Lesson #383: Leadership Lessons From Dusty May's Championship at Michigan

I have been a lifelong University of Michigan basketball fan.  When I was a student there, they had won the national championship in 1989, where I had a front row seat as a member of the basketball band to see Rumeal Robinson’s hit his game winning free throws to beat Seton Hall.  But since then, it had been 37 years without a national title, and the passionate U-M fan base was aching for another championship.  U-M had gotten close a couple times, in 1992 and 1993 with the Fab Five, and again in 2013 and 2018 with John Beilein’s gutsy teams, but we just couldn’t summit the mountain.  That was until Dusty May was hired in 2024, after U-M’s worst season in their history, finishing with a dismal 8-24 record.  His two-year turnaround to a 37-3 national champion will go down as one of coaching’s greatest accomplishments.  This post will highlight a few of his leadership lessons that you can apply to your businesses.

Who is Dusty May?

The 49-year-old coach’s history with college basketball went all the way back to 1996, when he was a 19-year-old student manager for the legendary Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers. He worked his way up through the coaching ranks from Eastern Michigan to Murray State, UAB, Louisiana Tech and Florida, before getting his first head coaching gig at FAU, where he lead the Owls to an unexpected Final Four in 2023 as a significant underdog.  Dusty May was officially the hot up-and-coming coach, and Michigan wasted no time in hiring him in 2024 to replace Juwan Howard.

Why He Was So Successful?

There were several reasons Dusty May was so successful as a coach.  First of all, he was a wicked smart student of the game, understanding how to put high level schemes, game plans and side-line coaching adjustments in place.  Second, he knew how to assemble unlikely rosters of under-appreciated players that he saw promise in through the transfer portal, and get them to succeed and gel in a short period of time.  Third, he got his players to believe in a “Team Before Self” mentality, which is hard to do with a bunch of elite basketball players that had previously thrived in the individual limelight at their previous schools.  And lastly, his calm/consistent demeanor, and treating his players as “family”, endeared him to his players.  Let’s dive into each of these traits at a deeper level.

Crafting The Right Strategy Matters

Dusty knew that competing in the Big Ten against some of the best teams in college basketball (sending 5 teams to the Elite Eight) required him to have a better strategy to win.  And in crafting the best strategy, Dusty was a pro and breaking down the film on his competitors, finding their weaknesses and leaning into those to create his advantages.  That allowed his team not only to win, but to win big by an average margin of 18 points during his championship season (and by an average of 22 points during the NCAA Tournament when it mattered most).  Michigan finished their regular season with a record of 19-1 during Big Ten play, a record four-game advantage over the second place teams with a 15-5 record.  And they didn’t lose a single game on their opponent’s court, which is so hard to do with home court advantages.   How well thought-out are your business strategies and how well researched are you on your competitors?

Get The Right Players That Fit Your Desired Strategy

You don’t normally see a basketball team with more than one 7 footer on the roster.  But Dusty’s rosters typically have multiple big men on the floor at the same time.  And these “giants” were not only great at rebounding, blocking shots and scoring inside, most of them are also good when shooting from three-point range.  His centers were basically playing like guards, flying around the court with an ease not typically associated with big men.  Dusty knew that basketball is a game of inches, and those extra inches in height and wing span, would matter come tournament time.  Do you have the best, most-versatile team members filling your employee rosters to give your business that extra “inside edge”?

But it just wasn’t setting the right strategy of using a lot of versatile big men, it was also picking who those exact big men were.  His transfer players like Vlad Goldin, Danny Wolf, Morez Johnson and Aday Mara were good players on their previous teams, but not all-star great players.  He saw “diamonds in the rough” that he believed he could coach up into all-star players, and sure enough Goldin and Wolf were drafted into the NBA last year, and Johnson and Mara were drafted to the NBA this year.  And players that were criticized for underperforming, like Elliot Cadeau at UNC, were now most valuable players of the NCAA Tournament under Dusty May’s tutelage.  How good are you at developing your employees and turning them into all-stars for your business?

Put the Team First, Before the Individual

Yaxel Lendeborg, the Big Ten Player of the Year and consensus First Team All-American, only averaged 15 points a game this season.  He could have easily been like any of his fellow All-American’s averaging 20-25 points per game.  But Dusty May emphasized to his players, that the team results were more important than any individual statistics.  That extra pass to an open team mate, may hurt your personal scoring stats, but it could help seal a victory.  And all this team cared about was winning in a self-less way, which is why 8 different players lead the team in scoring this year.  Opponents never could predict which one of them would be the star of the night, which was really hard to defend against.  That was a very special group of players that listened to their coaches and led Michigan and became their most-accomplished team in history. What are you doing in your organization to promote team work and getting the staff to act as one unified group committed to winning?

Calm and Steady Wins the Race

When you would see Dusty May on the sideline, you would never even think he was coaching in the middle of a game.  The expression on his faced was calm and collected.  He never let himself get wrapped up in the high and low emotions of the game.  It was all business following his proven playbook.  And his players followed suit; they appreciated his style of leadership and they knew the “ship” was in good hands with Dusty at the helm.  And they applied that same calm approach in their style of play.  They just knew every team member had each other’s back and they would figure out how to win, regardless of the opponent they were playing.  And the bigger the stage, the better they performed, often blowing out some of the best teams in the country.  How do you think your staff is responding to your vision and leadership style?

Closing Thoughts

Dusty May knew what the goal was from day one of this season—win a national championship or bust with the talent he had around the table.  He instilled an “April Habits” mindset from day one of the pre-season practices, knowing that the work they put into over the course of the year would propel them to championship heights in the Final Four in April.  He was even seen on the sideline of the first Final Four game between Connecticut and Illinois, scouting those two teams, when you would have guessed he would have been in the locker room with his team getting ready for their big game which would follow.  But when a reporter asked him about him not being with the team, he calmly responded, “nothing I would tell them in the next hour would change the result of the game—the results of tonight’s game would be decided months earlier in the work they put in leading up to tonight.”  He knew they were prepared, he knew they would win in the Final Four and he was getting a step ahead to ensure they would win on championship night.   I hope you are all putting in that same level of work and discipline in your businesses.

Now, if you can figure out how to get Dusty May back to Michigan after the Dallas Mavericks stole him as head coach last month, that would be great!  Hopefully, the new U-M head coach, Mike Boynton, a Dusty May assistant, continues in Dusty’s winning ways. Go Blue!

