Tag: Douglas Smith

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Tips for CEOs & Company Founders: How to Build Your “A” Team

There are a number of formulas for success for building “can’t miss” start-up and founding teams.

Here’s one that actually works.

A disclaimer first; depending on your business you’ll need to have reasonable domain expertise. If you’re in the internet networking space, you need to have people on your founding team that have the technical chops to have the engineering aspects nailed, as well as somebody who understands the competitive market dynamics (who buys gear, who is the competition, who is a player, who is not, etc.).… Read the rest

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[Tips for Leaders] How to Avoid Off-Sites that Suck

With a nod to Kelly Clarkson, the first part of a fiscal year for many firms  is “off-site” time. Leaders go with their teams to a place off-site with hopes that a change of scenery – and sometimes a round of golf or some collegial dinners – will change dynamics and improve performance.

It probably won’t.

But don’t blame the off-site for the lack of a durable performance bump.… Read the rest

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[Coaching Tips] No “I” in Team – Not Even a Team of One

Scott Berkun, whose work I generally like a lot, recently wrote a piece titled Why You Should Be a Team of One. It is a rare miss – a dud, and advice frankly which should be ignored.

Scott has written three books: all are quite good. His most recent, Confessions of a Public Speaker, is particularly good, helpful for someone like me who has 20+ years working with large group facilitation and design when I’m not doing my regular work of coaching execs and team.… Read the rest

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[Life Back West] Leadership & Boards of Directors: Proof of the Pudding is in the Performance

The best adage I know for good cooking is captured in the phrase “Proof of the pudding is in the eating.”

For teams, the perfect saying might as well be “Proof of the team is in the performance.” And while we’ll hear a lot about good and bad teams over the next couple of months – from the Super Bowl, to the Winter Olympics, to the US men’s and women’s collegiate basketball tournament known as “March Madness” – the fact of the matter is that the best teams are teams that perform well when called on.… Read the rest

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[Talent Keys for Entrepreneurs] It’s Not Just About “A” Team Players

Sachin Rekhi’s post PayPals Wars and its Lessons for Today’s Entrepreneurs caught my attention as I surfaced between US professional football (NFL for the locals) league play-offs this weekend. While there is much about the post that is spot-on right – strong vision coupled with short term pragmatic goals, push decision-making down as far as possible, etc. –  Sachin makes the case that “It’s all about assembling an A-team.”… Read the rest

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[True Stories] Facts – and Fiction – of the Effective Use of Virtual Teams

Virtual teams continue to be popular but the reality is that not all virtual teams are created equal – nor are many even “teams.” The news from recent research is hardly comforting; “1 in 3 executives believe virtual teams are badly managed.”

The post below, first published as a white paper by Dr. M. J. “Jo” Whitehouse and me in late 2007 is based on our direct experience with several start-ups in the challenging biotech drug development world, provides a clear roadmap to the steps to take – as well as the steps to avoid – in using the potential and leverage of virtual teams effectively.… Read the rest