Startups range from 0 to 100 and have different management methods at different stages. How to manage and cultivate company culture is an issue that entrepreneurs need to care about. The author of this article summarizes his views and suggestions for your reference.
Editor’s note: This article comes from “Everyone is a product manager” (Public ID: woshipm) , author: Ni Yunhua.
Key steps that enterprises need to take in the early stages
The most underestimated secret of a startup’s success is not only that it creates a great product, but also that it shapes a strong culture.
These two factors are intertwined. No matter how great the company is, a startup company cannot succeed without a great product. Similarly, a startup company cannot succeed without fostering a great corporate culture, no matter how good the product is. Sustain success.
The rise of great companies is for a reason. Their culture has been shaped by charismatic leadership teams from the beginning, and it must be reflected in the daily behavior of each employee. When one of these two requirements becomes a rhetoric, the company will begin to lose activity and inevitably decline.
The two must not be partial, you must go at the same time, which means that when you spend a lot of time and resources to build your explosive products, you must also continuously cultivate the company culture.
So how should you manage at different stages of the company’s development?
Key recruitment stages: employees from 1 to 10
The first 10 employees you bring into the company will determine the company’s culture for the next 20 to 50 years. We cannot overstate the importance of hiring employees completely and correctly. In fact, I can even say that many companies on the road to success often cannot find 10 key employees.
For the employment of key employees, you can think: Do they explain to you the vision of the future development of the company? Not only now, will they continue to work hard for their mission in the next three to five years? Value? Are they willing to grow with the company rather than abandon the ship when the storm comes.
Entrepreneurs often make some general mistakes in the early days, such as requiring everyone to be consistent, but in fact, culture should reflect your willingness but not everyone, so a company consisting of 10 “self” will Complete failure. What we should need is more excellent and harmonious people.
Also, don’t let culture overwhelm personal nature. Don’t simply recognize employees’ tags, especially the solidified knowledge of good and bad, because good and bad are often just subjective evaluations.Of course, it is not just one side, but sometimes some people are full of negative and hostile towards others, so the damage to your culture is far greater than the financial value it brings.
A business principle is that no matter what skills the other party brings to your team, don’t hire people who are rude or particularly difficult to get along with, or even incompatible with the company’s culture.
Also, be patient and don’t worry every time you recruit.
I used to choose between two people so much that when I made a decision, they both found different jobs. I think the reason why they are looking for a good new job is because they are very smart. But in retrospect, I will do it again in the same way. I would rather not, and not hire someone who is not suitable in advance.
In other words, every time you hire a candidate, you need to do a cultural check. That is, does the candidate match the company’s culture and values? And is our culture able to adapt to broader talent needs and recruitment boundaries?
From workshop to company: 10 to 20 employees
When the size of the company grows to 10 to 20 people, it often feels like from a club to a real company. At this time, you need to use formal language and mechanisms to ensure the smooth operation of the team. .
This is the ten-person rule we often say, that is, the maximum size of a working group that does not require formal implementation of the text.
Ten people can have informal management processes such as appreciable speech and natural reactions, but once it exceeds the scale, it is necessary to establish normative guidelines, rules and texts. What we are talking about here is not the requirements of the company’s major links, but more detailed and immediate feedback steps, such as conference management, remote staff management, or employee vacation details.
These detailed specifications should be common and provide immediate feedback. You should not just make up for problems when they arise, but should establish a suitable mechanism to regulate them for a long time. Maybe you enjoy the relaxed atmosphere of the company within the previous 10 , But you have to normalize such details so that your company doesn’t become a mess and no rules.
I also suggest that you hold a company meeting with 10 people, discuss what everyone should and should not do. This is not to comment on the management style of your company, but to ensure that the people who come later can integrate into the group instead of feeling alienated by the group.
This is also the time when you start to actively manage the morale and participation of your employees. Set up feedback systems to collect all kinds of positive and negative information to ensure that these feedback systems are used. If you do not get feedback, this does not mean that the employees are satisfied, it just means that the mechanism is ineffective and needs to be adjusted or even re-enforced结构。 Structure.