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

[VIDEO] Strategies to Transform Workplace Culture

I was recently interviewed by ASBN, an online "television network" serving the small business community, about how to build a great company culture.  This video will help you learn that it all starts with hiring smart people and getting out of their way.  As you will learn, recruiting, onboarding, team building and management all play critical roles.  And you cannot manage what you are not measuring, so be sure to get the right KPIs in place.  I thought this video turned out great, and I wanted to share it with all of you. I hope you like it!!

The embedded video player didn't give me the option to change the size of this video.  But, if you want to see a bigger version, simply click the expand size button in the player above.

Thanks again to Jim Fitzpatrick and the ASBN team for having me on the show.  I look forward to our next interview together.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Business Lessons from The Coach Who Built a Dynasty in Two Years

I have been a lifelong University of Michigan basketball fan.  When I was a student there, they had won the national championship in 1989, where I had a front row seat as a member of the basketball band to see Rumeal Robinson hit his game winning free throws to beat Seton Hall. But since then, it had been 37 years without a national title, and the passionate UM fan base was aching for another championship.  UM had gotten close a couple times, in 1992 and 1993 with the Fab Five, and again in 2013 and 2018 with John Beilein’s gutsy teams, but we just couldn’t summit the mountain.  That was until Dusty May was hired in 2024, after UM’s worst season in their history, finishing with a dismal 8-24 record.  His two-year turnaround to a 37-3 national champion will go down as one of coaching’s greatest accomplishments. Here are a few of his leadership lessons that you can apply to your businesses.

Read the rest of this post in Entrepreneur, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Lesson #379: Business Lessons from Curt Cignetti and the Indiana Hoosiers

By now, we have all learned there is a “new sheriff” in the world of college football.  No, not my beloved alma mater, Michigan.  Not other “blue bloods” like Alabama, Georgia, Texas or Ohio State.  It is the team that up until two years ago had more losses than any other program in history: the Indiana Hoosiers.  In just two years since the hiring of their head coach, Curt Cignetti, they sit alone atop college football as the 16-0 national champion this year, including three wins over teams ranked in the top five (tripling such top-five ranked wins in their entire 138-year history).  How was this even possible?  This worst-to-first story will go down as one of the greatest stories in college football history. Let’s dissect this further, as there are a lot of valuable business lessons to be gleaned here for your businesses.

To summarize how this amazing turnaround happened for Indiana, it came down to the following things: (i) market conditions changed to their benefit; (ii) ownership embraced the desire to win at football; (iii) they hired a smart leader; (iv) the leader had a clear vision of the type of team he wanted to recruit; and (v) they all bought into the vision, believing the impossible was actually possible, and put in the hard work to make it happen.  Let’s dig into each of these points.

Market Conditions Changed in College Football

Two things happened in college football in the last couple years that forever changed the sport: (i) the NCAA allowed players to get paid, through name-image-and-likeness deals; and (ii) the NCAA allowed players to freely transfer between teams through the transfer portal.  Paying the players meant that the schools with large alumni bases (Indiana is the largest) and wealthy alumni (like Mark Cuban at Indiana) could amass large sums of money, to put them on a more even footing with the historical “blue blood” programs.  And the transfer portal enabled players to move between teams if they didn’t feel they were getting enough playing time or didn’t like their coaches, which meant the historically second and third string players at the “blue blood” programs were now starting at the other schools that were willing to pay for their services.  These changes became the big equalizer in college football.

I don’t like a lot of these changes, as it feels like the Wild West right now with limited guard rails being imposed by the NCAA.  But these changes were earth shattering for the sport.  Instead of a season ending with 4-to-5 teams that were capable of winning a playoff and the championship, now there were 15-20 teams that were good enough to go on a run and win a championship.  This created more parity than ever before.

As we apply this to our businesses, think of what artificial intelligence is doing in the workplace; it is the great equalizer putting both big companies and small startups on a more equal footing.  Your startup’s market conditions have materially changed in the last couple years; how are you going to capitalize on that?

Ownership Embraced The Desire to Win

Indiana never really was considered a “football school”.  On the other hand, with their success under coaches like Bobby Knight and players like Isiah Thomas and Steve Alford, they were always considered a “basketball school”.  But basketball isn’t where the lion’s share of athletic revenues are generated—they come from football.  And Indiana was never going to truly maximize their athletic revenues until they set a clear goal of being successful in football.  University President, Pamela Whitten, and Athletic Director, Scott Dolson, made that a priority, and began to invest accordingly.

What is the “North Star” vision for your business, and are you making the appropriate investments to enable you to hit that target?  If not, you will never get there.

They Hired a Smart Leader

Not many college football fans had heard of Curt Cignetti prior to his time at Indiana.  His name was never mentioned in the list of college football’s great coaches, like Kirby Smart at Georgia, Ryan Day at Ohio State or Dabo Sweeney at Clemson.  But when Indiana’s leadership started to research him, it was clear he was a winner wherever he went. 

In 2009, he was on Nick Saban’s coaching staff at Alabama that won a national championship (and who better to learn from than college football’s greatest coach of all time).  Between 2011-16, he turned around a struggling IUP program into a perennial conference champion.  In 2019, he lead James Madison to the FCS (Division II) national championship.  When Curt Cignetti famously told the media, “I win.  Google me!”, he wasn’t kidding.

The business lesson here is to hire smartly.  It isn’t always the person with the biggest brand logos on their resume, or the most attention, that will be the best hires.  Do your homework, peel back the layers of the onion, and you may find your own “diamond in the rough”.

They Recruited The Right Type of Players

Most college football recruiting classes are ranked in order of how many “5-Star” high school recruits a team has.  Indiana didn’t have a single 5-Star recruit on their roster that won the national championship.  Cignetti did three smart things in this regard: (i) he brought around 15 players with him when he moved from James Madison to Indiana (experienced players that had won a national championship and who could lay a good foundation for instilling that same mindset with his new team at Indiana); (ii) he biased the transfer portal over high school recruiting (take a proven winner at the college level than an unproven recruit from high school); and (iii) he looked for players that had the same “chip on their shoulders” that he did (the under-loved, under-recruited, under-appreciated players that wanted to prove themselves, like quarterback Fernando Mendoza that went on to win the Heisman Trophy and beat the team in his home town (Miami) that didn’t think he was good enough to even walk-on to their team).  What a recipe for success this turned out to be!

The same holds true for your business—people really matter.  Find the experienced staff member, perhaps from your competitors, wanting to prove they can succeed at the next level.

