EO Accelerator: Focus on the people
- February 28th, 2007 /
Blake and I are members of the EO Accelerator program. Yesterday we had our second session, and I wanted to post some of our thoughts from the session. The EO program reminds me a little of business school, and the goal of it is to give us the tools to take our company to a million dollars in revenue and beyond. We think we’re on our way, but we’ll take all the help we can get. The first quarterly session last fall focused on strategy, and yesterday’s focus was on the people in your oganization.
People is difficult topic to approach, we struggled to frame our discussion, but there were some management gems in the session. Here are some highlights:
On Culture & Leadership:
- When building your company determine what your core values are and build the organization around that. Behavior is driven by attitude and willingness which is shaped by a persons belief systems. Building a powerhouse organization starts with a team that shares values and belief systems. These are deep rooted in people and you won’t change them so make sure to understand them in people when you bring them on board.
- Strong organizations have a strong and unique culture. You can smell it when you walk in the door. You can hear it in their language.
On Management & Teams:
- Most of your management time is spent trying to get improved performance of D employees rather than rewarding and coaching your A employees. Don’t marginalize time spent with your good employees.
- Embrace conflict. Building an open and honest environment is the way to build trust within an organization. A great team should look like a dysfunctional family. Artificial harmony is the killer of teams.
On Employees & Hiring:
- The best employees are not well rounded people. We look for well roundedness on resumes when hiring, but this is the wrong approach. You want to find people who are “pointy” meaning specifically talented in one area. Then put them together on a team with people whose strengths complement their weaknesses. Build a team by finding “pointy” people who have talents in each others blind spots.
- Understand who an employee is when you hire him or her. Not everyone is driven the way an entrepreneur is. A lot of people just want to be workers which is OK and still a very important component of an organization. Don’t waste time trying to turn someone into something they are not, it won’t work.
We also created a great reading list through people’s suggestions throughout the day. Here’s a list of the books discussed:
- The Artist’s Way at Work: Riding the Dragon
- Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd Edition)
- Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators
- Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching, and Keeping the Best People, Revised and Updated Edition
- First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
- StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths
Most of all, it was great to get together with other entrepreneurs in the EO Accelerator program here in New Orleans. Hopefully, some of you will end up reading this post. If you do, hit us with a comment below here to let us know you stopped by. And let us know what you thought.
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- categories: All, Entrepreneurship, New Orleans /
Mar 01, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Great post Chris! That’s a great summary of some of the most impactful ideas shared at the event. I hope we can get some of the group together again before the next meeting.
Peace!
James