneurs enjoy about their own business is freedom from the constraints of life in a large enterprise environment. The downside, of course, is that the way large enterprise environments lure in eager, talented employees year after year, is because they make sure to offer incentives that hold more than a little bit of appeal.

I’ve written about this before, in the discussion about intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivators. For an entrepreneur getting a new venture off the ground — even before you try to piece together a “package” to offer prospective employees — you need to consider what you need for yourself. Because if you can’t stay motivated and productive, you certainly can’t expect that of employees (present or future ones).

In addition to the warning on VentureBeat about not ignoring retirement planning (vital advice, if ever there was any: no entrepreneur wants to spend years building a business, only to spend their “retirement” as a greeter in Walmart), Martin — in response to a D&B Small Business blog post — adds a few other nuggets worth keeping in mind as well.

Long-term daily job grind
Robert Kiyosaki refers to this, in his “Cashflow Quadrant” model, as being “self-employed” versus being a “business owner.” At it’s core, self-employment is a trap that many would-be entrepreneurs find themselves in, en route to their business ownership goals. The self-employed trap looks like the employment trap, only with all of the hassels of business overhead and far less stability.

Formal training courses
My favorite thing about my corporate job was the training. I had internal training resources at my disposal with our in-house “university” program, and I had access to high quality training by external firms, as long as I got my boss’ approval.

And, unlike some people, it wasn’t a paid opportunity to play hookie: it was some of the best learning I’ve had in years, because it blended the value of a classroom setting with the motivation of hands-on, readily applicable subject matter (which I never experienced in school).

Personal wealth management
Starting a new business can be a crash course in financial management — even for those of us who’ve spend years ducking and weaving to avoid the subject as much as possible. However, there is a difference between tightening your belts (even to the point of cutting yourself in half) when things are lean, versus proactively planning for your financial future.

A new business is a great excuse to not have the “time” to take this problem on. But, conversely, it’s also the best excuse, because money is often just as scarce as time — so you might as well take the opportunity to figure out how to manage it, before you find it managing you.

Business must be more than the money
Again, this is critical. If you are going to spend day in, and day out on something, there needs to be a reason to do it beyond getting paid — because, as far as extrinsic motivators go, for most of us, it’s a pretty weak option as time marches on. (And, if you are in the minority, for whom this is enough reason, then more power to you.)

Passion is a key theme among entrepreneurs, and there is a reason: when things are hard, you have no money, your family is mad at you, your friends have stopped trying to invite you out because you’ve turned them down so frequently, and even your dog has moved on to get her daily dose of TLC from the neighbor, if you are not passionate about your venture, the easiest thing to do will be to give up.

The last item Martin includes on his list is an interesting one, but I’m not sure I agree with its importance. Martin writes:

How society perceives you. As a young entrepreneur, everyone looks up to you for running your own business. But later you find that you may be perceived by many as a person without job security, unlike your classmates or ex-colleagues, who are sought after or being placed in well-known large company or multinational positions. Even worse, you find that your business domain has developed a negative stigma through no fault of your own, as has happened to investment banks, mortgage brokers, and many nightlife businesses. It’s no fun to hide your business role rather than proudly proclaim it.

While I understand his point, I’m honestly not at all convinced that this point is really any worse for an entrepreneur than it would be for an employee — and, in fact, I imagine that if you were an employee in one of these fields, it would actually be worse.

As an entrepreneur, you’ve had to hone your other skills — ranging across the spectrum of disciplines: staffing, financial management, marketing, product development, customer service, etc. — in order to run your business. If you are an employee who is working in a suddenly tarnished sector, odds are greater that you are a one-trick pony with limited options.

What would you think is better? To be an entrepreneur whose business was a major supplier for Enron? Or to be a Director-level employee at Enron?

Personally, I think the entrepreneur is better off when it comes to personal branding and re-marketing themselves to prospects. I think the poor employee is going to spend most interviews trying to compensate.

All in all, Martin makes an exceptional point, though: a new venture must be approached as a long-haul. Big exits in a couple of years are great fantasies, but if you are approaching your business with that expectation, then not only are you likely to be making unwise business decisions (see Jason Cohen‘s story of how building a business for him to keep made it valuable enough for someone else to want to buy), but you’re also probably not bracing yourself for the long-term reality of your work.

If you approach your business as a sprint, you may get out of the gate quickly, but odds are you’ll be sitting on the grass when all the marathon runners pass you by. Pace yourself. It’s a long trip.

This is always a fascinating topic for me, because in my tech universe, I see this all the time. The geeky geniuses who build cool things are rarely the ones who have the business and people skills to get it to market, build an organization around it, and monetize it enough so that everyone can live off of it.

Conversely, oh-so-many entrepreneurs don’t have the stomach for low level details of how a product works, or the nitty gritty trouble-shooting required to get over the hump when you hit a roadblock. These are two groups who need each other in order to get things done. But there is a lot of advice about how, if you’re going to build a tech startup, you better be able to code yourself. I think this is a problem for this precise reason.

