#7 Part of the Team

Discover the keys to thriving in a startup by embracing teamwork, accountability, and proactive involvement beyond defined roles. Eric, Aaron, and Yemi share essential traits for success, emphasizing the importance of communication as the linchpin of project success and treating team responsibilities as your own for unparalleled results. This episode provides actionable insights for fostering empowerment and ownership, creating an environment where everyone feels valued and motivated. We explore balancing personal contributions with trust in delegated tasks, the power of a clear organizational mission, and developing a culture rooted in kindness and service.

Chapters

• 0:00 Promoting Teamwork and Accountability in Business
• 8:35 Building Team Alignment and Communication

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:36

All right, guys, we are back Today. What we're going to be discussing is really it's about being part of a team. You know we've covered the building the team and everything, but what is it like being part of one, you know? So I guess the you know the first question I've got is for you, eric. You know what are the qualities you think are essential for for team members who are working in a fast-paced startup?

Speaker 2: 1:07

um all the qualities.

Speaker 2: 1:09

That's what I would say all the qualities you can find all of them, I would say that the one quality that matters is if they're a team player, meaning they can take the vision, go out of their way and pick up a bunch of pieces that are outside, even outside of what their role is or role should be, and they are not just a clock in, clock out. They will go beyond that and be willing to add quality to the project, like you know, like be willing to offer up their ideas and not be afraid to innovate. That's what I would say there.

Speaker 1: 1:54

You go Aaron. What about you? What are your thoughts?

Speaker 3: 1:59

Yeah, communication is always a big thing, so you want to make sure people aren't going to flake out. On communication, Everything falls apart. There's a John Maxwell quote that says everything rises and falls on leadership, I'm like I've always wanted to add to that. And communication, Because everything just quit.

Speaker 3: 2:21

Most people stop communicating and that's generally where things start to go south. And that can happen for a variety of reasons. But what I have found more often than not people stop communicating because they get uncomfortable. And I don't know if it's a cultural thing, I don't know if it's just where we are as a society, but it's like eh, if I don't really want to get confrontational or if I feel things are going to edge, I'll just stop communicating altogether. And so you get this ghosting type thing that happens and that's just. It's frustrating because a lot of the time it's not anything severe, but you have to be able to have good communication and that includes hard conversations in there, and if people aren't willing to do that, things will just come to a stop real quick. So that's a big big thing I'm always conscious of.

Speaker 2: 3:06

What about you, Yemi? What is your experience with being on a team, being a part of one?

Speaker 1: 3:21

I'd say communication and clearly communicated expectations are going to be the biggest thing. Just, I've worked in places where, over communication which is a good thing I felt some may perceive it as micromanaging, but I just like to know expectations. And then I've worked in other places where it was like I was expected to be a mind reader and you know, oh, you should have known that. Well, um, you didn't say that. You said this was this and this was in writing, and that was that.

Speaker 3: 3:48

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:48

So you know, to your point like communication is going to be key. Um, really, I think being part of a team, you've got to jump in and kind of treat it like it was your own business you know, and I guess it comes with.

Speaker 1: 4:07

You know, there's a sense of values to um. You know, depending on your values, you may work as though. I mean, you know, as you know, I know that you know, in biblical perspective you work as unto God, the Lord, and with that there comes this level of this expectation of being excellent. Does that make sense? Then you take you know you take that ownership.

Speaker 1: 4:36

So so, yeah, I definitely with you guys on the on those things. So I guess part things. So I guess that kind of goes into how do you promote a sense of ownership and accountability among team members? When I joined the team as a contractor and a decision was made to bring me on in a more ownership type of role, and so from my perspective I know that I worked as though this was my company. I treated it as though Clean Space was mine. And what about you guys? Aram, you have a company, you've built teams and everything. How do you work? How do you foster that sense of ownership and accountability? Yeah, that sense of ownership and accountability.

Speaker 3: 5:19

Yeah, let's see. You know, it depends a little bit to some degree on what the business is, what the project is. But I think in order for someone to feel like they have some ownership, they have to feel like they can actually come to the given owner. In my case, you know, for a cleaning company, whatever it is, they have to be able to approach me with just about anything. So if there is any sort of tension there where they're like ah, you know, he doesn't show up very often or he doesn't, you know, we don't have a lot of good communication, we don't talk too much Then it's going to be hard for them to feel that they have any sort of authority or ownership in their own work, because there is a clearly defined like.

Speaker 3: 6:00

Sure, we all want to have ownership, but I obviously run the company and so if there's any tension where I may be a little bit too far off or I'm like not approachable or I don't, you know I'm not easy to get ahold of, that really affects any employee. You know past that. So now, obviously, as your company grows, that changes a little bit. You can't be immediately accessible to every employee in a thousand person company all the time Right. So like there are dynamics that shift there.