They All Bought Into the Vision and Put In The Work

Bo Schembechler, the famous Michigan football coach once said, “What the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve. And those who stay, will be champions.”  Curt Cignetti must have said the same thing to his team.  If you think of Indiana as all-time biggest losers, that is where we will stay.  But if you actually believe you are on an equal footing with the greats like Ohio State, Alabama, Oregon and Miami, you can actually beat them (which they did in four consecutive games).  But more than believing, they had to put in the work, winning in the weight room, practices, coaching sessions, film watching and game planning, as well.    That “chip on their shoulder” was particularly helpful here to get them to put in that needed work.  Big picture: winning is a mindset and to get there, it requires discipline, which Indiana had in spades.

Are you clearly communicating your vision to your staff?  Have they bought into that vision?  Are they putting in the hard work which will be required to win (e.g., gain market share and exceed  your goals)?  If not, back to the drawing board, as without that vision, a clear strategy and communication, religious management and hard work, you will never get there.

Closing Thoughts

When Indiana went 11-2 in 2024, Cignetti’s first year, I thought it was a fluke, catching better teams by surprise.  But when Indiana was the first team ever to go 16-0 to win the national championship in 2025, beating top-ranked teams by large margins of victory, I knew Indiana was no longer a “basketball school” and their football success was here to stay.  Which is bad news for my Michigan Wolverines and everyone else in the Big Ten. 

In the last two years, Northwestern has now passed Indiana as the team with the most all-time losses in college football.  Maybe Dave Braun and his coaching staff will be the next team to achieve the “impossible”, winning a national championship in the coming years.  Indiana has certainly given them and ever other team in football that winning playbook, which everyone is trying to copy in hopes of “catching lightning in the bottle” for their programs.  Expect to see more “historical underdogs” hoisting the championship trophy in years to come, thanks to Indiana and Curt Cignetti paving the way, proving what is actually possible with a well-conceived vision, strategy, team and execution.  Which “blue blood” will your business beat for your “national championship”?

    

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

[VIDEO] Is Entrepreneurship Learned or Wired Into Your DNA?

I was recently interviewed by ASBN, an online "television network" serving the small business community, about whether entrepreneurship can be learned or if it is wired into a person's DNA.  This video will help you learn the 7 skillsets needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and whether they fall into the learned or DNA category.  I thought this video turned out great, and I wanted to share it with all of you to see if you have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. I hope you like it!!

The embedded video player didn't give me the option to change the size of this video.  But, if you want to see a bigger version, simply click the expand size button in the player above.

Thanks again to Jim Fitzpatrick and the ASBN team for having me on the show.  I look forward to our next interview together.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Lesson #378: Artificial Intelligence Can Do Everything Now--Good News For Owners, Bad News for Staff

 Artificial intelligence (AI) has been more than a buzzword for the last couple years; it is literally taking over every single aspect of how businesses are run.  Big corporations have even started hiring Chief Artificial Intelligence Officers to ensure their organizations are getting the most out of AI tools, largely to replace slow/expensive human-driven tasks with fast/inexpensive technology-driven tasks.  The applications are literally endless, but this post should help inspire you to rethink everything you are doing in your business, as there is probably a technology out there that can do it faster and cheaper.

I did a little researching on Google to see what AI tools I could stumble upon, and I was amazed at the breadth and depth of AI tools I found:

Need a business plan?

Need market research?

Need competitor analysis?

Need products designed?

Need marketing help?

Need customer service support?

Need technology coded?

Need financial reporting?

Need fund raising?

Need to recruit staff?

Great, there are now AI tools out there that can quickly and easily do all of these tasks.  Yes, you can get a lot of these same topics addressed from the main AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude and Google, but the businesses linked about are mastering their craft in each of these specific verticals.  So, as we are all experimenting with these main AI engines, we should also be experimenting with some of these niche solution providers we have never heard of before, as maybe they have a better “mousetrap” (at least for now).

Why do I share this?  For three reasons.  Firstly, an “old timer” like myself (aged 56) would have done what I normally would have done for these topics: hire people or consultants that produce the work product needed.  Because that is how I have always done it.  I didn’t even know there were other technology driven options out there that could help me move faster and cheaper.  And I am guessing there are a lot of other people out there that would have done the same thing.  So, I encourage you to take a pause, see what technology options are available to you and see if they can help you save time and money versus the “old ways” of doing business.

Secondly, if these new technologies prove effective, it is going to dramatically decrease the amount of capital that will be required to get new startup businesses launched and operating in the market.  Which means the speed at which your business faces new competition will be much faster.  So, you no longer have the benefit of “resting on your laurels” or coasting based on your past successes.  It won’t take long for some smart AI coder to launch a better product, making your business obsolete.  So, you need to protect your turf and go on the offensive:  figure out how AI can help you with your product development roadmap and innovation efforts.  If you don’t, someone else will!

Thirdly, all human workers out there should be “shaking in their boots”, in terms of thinking about their job security.  Yes, companies like Amazon or Google say AI will help reduce their future hiring needs, letting them grow more efficiently while keeping all of their current staff.  But lets not fool ourselves; companies are driven by their shareholders that are seeking higher valuations, typically from higher profits.  And what is the best way to increase profits?  Replace a $60,000 a year salaried person with a near-free technology!  Yes, I am talking to all you graphic designers, technology developers and customer service agents!

While that may sound great for that specific company’s bottom line, if all companies out there are employing this same logic, this could mean massive layoffs in the years to come, with no replacement jobs that will enable them a “soft landing”.  It wouldn’t surprise me if a majority of Americans were living on welfare in the next decade or two, which is a pretty bleak forecast.  The stock market may do great, with all the accelerating corporate profits as technologies replace people.  But the average American and their consumer spending power is going to be materially impacted for the worse.

Yes, all of these new technologies are very cool.  Who doesn’t want to move faster and cheaper on their growth plans?  But when you think about the long term implications of these AI technology advancements, it doesn’t paint a very rosy picture for the future of most average Americans.  So, if you are worried about getting potentially disintermediated by technology (which should be most of you!), start putting your “defense plans” in place now.  Start training yourself up with new skills that won’t get cut by profit-hungry management teams.  Who knows, maybe you can use the AI technologies to your advantage, in launching the next really great startup that everyone will be using.

It will be very interesting to see how this all shakes out in the coming years.  At a minimum,  you all need to be learning how AI technologies can help your businesses and or your specific roles.  If not, you may not have a profitable business or a defendable job for much longer.  Sorry to be “doom and gloom” here, just calling it like I see it.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

 

AI Can Do Everything Now and It Will Replace You--Protect Yourself Now!

