Journal of the Wantrapreneur : Team Assemble

Assembling your team

Once we have our vision it's time to start thinking about how much time and what sort of skills will be needed to achieve it. While it may be fun to think we can just learn up on a skill to avoid the need for asking for help, the truth is that achieving any goal is going to require you to interface at some point with another person. It is much easier to make progress by finding the right people who want to help, and recruiting them. They could be friends, family, or similarly minded people at a meetup, so long as they share you vision, have an interest in helping, and relative skills and or experience.

Before you actually invite them on board you need to ensure they are the right person for the job. People, especially myself, get caught up in the excitement of our project and end up recruiting anyone that wants to help. Unfortunately what this means, is that you run the risk of setting up obstacles for yourself in the future. Recently I had to ask my vice-president to resign from the board, we had a conflicting vision on how to move forward with the project. Asking for his resignation was a very painful process but was required for progress, and worse, it was completely avoidable! Had I calmed down during our first meeting, I would have realized the value he saw in this project was vastly different to mine and the rest of the members.

So how can you avoid this problem? Communication! While we all want progress, making sure we are progressing in the right direction is imperative. A failure to communicate properly could lead to doing a lot of backtracking. Ask potential board/committee members how they view this project, or why they think it's important and see if their views match up with yours. In addition you want people who want to help, or in a single word, have initiative. Trying to chase up everyone to see how they are going with progress should not be required unless your tasks rely on the progress made with their tasks. Our time is limited and so wasting precious hours trying to get a hold of people who don't have a keen interest in seeing things progress should not be tolerated.

Lastly, we will come across people who will want to help, have initiative but may not have the relevant skills to help you make the progress you need. This doesn't mean they can't help, but when running a company or board, less is more. There is nothing from stopping you getting them to help from time to time, but when it comes to making decisions, you want people who are either agreeing with you or are being objective about things from an experience/skills context, not because they are excited about the same things you are. That is your job as the leader to spread the excitement!

Be patient, getting things right the first time will save you a lot of pain in the future. This doesn't mean to be hesitant, follow your gut when it comes to this process and over time your intuition will evolve into a valuable asset!