1. Work that Matters
Is your team mission-driven? Can your team answer what the company is trying to achieve and how they get there?
At my first startup, I had an offsite where I wrote questions about the company on index cards. I had my developers each pull an index card and respond as if they were the founder of the company. Hilarity ensued as they attempted to talk in my high voice and explain core concepts. But, that exercise showed me both where I was succeeding and where I was falling short in communicating the why behind what we were doing. (Hint, you can never communicate enough.)
2. Learn and Evolve
In today’s data-driven world, if your team is not gathering data to measure their success and learning from it, you are missing an opportunity.
Teams that adapt and evolve to change will outperform teams who are happy with last year’s approaches.
Be willing to revamp even the basics of how the team operates to be able to best scale the next mountain. Everyone has a role and a voice in helping the team to evolve.
3. Crisp Execution
Think through how are you and your team wasting cycles. Can this be streamlined? Can you breathe some efficiency into how your team operates each day, week, and month?
Like a boat where you are rowing out of sync, if you are not coordinated and efficient, it will take unnecessary effort to achieve your goals. It will also take you longer to arrive.
4. Delight Customers
Customers who are fans make everything flow easier. Model your central use cases. Build towards those. But do not stop there. Get actual customers’ and potential customers’ input on new features.
Customers often can not articulate what they want, or potentially only directly ask for incremental improvements. So, they will not give you a map of how to get from the present to the bright future you envision. But, if you listen carefully, you can often gain insight into what both frustrates them as well as what makes their eyes light up.
5. Have Fun
Teams want to win, and winning is fun.
So is having team members who support and respect one another.
Some of my favorite work memories centered around the times when we were truly enjoying what we were achieving together.
Invest in your team, their relationships with each other, and making their work environment something they enjoy.
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