An opinion shared by Mr. Arjun Nijhawan, Director, Nijhawan Group.
Finding seed capital, which converts a “two dudes in a living room idea” into something with considerably more promise, is one of the most thrilling occasions for a startup. Here are some of the areas where we should concentrate our efforts:
Hiring T-shaped people versus specialists
One of the axioms of the startup world is that everyone must wear several hats. Backend programmers might have to pitch in and do some feature development, designers could have to write some marketing copy, and the CEO might have to vacuum the office, to name a few truisms in startup land. Also, if you feel that startups are essentially learning about their customers and the market, you’ll need people who are adaptable and can identify links between disparate topics. So, you’re looking for generalists, but a certain type of generalists.
The first group of people you want on your team will be T-shaped, indicating they are wide in a variety of areas but specialize in one. The range of their skills provides them enough in common that they can talk about anything with anyone in the team, but the depth of their knowledge makes them indispensable to the team.
Make an effort to recruit doers
Early on, it’s critical to hire folks that are execution-oriented. Senior folks or “philosophers” who don’t immediately bring value to the product development process just don’t fit in. When it comes to seniority, prefer to hire people who have recently held positions such as team lead or director, but no higher. That way, you get folks who are used to being in charge of a team but are yet close enough to have an immediate influence. This is why people with expertise in consulting or finance are impractical partners — they are overly focused on strategy and financials while you should be 100% focused on specific products and customers.
More candidate flow addresses several issues
Getting the first 2-3 people for most seed-stage startups is usually not an issue — you’ll have folks in mind or someone in your close circle of acquaintances who are easily available. What’s more difficult is moving beyond your immediate network, where you might come across:
People you desire are employed and uninterested.
As an entrepreneur, you know a lot of entrepreneurs who want to start something, not join something
There are a lot of “OK” people who are interested, but who are difficult to get excited about.
It’s all too easy to get into a trap where limits are reduced, things you don’t want are accommodated, and all sorts of other issues arise. Alternatively, you may have had interviews where the person was adequate but not exceptional, and you desperately need the skillset.
Interview for the actual work you’ll be doing, not skillset trivia
Most interview techniques are ineffective because they do not simulate what it would be like to work together. The ideal interview would consist of merely an interview, followed by two months of collaboration and a checkpoint to assess if everything is going well. However, because the majority of job seekers are unwilling to do so, a three-day “working interview” is a viable alternative.
Don’t place too much emphasis on intelligence alone
All of the young, brash entrepreneurs I know want to hire more people like them — hardworking, high-powered individuals. As a result, you can design an entire hiring process around intelligence, complete with puzzles and brainteasers, and reward everyone who can think swiftly. I’ve discovered that using this as a minimal threshold for recruiting individuals is a bad idea — it’s equally as crucial to consider factors like love for the field you’re working in, their motivations and goals for working at your firm, and so on. The reason you need to analyze this is that startups are extremely difficult and can take longer than expected; as a result, it’s critical to understand people’s motivations from the outset to ensure a good fit.
Conclusion
Rather than taking people who love numbers/data/algos and trying to train them to love a specific product area, the ideal scenario is to locate people who have a passion for the product you’re bringing to market and then train them to be metrics-oriented.
The article is contributed by Mr. Saarthak Bakshi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the International Fertility Centre.
Mr. Saarthak Bakshi is recognized as Forbes 30 under 30 ASIA, 2017 for HealthCare and Science. He is known for his persona as an engineer, an entrepreneur and a social worker. He flourished his career by working with reputed companies – Infosys and Ernst & Young – as a Software Engineer and IT Risk and Assurance Analyst respectively. He soon realized that he has an inborn passion for entrepreneurship and went on to launch a slew of ventures including IFC.
