Tips to Building a Successful Startup

Building a successful startup is a journey. The Founders define this path by the first seeds planted. If you implement a command-and-control mode of work, your company will go down the path where the results will depend solely on the leader - employee do not always feel valued in this journey. On the other hand, if democratized and reflective thinking is the basis, then the collective intelligence of employees will be harnessed to the maximum extent. In the latter scenario, startup's success will depend on the organization as a dynamic hive.

Start with a very low touch approach to organisational awareness. As your startup grows, the Live Pulse model will ensure that firm remains a vibrant team.

At this stage, only a very low-key approach to employee engagement is required. However, it is crucial as it fosters a culture of awareness that will be critical going forward. If you do nothing, the next stages will become increasingly difficult.

Recommendations:

• The People & Culture chamption and the Founder (often this can be the same person) start writing reflective posts in a team journal - once a month or when it is useful to record specific wins or tasks.
• As you talk to your small team, think about your journey together using visualizations in Neelix.
• When bringing on new people, give them access to the team journal to better understand how things work and the journey you've taken so far. >> This is when seeding of the culture begins.

In order to maximise chances for success, people must become accustomed to democratized critical thinking. Without creating this culture up front, startups can often find themselves faced with strong personalities and opinion takeovers. Culture can become political very quickly, and then innovation suffers.

To avoid the mistakes of others, it is important to adopt new age management principles that require “horizontal” leadership. This approach saves effort and reduces risks.

Here is what is recommended at this stage in terms of employee engagement:

• Advocate of people and culture and founder continue to tell stories periodically (publications in the team magazine)
• Once you've grown enough to form more than one squad, implement a Live Pulse feedback model for all employees (also set up periodic update prompts as a helpful reminder).
• Start measuring psychological safety
• Continue to reflect on the experience of working together at major checkpoints.
• Continue to use the team journal as a step towards attracting new people.

At this stage, you will likely have more than one team and multiple managers. By making open critical thinking the core of your culture, you will achieve the following:

• Seamless ability to hear employees' voices (no surveys required)
• Seamless ability to measure psychological safety (no surveys required)
• Seamless ability to cut useless politics (no intervention and complaints management required)
• Have a large data lake with observations and recommendations from employees. This data lake will enable better business strategy decisions using Neelix tools.

The steps you take in the earlier stages will create a culture where employees feel heard and valued. The founder will also be confident that the chances of success were maximized along the way.