5 Steps to Top Performance Teams for Founders
From a founder to the founders. Here’s my experience building a winning team and unlocking the full benefits of teamwork.
Desire → an idea → the communication
As to the founder, I need to say nothing about the desire. You have it, you feel it every day, and it keeps you awake at night. The desire pushes us to find out what exactly we should start. We have multiple ideas and need to choose carefully. The more research we do, the more we study, and the more discussions we have, the better.
The issue with our idea is that no one else gets it first. You might feel alone - if only other people would understand the beauty of our idea, they would certainly join us and help. That’s right. And it’s our 100% responsibility to
Develop the idea into a very concrete form
Communicate it effectively and with a passion to the relevant people
Every discussion strengthens our understanding. By reflecting on those discussions, we identify what went well and do more of it next time.
It’s surprisingly helpful to write. We think better when writing. We can read our own words and see how it sounds. We can share our words in written form and give strangers an opportunity to understand. It might be on our hiring page, social media, about us, or in local newspapers. Your word can fly a very long way to reach the right minds.
Define the culture: Vision, Values, Beliefs, and Behaviors
Starting with culture first is very powerful. Every new person you meet will consider if it makes sense to join. Strong vision and healthy culture are the best benefits you can give them to feel better than in their previous role instantly. It costs no money and has an immense effect on hiring. Who do you want to hire? By specifying your team's values and beliefs, you can identify the best additions to the team.
If you hire engineers just because they can code, you’ll have a 50% chance of disliking the company you’ve built. If they feel inspired by your vision and your values match some of their values, the chance of success is much higher. The same goes for all the roles.
Performance + Culture fit = A players, they say. As a person who sees the potential in all people and wants to give chances, I say: they are right; hire only A. Otherwise, ready yourself to say goodbye frequently. Goodbyes hurt your culture too, as the people become friends and you need to tell a friend: I can’t work with you anymore. The only worse option is if the friends with low performance or culture fit stay.
Sharpen your understanding of what the culture fit means right from the start. It might take years to get great at it, so starting early pays off.
Develop the strategy
Some think that strategy is an abstract and not very useful concept. Let’s make it the exact opposite: Simple and actionable. Feel free to explore every possible edge while you develop your strategy. It might have layers, the ultimate goal, or more of them; it might have alternative ways; it might have if X then A, if Y the B.
Use all relevant sources to develop a strategy. Books, blogs, frameworks, market research, stories of successful IPOs, discussions, mentors, anything. Put it all into a single place and simplify. See data (X or Y?) and make decisions.
To achieve [OUR ULTIMATE GOAL], we have decided to do [Decision 1], [Decision 2], and [Decision 3].
Simple and actionable is what your team understands. Present with clarity, repeat and give your strategy and team some time to become friends.
Most people won’t challenge the clear and actionable strategy. The powerful move is to get everyone onboard by sharing your strategy workspace. What people and resources influenced the decisions? Aren’t there some obvious flaws? How do things relate to each other? Ideally, those people improve your data and give you even more confidence that the strategy you execute every day is the right one.
Execute with energy
I hate Jira for how IT teams all around the world consider it to be the right tool to manage the team. Sorry Grammarly, I won’t follow your smart advice here.
Jira has excellent tutorials on Agile and Scrum. It starts with the Agile manifesto, and it’s supposed to convince the reader that what comes after the manifesto is somehow related to it. It is not.
So first - engineers are not robots. They shall not pick random tasks from product backlogs and won’t deliver their work in the number of storypoints someone else calculated.
Engineers are people and have their passions. What if they would spend their time on tasks they are passionate about? Aren’t there enough of such tasks? No problem - let them write the tasks for themselves. Wouldn’t it work? Oh, there’s no trust in your organization? So maybe work on the trust issue first.
If you hire A players, they are passionate about your vision, and they get your strategy. They are able, maybe with a bit of help, to identify what needs to be done and execute it effectively. Manage energy, not tasks. The most brilliant inventions are created over weekends in the flow. And the most boring tasks take months and years. Nothing is boring for a well-motivated team. They see even all the work on bugs as the opportunity to get closer to their goals.
Jira doesn't get it and can’t change itself well enough. There are a billion extensions for all the problems in their ecosystem, and you have 1 out of a billion chances of picking the right one.