Yes, certain things are easier if you can just bang them out yourself. I’ve spent more than a decade as tech project manager, and I can’t count the number of times I wish I had the ability to just jump in and do something myself because I was frustrated with other people’s progress. But part of managing is leading other people through that process, not cutting them off at the pass by doing it yourself.

In all of my time at startups over the past 14 years, I have worked with several hundred developers, of all levels of quality, commitment and disposition. In that time, I’ve only met a small handful who have any entrepreneurial inclinations whatsoever. Like most other parts of the employment world, most of them do not have the appetite for risk, the drive or the compulsion to tackle building a venture.

Of the half dozen or so that I’ve met who have the stomach for entrepreneurship, I’d say that maybe two or three actually have enough business and people savvy to make a real go of it. Developers (and scientists) are often introverts. There is nothing surprising about this, since these professions require the qualities that tend to come very naturally to introverted people: the ability to work alone for long stretches of time, the ability to concentrate enough to shut out the rest of the world and focus, thinking through complex obstacles in depth before slapping things together.

Yet successful entrepreneurs are typically extroverts. Again, this makes sense. Network building, relationship development, sales, partnership cultivation and generally being the public face and voice of a business are part of the job. Those are often the types of things that can often make a staunch introvert queasy.

Martin’s point is correct: these two groups need each other in order to be successful.

So, to those who say that a successful entrepreneur building a tech startup needs to be able to write his own code, I can only say this: yes, in a perfect world, that would be possible. But a passionate entrepreneur with a viable idea to take to market should never give up his dream, just because he’s not a developer.

It may take longer to get there without being able to do it yourself, but a race car driver has a mechanic for a reason. They are different skill sets, different dispositions and different roles designed to fill different needs. It’s therefore not unreasonable to expect that it should simply be a different person.

As with most of Tim’s advice, he breaks down a meaningful topic into accessible pieces. He notes that values, empowerment, metrics, feedback and embracing mistakes as learning opportunities are all invaluable tools in building a successful team. And I would agree.

In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that the only times I’ve ever seen a team suddenly go from success to failure, it was always because a new influence (usually a new boss) entered the picture and eliminated at least one of these factors — and usually destroyed morale in the process.

The thing that Tim doesn’t address, though, is how you find the right people in the first place. Like my friend with the crazy — and often doomed — dating stories, you can only build quality relationships (a.k.a. teams) if you start out with the right quality of individuals. And, just like in dating, this is the first step that someone can easily get hung up on for years before ever being able to move on to Step #2.

When I look at the partnerships I see in the startup space — particularly among bootstrappers and eager enthusiasts trying to drive innovation — I see a lot of churn in the hunt to build the right team. But I also see some pretty clear milestones that, once hit, start making all the difference.

1. Find the Right Language
Often times, this is the hardest part. An entrepreneur (or a would-be entrepreneur) can have an amazing idea. But if they haven’t found the right language to share their idea with others, they can spin their wheels for years and not make any headway. If the idea is too big, too imprecise, too confusing or even just too radical, it’s hard for it to resonate with other people. And if it’s not resonating, then finding others to help you build it is not going to happen.

So practice. And if people aren’t responding, then change it. And then practice some more. Get feedback. Watch people’s reactions. Find ways to pre-empt the most common pushback you hear from people, and then practice some more. A funny thing will happen: the right combination of words will eventually start to fall into place. And when that happens, all of a sudden you’ll go from getting blank stares to true interest — and you may not even be entirely sure why the change occured. Just recognize that it did, and it’s often more about language than you imagined.

2. Don’t Make Assumptions About People
Another common mistake I see among entrepreneurs with ideas they find exciting is the mistaken assumption that the people they want to be onboard with them will also find their idea exciting. When someone is feeling unsure of themselves, it’s often easy to look to friends and family for validation and participation. This is sometimes a dangerous choice, because we tend to place a lot of stock in the opinions of those we care about. And if friends or family don’t like or understand the idea, it’s sometimes a devestating blow to an entrepreneur’s focus and motivation.

Depending on a person’s normal social circles, I often recommend starting with strangers, and waiting to circle back to friends and family. A stranger is often a blank slate: no assumptions, no speculation, no baked-in expectations about you, your background or your capabilities. The idea has the chance to sink or swim on it’s own — based on the words you use — when it comes to a stranger. Strangers are often nicely baggage-free, and a great place to start.

The flip-side to this is in being too focused on what types of people — either personality types or skillset types — that you need in order to make things work. People are an endless and amazing source of constant surprise. If you spend all of your time telling yourself, “I need a rock star biz dev guy!” and close yourself off to other possibilities, then you could miss the former network engineer turned project manager who is so passionate about your idea that he manages to morph into the best power networking evangelist you could possibly ask for.

Be flexible, and start with people who resonate with what you’re trying to do. You may not be able to use them all right away, but trying to wedge in the right role with only a half-hearted passion is not as effective as a passionate person who can figure out how to take on the most urgent needs of a new role.

