Building an Enterprise - Team Dynamics -I

The first 2 formation years of an startup is very critical as it lays down the road map of how the organization is going to evolve in the next 5-10 years time span. This is the time when you know whether your organization would become a Global enterprise or merely exist as a lifestyle business.

Now what do you do in the first 2 years, you formalize your service offerings, identify your market segment, identify and close your first n customers and most importantly you look for funding options.

In midst of all these perhaps we all tend to ignore a critical piece, a piece which can make or break the organization in the long run, TEAM

To start with you have your core team, a team which has 4-10 people depending on the nature of the organization, they are the nucleus of the organization and mostly are people who have very strong association/linkage with the organization. The sample profile of these people would be Co-Owner/Share Holders, Evangelists, Academician, Advisors, Tech/Marketing Gurus , Industry stalwarts, Angel Investors. This group brings in a lot of experience/exposure/innovation to the table and it's extremely important that you handpick this team based on how you want your organization to evolve.

As with any other aspect of life we need to take some measures to see that this group is aligned and connected. It is not important that they all think in the same line ( of course not we are talking of a multi discipline team not robots coming out of assembly line ;) but it is definitely important that they share the same Vision.

Regular tractions, participation in common forums, involvement in common activities is the key to ensure that this group is working in tandem towards building a world class organization.

Even a small questionnaire could help at times to do a quick check on the common goal part

for e.g.

1.) Describe the organization in 10-20 words
2.) Who are you in the organization, what is your role and how do you think you are linked with the other people in the organization
3.) When you think of your org now you are ( Content, Excited, Worried, some other feeling)
4.) If you get 4 Crs in your hand right now , how would you spend it for your organization
5.) What is the worst nightmare you have regarding your org
6.) Describe the organization 5 years from now in terms of all the aspects ( Resources, Spread, Revenue, IPs) etc

Float this and you would be surprised that how often we fail to instill a common goal and trust me that hurts once the organization grows big.

Bye for now...

Strategic Thinking - The key to success

A lazy day today, great weather ( my favorite) coupled with some very long wait to get a few customer approvals to start new engagements was tickling my neurons...

I was thinking of one key parameter which differentiates between a top notch executive and a mediocre manager and according to me it's 'Strategic Thinking' or ability to see the big picture.

Whether you are a CIO or a Business Development head or a Entrepreneur the key differentiator is how big/deep can you think/visualize and then of course you need the capability ( self/team) to draw an measurable implementation plan based on that thought.

I know of a person ( a very close friend of mine) who own a company which has an offering on the Infrastructure space . I was generally discussing about his vision in terms of the product/company and to which he mentioned that in the next 100-150 years the amount of data which will get generated will surpass any storage technology available today and so if we can leverage this need we are in the game. The beauty of his answer is in the 'Big Picture' thought which talks about a period where neither he nor his next successors will exist but then thats what depth thinking is all about...

Just like any other capability of human beings 'Big Picture' thinking also needs to be nurtured, groomed, protected and exercised and it's very important for people who aspire to make it big in their life.

To end this blog with an incident which happened very recently where a person whom I know personally had invited me and then realized that he had forgotten keys to his home. He then said you know I don't remember where my keys are because thats an information which is of no use to me and I would prefer keeping that bit of brain free to absorb something which is meaningful

Thanks.....

Scary Thoughts - Hope it is just a nightmare

suddenly Woke up at 4 in the morning. It was a horrifying dream. In my dream I saw that suddenly all my thoughts, insights, secrets have become publicly known to everybody. Even before I do anything or speak any stuff people know what the content or idea would be. In my dream I had a sweat attack.

But is it just a nightmare, just the other day I was thinking that it would be a good idea if I can do something in my free time and I don't even recall discussing that with anyone. Suddenly I got an sms which said ' wanna earn a few bucks sitting at home '. That was a mere coincidence may be.

I was evaluating a accounting software on the web and I din't like it and the next day I had a marketing brochure of a accounting software provider company having the exact feature which I had desired.

Sometimes I get scary thinking that a single force/power is controlling this entire information highway spread across the web and all our interactions ( 1000s per day) are getting filtered through a powerful BI engine and finally your creativity, personality , thoughts , desires, secrets are getting persisted for the entire world to access

Seems like I have been watching too much of sci-fi or is it.....