When you hire your start-up’s initial staff, you are not just looking for employees. You are creating a team. They aren’t going to function as individuals – they are going to have to work together as a unit, combing what is the best about each of their skill sets and what they can do as a team.
A good team player is someone who can work with other personalities, able to combine their abilities with someone else’s and work towards a common goal. Communication is a huge part of making your start-up work; you can’t keep track of every detail so it’s up to individual team members to share their progress and concerns with others, so everything is addressed quickly and efficiently.
Collaborative thinking – the ability to express your ideas and viewpoint, listen to others and incorporate these ideas together is a cornerstone of the successful start-up. People don’t succeed by following a check-list of actions from a book. They succeed by thinking outside the box and doing things in a way that works best for their specific business.
Problem solving is another brick in your foundation of a successful team. When you broaden your ideas and take unexpected routes, you will encounter new and different problems – and that means having a way to iron them out. Effective communication between team members, as well as creative thinking, are vital to getting around those roadblocks.
Your team will use you as their example – the way you listen, the way you problem solve, the way you expand your thinking gives them permission to do the same. You want your team to have buy-in to this new entity, you want them to use every one of their resources to make it a success.