As we know that starting a business can be expensive. We may have less cash in hand to get started without some outside help but sometimes, it is important and beneficial to have investors in your business. It gives you a sort of security. Investors in your business are different from lenders. Instead of monthly repayment like lenders, investors give you money in exchange for ownership of part of your business. Apart from money they can also be an important source of business-related advice and strong business networks, which you can utilize for your own business. Therefore, it is important to draw the attention of the investors to make their decision firm to invest in your business. Most important thing is that investors want to see a return on their investment. They make money by putting their money into the growing business. Therefore, how to woo them plays a crucial role in the success of any startup. It is not necessary that every investor looks for the same things but still there are chances of commonality.
So, here are ten points to make the investors interested in your startup.
Having a passion for their startup is easy to be found in new business founders. But how your business will help the investors to gain profit is a deciding factor for their interest. They want your confidence justifying that it is an improvement over existing products or is a new way to address an old problem. You should demonstrate your firm belief and confidence in your business.
A market-oriented deal
It is one of the important points that to pitch potential investors, familiarity with the market is generally the safest option. Startup investors look for opportunities in sectors that fit their interests and expertise. They already have an idea of how businesses become profitable in this industry and what it will take for your business to yield a return on its investment. Thereafter reviewing and organizing your proposal, go for the market research to pitch in a suitable investor.
Demonstrate your success rate
A track record of previous success is critical to attracting the interest of investors who can take your venture into your business. Most of the time successful startups are a rarity, therefore it becomes difficult for inexperienced entrepreneurs to convince the investors to lend their capital. But, if your business can captivate the market and the customers and if your track records give a guarantee of success, then you have a fair chance.
Competitive advantages
Most of the time investors look for satisfactory answers to the following question: What makes your product/service unique? There must be something about your product that sets it apart. If your product and you’re the first to the market, then it’s the best thing. However, most startups are entering existing marketplaces. What then makes you different? And how affordable it is in comparison to the already existing quality?
Have an emotional approach with logic
Whenever you are pitching with your investor, you must hit them on both emotional and business fronts. Include a story with your plan. Make it appeal to real-life scenarios and how your idea will solve the problem. At the end of the day, investors look for founders who have passion, motive, and experience to create a profitable as well as a sustainable business. It is not a matter of only ideas or concepts, the investors look to invest in you and your team and their ability to successfully execute your business plan.
A strong team
If you have a competent team, you have the attention of the investors. Show them that your team is intelligent, strategic, successful and follows strong financial discipline. Show them the qualifications of each member and what they bring to the business. Having a team that is knowledgeable, willing to learn and can handle multi-responsibilities are all positive traits that will impress your investors.
Experience
Experience can play a convincing role in winning over investors. If your team members have prior experience in their respective fields or have been involved with a startup in the past, it shows that you and your team have knowledge of your market and are tenacious enough to complete goals.
The investment structures
You should have a clear business structure in place that allows the investors to consider it and buy it. You should also plan for how the investment will work. In that plan, you must include, a clear valuation for your business and a stockholder’s agreement that clearly sets out the rights of all the owners.
Build your business with scalability in mind. Most investors expect a return on what they are investing. Therefore, scalability is a major factor for successful startups and a great attraction to investors. Basically, scaling is known as adding revenue at a rapid rate while adding resources incrementally. The amount of resources required doesn’t change as your customer base increases, driving consistent growth and improving profit margins. Therefore, the plan of your faster revenue, makes the investor consider your startup dearly.
Future vision and planning
Give your investors a picture of your potential startup, that is where your company will be in the future and make them optimistic that you have the credibility to achieve your goals. Plan along the lines of where is your startup going? How do you see your startup in the coming years? Do you plan for the worldwide market? Etc.
Conclusion
Attracting startup investors to your company is necessary for your business. Therefore, you must put all the pieces in place to show that partnering with your business would be a smart move for them. Highlight the best parts of your startup and discuss your challenges with them openly. Investors will get on board when you demonstrate your best.
