Start Up Glue: Not Necessarily Money

...but rather team building. In any organization or corporation, team building is essential for ensuring the team moves beyond performing to excelling. Team output is never the result of one individual but can often be a result of how well a team works together.

In a startup company (newly created, developing a scalable business model), this dynamic is more than essential. It is critical. It is literally the glue that holds the team together to meet often demanding deadlines under extremely tight time and resource constraints. A dysfunctional or poorly communicating team in a startup company will tend to have difficulty developing processes, systems infrastructure, and team methods with which to propel itself out of startup mode and into that of a more mature company.

What happens when there is mistrust or lack of optimal synchronization in a startup team? Chaos in a best case scenario to absolute chaos in a worst case scenario. There are no pros to such a situation. In the short-term the team might, through some miracle, produce incredible work. However, before too long, the cracks will start to show. The work will not be the best possible when measured against the company’s mission. And the team will start to fall apart, including leaving the company. The common reasons are burnout or a disempowerment due to lack of a well-functioning core team.

A startup team will need to learn not only how to be efficient in time and resources, it will need to develop an extreme trust in each member’s decisions and motivations. This ensures there is no duplicity of work accomplished, and the team is able to cover more ground collectively towards the company’s goals.

Team building is an often misunderstood concept. That phrase might make you think of a conversational hour with your team over cups of coffee and pastries where nothing of use or importance is produced. However, what team building is encompasses a gathering of information on how other team members operate, in order to most effectively make decisions on how to interact with your team members. Even if these ways of interacting are not consciously pre-selected, any information received on what makes a fellow team member tick will be subconsciously be used by the brain in any interaction with that team member. In other words, team building builds one’s emotional intelligence in a startup. Additionally, team building allows for strong interpersonal bonds to develop, which will be critical during high pressure times for the company.

What team building isn’t is a waste of time or a frivolous pursuit. Apple in its early days survived the schism in its team, however, it is likely an exception to the need for a tightly-knit startup team. Team building would allow for honest communication, which is necessary when you spend 11, 12 hour days with the rest of your team. It would also allow for any issues to be brought up early on before they turn into crises that could take the company down.

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