Speaker 3: 6:26

But particularly in the early stages, I think it's important in a small and growing team that the actual ownership has. A lot of people that are working with them have a lot of access to the owners. So that's a starting place and then from that, by building that relatability, you can engender a sense of accountability and ownership in people, as you're praising them for what they did good, but also critiquing them when they need it and just making sure they understand. Look, you might have fallen short here, but I'm bringing it up because I know you can do really, really good work. I've seen you do good work. You need to. You know you have the capability to do that. So you have to encourage people in that way, and that's hard to do if you're a very, very distant figure, especially at the early stages.

Speaker 1: 7:10

So and Eric, as far as your, you know, your, you know in your past, as far as running companies and everything like that, what would you, you know, how have you run into this or how have you been part of teams that made you feel like you had a sense of ownership and they were great at, you know, helping you with accountability?

Speaker 2: 7:29

I have a sense of ownership of my work, meaning the work that I am assigned to do or I have been assigned to do, assigned to do or I have been assigned to do a sense of ownership for the company. I haven't ever really felt, except for my own company, that I've started or projects I've done, but inside of, like a project, if I'm given a task or something to do and I have the freedom to be able to, you know, within a certain boundary, but I have the freedom to do whatever I want to do, but I just have to get this task done. It doesn't matter how I get it done, as long as I get it done and I have that creative freedom to be able to do that, then I do have a sense of ownership over that because and I feel good about it, like I've done something for the team I've. You know, this is my thing, this is how I solve the problem, this is it. And if that is just one block that helps the overall, the whole machine, keep running and fixes an issue, then I feel good about that. You know it's like I contributed and I'm ready for the next thing.

Speaker 2: 8:36

And I think you know the big thing about starting your own thing is. It's really like it's that perspective. When you have a team, you want to. You know, just because you might own a majority of the company technically, you should see yourself as like you should see yourself as an employee. Everyone's on the same level playing field. We're all trying to get this thing off the ground, get this thing going, and you have to be willing to kind of stay in your lane and just huddle down and focus on what you can contribute and within your own means, within your own boundaries, and just hyper focus on that and do that.

Speaker 2: 9:24

And then you have to be able to delegate the rest of the stuff to those other people that might be able to, you know, and give them the freedom to do the same thing. And yeah, you open yourself up to being stabbed in the back and stuff, but that's why you pick a good team, you know, that's why you vet the people and you make sure that those starting people are the ones that you actually trust to give those things to. And you know, sometimes delegate things out to third parties or whatever, and you know they don't really come through in the time frame that you want them to or that they tell you to and you have to learn how to maneuver around that. And you know you don't hold it against your team for delegating that out. They did a good job doing that. It's not their fault, but you know you. Just you have to figure out how to keep things going, even if it's temporary.

Speaker 1: 10:17

Excellent. And so, with that, you know, with that sense of ownership and accountability, how are you you know, each of you ensuring that the team members understand and align with the organizational mission and the vision?

Speaker 3: 10:31

Well, I first think you have to make sure you have an organizational mission that can be aligned. That's fair. So you have to start there, because if you don't have one, then you have to worry about alignment. So, pros and cons, yeah. So formulating that takes some time. It's purposeful. It takes some time. Yeah, it takes some time, it's purposeful.

Speaker 2: 10:54

It takes some time to get in that gut.

Speaker 3: 10:57

Yeah, you're going to play around a little bit and find that and it's probably not going to just show up organically After you've been through some stuff. You're going to have to sit down and be like, okay, hey, cool, what are we about here, what are we doing? But yeah, initially you've got to start there and then it just depends on how often you reference that and how much you bring it up, whether that's a weekly, quarterly, annually thing, Like it's going to be top of mind for people that you, if you've got it well placed within your organization right and it's accessible and everybody knows it. If it's a very, very rare occurrence that you mentioned these things, then people probably aren't going to be aligned with it because they don't know about it.

Speaker 2: 11:32

So yeah, but, yeah, a lot of my ideas, personally, have always come from the main mission of wanting to change the world and but build and also, but build something that I don't know sounds corny, but build something that loves people and like um, an organization that is around. Just how can I help you, you know, in your life, um, you know how can I be kind to you? I don't know what that is. I mean, I think I think companies should that should be the heart of of every company, and that includes the employees. You know you're there for the employees' families. You're there for your customer families. You're there for people and, yeah, you're making money in the process and you're providing a great service or a great product, and that's the idea Providing a service to help those people, to help your customers, a product that helps your customers. And how best can you create something that is going to do that? What about you? What do you think about that question?

Speaker 1: 12:40

I think it goes back to communication and, like Aram said, you've got to have the mission and the vision in place. But when I just look at you know, when I, when I joined the team, you know I knew the initial idea and the goal of where we wanted to go, and so that was very clear. So everything you know, my lens was okay. We can do this now. How is this going to feed into the organizational future, a couple of years from now? How is this going to move us along the path to that, you know, to that, to that destination?

