BENGALURU: A startup needs to hustle and requires the entrepreneur to run all the way to the top of the mountain. The team shares your duties. You run a certain distance and the team divides the remaining distances among themselves. But how do you keep such a team engaged?
Here are few ways:
Give them reasonable but challenging targets: Good team is always motivated by good challenges. They find a way to reach the top of the mountain by climbing. Make sure your team gets the right challenges to keep them inspired. Make them known the larger vision and their role in it: Your team will stick with you in thicks-and-thins only if they are aligned to your vision and if they know what their growth prospects will be. They know that as a startup they may have to forgo something today – it can be money, time, social life – but they are doing it for one purpose! For that better tomorrow!
Reward with incentives: Most entrepreneurs are frugal in sharing equity. They worry whether they should share the e-sops with their team members or not. But your team feels part of the game when they too have skin in the game. Keep aside an e-sops pool and allocate to your top performing team members.Team building activities: A team which is not friends among each other will not stick with you. It is very important that your team feels as one unit and behaves so. Make sure you chalk out tourism plans, bike-trips, team get-togethers, dinners or so on at regular intervals. Slowly and slowly you will start seeing the magic and the team uniting much closely.
Regular open conversations: Make sure you plan 1:1 on regular basis with your team. Listen to them, act on them and encourage them to open up on any issues in their work-life or with other colleagues. Support them like a parent and help them as a mentor.
Rewarding top performers: Teams love to celebrate champions. If someone is working hard, they should surely be rewarded. At TBS Planet we started a ritual of “Superhero of The Quarter” where the best performing team member of the quarter is rewarded. Slowly you will notice how this culture can help your members be motivated to win that trophy in the next quarter.
Happy Team-Building!
– The author is IIT Roorkee Silver Medalist, Founder of TBS Planet Comics, Ex-Flipkart, Xiaomi and is reachable on Rajeev@TBSPlanet.com