The article is contributed by Pankaj Gupta, Founder and CEO, EnableX.io
The Indian SaaS industry is now firmly on the upward growth trajectory. As per the Zinnov’s Punching Through The Global Pecking Order report, in 2022 alone, the Indian SaaS industry saw a whopping 50% rise in revenue and a 3x increase in VC funding. This makes it abundantly clear that the country’s SaaS ecosystem has finally come of age. While the market is growing at breakneck speed, building a successful SaaS business is not easy. Like any business, it takes time, effort & a lot of innovation to scale a business in today’s ever-evolving environment.
Launching a SaaS company involves many steps, which can be daunting for first-time entrepreneurs. Let’s go over the process of getting your software business started:
1. Getting an Initial Set of Clients
No matter what industry you’re in, every founder has the same burning question: “how will I get my first 10 customers?” The best way is to start with your existing network. It’s low-hanging fruit. Talk to the people you know. It may not yet be a big number, but in the process, you may find a few relevant connections among your friends and family. And don’t get disappointed if none of them is directly interested in using your service; they might refer to somebody who may need it.
You’re off to a good start if your product addresses a pain point or fulfils a burning need for someone and does it better, quicker, and/or cheaper than its competitor. Here are the following things that can be helpful:
Build a Quality Product
The success of a business depends on how well you understand the market needs and then build a product that addresses the users’ needs or problems. Therefore, spending some time and resources to understand customers’ requirements is fundamental & key to success. Once you’ve established a product-market fit, you are on the right path.
Be Agile
Change is the only constant, and this maxim is truer for SaaS companies. The business landscape is changing so fast that it may become obsolete by the time your product hits the market. Agility is not just about the product features; it includes everything – IT stack, business model, and culture. It should be nimble and should be able to respond faster to remain competitive. Therefore, it is essential to have a keen eye on the changing market landscape, evolving customer preferences, and competitors.
Establish Robust Customer Support
It might sound a cliché, but your customers are the heart of your business. Apart from the product quality, they always want to know how fast their problems can be resolved satisfactorily. Therefore, build robust customer support service that enhances the overall customer experience.
Even if you don’t have the financial muscle to put a 24*7 customer support team, there are many options. You can use Twitter and Facebook to provide quick support. You can also implement a ticket system to manage the support request or can put a well-defined FAQ page/User Guide on the website.
3. Building a Team That Delivers
It is essential to have a clear vision, commitment, and sincerity to realize your vision as a founder. You must believe in your product and have a clear roadmap of how you want to take it forward. And most importantly, you need to build a competent team that can help realize your vision. While hiring people, pay attention to skills, but it should not be the sole factor. Along with qualifications and skills, hiring people with a growth mindset, the right attitude & cultural fitment are key. Also, be extra careful while building your initial team as these are the set of people who are more likely to stay with the company for a long time. They should exhibit a clear commitment and drive to achieve something and excel in their work in a fast-changing environment.
4. Staying Abreast with Trends
As a founder and also your team members should be fully aware of what’s happening in the industry and what’s hot in the space. And of course, keep an eye on the competition. Know what your competitors are doing, what features they have built & what is their overall strategy. Keep tracking industry trends, technology and other news items pertaining to your industry. Networking with other startup founders, and attending industry events and peer groups is the best source to have a sense of what is happening in the environment around you!
Building and sustaining a SaaS business can be exhilarating and overwhelming at the same time. Though there are many steps to take before you can even start thinking about making money from your SaaS business, the points discussed above are crucial to starting right!
There comes a time when you have to take a stand, and the most important thing you should remember is leadership skills. These things are not taught as separate subjects, so you have to learn from others’ experiences and from yours as well. That’s where leaders are born. In today’s world when leaders are emerging from every area, then you have to understand the role of leaders. And to become a great leader, doesn’t mean you have to go to a business school.
