How pirates treat people

How Piratestreat PeopleHackerNews Meetup Cologne October 2011

PIRATES WHY I DO WHAT I DO?

"Entrepreneurship isthrowing yourself off a cliffand building a plane on theway down."Reid Hoffman, Founder of LinkedIn

Are you a pirate?That thrill of your first hire, when you’ve convinced someother crazy soul to join you in your almost certainlydoomed project. The high from raising venture capital andstarting to see your name mentioned in the press. Theexcitement of launch and…gulp…customers! and thefeeling of truly learning something useful, you’re just notsure what it is, when the company almost inevitablycrashes and burns.- Mike Arrington, Techcrunch

PEOPLE MATTER MOST.

(In the beginning) you onlyneed people who contributeDIRECT value to your service.You don’t need managers nor CFOs nor “strategy” guys.

Finding the right people is hard.So is keeping them motivated.

Passion is infectious. Set an example. Be positive. Motivate.

Commitment.Especially the founding team.If you are not committed why would anybody else be?

Create momentumin short iterations. Again and again and again and again.

Define your values.Recheck and confirm again and again.

Our mission„Our mission is to continue toefficiently facilitate diversemethods of empowermentand professionally disseminateperformance baseddeliverables to meet ourcustomer‘s needs.“ Forget that.

Values are mindset,behaviour and actions. Stuff that is reflected in your everyday work. It‘s about what you do, not what you say.

Freedom and responsibilityvs. command-and-control.

How we do it at Talential » Revise from time to time with the whole team (at least everyRules of interaction time a new employee joins)-Max. 10 rules » Have everyone participate-Concise and specific-Real i.e. actionable » Have a common agreement » Change, add, delete, whenever the team thinks it is necessary

Be transparent.Information is visible to everyone by default.

Work is not a place.Let the people choose where they want to work.

Virtual organizations require trust and communication. A lot of it. Again and again and again.

Use efficient communicationtools like activity streams, Wiki, Google Docs etc. That‘s a no-brainer, seriously.

Be prompt.Bad news doesn‘t get better with age.

Involve everybody. Important and strategic decisions will be discussed (and decided) by everyone.

Be humble. Respect the competition.

Leadership is defined by followership No job titles.Employees may choose their own job titles. Whatever they like or what fits best for the situation.

Better to beg forforgiveness than toask for permission.

Results count.Process matters.

Communication is key. However…

Interruptions kill productivity. Respect others time and flow.

Embrace change. Decisions are temporary.

Don‘t forget.Working with people isa process, not an event.It takes time, patience and perseverence. Again and again and again.

?Any questions

Find me around the net Websites @manuelkoelman www.getcontext.de www.talential.com fb.com/koelman www.leanentrepreneur.com de.linkedin.com/in/koelman www.23moments.com

http://leanentrepreneur.com	2007
http://www.getcontext.de	1720
http://abtasty.com	31
http://feeds.feedburner.com	21
http://www.linkedin.com	5
http://translate.googleusercontent.com	3
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com	1
http://localhost	1
http://www.getcontext.de.	1
http://fr.flavors.me	1
http://leanentrepreneur.wordpress.com	1

How pirates treat people

by Manuel Koelman on Mar 05, 2012

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

11 Embeds 3,792

Statistics

How pirates treat people Presentation Transcript