TL;DR: Pick the right tools if you want to execute with energy.
And one more thing: A team working on a problem simultaneously is 10x more effective than a queue of workers moving the issue in a linear process. They have fun, discuss, quickly improve, have space to shine, and learn from each other.
Unleash the power of team rituals
I remember working for a consultancy. You work on a project for 3-6 months, and something new immediately begins when you deliver. There has to be more, right? There wasn’t, so I quit. To be fair: I learned so much from fellow professionals and got to know many new and interesting people.
Our rituals at consultancy were:
Friday’s afternoons call from a CEO to submit my worksheet for billing
Quarterly offsite meeting to learn about our 20% Y2Y growth or cost cutting.
Half-year performance review: 2x a year, I met my manager, once to tell me I’m doing great and another to say what % of salary increase I can/can’t expect this year.
Weekly (if they had time given week) meeting with the PM to make sure the project waterfall is on track
What other rituals would you design for your company to last? For your people to stay with you and never leave demotivated?
What we do now:
Yearly: Vision, Strategy, Values, and Compensation update
Quarterly: OKRs, Strategy, Performance
Bi-weekly: OKRs progress check, 1:1 with the manager about you
Weekly: Vision, Task planning, Staff meeting, Innovation, Retrospective
Daily: Written Standup / Journal
We are mindful and adjust it according to the current situation. It might look too much/complex, yet it’s predictable and effective. Most meetings are just shared notes with contributions from everyone; no need to meet. We find creative ways to spend staff meetings - everyone needs a different environment to open up and share their best.
We have ad-hoc meetings to announce new initiatives, celebrate success, and recognize top performers. We have #success channels so positive energy can flow instantly.
Summary
Top performance is about energy. The vision and culture are the foundations. A clear and actionable strategy guides your team’s everyday actions. Let passionate people be at flow while they work, and you get the extra value that no money can buy, and that is recognized by your customers instantly. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. So keep the rest stations at fixed intervals along the race. To get refreshed, reflect on the experience, and celebrate little victories. To feel human and a friend, not a robot. It’s also a personal spiritual journey for every one of us. We’ll change on the way, and that’s the best about it. Best of luck!
From a founder to the founders. Here’s my experience building a winning team and unlocking the full benefits of teamwork.
Desire → an idea → the communication
As to the founder, I need to say nothing about the desire. You have it, you feel it every day, and it keeps you awake at night. The desire pushes us to find out what exactly we should start. We have multiple ideas and need to choose carefully. The more research we do, the more we study, and the more discussions we have, the better.
The issue with our idea is that no one else gets it first. You might feel alone - if only other people would understand the beauty of our idea, they would certainly join us and help. That’s right. And it’s our 100% responsibility to
Develop the idea into a very concrete form
Communicate it effectively and with a passion to the relevant people
Every discussion strengthens our understanding. By reflecting on those discussions, we identify what went well and do more of it next time.
It’s surprisingly helpful to write. We think better when writing. We can read our own words and see how it sounds. We can share our words in written form and give strangers an opportunity to understand. It might be on our hiring page, social media, about us, or in local newspapers. Your word can fly a very long way to reach the right minds.
Define the culture: Vision, Values, Beliefs, and Behaviors
Starting with culture first is very powerful. Every new person you meet will consider if it makes sense to join. Strong vision and healthy culture are the best benefits you can give them to feel better than in their previous role instantly. It costs no money and has an immense effect on hiring. Who do you want to hire? By specifying your team's values and beliefs, you can identify the best additions to the team.
If you hire engineers just because they can code, you’ll have a 50% chance of disliking the company you’ve built. If they feel inspired by your vision and your values match some of their values, the chance of success is much higher. The same goes for all the roles.
Performance + Culture fit = A players, they say. As a person who sees the potential in all people and wants to give chances, I say: they are right; hire only A. Otherwise, ready yourself to say goodbye frequently. Goodbyes hurt your culture too, as the people become friends and you need to tell a friend: I can’t work with you anymore. The only worse option is if the friends with low performance or culture fit stay.
Sharpen your understanding of what the culture fit means right from the start. It might take years to get great at it, so starting early pays off.