3. Don’t Be So Protective of the Idea that You’re Unwilling to Discuss it
This is a hard one for some entrepreneurs. They are so concerned with their intellectual property or the fact that someone might “steal” their idea that they are afraid to say too much. But the fact is that, unless you can do everything yourself, you need to talk to people, tell them your idea and get their (verbal and non-verbal) feedback. That’s the only way you can hone your message and the only way you can flesh out your team.

Just remember: building a new business is an insane amount of work. Yes, it’s true, someone could steal your idea (or parts of it), but you are never going to make traction on it if you don’t talk about it. What good is it to protect something that you never end up using? Most of the people you meet aren’t going to be interested enough to bother (sorry, but it’s true). While they may find the idea interesting, it would really have to touch a nerve with them to bother trying to go for it themselves. Odds are better that they’d join you in your efforts, rather than trying to start out on their own from scratch.

4. Network Like a Maniac
Again, friends and family may be viable options for team members, but strangers have tons of value to an entrepreneur with a perkulating idea. And no matter how shy or introverted you may be, if you’re going to be an entrepreneur, you need to find ways to push through your shyness and talk to people. So pick half a dozen or so local social events in your space (or related spaces), and start attending. Make a goal before you walk into the room that you are going to spend at least X minutes having conversations with at least Y different people. And then stick to your goals. It really will get easier over time.

And, in the immediate term, this approach will help you test out your language, find the core ideas that are resonating with people, and start dialogs that can help you improve both your idea and your messaging about it — all while being on a tacit man-hunt for a prospective team. The great thing about networking events, is that as your language gets crisper and your passion for your idea becomes more recognizable to those you meet, it opens secondary sets of doors. The person you meet at the event may not be a great fit, but they could know someone who is. You’ll never know until you try talking to new people.

5. Devote Time to Following Up
The biggest mistake people make after attending a networking event is not immediately following up. This is especially true if the person said they knew someone else who they wanted to connect you to. You have a short window in which you are memorable enough to take advantage of that potential connection, so don’t let it pass. Reach out to follow-up within 24 hours. Don’t let it slip.

And then, once you have someone who is interested — whether directly or via a referal — arrange time for a face-to-face. Coffee, lunch, whatever, just get together in person. Something relaxed and non-threatening that gives you both the chance to talk is the best way to see what common ground you have, and whether or not it makes sense to keep talking.

All in all, building a team is quite a bit like dating. You can spend all your time looking in the places where you’re “supposed” to find someone compatible, and then get into a fender-bender on the freeway with the person who turns out to be the world’s most ideal fit. You can’t ever predict where they’ll come from. The only way you’re going to find them, is by opening up the possibilities, considering options you haven’t previously explored, and engaging with new crops of people on a regular basis.

People can be gloriously surprising when you give them the chance.  Don’t rule someone out just because you think you know what they can do and that it’s not what you need.  If in doubt, ask them what it is they’d like to do or how they’d ideally like to contribute.  You could find that the former sales guy wants to get back to his developer roots, and is just looking for the right opportunity.

Then, once you think you’ve found the right person (or people), re-read Tim’s post. His suggestions are good ones — once you find the right people to bring on the bus.

What is more motivating than traditional ‘incentive’ packages?

• Autonomy
• Mastery
• Purpose

The new “operating system” for business.

Between getting settled into the new project and speaking to old friends at former companies (some of whom are now unemployed, while others only wished they were), I’ve been thinking about a number of things that seem to have dovetailed together in a way I wasn’t expecting.

First and foremost is career management. Long a favorite topic of mine, what I’ve been thinking of recently is how sadly common it is for a boss to be totally useless when it comes to helping their employees with career management plans. More than a few of them don’t think it’s part of their responsibility (which I find inexcusably lazy), but even more of them seem to simply not think of it.

This got me thinking of the series I wrote at Christmas, “A Christmas Card to My Bosses: Thanks to Three Very Wise Men.” While I wrote blog posts on the great lessons I learned from each John, Robert and Dave, the thing that I didn’t state explicitly (but which was implicit) was that each of them cared about and was focused on making sure the people on their staff were getting the career development support, encouragement and pushing that they needed. They were all acutely aware of the role they played in developing their people; they took that responsibility seriously and they executed against that.

I see so many talented people who do not have that. And when they finally have someone actually demonstrate some interest and some focus on helping them define and reach their career objectives, they are often so stunned they can hardly believe it.

Why is it so hard? Most people who have been successful enough to be the boss have accomplished that because they know how to manage their own career, so why is it so hard for them to help give guidance and advice to someone else on how to do the same? It shouldn’t be — and I don’t buy that it usually is. I think the reason most people don’t do it is because they don’t make time to do it.

An important thing to keep in mind: statistically speaking, most people do not leave their job, they leave their boss. So are you doing what you need to do to keep your employees engaged and supported so that they stick around? If not, why not?

So that’s my challenge to bosses everywhere: have you worked with each of your direct reports to make sure you understand their career goals (at least as much as they do)? Have you worked on a plan for them that will help them make progress towards those goals? Are you checking in with them regularly to make sure that they are staying focused on at least some of the accomplishments they need in order to stay on track?

Part of being a leader is helping make sure the people you are leading are getting where they need to go. If you aren’t doing that, then where are you leading them?