Startup Facing Layoffs? Hug Your Stars, and Ditch Your Blackholes

Published by on October 28, 2008

The sports world is a great parallel to the startup and venture-world. You have a team, and often times the team is made up of rag-tag players or employees, and like any team, you can only get as far as your weakest link.

Now I’m not going to talk about shoring up your weakest links, but a good way to help shield yourself from deficiencies is to have some star players.

Tom Brady is the best quarterback to ever play the game. He was able to win three Super Bowls with not exactly first-round ballot hall of famers.

The most recent quarterback to put together 3 Super Bowls was Troy Aikman, and he ha Emmitt Smith running behind him and he was throwing the ball to Michael Irvin (both hall of famers).

Hug Your Stars, and Let Them Know They’re Important

So what did the Patriots do? They signed Tom Brady to a longterm contract, made him feel secure, happy, and part of the team.

Determining who your key players are in the organization and make them happy. Let them know they’re important to the long-term success of the organization. Doing this when times are good is even better, but since we’re in bad times, it’s even more dire.

When times are hard, you’re going to be pushing harder on your employees you know can handle the stress and workload, and hope they can help the company pull itself out of this trench.

If you haven’t invested the time and effort in making them happy, and secure, they may get happy feet and start dancing around.

Don’t Mistake a Blackhole for a Star

Just like in football, if you give a huge contract to a show-boater or a big talker, who you think brings a lot of value to the team, like perhaps a Chad Johnson, Terrell Owens, etc. you may be shooting yourself in the foot.

Nothing kills a team faster than a player who thinks they’re better than the team.

You could spend all of your cap money on this big-name player, only to see them fizzle out. When you could have “spread the wealth” to 5 role-players who more than fill up this superstars shoes.

A Startup is a Team

To ensure your company works to its maximum potential, you need everyone playing for the same team.

Divisions are easy to come by in companies, whether it be between marketing and sales, sales and development, management and everyone else. These barriers cause companies to not work to their full-potential.

Find ways to identify these barriers, eliminate them, and you’ll find your startup working as a team more, and reaching better and better heights.