 

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been more than a buzzword for the last couple of years; it is literally taking over every single aspect of how businesses are run. Big corporations have even started hiring Chief Artificial Intelligence Officers to ensure their organizations are getting the most out of AI tools, largely to replace slow and expensive human-driven tasks with fast and inexpensive technology-driven tasks.  The applications are literally endless, but this article should help inspire you to rethink everything you are doing in your business, as there is probably a technology out there that can do it faster and cheaper.

Read the rest of this post in Entrepreneur, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Lesson #375: Why Having Co-CEOs is Usually a Bad Idea

 

Oftentimes, two co-founders think it is a good idea to share CEO responsibilities, as Co-CEOs.  The logic being they can separate their roles and responsibilities, with one person leading certain departments (e.g., sales and marketing) and the other person leading other departments like (e.g., technology and operations).  The reality is, this is a pretty bad idea.  The business should only have one leader at a time that can “lead the ship” and make sure everything is perfectly coordinated across the entire company.  This post will teach you the potential pitfalls of a Co-CEO strategy.

Lack of One Sole Vision/Control

Anytime you add additional people to a decision-making process, that is most certainly going to involve you making some sort of compromise, where you are not doing exactly what you would have done if you were a stand-alone CEO.  On minor points, it probably doesn’t matter.  But if it is important strategic level points you are compromising, you end up diluting your own personal instincts and convictions.  And it is those same instincts and convictions that are often the difference between good outcomes and average outcomes.  You never want to be in a position of “managing towards the happy middle-ground”. 

Lack of One Sole Voice With the Team 

When there are two leaders, and those people are not necessarily in 100% alignment on the vision, they may be saying conflicting things to the team, in terms of the directions they are providing to the staff. That can create a lot of confusion with the team members, as they are unclear on whose voice to listen to the most, as they are both Co-CEOs.  And worse, it makes it look like the Co-CEOs are not in alignment, and are not communicating well with each other, which has the team nervous that leadership at the top doesn’t know what they are doing. 

Lack of a Tie-Breaker

What happens when the two Co-CEOs cannot come to an agreement on a topic?  There is no one there to break the tie.  Which either creates a level of paralysis where no decision gets made and the work doesn’t get done at all.  Or, it requires one of the Co-CEOs to back down, and agree to the other Co-CEO (usually with the louder voice and personality winning).  And that can create resentment towards the other person who is constantly not getting their opinions listened to or acted upon.

Different Management Styles Could Cause Friction

No two people are exactly the same; what happens when there are philosophical level differences in management approach.  Let’s say one of the Co-CEOs is a “top down” strategic level thinker that likes to “see the big picture forest” and the other Co-CEO is a “bottoms up” execution level thinker that likes to “live in the trees”.  Those two styles are completely different ways to make decisions and can easily “ruffle the feathers” of the two Co-CEOs over time, forcing them to think and act in ways that is not their preference.

You Lose Control on Half of the Business

If you are the “Sales & Marketing” leading Co-CEO, that doesn’t mean you don’t have opinions on how “Techology & Operations” are being run by the other Co-CEO.  But by dividing up the responsibilities, you are basically handing off all decisions in those other departments to the other Co-CEO.  If you trust the other person to operate alone in their silo, that is fine.  But what happens when you have a fundamental disagreement on how those other departments are being operated?  You can communicate that to your Co-CEO to try and fix it, but it is ultimately up to them to make the desired changes you want, which they may or may not do.

Your Co-CEO Refuses to Stay “In Their Swim Lane”

Even though you may have divided up the management responsibilities with your Co-CEO, that doesn’t mean they will always stay in their “swim lane”.  CEOs that like to lead and control, typically have a really hard time giving up control to anyone else.  And when that “likes to control” Co-CEO, starts drifting into the “swim lane” of their other Co-CEO, having to have input on every decision in their departments, that will really piss off the Co-CEO.  At that point, you don’t really have a Co-CEO structure at all, with one person needing to control all decisions.  That will end up very badly.

Limits Your Exit Options

When it comes time to sell your business, the new buyer would prefer to have one CEO be their sole decision maker, with which to sit on their board and work with the investors.  Also, when you are ready to sell, your Co-CEO may not be ready to sell.  Now you are stuck owning and working in a business that you no longer want to be working in.  Or worse, your miss “your open window” to sell, and market conditions change by the time your Co-CEO is finally ready to sell, but now the window has closed and you can’t sell.  You never want to be in a situation when you can’t get an exit for your equity, handcuffed by a Co-CEO’s opinion, when you see an exit as the right path forward.

Closing Thoughts

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of the challenges at hand when you are considering a Co-CEO setup for your business.  There are examples where Co-CEOs have worked together perfectly—think the Google founders (Sergey Brin and Larry Page).  But more often than not, it ends up not working out very well at all—think the Salesforce executives (Marc Benioff first with Keith Block and then with Bret Taylor).   So, if you are considering this Co-CEO path, buyer beware, as it is ripe with potential pitfalls and most likely will not end up working well for the Co-CEOs, the staff or your investors.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

 

 

Why Sharing the CEO Title Usually Doesn't Work

 

Oftentimes, two co-founders think it is a good idea to share CEO responsibilities as co-CEOs. The logic is that they can separate their roles and responsibilities, with one person leading certain departments (e.g., sales and marketing) and the other person leading other departments (e.g., technology and operations). The reality is, this is a pretty bad idea.  The business should only have one leader at a time who can "lead the ship" and make sure everything is perfectly coordinated across the entire company. This article will teach you the potential pitfalls of a co-CEO strategy.

Read the rest of this post in Entrepreneur, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Lesson #373: When to Fire Yourself as CEO?

 

Most CEOs don’t usually think about putting themselves up on the firing block, but there any many instances where you as the CEO of the business may be holding your business back.  You need to be honest in your assessment of yourself as CEO, to make sure you are in fact the right person for the job.  This post will help you identify certain scenarios where a CEO change may be necessary, even if it means you firing yourself from the job.

You No Longer Have the Right Skillsets

Most entrepreneurs are very good at taking a “piece of paper” idea, productizing it, taking it to market and getting initial traction for the business up to the first $10MM in revenues of the company’s growth curve.  That is not an easy feat, and you should be very proud of that accomplishment.  But as the company then needs to scale from $10MM to $50MM in revenues for the next phase of its growth, that typically requires a very different skillset.  Now you are talking about launching new products, new markets, international expansion, mergers and acquisitions, and other techniques that may be unfamiliar to you.