Speaker 1: 13:16

And a lot of that is just because I knew, you know conversations with you, conversations with Aram, where the company, you know where we want the company to go. And even you know, even in you know, aram's got another venture that you know that I come on board with occasionally. I know where he wants to go with that and so my actions, you know, on the day to day, are with that in mind, because if you've got someone who is, you know they're looking for a 30 year career and your goal is look, when I hit this point, whether it's, you know, five years or 10 years, I'm wanting to move along. Well, that needs to be communicated, that needs to know, so everyone can manage your expectations right.

Speaker 2: 13:56

Have you ever come across any challenges like that you've encountered in terms of trying to communicate with your, with whoever you know you're trying to communicate with, or anything like that? And then how did that person like? How did that get handled?

Speaker 1: 14:14

I worked for. I worked for a company, um, and the head of the company was pretty well known. They were kind of a kind of a celebrity on reality tv and everything this person had their had one of their family members in in a leadership role and there's no way, like I wouldn't hire this person to run a lemonade stand. And it wasn't because it wasn't aptitude, it wasn't aptitude, it was the fact of attitude and just zero people skills and then also and I don't know how much of that was natural versus like the result of just the brain damage from all the substances they used. So you ask questions about the future and you just never know what you were gonna get with that, you know on that yeah and it was just.

Speaker 1: 15:11

It was like you were in this suspended terror and then at that point it no longer became about like I want to be here and do the best job. It's like I just want to do enough to not get fired, while I look for a job like another job on my day off just trying to stay afloat.

Speaker 1: 15:25

yeah, just I want to do enough so that you don't notice me, you don't say anything to me, I don't have to interact with you, and then we move on. Good times. It's like coming to you guys. It's refreshing because you both communicate clearly. You're very blunt. I would say just direct. It's very direct communication. There's nothing ambiguous like oh, what did he mean by that? Oh, was he in the mood? No, two plus two is four. That's what it, and I respect and appreciate that because it's just clear. Man Like you, just you, you can, you can focus on what it is that you're doing, without that, you know having to manage the.

Speaker 2: 16:08

Yeah, it really all comes down to a communication. It seems like that seems to be the thing. Yeah, in a startup phase like this, pretty much everybody is a leader in their own lane. You know, and you just got to everyone needs to communicate, everyone needs to let everyone know, and if there's something you can't do or you can't get something done, then you need to let the person know, because the whole team takes a hit If you don't. 100%.

Speaker 3: 16:38

Yeah, no bueno, yeah, 100% no bueno.

Speaker 1: 16:41

Yeah, one hundred percent. All right, guys. So it's it's time for lightning round.

Speaker 2: 16:47

Oh, lightning, round OK.

Speaker 1: 16:48

Yeah, lightning round, no mascots.

Speaker 2: 16:50

OK, no mascots.

Speaker 1: 16:52

All right, so let's do this. If you could have any celebrity join the team for a day, who would it be and in which role?

Speaker 3: 17:07

Robin Williams if he was still alive. Oh, we can pick living and non-living. Well, I just did so.

Speaker 2: 17:14

Wow, oh man that stands the selection.

Speaker 3: 17:26

I mean, he would just be the mascot Robin Williams would be the mascot.

Speaker 1: 17:29

Yeah, he would be Outfire. Or what Most marketing campaigns ever yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:34

So I was going to say some like modern, very popular figure like you know, Taylor Swift, or something.

Speaker 2: 17:44

It's strictly for like an ad placement, but I don't know no morale like fine boosters, so okay okay.

Speaker 3: 17:49

So, robin williams, morale boost, uh, swift or something like that, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, I, I, I don't know what role to put a celebrity in that would be beneficial outside of. Like, hey, you know, use, use this product, use this app for our ad and, as long as we could get, if we could just get them like if that was all it was, then that would be hugely beneficial from a, uh, placement standpoint.

Speaker 2: 18:14

So I don't want to go the technical route, okay yeah, that's that's.

Speaker 3: 18:19

I don't want to go the technical route. Yeah, that's what? Are you going to put him in Head of product? Probably not, like you're running too hard. No, so it's hard to think about what. About you, yamil? Who are you picking here? What's your celebrity pick?

Speaker 1: 18:36

You already mentioned her, but I would put Taylor Swift in every ad we have.

Speaker 3: 18:39

Okay see.

Speaker 1: 18:42

It's like it's an easy win Taylor Swift, Patrick Mahomes, somebody. I would get a Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey series of ads going Wow.

Speaker 2: 18:56

Bank it.

Speaker 1: 19:02

That's what we would do, alright, guys. Well, that's our time. I appreciate you guys gathering, and until next time, do it again, ciao ciao. Ciao, ciao.