People is everything.

This is a gang which is around you, which supports you along your ways, helps you not to fall, and – if you collapse – helps you stand up. The true gang shares with you victory and the pain.  It becomes your family. I like small companies primarily because of this atmosphere, this feeling you can create in your team – impossible to fully get in large corporations. At least what I did previously at the time I worked at the executive level was fantastic to me, great teams, but still, they mirror and get some, I would say, dilution by the mass of the large corporation surrounding you. Perhaps this is just my own feeling, and I am not actually good at building teams in large corporations. Still, smaller teams are like families. You see the response, you see and understand everyone. You feel everything.

Traditional fashion of the corporate websites and annual reports or social responsibility reports is to name people as one’s assets. Strongly disagree. Your people is your liability, more precise – responsibility. You can not use your people as assets, instead you are responsible for every member of your team.

The only way to have your gang entirely with you, fully committed, motivated, ready to go grapple in fight screaming pirates’ “Yarrrrrrrrr !!!” is to give them something. What is that?

To me every person acts in primarily selfish reasons.  My understanding every person expects from any job something (or everything) from this:

1. Money
2. Experience (expertise)
3. Network (contacts, relations)
4. Self-actualisation (self-realisation)

Now important to me is what the balance is.  While interviewing young people with up to 2 years of experience for my various businesses in the past I come across with very ambitious boys and girls, which believe they know everything and all the world owes them for their existence and therefore the pay should be this amount. Well, normally they indicate something which is quite difficult to get for people with 5 years experience. Pity.

Point is there is not that they want money (this is OK), point is they have wrong balance in their expectations. To young people, I believe, must be Experience and Network as top priority. Self actualisation comes along, as if you do what you like and recognise you are getting more and more proficient in this – this should be fuelling your self-esteem. Money comes last in the list. In fact, money come later, when you have expertise and get sort of marketing valuation of your expertise.

This actually relevant to elder professionals as well. Money is important of course. But from the employer’s point of view, if the only thing your employee wants to get is money – too bad for you. You will spend much to pay salaries, and finally you will loose this guy (or girl), simply because there is nothing which glues him with your company, except money. They will leave you as soon as they find another alternative.

So the question is what balance this person has. Below is the balance we look for in all new people joining DealBoom team.

People, focused on getting expertise, building own network and eager to get self-actualisation (in whichever form it could be) – this is where you can find your pearls.

The balance in itself may (and will change), as the person get older and more experienced. While working with people, I used what I call Trajectory of Life. This is set of key milestones in your life – something you have when you are 25 years old, 30, 35, 40 and 45. More or less what you get in your 45 – this is the orbit you will fly till the end of your life.

At each milestone I try to understand what every person has in mind and wish to achieve. To be short – it refers to the same four things – Self-Realisation, Experience, Network and Money:

Self-realisation

- are you happy with what you do?
- do you feel others value high what you do?
- do you feel your life means something to you?
- is your dream similar to how you live?
- would you repeat your life in the same way?

Experience

- what can you do?
- what success you did?
- what failure you did?
- how did you overcome difficulties?
- how did you survive failures?
- how you communicate / deal with people?
- what education you have?

Network

- whom do you know?
- what experts in your industry you can communicate regularly?
- do you have Teacher (the person who leads you and helps you on your way)? Who is he (she)?
- what experience, network of people in your surroundings? Are they satisfied with the way they live?
- how easy you can expand your network or involve new people from absolutely different area (industry, country and the like)?

Money

- how much capital do you have?
- how your house (apartment) looks like?
- where your house (apartment) located?
- how much do you earn per year / month?
- how much do you spend on living?

My practice is quite simple.  I assume that the person I see in front of me is not with me forever.

1.  Accept that he (or she) has own dreams, wishes and expectations. Try to understand this (this also would show level of ambitions and degree of freedom this person has)

2.  Understand what is his trajectory of life.

3. Understand what exactly person wants to get on his next milestone.

4. Understand if and how trajectory of your company can match to the trajectory of his life.

This turned out to be very useful practical tool to (1) get right people onboard and to (2) monitor, if your team-member satisfied (or dissatisfied) in working with you. Normally, I just go to cafe and sit with this guy / girl to see where we were, where we are now, and where we are heading to. With young people I try to sit every quarter (they always get much more time and attention). With elder and more experienced people it is worthwhile to sit at least couple of times per year.

People treat this approach as very sincere and fair and accept it as kind or roadmap in your mutual relations for the next period they work with you.

Hope this helps.

See you soon!