If you suddenly find yourself drowning with the new challenges of your later-stage growth, it may be the right time to find your replacement that already has those proven skills.  And you shouldn’t feel embarrassed about admitting this—you should feel empowered that you were actually smart enough to assess the situation and how best to resolve it.  You still have your equity ownership, and wouldn’t you want your stock price growth to have the highest chance for success as a shareholder?  Sometimes, that could be in the hands of somebody other than yourself.

You Have Run Out of Ideas

If your business is struggling and you have tried everything you possibly could to “right the ship”, it may simply be a function of “you don’t know, what you don’t know”.  You are only as smart as your own education and experience has made you.  But sometimes a “fresh set of eyes” is exactly what the business needs to turn it around.  That new CEO may see some easy fix, based on their past education and experiences, that was simply in your blind spot.  So, if you often find yourself scratching your head without the right answers to your business’s challenges, maybe it is time for a new CEO.

You No Longer Have the Passion For the Business

An equally important part of being successful as a CEO is having the right “fire in your belly” to succeed at all costs, no matter what challenges get thrown your way.  If you find yourself losing that passion or getting bored with the business (which can easily happen the longer you are there), it is very easy to lose focus and basically “go through the motions”, with the business “coasting” based on historical efforts and not “accelerating” with new ideas and efforts.  You are not doing your shareholders (including yourself) any favors by sticking around in this scenario.  Be smart enough to know when you have “mentally checked out” and find your replacement that is as excited about your business and its potential, as you were when you first started.

You Are Not Getting Along With Your Team

Being a successful CEO requires building a great team that is gelling well with each other.  Just like in any marriage, sometimes relationships can sour over time.  Maybe it is your fault, and you are ruffling everyone’s feathers.  Maybe its your colleagues fault, and every word out of their mouth drives you crazy.  Whatever the situation is, a business won’t thrive if the team cannot get along with each other.  Either they need to go, or you need to go, to find team members that will actually respect each other and enjoy each other’s company when “slogging through the mud” together.

You Have Lost the Confidence of Your Colleagues

Maybe you feel you are doing a good job as CEO, but if your fellow employees, partners or investors don’t think you are doing a good job.  In this scenario, maybe it is time for you to go.  This can be a really bitter pill to swallow.  You look in the mirror and see success, and your colleagues look at you and see short fallings.  But if the team has lost confidence in you, it is time to show yourself to the exit, as the team will not follow a leader that they do not think is leading them in the right direction.  And it could be better for you to step down on your own terms, than wait to get fired by your board when they have seen enough (which will be a lot harder to explain to your new employers).

Closing Thoughts

Hopefully, this post helped you complete your own self-evaluation in your role as CEO.  After reading this post, do you still think you are the right person for the job?  If so, great, it’s full steam ahead.  But if anything in this post resonated with you as “striking a chord”, it may be time to have that very difficult conversation with yourself.  Your business, team and shareholders (including yourself) will thank you!!

For future posts, follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

[VIDEO] How to Hire the Right Salesperson

I was recently interviewed by ASBN, an online "television network" serving the small business community, about how how to hire the right salesperson for your business's specific needs.  This video will help you learn more about the 1,024 different types of salespeople, and the questions you need to ask during your interviews to have your salesperson hire hit the bullseye.  I thought this video turned out great, and I wanted to share it with all of you to make sure you are optimizing your hiring practices here, which will in turn optimize your revenues. I hope you like it!!

The embedded video player didn't give me the option to change the size of this video.  But, if you want to see a bigger version, simply click the expand size button in the player above.

Thanks again to Jim Fitzpatrick, Shyann Malone and the ASBN team for having me on the show.  I look forward to our next interview together.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Is It Time to Fire Yourself? 5 Signs You're Holding Your Company Back

 

Most CEOs don't usually think about putting themselves up on the firing block, but there are many instances where you, as the CEO of the business, may be holding your business back. You need to be honest in your assessment of yourself as CEO, to make sure you are, in fact, the right person for the job.  This article will help you identify certain scenarios where a CEO change may be necessary, even if it means you firing yourself from the job.

Read the rest of this post in Entrepreneur, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at @georgedeeb.

Lesson #365: The First 100 Days With New Employees Will Dictate Success

 

You probably have heard the importance of the action plans of the “first 100 days” after a new President takes office or after you begin integrating two companies after a big merger, but I am guessing you haven’t heard it applied to your recruiting and onboarding efforts with each of your new staff members.  Unlike in most marriages, where you have been dating for years prior to “tying the knot”.  Often times in recruitment, you have someone joining your “family” after only a couple hours of “dating”, which means you are typically “living with each other” for the first time, in the first months of their employment (after the fact). It is in these “first 100 days” that will dictate if this “marriage” will work or not, and how you handle these first few months, is critical both ways.

What You Need to Do to “Romance” the Employee

This is no different than when you are dating someone prior to getting married, only you are doing it after the “wedding ring is already on their finger”.  You as the employer need to be on your “best behavior”.  These are the formative days of the employee deciding whether or not they are going to “love you” for life or not.  During these times, you are going to want to ensure:

The Employee is Properly Welcomed.  The rest of your staff needs to stop what they are doing and take the time to properly welcome the new staff member to the team.  This may include taking them to lunch on their first day on the job, taking them out to happy hour in the weeks after they have started (yes this is an ongoing welcoming process, not just “one and done” on their first day) and assigning them a “mentor” that can help them navigate the organization.   It is critical during this period that what you promised them during the recruitment phase actually materializes in their day-to-day job.  So, ensure their expectations are properly set upon hiring, and properly met during this welcoming period.  It’s very hard to change a first impression once it is set, so don’t allow yourself to get any “egg on your face” out of the gate, or they will soon be looking for the door towards a new employer.  And, the last thing you want is a revolving door with talent.

The Employee is Properly Onboarded.  Employees aren’t just going to step into a role and know exactly what to do on day one.  They need to be properly trained, duh!  But you would be surprised how many companies don’t have a formal training plan in place for every one of the positions they are hiring for.  That is the equivalent of throwing the new staff member to the wolves, and hoping they learn how to survive.  Prior to the start date, you need to have documented: (i) the full job description and key expectations of the job, including any KPIs they will be managed by; (ii) the curriculum and materials for which they will be trained to be successful in the job; and (iii) the training calendar of key people within the organization they will meet in their first weeks on the job, who are in charge of training the various aspects of the company and the role.  The more comfortable they feel with their training, the more confident and “loved” they will feel.