Here’s when TEDx Talks come. A really good thing about TED Talks is that they have answers to all your queries from around the globe in different languages. So, are schools and universities killing creativity? What makes a great leader? How can I find happiness? Is your management style effective in leveraging creativity, productivity, and change? In this article, we will share some popular Tedx Talks that will motivate you and inspire you.
TEDx was created in the spirit of TED’s mission, “ideas worth spreading.” It supports independent organizers who want to create a TED-like event in their own community.
The fact that our parents and guardians usually say: “If you study average, then you remain average.” Highlighting this theme, he says that we should rather study the outliners of moving that average to outstanding in the business world. He urges leaders to change the paradigm of seeing the business world as a place full of risks. Since 75% of job success relies on outlook, we need to reverse the formula of success and happiness. His sarcastic insights on how leaders can easily leverage the ‘happiness factor’ where your productivity is always top-notch.
Julian Treasure: “How to Speak So That People Want to Listen”
Views – 33 Million
We often face a situation where we are talking but nobody is willing to listen. At some point, there’s a time when you’re talking, but nobody’s listening. Julian Treasure has an extreme knowledge of sound and communication skills in this Ted Talk he teaches everyone how to speak powerfully with the help of some vocal exercises and of course with the use of empathy.
Jason Fried: “Why Work Doesn’t Happen at Work”
Views – 1 Million
Jason Fried is the founder and CEO of BaseCamp. Work and sleep, are common: both suffer from interruption. So, does he compare work to sleep on the same basis? He makes a point that why do we expect people to work if they are interrupted all day at the office? However, the fun part was that not blaming the social world and technology as the two factors for productivity lag, he says managers and back-to-back meetings are the toxic disrupters. He asks companies to cut back on unnecessary interruptions and consider allotting them quiet time.
Tony Robbins: “Why You Do What You Do”
Views – 2 Million
Life coach Tony Robbins says self-interest is the driving force of life, and not emotions. Leaders should understand human needs, so that they can appreciate workers and, this is what shapes their ability to contribute. The science of achievement is understood, but the art of fulfilment still lacks understanding. Robbins suggests that excuses for failing are futile, and the defining factor of success is resourcefulness. So, making decisions based on a focus, giving it some meaning, and producing an emotion that inspires action.
Pamela Meyer: “How to Spot a Liar”
Views – 22 Million
Pamela Meyer, the author of Liespotting said on a single day we are lied to from 10 to 200 times. In her Ted, she talks about how to detect those lies through their mannerism and body language. She also speaks about how honesty is a value that must be preserved, she believes that with her talk she’ll be able to help people recognize the deception by others.
Simon Sinek: “How Great Leaders Inspire Action”
Views – 16 Million
In this TED Revolutionary Talk, he said: “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” He demonstrates via some powerful examples which include Apple, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Wright brothers in ‘How best leaders inspire their teammates to work hard.’ He talks about the hiring procedure of employees, Simon says that if you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears. Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership — starting with a golden circle and the question: “Why?”
James Veitch: “This Is What Happens When You Reply to Spam Email”
Views – 203K
Once you step into the business world then there is a bombardment of spam emails and important emails, which are to be read. Suspicious emails: unclaimed insurance bonds, diamond-encrusted safe deposit boxes, close friends marooned in a foreign country. They pop up in our inboxes, and the standard procedure is to delete them on sight. But what happens when you reply? James Veitch shared his story of how a spammer offered him a good deal through emails.
Steve Jobs: “How to Live Before You Die”
Views – 246K
This was Steve Jobs’ famous ‘commencement speech’ at Stanford University, where he addressed his background and the events that led him to start a new revolution of technology in the 21stcentury. He strongly urged his leaders to have faith in what they are pursuing, to take a leap of faith, and act individually. Steve Jobs championed taking risks, stating: “Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent.”
Sam Richards: “A Radical Experiment in Empathy”
Views – 580K
This is a radical and often misunderstood TED Talk about the importance of putting ourselves in others’ shoes. Sam Richards talks about when empathy is a quality of being a good person, then it is also key to being a great leader. It teaches us how to communicate properly and understand the people around us which includes our colleagues, peers, family and others. Communication is actually the key and one should never underestimate it.
