An Open letter to a Startup CEO

Dear Mr. CEO,

I know you are working hard to take this company forward. I know there’s been a lots of ups and downs while building this, however, there are a few things, which generally go unnoticed, while you get stuck in daily fire-fighting. This company is a dream that we as employees saw together along with you. So, I want to share a few things which you should keep in mind, while we make this dream become reality with you.

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Culture : I am sorry for being straight forward, but directly or indirectly, a CEO is responsible for the culture of a company. It’s a trickled down effect. The senior management does what a CEO expects and the middle and junior management looks at the senior management for advice and inspiration. So, I would request you to think twice before taking any decision which relates to anyone in the company.

Building a culture of the company is the most pain taking but most rewarding process. Of course, culture cannot be build overnight , but to begin with, lets start with communicating with the employees at all levels. People should really start believing in the management. We should have some great posters in the office which suggest positive attitude. We should speak to naysayers and stop them from spreading negative attitude. We are a small group of people, I am sure you see people behaving negatively, shouting at each other and spending hours doing something which should be done in minutes, speak to them directly, have straight talks with them and spread only 1 message – NO NONSENSE ZONE, Any kind of nonsense will not be tolerated. Things will start falling in place, culture will begin to improve and people will learn to work in teams.

Performance : Performance is the most important thing that should be on top of your mind. But there are ways to manage it. Just filling the KRA sheets would not suffice, employees should know that someone’s monitoring there performance, there should be someone to pat their back when they do a fantastic job and there should be someone to give them feedback when they fail.

I know managing performance can be a daunting task, but at least we can make sure everybody is involved. Let’s have a common area where we can do a huddle together. Let’s build some key metrics, which all of us should view / monitor and which should give us a sense of pride in achievement. We can keep a white board and update it with daily/weekly metrics and can have a huddle their to check our performance. Everyone of us will feel involved and believe me it will improve the performance.

People Management : This is another area on which you should keep an eye on. Running a start up is all about team management. And teams are made of people, so at the root of it, is the people who make or break a company. You know if you look at it, it’s the most easy task to make people happy.

Let’s make sure our words and actions say that we care for people. It’s only people who make or break a company, so why not spend our energies on them. Let’s have an introduction / on boarding / induction process made for all the new joinees. Let’s introduce them to everyone like it’s a family and not just an office. Birthday celebrations are so much fun, let’s remember our colleague’s birthdays and let’s celebrate it like we do for our family members. It costs peanuts. We should have a single point of contact in the company for all people related issues, and that person should be extremely approachable. Believe in people and most of the times, the belief is right.

Customers and Customer Service: Yes, although, I am sure you know how important our customers are, the customer service department is equally important. They should be at the center of everything. They should be the first one to know what is happening around, so that they can communicate with our customers effectively.

I know most companies think Customer Service is a cost center , but believe me, they pay their salaries many time over. So the most important thing is for everybody to know that customers comes first and customer service team is the one who take us to them. Use them effectively and we will be able to grow our business rapidly. We should create processes that allows Customer service team to be a part of decision making. They speak to our customers and they know what it takes to make them happy. Sometimes, the smallest of the hints can create great success stories.

Hiring and Retention of Talent: In a startup , we hire for will and not always for skills. Of course, basic skills are important , but paying hefty salaries for advanced skills is like a crime. Mostly, people who switch for higher salaries are only looking for 1 thing, higher salaries. They usually come from corporate or bigger startups and are only motivated by the higher paychecks. Usually, it’s very difficult to manage such employees, so the cost increases many folds. On the other hand, understanding the capabilities of existing employees and channelizing them for other things, can really be helpful, both in terms of management as well as cost. Retaining an old employee, will build trust, and their capabilities will increase whereas hiring a new one will cost more. That’s I think the main difference between warriors and policemen. Warriors are there to fight and win, but policemen are generally to maintain the law and order.

We should look at what projects the person has done before. Is he/she a team player? Is the person humble enough to accept his/her mistakes and intelligent enough to work on them and improve them? Is he/she a team player? Is he/she a problem finder or a solution provider ? I am not saying that you don’t know how to hire, of course , you are much more experienced than me, all I am saying is that we should shift our focus from only Skills to behavior as well.

Strategy : Yeah, that’s a big word. You’ll find a lot of people helping you make a strategy while you are here. But the best strategies generally are the ones that are not thought through. Essentially, there should be just one strategy for a startup, and that is, Sales.Let’s just go out and do amazing work and I am sure things will fall in place. I believe you should talk to your teams. Have an open QnA session, understand what’s working and what’s not working for us. And, there’s no harm in accepting mistakes, it happens , but the most important thing is to understand and don’t let it happen again.

Now that you’ve read this far, I am sure you have faith in me and us as a team. Let’s build this company and rock the world !

Yours Truly,

An Engaged Employee 🙂

Originally Posted here