The Employee is Properly Cultured.  When working with a new staff member, they need to learn and feel the culture you are trying to promote within the organization.  For example, in one of my businesses, we aspire to have a S.P.I.R.I.T. culture, where all employees strive for Service-First, Positive-Minded, Innovating, Respectful, Intrapreneurial and Team-Oriented behaviors while on the job.  You can’t simply slap that on a slide in your strategy deck; you need to live those behaviors in your everyday job, and that starts from the top.  If you want the new staff members to live by those rules, it is important they see it manifested in their interactions with the rest of the staff.  So, make sure the entire team is demonstrating those desired workplace behaviors, which they naturally should be if they are “living the culture” of the organization.

What the Employee Needs to Do to “Romance” You

This is not a one-way street; the employee needs to be “dating you”, the same time you are “dating them”.  In the first 100 days, you are looking for the new employee to be living up to the expectations they set during their recruitment process.  Do they really have the skills they said they have?  Are they behaving in the way you want new employees to behave, culturally? Are they hitting the goals you have set for each other?  If so, full steam ahead.  If not, you may have a problem on your hands.

What to Do If The Magic Wears Off

If things are not going to plan after the first 100 days, you really have one of two options. First, you feel the relationship is salvageable and there is a clear long-term path forward together, most likely with additional training or whatever.  Or, second, you need to pull the “ripcord” and mutually decide this isn’t working out as planned, and both parties need to agree to part ways.  Hopefully, in your offer letters, you incorporated some type of “first 100 days” probation period language, that will legally enable you to exercise these rights if things are not working out.  But, in no scenario, should you keep the employee if you do not see a reasonable path forward together.  Like in any marriage built on an unsolid foundation, they will most likely end in a divorce anyway, so you might as well get it over, sooner than later, before the problems fully fester into “cancerous breakups” over time.

Closing Thoughts

Many good entrepreneurs put a lot of energy into recruiting great staff members to join the team.  But many of those same entrepreneurs, don’t put enough energy into what to do with those same new employees once the actually get started.  That is where the “rubber really hits the road”.  Your long-term success, both as a hiring manager and as a company (depending on good employees), will be decided in those first 100 days after a new employee gets started.  So, don’t blow it, remembering you only have one chance to make a good first impression, both ways.

 

 For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

[VIDEO] Smart Leaders Hire Smarter People Than Themselves

I was recently interviewed by ASBN, an online "television network" serving the small business community, about how smart leaders need to hire team members that are smarter than themselves.  As you will learn, you never want to be the smartest person in the room.  I thought this video turned out great, and I wanted to share it with all of you to make sure you helping to take your recruiting and management game to the next level. I hope you like it!!

The embedded video player didn't give me the option to change the size of this video.  But, if you want to see a bigger version, simply click the expand size button in the player above.

Thanks again to Jim Fitzpatrick, Shyann Malone and the ASBN team for having me on the show.  I look forward to our next interview together.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Why You Need to Pick Your Co-Founders Very Carefully

 

Picking your co-founders and other key partners could be one of the most important decisions an entrepreneur makes. Many founders simply look for a complementary skillset to round out the management team's needs, but getting this decision right is so much more than that.  Startups are hard enough to build as they are, yet having to add the burden of making the wrong personnel decisions can really set your business and peace of mind into a tailspin. This article will help you get it right to give your business the highest odds of success.

Read the rest of this post in Entrepreneur, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

The First 100 Days of Onboarding New Employees

 

You probably have heard the importance of the action plans of the "first 100 days" after a new President takes office or after you begin integrating two companies after a big merger, but I am guessing you haven't heard it applied to your recruiting and onboarding efforts with each of your new staff members. In many marriages, couples date for years before getting married. In contrast, in recruitment, someone can join your organization after only a few hours of interviews, which means you are essentially living and working together from the start of their employment. These "first 100 days" will dictate whether this union will work or not, and how you handle these first few months is critical.

Read the rest of this post in Entrepreneur, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Lesson #362: Firing Long-Term Employees is Hard, But May Be Necessary

I consulted a client that had to do something they had never done before—they had to cut a long-term employee that had been with the company for over 5 years.  Once an employee has been with a company for that length of time, they have basically become “family”, so that is the equivalent of cutting your “brother or sister.”  And, most employees that get to 5 years of service, must have been doing something right during their employment, otherwise they wouldn’t have lasted that long.  But, things can change.  And, in this case, the employee no longer was a high performer, they had quickly become a poor performer, and that was causing broader challenges for the business, as described below.  This post will teach you how to handle situations like these, and why cutting your “brother or sister” may be the only option you have.

A Little Background

For purposes of this article, let’s say the employee here is named James.  James was part of the sales team.  He started out of the gate slow in his first year, but he quickly picked up steam with training and effort in his second year.  He was a high performing sales person for a couple years straight.  James loved his job and the company, and the company and his peers loved him.

But something happened in year five; his sales levels cut in half of the previous years and there were much higher instances of clients becoming very upset with James for lack of responsiveness and for making mistakes on their projects.  So, not only were revenues down, customer complaints and resulting fixes required were way up, which meant the rest of the entire team needed to step up and fill that void.  Many conversations would happen with James, trying to get him to improve his performance, and each time he said he would try to get better and that it would never happen again.  After a year of underperformance, and repetitive missteps by James, the company finally hit its breaking point and terminated James.  So, here a few lessons out of this story.

Employees Can Change

Good performers can go bad, like in this example.  And, bad performers can become good.  People are humans, and things are happening in their everyday lives.  Maybe their health goes bad?  Maybe their kids are becoming a bigger burden?  Maybe they are caring for ailing parents?   Whatever.  So, just because you had a good performer, doesn’t mean they will stay one, and you need to reassess their performance, as if the clock was starting new every quarter.  Which can be really hard for employees you have grown very close to over the years.

Cutting Friends is Hard, But Sometimes You Have No Choice

In this story, James was integrated into the fabric of the company, and he was well liked by everyone.  Which bought him some “leeway”, in terms of a runway to fix his mistakes, as compared to a brand new employee with no history with the company.  But, you can’t let your friendship with an employee blind you to his performance.  When customers are complaining, your brand is getting tarnished with negative reviews.  When your fellow staff are complaining, your credibility as a manager is getting questioned as to why are you continuing to let this poor performance happen (as it is directly impacting the rest of the team’s day-to-day job cleaning up his mess).  Make the tough decision and part ways sooner than later.  It should not have taken over a year in this case to resolve the situation.