For the ritualization and standardization rules, you must turn the real team growth and development work into a collective collective activity of the team. This is not just a dinner or a quarterly meeting. Instead, it requires everyone to make the most of their working time to arrange meaningful matters, and to cultivate a sense of responsibility for conscious dedication (sacrifice of personal enjoyment time) for work and personal progress.
From company to identity organization: 20 to 50 employees
It usually takes a long time for a company to scale from 20 to 50 employees, but once you have 50 employees, the corporate culture is basically fixed. So it’s time to shape your company’s value identity. The company ’s leadership team should spend at least a few hours a month listening to those feedback systems that have been established and making adjustments. Each month’s meeting should generate at least one new initiative to make the company a better place to work.
Practice the company’s mission statement and core values. Hiring employees is not only for the mechanical handling of business work, but also requires employees to maintain a positive and participatory attitude towards work.
As an organization with value recognition, you must successfully implement this step. In fact, one of the reasons this phase takes so long is that you not only learn to create greater performance with fewer resources, but also It’s important to select people very rigorously to ensure that the company continues to grow so well that employees don’t want to leave.
You can select and reward the best department or employee every year, and form a fixed norm. If there is no practice to follow, you can form a rule internally, which is to survey each employee anonymously once or twice a year One of the few mandatory cultural events).
Give them 40-50 questions, mainly about their careers, personal growth, how they feel about the company, and what the company should start, stop doing, and continue to do. You want to make these jobs transparent to the entire company.
In addition, you can also make some well-designed shirts with company logo inside the company for everyone to promote the company culture when they wear them.
From identity organization to group: more than 50 employees
No values are permanent. When the size of the company reaches 50 employees, it is time to make adjustments. These rules will become stricter and the culture should get more communication in order to continue as it evolves from a startup to a group.
For example: If your culture requires you to be a company that is not 9 am-5pm, then you need to describe what kind of time commitment you want your employees to make, how to work in a specific direction and measure the achievement of excellence. . Everything you do to manage your company must be governed by specific rules and regulations based on your core valuesNow.
This stage will become difficult mainly because you must effectively deal with the emotions of the original employees of the company when the company’s new employees are from 1 to 30 or more. If a new rule takes more Much tolerance, this may hit the enthusiasm of old employees and even cause their anger.
I must emphasize here that you have to deal with each case independently, because at this stage, you have to screen many options, and at this time, some employees may also conduct self-examination or even reconsider the way out. .
No one will leave their cultural identity circle, but every day they leave the company. Become the backing of your partners, start to be more aware of their family and other external commitments, proactively communicate, and break those rules that have become the crest of your organization’s development.
Breaking these combinations again may seem incredible, but if you want to reproduce the efficiency, synergy, and affinity that 10 small companies have, then you must follow the 10-man rule.
Find ways to get people to work and interact in organizations with no more than 10 people. If you have a team, you need to ensure that your organizational structure does not look too bloated like a large organization. If you have a project team, the staff should not exceed 10 people. If you really need more resources and Support can be transferred to other groups.
Unified action at the social level. For more than 50 companies, going out is quite expensive and not suitable, so it needs to be transformed into a company-level sponsored event or party. In my previous startup, when our company reached 50 people, we would consider various formal or informal project forms such as career planning guidance, chess and card parties, movie ticket friends, sports games, reading groups, etc. It’s all about making sure everyone can find the part they’re interested in.
Why implement a 10-person rule in a 50-person company? Because your culture is solidified, it is very difficult to create a new culture in a company with more than 50 employees, so use the 10-person rule To strengthen it, improve it, and share the best part you found. Encouraging innovation and participation, your culture will be your secret weapon for your company to grow from 50 employees to 50,000 employees.
Author profile:
Ni Yunhua, public account: Ni Yunhua is new, everyone is a product manager columnist. Ten years of multinational management consultants, has served PricewaterhouseCoopers, IBM Global Consulting Services, providing consulting services for Huawei, Haier, Tencent and other companies, a number of startup company management consultants; author of “Share Economy Megatrend”
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