Tim Harford: “Trial, Error, and the God Complex”
Views – 316k
Tim Harford passes an atheist comment that how we blindly believe that God or the Supreme Power controlling this universe is not always right. Tim strongly urges people to abandon God. Often the method of trial and error produces variants that work, and we have no idea why. He argues that working to solve issues systematically is optimal. He also recommends leaders abstain from “laying down the law” and encourages them to admit when they’re wrong.
Amy Cuddy: “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are”
Views – 21 Million
“Body language affects how others see you, but it may also change how you see yourself.” Social psychologist Amy Cuddy believes our body language is the key to self-confidence. Even if we feel under-confident our body posture can ooze out the confidence we need at that moment. She also states on her Ted that we have the power to change a person’s through our body language and once someone learns to do that it becomes easy to achieve success.
Richard St. John: “8 Secrets of Success”
Views – 3 Million
One of the shortest and the most popular TED Talks of all time, John talks about the top 8 secrets to business success at breakneck speed. The revealing secrets turn out, to be nearly as secretive as we may have believed. Sometimes, even the obvious needs to be stated. This 3-minute video is jam-packed with useful information.
Kelly McGonigal: “How to Make Stress Your Friend”
Views – 13 Million
Psychologist Kelly McGonigal said in her Ted Talk that, stress is a feeling that we all are familiar with. Stress is called an enemy of public health however research suggested that stress can harm us only when we allow it to harm us. Apart from that she also, suggests seeing stress as something positive instead of a negative feeling that can harm us and believes that it will make our path to success a lot easier.
Barry Schwartz: “The Paradox of Choice”
Views – 5.2 Million
Barry Schwartz, a psychologist by profession, is smart, and it can be clearly seen when he takes the stage. He easily tackles the way we all think, he confidently assesses the surest of human freedoms: the freedom of choice. While our many decisions seem to give us all the opportunities we could want, we’re actually paralyzed. In his Ted Talk, he questions, if we are paralyzing our customers.
Amanda Palmer: “The Art of Asking”
Views – 6 Million
Amanda is a self-proclaimed freak with an interesting past. She has completed her education in liberal arts and has worked for 5 years as a self-employed street statue. While working in the music industry and receiving success for her hard work she got to know about marketing techniques. She asks everyone to follow this marketing technique that is don’t charge money for music–just ask for it.
Conclusion
TED Talks inspire business leaders to take leaps in their steps which will create an impact, to achieve the success they have been dreaming about. Since TEDx Talks offer valuable insights, then believe this: TED Ideas are worth spreading! You can emerge as an effective trailblazer in your office by being true to yourself and constantly learning from the information that is at your fingertips.
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design — three broad subject areas that are collectively shaping our world. But a TED conference is broader still, showcasing important research and ideas from all disciplines and exploring how they connect.
Are TED Talks free to attend?
Free. A large number of talks from any TED conference will appear later in the year on TED.com. All videos on the site are absolutely free.
What makes Ted effective?
A TED Talk is digestible and focused, and acts as an opportunity for personal development. Todd Liipfert, TEC’s Development Director and frequent public speaker explains that the inherent focus of a TED Talk is a key learning that can be applied when presenting at work.
An organization’s organizational structure is the relationship between different roles within the company. In the structure, you can see how the roles are interconnected and what level of responsibility each role entails. In addition, it reveals the organization’s hierarchy of roles. Your small business’s structure can help you stay organized during the start-up phase and beyond by helping you visualize it.
A great business idea and a great team are at your disposal. Your company is growing, and it’s time to put some structures in place to help you keep track of everything. If you want your startup to succeed, you need a more innovative organizational structure that can adapt.
