COMMENTS
Nice spell out of this creepy thing *eroding confidence*.
It is very natural and happens every day as a build up of some mistakes people do. We still humans, we do mistakes, small and big. It keeps feeding on the confident until it is gone.
It happens on every level of social interaction. Wife-Husband relation faces the same *eroding confident*, only at that level, we tend to accept out of there is no other choice and life should go on. You still see many side effects of this eroding confidence despite, well ... life goes on.
On the business level, the bond is not that strong. Hence you see all sorts of firing, quiting, low work quality etc.
The idea of getting back confidence is very well. Yet, I think best approach is to take chance of a tough situation where the team work together to get out of it. Event making up that tough situation.
Something like "The Painted Veil" ;)
Your argument "The best people to recruit into a startup are the ones that have the optimal mix of capability (can get the job done) and confidence (trust from others that they’ll get the job done)." is valid to a point.
No one wants to work with a slacker, that's a given for choosing wisely. But then there are those who are a disruption to the team and make working with them extremely unpleasant. By this I mean "Super Ego", "Whiner Extraordinary" and "Over There We Did It This Way". Sure, everyone has a bad day comes with the territory but dealing with these 3 everyday can make what started as a good idea a painful experience for everyone.
Good post Dharmesh. I think this topic takes on additional complexity when you apply it to the management team layer.
Dynamics and trust this level can be swayed heavily by things like: i.) How the startup is performing (let's face it, it's never a straight line);
ii.) Where the team member came from (i.e. did the founder find her or the VCs)?
iii.) Ambitions - Are team members behind the founder / CEO with no agenda or do they have ambitions that might get in the way?
I posted on this a while back (http://startupcfo.ca/2008/06/do-rivals-make-good-management-team.html) and have lived the good and bad sides of high performance management teams.
Mark
One of the best indicators of a quality start up team member is start up experience.
It is difficult to determine how someone will react in a new group of people facing a continuous stream of very important decisions in an accelerated timeframe.
Skills that you learned in kindergarten- being nice, sharing, listening, working together in a group, is probably as important as anyting else.
Most start ups lose folks along the way- that is to be anticipated and expected. Everyone wants to be on the cover of Fast Company- few want to pay the price
I really like your point, Dharmesh, but I do have to respond that it only works if the leadership doing the hiring (and leading) is both credible and confident in themselves. In my Seattle-area startup experience, I've seen competent, trust-worthy talent undercut and eventually maligned by reactive, waffling leadership. There are few guidelines like your article directed at talent (or teams) who realize their contribution is capped by leadership weakness.
Confidence, or trust, is a funky thing. It can be borrowed. For instance, if you tell someone that is confident in you that I'm good at what I do, I'll be 'borrowing' the trust that your friend has in you from you. If I earn your friend's confidence, yours grows. If I prove to be untrustworthy, your reputation might be tarnished. Total confidence can only be earned. However it starts, we must prove our capability to earn 100% confidence.
Very thought-provoking.
I would say that trust and confidence do contribute to building that team spirit that is quite important towards hurdling the many obstacles startups face.
Thanks for the post, Dharmesh!
Alain
mor.ph
Trust is a critical component of building an effective organization. The founders of the venture backed startup where I work lack this trust in their team and it has demotivated the entire team.
Your comments about executive backing are important. Without them, those folks who are traditionally "pains in the ass" within the team don't grow. I speak with authority here, being in a startup while being a major pain!!!
Secondly, capability when coupled with "growing people" doesn't always work on every project. Everyone should at some point truly recognize someone's strengths and weaknesses and not try to fit square pegs in round holes. Unfortunately, most are judged on the performance of their last project.
Lastly, a bad team can be a great team when a great manager joins the team.
Interesting article; I'm confused by point 4, though. I can't figure out what situation you're describing.
Owen: Point #4 is subtle (that's a polite way of saying it makes little sense without explanation).
Here's some clarification: The trust and confidence an individual team member will engender is based partly on who's got the most skin in the game. For example, if a founder goes out and personally recruits a team member (even when the choice is not "obvious"), it's a signal of trust and confidence. It's a signaling device. The founder's reputation is on the line when they make these kinds of choices. They're highly impacted.
In short, your personal currency (the trust people have in you) is a function of the choices you make in terms of who you trust.
The first question is "Why would you (or need to) hire someone in the first place.
If you do not not know exactly why you are hiring someone, then the problems start before they walk in the door.
If those leading and doing the hiring dont have pretty clear objectives needed to be achieved by the new employee, it's only a matter of time before the relationship goes sour.
Fitting the person to the job is most critical at startup when speed to market is of essence.
For me capsbility is more important because confidence can be gained.
This is absolutely true and so crucially important that I've never actually thought about it before -- it's just so integrally obvious. It's not only true of your startup team: it stays true as you grow and grow. But the startup team must all think that they are all all-stars and be delighted to be working with these co-founders. I don't know how one could get through the trials of starting up a company without that!
I know a few programmers who are smart, get things done, and are very nice people, but cannot work in a group. We had someone like that at Object Design: she was amazingly smart, learned object-oriented programming faster than anyone I've ever seen, was a super-expert at high-speed transaction processing, produced great, working code, and was friendly if a bit shy. But when we tried to increase her team size from one to two, it just didn't work out. Evidently she had to keep everything in her head, and she could not delegate effectively. That would be a real problem in a startup situation, where everybody has to work together closely.
What happens when a person who joins the startup for his own ambitions.
What if the smart people are not rewarded .
Some of people joining a startup end up moving out to start there own venture.
how could this be controlled
Skills that you learned in kindergarten- being nice, sharing, listening, working together in a group, is probably as important as anyting else
It is very natural and happens every day as a build up of some mistakes people do. We still humans, we do mistakes, small and big. It keeps feeding on the confident until it is gone.