An advisor just passed on a link to a blog post written by Amol Sarva of Peek entitled When You Should Quit Your Startup .
At first I though my advisor was suggesting I quit my own startup. He wasn't. Phew. He merely thought that I'd enjoy the way Amol thinks about people. I did. His post also references similar posts including “A” players write the playbook by Nivi from Venture Hacks and The Curve of Talent by Eric Paley.
I figured I'd take the opportunity to document my people ranking method I've developed over the years, which is as follows ...
There are four types of people in your startup:
- those that are exceeding expectations: you know that your expectations are brutally high, so to have someone exceed them is a non-trivial task. having someone surprise you with stellar performance is one of the greatest joys in building a company. embrace these people. immediately tell them how much you appreciate them. tell them how you want your company to be instrumental to their success. change your vision and your organization to suit this new found asset. commit to working with these people for the rest of your career.
- those that continually meet expectations: yawn. despite the rantings of the labor market alarmists, it's not hard to find people with adequate skillsets that can do an adequate job. No startup will admit to wanting people that are just "adequate" but in my experience this represents the vast majority of the people in the labor market. If you've hired someone adequate, congratulate yourself on not making a hiring mistake, but don't invest much time trying to develop, motivate and enrich these folks. Chances are they don't live, breathe and eat your startup and so by that definition will always be just adequate.
- those that are not meeting expectations: there are a vast variety of reasons why people underperform. underperformance can be driven by misunderstandings of expectations, mismatch of management style, right people/wrong job syndrome, misunderstanding of where they fit in the value chain, bad habits from past employers, etc. Based on the fact that it is costly to replace people, take one run at resolving this situation. Be direct, clear, impatient and brutally honest. Get them to at least meet expectations or get them out.
- those that just don't get it: the majority of people on the job market do not belong in an early stage companies. A successful entrepreneur needs to be able to see the red flags that define these people. They are not hard to see: airs of entitlement, inability to distinguish between effort and contribution, inability to "own" something are a few of the most egregious. Fight to keep them out of your organization. If they've snuck in somehow, get them out. Do not treat them as someone who is merely "not meeting your expectations". They don't deserve that consideration. Treat them like the poison they are and make them be gone with as little effort, energy and emotion as you can.
Early stage companies are people businesses. You live and die based on your ability to attract hire and retain. I try to avoid promoting techniques that are devoid of context, but this one seems to work in every situation I've been in ans so, I offer it up.
Friday, December 30, 2011 at 11:03AM 