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Avoid crabs in a bucket:
Have you ever watched crabs in a bucket? Just when one of them is about to escape, the others grab hold and pull it back down.
The crabs do not want to see the other crabs make it out. By their very nature, they keep each other from winning.
Unfortunately, a huge portion of the population is just like these crabs. They go through life with a negative mindset.
Every day is a zero sum game. In order for them to win, somebody else needs to lose. In order for them to make money, somebody else has to miss out.
Too many people in the world today think that there is only so much money and success to be had and somebody else succeeding is holding me back.
If Nick makes a dollar that is a dollar that I can’t make myself! Therefore I must hold Nick back and keep secrets from him.
That is total bullshit. Run away from people with this mindset because it is contagious, and it will hold you back.
People succeeding around you and getting rich around you makes it more likely that you will also succeed.
If you make a dollar, it is not because you took a dollar from somebody else, it is because you added value in excess of the money that traded hands.
Surround yourself with people who share this mindset and who want to see you win.
We live in a world of abundance.
There is a growing resource pile, and everyone can get some at the same time. Especially when it comes to entrepreneurship.
The most successful people all share this mindset. Others winning is good for me, too. So I’ll celebrate success and cheer others on. I’ll lift others up. I’ll do my part so everyone can win.
Here's who you want on your team instead:
1. People with a sense of urgency.
Surround yourself with people who make things happen quickly. Who default to action.
They shoot first and aim later. They are willing to move at an uncomfortable speed with a half-built system and a shaky, uncertain plan.
In business, especially before your company matures, you have to iterate and reiterate quickly.
Experiment, learn, adjust, and experiment again. Especially in the first years of your company, this is a must-have trait. These people work faster, they are more efficient, they make things happen.
Unfortunately, this is something you can’t teach. Either someone makes things happen quickly and understands that business is a race or they don’t.
Your management team in the early days should only consist of people like this. If you have people who need to get something done for the business but it takes them a week, you will suffer.
Your only advantage as a small, new business is that you can move quickly. You are at a disadvantage against your competitors in every other way. Build a team who can take advantage.
2. People who are not afraid to stand up to you and call you out.
The worst thing you can do as a leader is surround yourself with people who agree with you no matter what and blindly follow your lead.
Instead, you want to build a business full of smart people who think critically and look at things in a new way. And you want to encourage them to speak up and be supportive and open minded when they do.
This is hard. This is uncomfortable. It can be infuriating when people call you out or disagree with you. It takes swallowing your ego and your pride and admitting when you are wrong.
But it is also invaluable.
3. People who make good decisions.
If I look back on my career there is one glaring pattern.
I overestimated the ability of many people. I assumed competence and ability in almost everyone. Especially during the first years of my business, I hired very fast and put up with low performance from my employees for far too long.
This person can do the job for sure! It is simple!
I was wrong.
I’ve been let down time and time again by the decision making ability of other people. And I’ve hung on too long trying to improve the decision making ability of people who’ve already made poor decisions and caused stress in the company or cost the company money.
The good news is that not everyone in your company needs to make decisions.
A lot of folks can follow directions, pay attention to detail, and add value. But when it comes to management and higher skilled roles, you must find the good decision makers.
How do you know who is good and who isn’t?
You watch them make decisions. You ask them questions about their decisions and hear their reasoning and you watch the results of those decisions play out.
After about 3 months of this, you will know who's got it and who doesn't.
You will know who on your team can make decisions quickly and accurately which push the company forward in the right direction.
Folks who can analyze data and situations, stay calm, and think rationally even under stress.
Folks who don't mind making the call when everyone else is looking for guidance, direction, and support.
These people become your managers who can build and lead teams. After you hire a few of these folks the real leverage kicks in.
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A few tweets from this week:
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I'm an investor in an insurance company called Titan Risk. They are helping me with cyber insurance, errors and omissions and, most importantly, directors and officers liability.
The insurance guru at Titan, Jon, has helped over 1,500 clients get policies throughout his career. He’s offering 5 free consulting calls to share where you might be exposed and educate you.
Respond to this email if you’d like an introduction.
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Onward and upward,
Nick Huber
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