Rules for building a strong team.

I am totally passionate about building team culture. I like to think of it as building a tribe. I believe it is our strongest competitive asset as a startup, so it’s a core skill CEOs need to acquire.

Sadly, many CEO’s actions are driven by their own ego and need for recognition, which is often counter productive for the company. To clarify, all CEO are driven by a need to achieve, otherwise we wouldn’t take this tough path. But I believe you need to work on yourself so you’re happy to be “first among equals”, not above everyone else.

In my eyes, the key rules are:

- Respect. Sounds basic, but sadly its not. People often feel superior to those who work for them. You cannot succeed without your team. Period.

- Autonomy. If people deliver results, they should have the freedom of choosing the way to get to those results. You want thinkers, not processors.

- Involvement. Tell your team everything, their future depends on what happens too. And ask for people opinions.

- Fun. Celebrate a lot, set many small milestones. A fun environment attracts great new people.

- Hire for attitude, train for skill (and fire fast if it doesn’t work). One person alone can lower or higher the bar. So if someone isn’t showing same religious commitment, they have to go before they drag down the rest of the team. You can fire people in a very nice way (they should still want to pop by for friday drinks) but never hesitate to make the call.

Some excellent ressources about teams. And one of my own;-)

HackFwd made a video of my thoughts on building team btw, it’s been fairly

popular: http://vimeo.com/21819087

Tony Hsieh (Zappos guru): Delivering Happiness

Daniel Pink: The surprising truth about what motivates us (Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose I can reveal)

(from http://daredo.tumblr.com/)