An organizational structure is a visual representation of what employees do, who they report to, and how business decisions are made. It is possible to create organizational structures that are tailored to the needs of specific businesses and industries based on functions, markets, products, geographies, or processes. It’s also important to be aware of any potential stumbling blocks before you begin to scale.
Transparency, traceability, and repeatability of work must be ensured. Work must be delegated and owned. If something goes wrong, you need to know who’s responsible and what went wrong, as well as how to fix the problem. Process management is the most common tool used by most organizations. When it comes to information flow as well as the interaction between business and human worker processes, work management is a set of software products and services that apply workflow structure.
You can transform and streamline critical business processes with the help of good work culture and better work management.
Assembling Your System
Small businesses often have a very simple structure when they first start up and for a long time afterward, as well. As a small business, you don’t have to deal with the complex structural decisions that large corporations have to make.
You are likely the owner and manager of your company, with employees reporting to you. With one or more partners, the top of the pyramid could be made up of all the partners (including you), then managers (including you), and finally employees.
Roles in the Evolution
When starting a new business, the owner often finds that he can’t effectively handle all of the managerial responsibilities. Financial and marketing managers will be replaced by hard-working employees.
Owners and managers can focus on larger goals by delegating managerial responsibilities. Over time, employees become more skilled and knowledgeable in their respective roles, increasing the efficiency of the company as a whole.
Focus on your core competencies
Organizational Structure to focus on your core competencies
Make sure you focus on your core competencies and outsource the rest of your work. In the past, organizations have diverted large amounts of money from core products to servers, software development, platforms, and hardware. These days, it’s very likely that you can outsource these tasks and get better results than if you did them yourself.
Core competencies are the resources and capabilities that comprise the strategic advantages of a business. A modern management theory argues that a business must define, cultivate, and exploit its core competencies in order to succeed against the competition.
Team Organization
Organizational Structure for growing startup team
Software companies tend to use Agile. Whatever you choose, make sure that team management is in place, with the necessary structure, processes, and tools. Teams are almost non-existent in early startups, but they quickly become essential for basic functionality such as transparency, role and responsibility delegation, and asset management. The following are some of the benefits of working with a team: This approach to leadership views a team as an organisational group made up of individuals who work together to accomplish goals. A team is made up of individuals who are interdependent, work towards interchangeable goals, and share common goals. An entire team works together to accomplish a goal.
For organizations, Holacracy divides the structure into nested circles. For example, in a holacracy, members of an organization or team work together to accomplish tasks and achieve company goals in separate, autonomous teams. Hierarchy in the workplace is replaced by a flat organizational structure that gives each employee a say in the company’s direction. Because it is so well-structured, there is very little room for ambiguity about who is responsible for what in this system.
Because people are not hired solely for a specific job, they can take on one or more roles at any given time, and they have the flexibility to move between teams and roles if they have skills or insights that the organisation could benefit from at any given time.
This replaces the autocratic power usually exercised by company owners.
Sociocracy 3.0
It is based on seven guiding principles that help to shape the culture of organizations. Considering that all of Sociocracy 3.0’s patterns incorporate the seven principles, understanding them is essential to adopting and adapting the patterns. Use your time wisely by focusing on activities that will help you achieve your goals.
Use the principle of effectiveness to spend your time only on activities that will help you reach your goals.
Invoke the principle of consent when making decisions or taking actions.
All assumptions should be tested through experiments and revisions.
The principle of continuous improvement is to make incremental changes to accommodate empirical learning over a long period of time.
Unless there is a reason for confidentiality, all information that is valuable to the organization should be recorded and made available to everyone.
In order to be accountable, one must respond when something is needed, follow through on what they agreed to do, and take responsibility for the organization’s success.
Command and Control
To delegate tasks and approve work, you must have a chain of command (or command structure). If you have an org structure, you can specify how many “rungs of the ladder” a certain department or business line should have.
Almost all companies have a hierarchy in place that identifies which individuals are responsible for which people, teams, or departments within the company. The chain of command allows each employee to know who is in charge of them and what their responsibilities are.
