Web Development CEO

I’ve spoken with a few people regarding yesterday’s post and they told me I should have included more on how and why Mindscape has implemented this “team concept” within the company. Through these conversations I see how it could be helpful to explain how we arrived at this point so here goes….

I am a firm believer that that most efficient way to improve is to allow past experiences be the teacher. And if you learn from those lessons, you can succeed much faster and less painfully. When I was only a couple years out of high school I got married and had my first child. I didn’t last too long in college and therefore settled for a job making very little money. I figured working for a few dollars an hour was barely providing me with enough income to keep my family fed and the lights on, so I knew I needed to find something else. The pain of being broke all the time prompted me to look at many different opportunities. I didn’t have a college degree nor any “trade skills” so my options were limited.

After about six months of searching I found a guy that was extremely successful in my eyes and I asked him if he’d teach me to do what he did. He had a distribution company and marketed products throughout the United States. The idea that someone thought enough of me to spend their time teaching me how to improve my financial life was extremely exciting to me! He had only met me a few times yet he was willing to potentially waste his time on someone like me. Wow!

I made the decision to work my hardest and do everything he told me to do so he wouldn’t be wasting his time. Over the course of the next two years I built a network of sales people across the country which were producing over 1/2 million dollars a year in sales. With this experience I realized one of my first lessons in my early business life.

It is much easier and quicker to succeed by being “dumb enough” to follow a proven system, than it is to figure it out on your own.

Shortly after the second year in business the supplier decided we were making too much money and decided to change the commission structure. This reduced our income by close to 70% and devastated the morale within my organization. I spent the majority of the time attempting to keep everyone positive and working so our income didn’t completely evaporate. Soon after this point we found a different supplier and moved on. The original company was out of business in less than a year.

I was amazed at how we all worked so hard and were so devoted to the success of this supplier and they didn’t seem to appreciate it or even recognize it. It was as though the management figured they were the reason the products were flying off the shelves. They got greedy and their egos got the best of them. This was lesson number two.

Never forget who is responsible for your success. Most importantly never let the responsible parties forget how much you appreciate them!

When I started in the Internet world I did so with absolutely zero knowledge of what it took to design a website, or how to write one line of programming code. This may seem like an incredibly stupid thing to do since I didn’t have the ability to do any of the work within the company … and it probably would have been if I didn’t learn this lesson.

I started in this business determined to find the best people I could possibly find and reward them as much as possible for the work they produced. I did this knowing full well THEY ARE THE REASON we would succeed and that I played a very small part in that success. I also made a decision I would never allow my ego to get the best of me and do what the management from the supplier did.

I believe every single person in a company makes a contribution toward the success of a company and any person in a leadership position that loses focus of that FACT will soon be facing failure.

I received a comment on the post yesterday which mentioned how they believed when companies started to implement a “team philosophy” there could potentially be internal competition between the employees. I believe this could be the case if the implementation of this philosophy was simply a gimmick used for motivation. If this philosophy is something the leadership and team members are passionate about and completely “buy in” to, this competition won’t exist.

If you are going to build a team instead of a company and everyone vows to set aside the battle of egos and focus on the success of the organization, which is going to ultimately benefit them financially, and give them an incredible quality of life, these issues won’t exist.

I know this may sound like some “polly anna-ish” fantasy, but it can work! I often want to pinch myself as I feel this reality every day at Mindscape. We have an atmosphere of people coming up with new, exciting ideas almost every day! It isn’t any one person that makes Mindscape successful. It is each and every member of the team and EVERYONE KNOWS IT!

Great ideas and contributions need to be RECOGNIZED to create the energy to come up with the next idea! These ideas don’t just work with companies of our size (11 team members). I met with a company earlier today which has over 110 employees and does over $60,0000,0000 in sales. They have the same culture and the team members leave each night with a smile on their faces ready to come back each day to make another contribution.

I am sure there are many people who feel this is all simply a fantasy and that is fine. Those of you who believe it might be possible and give it a try will be extremely happy you did.

I am one of “those guys” that has a strong emotional attachment to the teams I follow in sports. It doesn’t matter if they are the tops in the league or the bottom of the barrel which is typically the case for my NFL team The Detroit Lions. I find myself anxiously looking forward to each and every game and letting the outcome of the game affect my feelings for some time after the game. If they win, I am on cloud nine, and conversely, if they perform less than what I expect and lose, it is wise to stay away from me for a bit until I get over it.

I am getting better as the years go by and I can now look back and see how silly I used to act, and to a certain point, how I still react. It isn’t like I have the ability to affect the outcome of the game, or that they can hear me screaming at the TV screen telling them to make the play! Yet I still do it. Thankfully I know I am not the only person in the world with this “disorder” or my wife would have me locked up.

I’ve often wondered why I get so passionate about the success of my teams and find it very difficult to pinpoint the answer. I also wonder what would happen if the millions of people with this “disorder” refocused this passion toward the company they are a part of? It would be amazing if every company out there was full of people that sprung out of bed in the morning excited to speed down the highway to work and see what they could do to contribute to the success of their company! I am certain it would be extremely annoying to the “normal” people who dreaded work each day. You know who I am talking about. The people who work harder at skating through the day and put zero focus on making the company a better place.

This is kind of crazy if you look at it logically. Take a second to look at the rewards generated from your team winning the “big game” or upsetting the defending champion. You’ll soon realize you feel great for a very short period of time and then it goes away. All this passion exerted on something that will give you a few hours, days, or weeks of “high spirits” which you absolutely know will come to a very abrupt ending.

Imagine if you were able to fall in love with the company you are working with …

You’d find every day exciting because the effort you put forth would result in a stronger more prosperous company. You’d also find the people around you that are typically whining and complaining and skating by would be so disgusted at your excitement and passion, they wouldn’t hang around and would soon be seeking more people with the same frame of mind as them. The “borderline positive” people would be attracted to you and soon that group would outnumber the negative people. Imagine a company full of like minded, passionate people working together towards the success of their company…

The rewards would be limitless!

I believe there is a way to accomplish this. It is really simple actually. The company needs to be viewed as a team where the contributions of each and every member of the team are very important and valued by the leadership within the company. Leaders need to put ego aside and realize without the efforts of each person in the company, there is no way it will be successful.

I challenge you to “reinvent” your company culture and focus on building a strong team instead of a strong company. You’ll soon see a passion like you’ve never imagined. You’ll soon have people coming to you excitedly with new ideas which will help the company get on a fast track to success. I guarantee you it will be the most amazing experience you’ve ever had. You will also find that the “high spirits” will hang around much longer than a victory from your favorite team.