Introducing the team at CreateiQ ??

Team CreateiQ ? by Shilpa Bhandarkar

A few weeks ago, we finally got together for a long overdue photo-shoot. It was loud, it was raucous, it was fun.??

Here’s the picture that is likely to make it to our website and formal marketing collateral.????

It is lovely, colourful and everyone is looking at the camera (no small achievement).??But here’s the picture that is now my screensaver.?

I’ve now entirely forgotten why we decided to all pose pondering the world’s woes (well, everyone except Nick who missed the memo and is his usual smiling self) – but we did. And the result is a picture that makes me smile every time it flashes up on my screen.???

p.s. This is not the entire team CreateiQ. Just those who were comfortable coming into the office on that day. Hopefully we’ll have a full team picture soon!?

Why it matters?

I’ve worked at enough start-ups to know that building the right team is critical to our success. An ambitious vision, even when coupled with product-market fit, will only get you so far. The right team is what take linear growth and makes it exponential.?

I’m not going to lie, growing a team in the middle of a pandemic has been hard. Working out whether someone will complement the team without meeting them in person has been hard. Building team culture behind computer screens has been hard.??

But over the last couple of months, as we’ve made our way back into the office in various permutations and combinations, I know we got it right.?

Why I’m still smiling?

Here are the 5 reasons I know we have something special here:??

1. We’re good at what we do?

There is nothing more energising than working with clever, committed people who come together as a high-performing team. Every person on this team is excellent at what they do, which then challenges me to be better at what I do. Who doesn’t love learning, growing on a daily basis?????

2. We get stuff done?

I’ve never been one for endless debates. I also don’t think one can ever have the perfect data set with which to make the “right” decision. This is a team that likes doing. We evaluate results and then make new decisions, and therefore keep moving forward.??

3. We challenge each other

You won’t find too many wallflowers and “yes” people here. I love the flatness of the structure and the healthy challenge we therefore all provide to each other. It makes for much better decision making.?

4. We’ve embraced our diversity??

We are an “obviously” diverse group – just look at the picture. Gender, nationality, ethnicity, sexuality, age – we’ve got it all covered. But what counts for more is that I think we all feel comfortable bringing our real selves to work. Personally, this might be the first time I can remember where I’ve brought all of me to work. “Slightly OCD, mother of two children and a (gorgeous) lab, coffee loving, struggle to sit in one place for long stretches, use my hands a lot to express myself when I’m speaking, cannot walk in heels” all of me to work. It feels great, it feels lighter, it feels happier.??

(I suspect this needs a blog post of its own because although neither law nor tech are known to be particularly diverse sectors, we’ve managed to create an incredibly diverse team in the intersect of the two. I still haven’t worked out quite how we’ve done that though ….)???

5. We laugh a lot

When you spend as many hours of the day with each other as we do, when you’ve got a global pandemic as the persistent backdrop to everything you’re trying to achieve, when the rollercoaster that is a start-up journey can feel overwhelming, this makes all the difference to how I experience work. And also, how my family experiences my work??

And that’s why this picture is the screensaver that makes me smile.???