Centralization
The term centralization refers to the final decision-making location. Your chain of command will need to be set up after that, and you’ll need to decide who has a say in each decision. Unified or decentralized decision-making is possible in a business.
If you don’t have an organizational chart right away, it will become increasingly difficult to run your company without it as you add more products and hire more employees.
This was a list of some approaches to organizational structure in an organization. You can also create your own organizational structure which you think fits your company the best. It’s time for your startup to adopt a more innovative organizational structure that forces everyone to think.
FAQs
How do you structure a startup?
Here are the things to consider while structuring a startup:
Defining and establishing the leadership
Architecting the structure
Building your team
Bring in the professionals
Communicate with the board members
What is a legal structure?
An organization’s legal structure is a key determinative of the activities that a company or a startup can undertake. It Includes:
Raising capital
Responsibility for obligations of the business
Amount of taxes that the organization owes to tax agencies
Building a successful team is the foundation of any company’s success. A team brings people together by encouraging teamwork. But the process of team building is not as easy it seems, but it demands a great deal of effort on the part of the leader. Leaders have responsibility to make sure team works well together and remains focused on the right priorities. But there are many challenges that leaders have to overcome to build great teams. Here are 4 steps to build a successful team for your company.
Everyone has what it takes to become a leader but managing a team is not that simple. Being in the position of a leader, means you have to handle numerous tasks, from managing a team to developing a new leader. It’s for this reason that you need to learn how to build and manage a team in the most efficient way possible without the stress. A powerful and successful company operates with best teams when employees work with a team mentality.
Now that you get the idea of building a team, how do you do it? Most importantly, what do you need to manage the team you build? There are a lot of team building skills you will need to learn, and four of these essential skills are as follows:
Communication is the key to the success of any relationship. Having the ability to communicate with your team members effectively will create a cordial relationship among the team members.
Apart from this, you also need to have the ability to make the rest of the team communicate with each other. If your team members fail to communicate, the entire project fails. The role of communication skills cannot be overemphasized. It’s part of the most essential team building skills.
Decision-making Skills
Making decisions are very important for a leader. It’s what sets him apart from his subordinates. Having decision-making skills requires patience and being courageous enough to stand by his judgment.
Also, decision-making often requires compromise, and sometimes a willingness to give up your own point of view in favor of the decision shared by the entire team. Most of the times, opinions of each team member may clash. It will boil down to you to choose the one that is best everyone and the team.
One of the best team-building skills you will need to have is the ability to listen to people. Not just listening to what they say, but the meaning behind their speech. Everyone wants to know you care for them and also understand their situations. Having listening skills will not only save you a lot of stress but will also help you build rapport in your workplace.
One more thing you should have is the ability to show genuine care for your team members. Check up on them or send birthday messages. Surely, these acts of kindness will enhance their performance and productivity.
Persuasion and Influencing Skills
Being able to persuade your team members effectively is one skill that will help you. You will also need it to seal deals and broker partnership with other partners. Persuading people to follow your lead, will help keep your team together and focused on a common goal.
Final Words
With all these skills, you can build a very tight-knit team that can overcome and weather any storm together. One last thing you should remember is that there is no ‘I’ in team. A team is only as strong as the leader that leads them.
Effective teams are the foundation of every successful organization. Companies without teams that work well together often struggle, while effective teams help to improve quality, facilitate the completion of projects and increase productivity and efficiency.
How to build an effective team?
Tips to build an effective team:-
Define the purpose
Assemble the team
Determine the goals
Set expectations
Monitor and review
What makes an effective team?
A thriving team has open and honest discussions, sharing their thoughts, ideas and opinions. They engender a meritocracy, ensuring no-one is above anyone else and allowing everyone to feel as though they can contribute freely. Creating this sort of culture is one of the fundamental foundations of a successful team.
Anagha S
