Young Successful Entrepreneur

Photo by Selvin

I have been living the E-Life for 1.5 years now, and I have been in heated debates with my teammates for 1.5 years.  You should see Yu-kai and me in action.  I swear sometimes I just want to take my fist and plunge it into that Panda belly of his - I’m semi-joking of course.

The point here is that in a startup company, the only way to survive and keep your ideas sharpened is to have team members who are ready to argue and debate with you until the bitter end.

Your idea is only ready to be implemented once your team has completed assaulted it and your idea has survived

This is where the fear comes into play.  The fear of confronation can be desastrous for an entrepreneur.  There are two types of people who are afraid of confrontations:

1. The person who is a follower and just likes to go with the flow
2. The person who is so hard headed that it is his way or the high way

The Follower’s Curse

We have all seen a “follower” in action.  He’s the person who just goes with the flow, does a good job, but never ads any of his or her own input.  Why does this hurt a startup company?  If your team is full of followers, then no one will be able to polish your ideas.  If your idea completely sucks, then a leader would be able to confront you and tell you that your idea sucks for these three main reasons.  A follower would just say “Yes sir” and start executing your crappy idea.

An Octupus with 8 arms

Entrepreneurs cannot be an octupus with 8 arms.  As the founder of your company, you can’t be the head and have 8 arms doing all of the work for you.  Your company just won’t lift off if you don’t have a team that is constantly debating and refining ideas.

The way to solve this is to hire a team of leaders from the very beginning.  Build a team with strong personalities and you’ll build a team that will work together to build a powerful company.

The “I am better than you” mentality

I don’t care if you’re the Founder or President of the company, your ideas are NOT flawless; you do NOT know everything that there is to know about your industry.  You need to listen to your team and allow them to have their input.  If you think your idea is great, but your team thinks it has a few holes in it, listen to them!

The fear of controntation doesn’t just have to deal with people who are followers and don’t like to argue.  The fear can also be found in people who think they’re always right.

The way to fix it is through an attitude change.  You have to work hard at listening to peoples ideas and realize that poking holes at your idea only makes it stronger.

Challenge for the week

For Followers: Say “No” to every singe request that you get.

“Can you get some milk from the supermarket?” - “No”

“Can you work overtime tonight” - “No”

You’ll come to realize that going against the grain is not the end of the world.  You can disagree with people and life WILL continue.  If you want to become an entrepreneur someday, then you’re going to need to confront your team members and you need to start practicing this now.

For hard headed leaders: Start telling everyone about your idea and ask them to criticize it.  Yup, that’s right, ask them to point out every single hole there is.

Here’s the key: instead of arguing with them and telling them why your idea works, ask them how it can be better. Ask them how you can improve your idea.  Take a mental note and write down their comments on your laptop when you get home.  Read over them a couple of times and soon you’ll notice the ideas that start brewing in your head about how your idea can be better.

I promise you, no matter how outrageous their suggestions may be, it will help polish your idea.

You know the way, now go destroy that fear of confrontation!