You will come across this as your company grows, the request for disaster recovery plans from your insurers...here are some guidelines...
10 tips for successful disaster planning:
1. Bring together a 'team' which can have a positive or negative force on the implementation of any plans being created - this might mean ignoring corporate structures and mixing peers from operations, marketing and finance.
2. Facilitate a discussion on past successes and failures and identify the lessons they have learned in the process. The team can learn from others successes and failures as well as their own. The ability to carry out this analysis in a neutral environment with an external facilitator will prevent it from falling into a finger pointing and blame-culture exercise and turn it into a positive learning experience.
3. Expose any misgivings the team may have relating to their joint success. Not talking about such things does not make them go away - e.g. Silent thoughts that the task is stupid, has been tried before and failed etc.
4. Ensure the team are aligned on corporate values and expected codes of conduct. Do they also have a mutual understanding on what the actual words mean? e.g. 'Professional' 'Reliable' 'Fit for Purpose' etc.
5. Set clear goals for the group - inertia often comes as a result of confusion and inertia can cause the greatest disasters in a company. If everyone is clear about the expectations from the rest of the group, they will be able to make their own strategic decisions when faced with an unexpected 'disaster' by keeping the goal in clear focus and just changing the route and steps to achieve it
6. Ensure the team can identify a shared priority - alignment on the key success factor for the project/team
7. Make a plan to achieve all goals
8. Have a clear framework for evaluation - re-evaluation and modification of the plan on an ongoing basis will ensure that at the end of the process the result is still relevant to the desires of the company and the individuals.
9. Provide ongoing support relevant to each team member - continual coaching to strengthen each team player physically, mentally and emotionally will make them more adept to handle disasters on the job.
10. Bring the team together for regular reviews, brainstorming and mutual re-evaluation of the common goals and objectives. In the constantly changing world we live in, we need to be fast to react. If you think about the more traditional businesses, their reaction is a little like a major oil tanker which takes several hours for the instruction to change direction to be manifested in the actual movement of the boat. Businesses need to be more like a power boat!
Slainte
Gordon
After decades in the trenches of business, I've learned that leadership isn't about titles, profit or applause. It's about people, hard decisions, failure, faith and what remains when we walk away. I'm an entrepreneur, a Christian and part of The Gathering in Northumberland. Here I'll challenge comfortable thinking, share lessons earned the hard way and explore what it means to lead with courage and purpose. I haven't got all the answers, but I've stopped pretending easy answers exist.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Follow on from previous post on Staff compensation
An Interesting post from the two guys at Pure VC ,it explains better than my thoughts were on culture etc...
"PureVC"
How many founders do you need for a startup?
Brad has posted today about the topic of founders and how many are needed for a startup. Interestingly, there is a table showing some famous startups and the number of founders. Apparently, two founders seems about average. I personally don't believe there is a magic number. There must be enough of a core nucleus to sustain the vision if someone decides to bail. There must be few enough so that the founding group does not get bogged down by size. The reason I think the topic is interesting is not because there is a "good" number of founders, but more because it touches on the topic of founder ownership.
In working with entrepreneurs, I think there is an obsessive concern with dilution among founders of a startup. Too often I find that when people form a startup they are very weary of sharing the idea with others or bringing others on board. All they want is the funding - they fear that taking on additional founders or employees during the formative stages will dilute their equity.
My response is always that if you are worried about equity, then being greedy is going to be what prevents your equity from being worth anything. Do you want to own 100% of something worthless? or 25% of something extremely valuable?
Sometimes it is better to bring in more people to have more energy, enthusiasm, and ideas. If you are obsessed with equity and people jumping ship prematurely, then feel free to make clauses that allow buyback of founder's stock if they leave within a certain period of time. Feel free to have noncompete clauses. Do whatever you need to do to allay those fears that other people will dilute your ownership. Think of the founding group as being the core nucleus of the operation. You want a strong group with a similar vision. You want individuals that complement each other. You don't want people overextending themselves and doing too much. You don't want people who will clash. You want everyone bringing something to the table.
Let me once again say that the most valuable thing in a startup should be its equity - do whatever you can to increase this value, even if it means giving some away to bring in talent. By seeing this big picture your entrepreneurial experience will be more rewarding and you will be able to share this success with those early founders - these relationships will be something that you will cherish and that you will likely continue to enjoy as you start your next endeavor.
"PureVC"
How many founders do you need for a startup?
Brad has posted today about the topic of founders and how many are needed for a startup. Interestingly, there is a table showing some famous startups and the number of founders. Apparently, two founders seems about average. I personally don't believe there is a magic number. There must be enough of a core nucleus to sustain the vision if someone decides to bail. There must be few enough so that the founding group does not get bogged down by size. The reason I think the topic is interesting is not because there is a "good" number of founders, but more because it touches on the topic of founder ownership.
In working with entrepreneurs, I think there is an obsessive concern with dilution among founders of a startup. Too often I find that when people form a startup they are very weary of sharing the idea with others or bringing others on board. All they want is the funding - they fear that taking on additional founders or employees during the formative stages will dilute their equity.
My response is always that if you are worried about equity, then being greedy is going to be what prevents your equity from being worth anything. Do you want to own 100% of something worthless? or 25% of something extremely valuable?
Sometimes it is better to bring in more people to have more energy, enthusiasm, and ideas. If you are obsessed with equity and people jumping ship prematurely, then feel free to make clauses that allow buyback of founder's stock if they leave within a certain period of time. Feel free to have noncompete clauses. Do whatever you need to do to allay those fears that other people will dilute your ownership. Think of the founding group as being the core nucleus of the operation. You want a strong group with a similar vision. You want individuals that complement each other. You don't want people overextending themselves and doing too much. You don't want people who will clash. You want everyone bringing something to the table.
Let me once again say that the most valuable thing in a startup should be its equity - do whatever you can to increase this value, even if it means giving some away to bring in talent. By seeing this big picture your entrepreneurial experience will be more rewarding and you will be able to share this success with those early founders - these relationships will be something that you will cherish and that you will likely continue to enjoy as you start your next endeavor.
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