Maybe the most difficult thing, when
it comes to running a business--
or even getting a band together--
is finding the right people.
It's not just about finding the best
bass player, or the greatest drummer,
or the guitarist with
all the great chops,
you also want to make sure that
there's a cohesion among them,
that the sum is greater than the
individual parts, if you will.
When I look at the early
days of my company,
the people that I had assembled weren't
necessarily ones with big pedigrees,
or MBAs, or necessarily
big accomplishments.
But as a unit, we made sense.
There was a magic there.
So what you're looking for
is that particular magic when
you're assembling a group of people.
I've had previous companies where
we've hired from the top down.
We bring in captains of every industry.
And we expect that, by having
key decision makers in place,
that the right decisions
are going to be made.
But the problem, the flaw,
in that particular concept
is that you bring in
people who've normally
had scores of people who
are doing things for them,
and when they point
their finger and say,
hey, this needs to be
done-- in a startup company,
they kind of look on the end of their
finger and they're like, well hey,
no one's there.
Right?
If I don't get it done myself,
it's not going to get done.
So really try to hire
from the bottom up.
I do think finding the right people
early on is really a key thing.
And I also believe that we have
the tools to do that, which is
you work with them, and it feels good.
One of the simple things
I would do is, instead
of doing a lot interviewing,
I'll would just say, come on in.
Come in to this meeting.
We're trying to figure this out.
And just see what it feels
like to work together.
And what I've found is if
it felt good, then it was.
It's also very important that,
just like you're using empathy
as a means of connecting with your
audience and co-creating with them,
that you use empathy as
a way of understanding
the different people
that you work with, and be
able to tap into the unique
strengths that they have
and almost give them the
ability to liberate themselves,
express themselves, and bring that
strength into the collective team.
I think a great example of
this is a guy like Miles Davis.
If you look at albums
ranging from Kind of Blue,
to Bitches Brew, all the way
towards the end of his career
with an album like Amandla, I
think Miles's brilliance wasn't
just in him being an
amazing trumpeter, but it
was in his ability to take different
people together and somehow
help shape them into a unique whole,
that created a whole unique sound.
And that is, in many ways, your
job as a start-up founder--
is to bring these different people
together, and help them almost break
out of themselves, and
as a comprehensive unit,
create something totally different
that blows your audience away.
You know, sometimes
we like to hire people
who think like we do-- who we connect
to, who we want to go have a beer with,
who we want to hang out with.
But I would really say, we have to
hire diversity-- diversity in thought,
diversity in talent.
My husband worked on a
project when he got his MBA
about how more projects failed
because of the team makeup,
versus the outcome or the
product that was being produced.
So if you're a creative, maybe
you'll relate to this, right?
We love to generate ideas.
We love to generate, generate, generate.
But you need an editor
to come in, right?
You need a critic to come in.
You need a closer to come in.
So I think you have to look
at the talents of your team.
And I think you also have to hire
people that can wear multiple hats.
I pick people who are going to
bring something that I can't.
I want them to make me go, oh my god!
You did not do that!
That's awesome!
I'll give them prompts
like, I don't know,
this song feels too sweet and pretty.
Can you fuck it up a little bit?
And they'll be like, goody.
And then I pick a guy
who's good at that.
So when I need somebody--
I need a musician--
or I hear something that
really, I think, wow,
that's an interesting player, or
that producer's really got an ear,
he's got a special way of hearing--
I make sure that I find and meet
those people, if I possibly can.
So never underestimate your job
to be, in many ways, a collector
of unique talent, and
shift your mindset from one
where these are people that work for
you to the team being, in many ways,
the enabler, the catalyst
for things to happen.
