Sustainable growth companies are built by teams of shining constellations rather than just several bright stars.
It all starts with recruiting. Many successes and disasters start with recruiting. Recruiting is the most important job for any real leader in the company.
The second step is all about the right placement of the stars in your constellation. No matter what bullshit motivational book you may have read, people do not change. Yes, people do evolve, and yes, those not capable of evolution should never become a part of your team, but for Pete’s sake, do not confuse skill evolution with personality change. Attempts to change who a person is don’t work in dating (ever heard of the term “project boyfriend”?) or in the workplace.
The third step is to minimize “toxicity” and take advantage of learning from your inevitable failures. An agile and derivative methodology excels at this. Divide and conquer, but don’t forget to learn. Incremental improvement and fast learning methodologies are fantastic for every functional area of the business (yes, even for boring bookkeeping). When properly practiced, they will keep you from squandering resources on dead-end projects, prevent you from making large stumbles, and lead to addictive progress.