Unpunished Poor Performers Get Increasingly Bold The Longer They Get Away With It

If you set a line in the sand, and the employee crosses it, you need to live by your word and take action.  In this case, the line was set in the sand, James crossed it on three separate occasions, but he continued to keep his job.  All that did was embolden James to believe he would never get fired, regardless of his actions, and he continued in his old bad ways, as he believed there was no real punishment coming his way.  And, when the punishment finally came, a year late, he was pretty much in shock that it actually happened.  So, if you set a line in the sand with an ultimatum, in terms of expected performance of a staff member required to not be terminated, you need to live by it if that goal is not met.

Never Lose Your “Street Cred” With the Rest of Your Team

The longer you let a “bad apple” stay with a company, the higher the risk that employee spoils the “whole bushel” and has everyone looking for the door.  Employees want to work in reasonable working environments, and repetitively doing extra work to put out other employees’ fires is not a desirable situation for anyone.  And, employees want to work for a boss they can trust to do the right thing, even if it means making the hard decisions.  They are looking to you as the leader, to help them “put out the fire” created by other bad employees.

The Economic Impact of Keeping a “Bad Apple” Employee

In the case of James, his sales dropped to half of the rest of the sales team.  That was worth about $500K in revenues and $50K in company profit per year.  That is not an insignificant amount that a replacement salesperson could have retained.  And, the economic impact of hundreds of upset customers spreading negative reviews online or to their peers, could be worth 3-4x this amount.  I always said, you gain 2-3 customers from positive word of mouth, and you lose 8-10 customers from bad word of mouth, as customers are much more vocal when they are upset, than when they are happy.  So, when you add those two factors up, lost sales plus lost prospective sales, this was a $200K-$250K bottom line impact to this business.  That’s why you need to take action, sooner than later.

Closing Thoughts

So, hopefully, none of your long term high achievers will turn into poor performers in your businesses, as that rarely happens.  But if they do, don’t repeat the mistakes my client made in this case study.  Act swiftly, making the hard cuts within three months of the poor behavior not getting resolved.  And, act fairly, treating a long term employee with respect (e.g., offer a high severance payment for their long tenure with the company).  It is never easy cutting employees, especially long-termers which you view as “friends and family” of the company.  But, sometimes, you just have no choice.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Firing a Long-Term Employee is Hard — But Often Necessary. Here's Why.

 

I consulted a client that had to do something they had never done before—they had to cut a long-term employee that had been with the company for over 5 years.  Once an employee has been with a company for that length of time, they have basically become “family”, so that is the equivalent of cutting your “brother or sister.”  And, most employees that get to 5 years of service, must have been doing something right during their employment, otherwise they wouldn’t have lasted that long.  But, things can change.  And, in this case, the employee no longer was a high performer, they had quickly become a poor performer, and that was causing broader challenges for the business, as described below.  This post will teach you how to handle situations like these, and why cutting your “brother or sister” may be the only option you have.

Read the rest of this post in Entrepreneur, which I guest authored this week.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Lesson #353: Staffing Your Finance Department as You Scale

I was recently introduced to Tim DeBone a finance and accounting expert with The Bagchi Group, a business consultancy group in Morrisville, NC.  He had some interesting suggestions about how best to staff your finance and accounting function within your company, and how that changes over time as the the company scales.  He was kind enough to assist me in writing this how-to lesson and sharing it with our Red Rocket Blog readers. 

Introduction

As tech companies grow and evolve, the company's finance/accounting requirements and challenges change along with the skills needed to successfully complete them.  Because of that, your first finance hire may not always have the right skillset for when the company is 10 times the size, as an example. And, you may need to augment that team with fractional strategic level help.  To address the variability in the work and the time required to complete, many high-growth companies use outsourced bookkeepers and fractional CFOs during their early years, until they can better afford full-time talent of their own.  In this article we discuss the appropriate resources a CEO can engage to ensure the finance suite is properly managed, along each stage of the company's growth, and whether that talent should be outsourced or internally staffed.

Role Descriptions

Before we dig in, here is a brief description of the roles discussed in this article below, so you can better understand what we are going to be talking about here:

• CFO – Senior Finance Person with normally 15+ years of finance/accounting experience
• Can come from a finance background with roles that are analysis heavy
• Their accounting background is normally deep in their industry of focus, but weaker outside that industry
• Can also come from an accounting background with roles that were focused on preparing financial statements
• Their analysis background is not as strong, but they may have taken roles in the past to improve this skillset
• Bookkeeper – transactionally focused employee that runs payroll, collects invoices, and pays bills
• Does not require any formal finance or tax background
• Accountant – a certified professional with an educational background in accounting, able to perform all the duties of the bookkeeper
• The accountant is senior to the bookkeeper with a better understanding of GAAP principles and why accounting entries need to happen
• Will partner with CPA firm on financial reviews and audits

• CPA Firm – Outside accounting experts that partner with businesses on tax issues and review of financial statements, including financial audits, if needed.
• They can also help identify small business and R&D tax credits to reduce tax liabilities

At Formation (Pre Revenue)

At the start, the CEO can manage the core finance functions. Software systems are now sophisticated enough that non-finance professionals can manage early-stage payroll, collections, and payments. Depending on the growth path or complexity of the business model, the CEO may want to engage a fractional CFO to help create the forecast and cash planning. But until the company has significant revenue or outside investors, the CEO can complete most activities. We would recommend that the company engage an outside accounting firm at formation to help with annual tax preparation. Even without the need for a financial review or audit, this resource prepares annual tax filings and significantly reduces tax risk for the company. 

Pre-Seed Stage (Generating Some Minimal Revenue) 

Once the company has revenue and non-founder employees, they should engage an outsourced bookkeeper to take over the back-end transactional work. This involves running payroll, collecting from customers, and paying vendors. While these are straightforward tasks, the CEO hesitates to outsource them and their time is better spent guiding development or aiding sales. At this stage, a fractional CFO can help on a project-to-project basis, but the company will not have enough work for the CFO to require a preset amount of help each week. The CFO can improve metric tracking, evaluate back-office processes to prepare for growth, and help prepare the business for a seed raise. The CFO helps the fundraise by preparing employee and customer documents for investor diligence, ensuring the management team understands their growth metrics and benchmarks, and creating forecasts showing how investor funds will grow the business.

Seed Stage ($250K-$1MM in Revenue)

After raising a seed round, the investors may strongly suggest that the company employ a fractional or full-time CFO to manage the finances and strategic planning. The CFO will introduce budget vs actual analysis, scenario planning, and project out the cap table. Dilution calculations become more complex as the company hires more employees and brings in outside resources, especially when those new funds are SAFEs or Convertible Notes. The company may also switch from cash accounting to accrual (or GAAP compliant) accounting at this stage. Accrual accounting may be outside the skillset of the original bookkeeper so upgrading that role to a part time accountant may be required. Depending on how fast the company scales, that part time accountant may become a full time hire before the Series A fundraise is completed. That accountant, along with the CFO, will partner with the CPA firm to prepare annual tax returns and any financial reviews or audits.