Develop the strategy
Some think that strategy is an abstract and not very useful concept. Let’s make it the exact opposite: Simple and actionable. Feel free to explore every possible edge while you develop your strategy. It might have layers, the ultimate goal, or more of them; it might have alternative ways; it might have if X then A, if Y the B.
Use all relevant sources to develop a strategy. Books, blogs, frameworks, market research, stories of successful IPOs, discussions, mentors, anything. Put it all into a single place and simplify. See data (X or Y?) and make decisions.
To achieve [OUR ULTIMATE GOAL], we have decided to do [Decision 1], [Decision 2], and [Decision 3].
Simple and actionable is what your team understands. Present with clarity, repeat and give your strategy and team some time to become friends.
Most people won’t challenge the clear and actionable strategy. The powerful move is to get everyone onboard by sharing your strategy workspace. What people and resources influenced the decisions? Aren’t there some obvious flaws? How do things relate to each other? Ideally, those people improve your data and give you even more confidence that the strategy you execute every day is the right one.
Execute with energy
I hate Jira for how IT teams all around the world consider it to be the right tool to manage the team. Sorry Grammarly, I won’t follow your smart advice here.
Jira has excellent tutorials on Agile and Scrum. It starts with the Agile manifesto, and it’s supposed to convince the reader that what comes after the manifesto is somehow related to it. It is not.
So first - engineers are not robots. They shall not pick random tasks from product backlogs and won’t deliver their work in the number of storypoints someone else calculated.
Engineers are people and have their passions. What if they would spend their time on tasks they are passionate about? Aren’t there enough of such tasks? No problem - let them write the tasks for themselves. Wouldn’t it work? Oh, there’s no trust in your organization? So maybe work on the trust issue first.
If you hire A players, they are passionate about your vision, and they get your strategy. They are able, maybe with a bit of help, to identify what needs to be done and execute it effectively. Manage energy, not tasks. The most brilliant inventions are created over weekends in the flow. And the most boring tasks take months and years. Nothing is boring for a well-motivated team. They see even all the work on bugs as the opportunity to get closer to their goals.
Jira doesn't get it and can’t change itself well enough. There are a billion extensions for all the problems in their ecosystem, and you have 1 out of a billion chances of picking the right one.
TL;DR: Pick the right tools if you want to execute with energy.
And one more thing: A team working on a problem simultaneously is 10x more effective than a queue of workers moving the issue in a linear process. They have fun, discuss, quickly improve, have space to shine, and learn from each other.
Unleash the power of team rituals
I remember working for a consultancy. You work on a project for 3-6 months, and something new immediately begins when you deliver. There has to be more, right? There wasn’t, so I quit. To be fair: I learned so much from fellow professionals and got to know many new and interesting people.
Our rituals at consultancy were:
Friday’s afternoons call from a CEO to submit my worksheet for billing
Quarterly offsite meeting to learn about our 20% Y2Y growth or cost cutting.
Half-year performance review: 2x a year, I met my manager, once to tell me I’m doing great and another to say what % of salary increase I can/can’t expect this year.
Weekly (if they had time given week) meeting with the PM to make sure the project waterfall is on track
What other rituals would you design for your company to last? For your people to stay with you and never leave demotivated?
What we do now:
Yearly: Vision, Strategy, Values, and Compensation update
Quarterly: OKRs, Strategy, Performance
Bi-weekly: OKRs progress check, 1:1 with the manager about you
Weekly: Vision, Task planning, Staff meeting, Innovation, Retrospective
Daily: Written Standup / Journal
We are mindful and adjust it according to the current situation. It might look too much/complex, yet it’s predictable and effective. Most meetings are just shared notes with contributions from everyone; no need to meet. We find creative ways to spend staff meetings - everyone needs a different environment to open up and share their best.
We have ad-hoc meetings to announce new initiatives, celebrate success, and recognize top performers. We have #success channels so positive energy can flow instantly.
Summary
Top performance is about energy. The vision and culture are the foundations. A clear and actionable strategy guides your team’s everyday actions. Let passionate people be at flow while they work, and you get the extra value that no money can buy, and that is recognized by your customers instantly. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. So keep the rest stations at fixed intervals along the race. To get refreshed, reflect on the experience, and celebrate little victories. To feel human and a friend, not a robot. It’s also a personal spiritual journey for every one of us. We’ll change on the way, and that’s the best about it. Best of luck!