Hei defties,
Thanks for opening the door to your inbox once again and inviting me into your mental living room for a nice little chat and a cuppa. I’ll take any kind of herbal tea, no sugar, no honey, thank you 🍵
Sigh... there's really something therapeutic about sitting down and slowly drinking a deliciously brewed tea, right? How is yours, do you feel the warmth arriving in your stomach?
Now that you're fully relaxed, with a warm cup in your hand, taking sips from time to time, and sinking into that comfy sofa of yours: How smooth is your (remote) teamwork and onboarding at the moment?
*splutter*
Gosh, I didn't know you would startle this easily from such a simple question!
Your tea was too hot?
No, okay. Then are you implying, in your startup you don’t really have an onboarding process in place to get to know each other?
Uh-oh! 😳
What was that? Newly hired people will just learn on the job and the monthly team lunches count as teambuilding? Ohhhh dear… you are on a bumpy road!
Yes, like this one 👇
And I’m warning you: A bumpy road in employee experience terms means, you will get dizzy preeeeetty quickly. Rollercoaster-feeling-sick-in-your-gut-kinda-dizzy!
When you are on an actual bumpy road, you might wanna follow these instructions:
When it comes to suboptimal employee experience and low team cohesion though, in my experience the best remedy is to write an Instruction Manual for Myself.
Wait, what?
There’s a team exercise called Instruction Manual for Myself, which has the goal to share what makes you tick deep down, be vulnerable, and give the people on your team an idea of how you prefer to work together. It’s super powerful, you’ll see!
Just ask everyone to fill out this template in advance and then organize a session where people share their answers and can ask questions.
Take your time and really listen.
I promise you, that this newfound insight and understanding of the people on your team will make you work together so much more effectively. And if not, get in touch with me and I’ll personally come and take a look at your rollercoaster-team-situation!
Of course, you can repeat this exercise as often as you like and definitely should do so when new people are joining. Fact is, once it’s more than just you and your co-founder(s), it’s time to get serious about employee experience and team development. Or as the English say:
It’s time to get all your d̶u̶c̶k̶s̶ donkeys in a row 😄
#defty pad
Julia and Verena founded a Blended Value Incubator called Ventreneurs and the launch event (in German) is tomorrow, 21.04.2021.
Book your ticket here 👉 Diskussion mit Adrian Daub - Autor des Buches „Was das Valley denken nennt“
You need an extra push to launch something? Check out the “Advice to aspiring female founders” by Marie Outtier, who sold her startup Aiden.ai to Twitter.
Inpiration 😍
Programs
Female Investors Pitch
Female-led startups: Pitch in front of Europe’s top female investors on May 5th from 11:30 to 14:00 CET during the ViennaUP’21 Investors Summit.
Apply here!
Berliner Startup Stipendium @CODE
7-months accelerator program, founders should be based/officially registered/planning to stay in Berlin
Deadline: 26.04.2021 (6 days left!)
Apply here!
[German] Darboven IDEE-Förderpreis
65.000 € für die innovativsten Unternehmensgründungen von Frauen
Deadline: 31.07.2021
Apply here!
Startup Welcome Service - Shibuya Startup Support
The Shibuya City Office assists foreign entrepreneurs in establishing their business in Japan 🇯🇵
More info here!