There are many transitions in life that stand out as difficult or even traumatic: first day of kindergarten, entering college, or getting married, all are significant life events. Transitions that require some form of attitude and behavioral adjustment.
In business, there are also important transitions. Remember the first day of work? Your first job after college and what that first week was like? But the transition to working in an early stage company having spent considerable time in corporate life is one of the most difficult there is at so many levels.
My advice? Make sure you know what you are getting into. Understand what you are giving up and be realistic about what you hope to gain. Once you quit your corporate job, there is no easy way to go back.
When you are comfortable with the company’s strategy, business plan, and financing; let me give you some thoughts on how to manage this most important transition:
- Set Simple and Realistic Goals You have been hired for your years of experience. Set simple and attainable goals for yourself and your team at first and then scale up when you feel the time is right. Startups are difficult even when the business model is well conceived. Unlike so many corporate experiences where people build unrealistic plans and fail to reach them, you need to be totally honest with what you can accomplish successfully within the constraints of people, time and budget available to you. Startups can’t afford to fail the way larger companies can. The margin of error is simply not there.
- Get Over the Age Thing In the beginning, it’s lonely. Your corporate job afforded you access to a team of experienced people and infrastructure, people with very similar backgrounds to you. Get over it if you are the most experienced and perhaps oldest person in the room. Startups by their very nature attract diverse people with diverse experiences. Learn to adapt to working with young people simply by being a good listener and act yourself. Remember that you were once their age. You don’t need to hang out with them at the bars until 2 a.m. but you do need to build a relationship with them. They will respect you more if you just try to be yourself.
- Be a Team Player Don’t look to delegate in the beginning. The worst thing you can do in the beginning is to start telling others what to do. Get to know your team on a personal level and get their input on what the issues are so they feel apart of the solution. Be a leader but get their buy in along the way. Being a good listener and a collaborative leader will be critical to your personal success.
- Roll Up Your Sleeves Show the team you are willing to roll up your sleeves to do whatever task is necessary to advance the agenda. Get to work a little earlier than they do and stay a little later. Learn to do simple back office things on your own no matter how menial the task. Whether it’s software setups or servicing customers, or changing the light bulbs, learn every aspect of the area you are responsible for so you can know what skill levels will be required to meet the market challenges ahead. You must always do whatever it takes to succeed. Your team will respect you for it.
- Tackle Big Problems First In large companies, problems are solved over some period time usually by a matrixed organization in a continuous process. In a startup, remember to always tackle your biggest problems first. Growth companies have inflection points and if you let big problems fester, they could become insurmountable and prevent the company from moving to the next level.
- Seek Alignment with the Founders Think early about what your organization should begin to look like and engage the founder early and often. Think about key strategic objectives and how to align strategies and people around them. Priorities shift quickly in a growth company and you need to keep pace and hopefully get in front of shifting market dynamics.
Startups can be the most rewarding experience of your business career, but it requires a mental and behavioral shift to succeed. You may feel uncomfortable at times with the uncertainty but embrace the challenge and the rewards of being part of building a successful enterprise.
08/12/2019
By Stanley N. Logan, Quality Back Office, LLC