Startup founders spend most of their time developing their product or service and looking for investors. Some take things a bit further and are looking to find real talent to build their team. Meanwhile, founders who really believe in sustainability spend a reasonable amount of their time looking for customers.
However, there is only a small percentage of startup founders and leaders who “invest” in a growth culture within their company.
There is a big challenge there. How can you create a growth culture without being called “ignorant”? Is it possible to find a realistic approach towards this issue? The answer is Yes. As long as you can trust yourself in this then you can make others trust you and believe in your dreams.
What you can do if you want to create a real growth mentality in your startup?
– Explain your dream and make it visible: A good idea is to use your dream in order to make mission statements for everyone in your startup or for the different departments (if you have different departments). For example, make a different mission statement for you, a different for the marketing people, a separate for accounting etc…Just make sure all statements identify with your own as the ultimate aim!
– Do things that describe what you and your company stand for: Make regular speeches, prepare slideshows, use meetings, in order to communicate your vision. Then, make sure you do actions related to your vision. If you don’t take action and just stick with words people will just stop believing in you.
– Talent…is also someone who identifies your vision: When looking for talented people to work with, make sure they understand what your vision is about. They might be great at what they do but if they don’t understand and appreciate your dreams, it is pointless.
– A special call for new ideas: A problem with startups is that people have plenty of wonderful ideas and they spent a lot of time talking about them rather than making them real. As team leader, you can arrange a creative meeting in set dates and according to your needs. Just tell people that this is the only time were new ideas can be presented and explain that all other days they must work efficiently implementing what was earlier agreed. Otherwise your team will come up with tons of innovative ideas but will execute none or only a few. Also, these meetings are an excellent opportunity for everyone to improve pitching abilities.
– High standards don’t mean you are crazy: Set very high standards in the ways you want your dreams to come true and your company to grow. Even if your team can not really comply with these standards, you will be able to identify which team member can actually follow your growth mentality.
– Don’t just reject ideas you don’t like: A growth culture in a startup needs new ideas which are definitely not only yours! However, when people come up with ideas you don’t like, you must explain yourself and give them reasons to improve it.