Series A Stage ($1MM-$5MM in Revenue)

Once the company has raised a Series A, the CFO will be spending 8-10 hours weekly on the business. In addition to the previous work around strategic planning, the CFO will be building and training the back-office team, introducing additional risk mitigation processes, partnering with the CEO on tracking company performance, and partnering with the CPA firm on tax issues. The company will be growing quickly with increasing complexity across all back-office functions, referred to as General and Administrative (G&A) on most financial statements. The CFO will be managing and training the HR, Recruiting, Finance, Accounting, and Facility planning teams to enable the company to support the company’s growth. At this stage, a full-time junior level hire is required, either heavier on accounting or finance depending on the business model and the CFO’s background. With the expansion of the employee base and revenue base from additional growth, the CFO will need to identify and mitigate potential risks before they happen. Those risks can involve employees, security, legal, tax, or financial issues. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) become essential as current investors, and future investors, will need to understand how the company performs versus targets and industry benchmarks. The CFO should also be measuring forward-looking metrics to anticipate whether the plan is succeeding or failing compared to pre-set plans and budgets which have been prepared by the CFO. 

Late Series A or Series B Stage ($5MM-$10MM in Revenue)

If a company continues to grow and hit their metrics after the Series A fundraise, the workload will require a full-time CFO to join the team. The amount of effort required to help the next fundraise process, run the G&A team, and support the CEO will be too much for a fractional resource. Hiring this role before starting the Series B fundraising process allows time for the new CFO to learn the business and can assist with the fund raise. The fractional CFO should have the processes in place to enable a smooth transition, along with highlighting which areas need improvement to scale the business. Two full-time finance/accounting employees should be able to manage the business at the Series B start, but the company may want to expand the HR/Recruiting function at this time to include a full-time employee. 

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of how best to staff your finance and accounting needs as your business scales.  Thanks again, Tim DeBone, for your help with this post.  If any of you need additional help around your finance team strategies, Tim is happy to help you answer any of your questions.  Feel free to reach out to Tim at (704) 907-5866 or tim@bagchigroup.com.

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.

Lesson #352: Treat Your Team Members as People, Not as Employees

I have recently written about topics like  how to manage a virtual team, considering an unlimited vacation day policy and swapping “I” for “We” in all corporate communications.  Do you notice a consistent theme here?  These are all policies that are very “employee friendly”—let your staff work from home, give them unlimited vacation days and let them all know how important they are as a member of the team.  Why is this so important?  Because recruiting and retaining employees are harder than ever, and the more things you can do to nurture long term loyalty to your business, the better your business will thrive and your employees will prosper.  At the core of this message is learning to treat your staff as the “people” they are, and not the “employees” you may perceive them to be.   What is the difference?  Allow me to explain.

What is an Employee?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary would say an employee is “one employed by another usually for wages or salary and in a position below the executive level”.  To me, the key words being “employed” and “below”.  This feels like an employee works FOR the company, as one its “cogs in the wheel”, and not working WITH the company on more of an even footing with their work colleagues.  Especially, when this definition starts to speak to layers of management, with employees working “below” higher layers of management.  From the vantage point of an employee, that doesn’t sound very enticing?

What is a Person?

On the other hand, that same Merriam-Webster dictionary would say a person is “the personality of a human being”.  To me the key words being “personality” and “human”.  This suggests that all people are different, with different personalities, interests and personal drivers that make them tick.  What works for one, does not necessarily work for another.  So, the more you can cater to an individual’s “personal” needs, the better they will respond and the longer they will want to stay with your team.

What is Managing Employees?

Most all of us have been managed as employees at one point or another in our careers.  Employees have very specific job descriptions, they are required to work rigid hours (most likely from a centralized office location) and report into a “boss” (who most likely feels more empowered and higher level).  Everyone is treated exactly the same, with very little flexibility in what is allowed “on the job”.    This is entirely “top down” in its design, with policies getting set by the top management.

How is Developing People Different?

On the flipside, developing people is more “bottoms up” in its design.  The people can more freely set the policies of the company that they feel will best meet their personal needs.  And, notice I used the word “develop” here and not the word “manage”.  I am trying to emphasize that this is a two-way street where both parties need to be happy with the outcome.  This could include letting your team members decide which days a week they work, for which hours each day, from whichever location they want and for however many vacation days they want (as long as their performance is good), with a culture where their ideas will be heard and potentially acted upon.  Why?  Because people have different needs, and the best companies will help them solve those needs and learn how to lean into those personal drivers as individual motivators.  Which in turn, helps instill long term loyalty, especially when they can see their own ideas becoming acted upon.

Get Rid of the Word “Employee” in Your Business

As long as we are talking about words and definitions, we might as well throw out the idea of deleting the word “employee” from our company’s internal vocabulary.  I much prefer the words “team member” or “associate”, as it speaks more to the theme we are trying to pound home in this article. It puts everyone on a more “even footing” and lets people know they are all beating to the same drum in an environment where everyone has each other’s backs.  So get rid of any words in your company that could be interpreted as having hierarchies or rigidity.  Maybe get rid of words like “boss” and “manager”, while you are at it, opting for terms like “mentor” instead.  Of course, there will be clear reporting lines, but that doesn’t mean they are not equal “people”, with unique needs and ideas of their own who should be equally respected and nurtured.

The Expected Outcome

If you implement this correctly, your team will love your business and would never want to leave.  Why would they—you have solved all their needs.  Which means if you have very little staff turnover, you aren’t wasting a lot of time with repetitive recruiting needs.  And, better yet, you are building long term institutional knowledge from team members who have truly “mastered their craft” over the years, helping to propel your business to new heights and reaching its fullest potential.  And, your team will appreciate everything you have done for them, to help them better meet their “non-work” needs at home, and incorporate some of their good ideas into the company’s plans (which makes them feel valued and respected).  Pretty much a win-win for all involved.

Closing Thoughts

Hopefully, you now have a better appreciation for what makes “people” tick.  And, that most people never want to be treated as an “employee”.  The more you can customize the team member’s experience with your company, the better it will be for all involved.  You will have happy team members singing your company’s praises, and you will be thrilled with the improvement in your company’s culture, productivity and profits in the process.  

For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.