How a startup died
Introduction:
Somewhere a year and a half ago I encountered a number of problems in the project that could not be solved in the traditional way.
It was necessary to do the following “fraud”, under the pretext of a new employee, a psychologist and a personnel audit specialist was introduced into the team. We successfully worked with him for several years in overlapping projects, he showed himself as a good specialist, we had good relations, but life spread us to different areas, to the area of ​​personnel management, and in particular personnel audit. So when I told him what the problem was, he happily volunteered to help.
About the project:
The project was designed for 3 years, exactly 1.5 years have passed. Under this project at the very beginning of development, it was decided to create a new independent organization, so that it would not have anything with the general structure of a larger organization. The first year everything went perfectly, time after time they took a new bar, the schedule and the “business plan” fit, but there were no serious problems besides the turnover. All fulfilled their obligations, investors gave resources, the team gave results.
"Everything went according to plan!"
')
About the command:
I take the staff for the team, on whose shoulders lies the decision-making function and, accordingly, responsibility, it is worth saying that the team was formed from the first month of work. It consists of 5 people, 4 of which were distributed according to the functional areas of the organization, 1 had to take on a new designated area, but then got ready to go on maternity leave. Another potential team member has disappeared. It is worth saying that part of the team was lured away from other jobs, some were lured away from our competitors, some were taken from related industries, and only one member of the new team had experience with me and a successful result!
About the organization:
Information at the time of the problem:
Segment: Regional IT market, organization sharpened only for work in the region.
Structure: Department No. 1 - it directly assumes responsibility for the quality of our work, Department No. 2 - it is responsible for communication with partners and external partners of the project. Department number 3 - it is responsible for diverse non-profile activities. Departments are headed by managers, Boss & assistant boss is in charge of managers - who coordinate the work of the organization, the implementation of control and intermediate results of the organization’s activities, report to investors, etc.
The number of employees - 21 people
The number of levels in the organization - 3 - 4 levels, depending on the direction.
Problem: After a small expansion (a new large office, several new employees), we “stuck” - for three months in a row we flew through all the checkpoints, the team really collapsed, everything at one point turned upside down, something happened, what exactly, I could not understand personally, my eye was zamylen, objectivity was lost.
As everything was expressed:
- violation of subordination
- Constant conflicts, squabbling, gossip, "Bickering" in the team and in the team.
- Theft - "Ratty"
- Our competitors and team members started competing and trying to lure themselves into the organization (even at a very convenient time, a new job was offered with very favorable conditions)
- Efficiency and performance tends to zero.
- We began to stand out from all the graphs and scenarios.
- Began to escalate relations with the investor.
- Team spirit, mutual support and mutual assistance have become rare for us.
And this is all for a couple of months? (I understand that all the above has been accumulated, but what was the reason for such a sharp burst of socially destructive energy?)
"Startup started to die!"
As a result, this is what my "zaslanets" gave me .
I received two reports, the first was written for me in a language that was clear to me, the second was a psychological analysis that was analyzed with an expert evaluation for investors. (The text, which was intended for me slightly, corrected and spread: I added a little somewhere, removed the names and examples in more detail, but the essence remains the same):
The essence of the problem:
1) The predominance of the bloated personal “I” over the “Command” on a personal level.
2) The team spirit disappeared in the organization! The whole team stopped to consider themselves part of the team.
3) Each person believes that the project is five minutes as completed and now it is for itself. All that remains for him is “not to mess up”, no matter what to fly out at the final stage.
A little explanation:
How I managed to find out, it all started when Vadim left the organization. He very quickly moved from ordinary employees to the team. Several members of the team wanted to assign him a referral.
He was actively involved in the life of the organization and wanted to be part of the team, he did everything for this and it is worth saying, he was perfectly suited to the missing link to our team! But as it turned out, he acted solely for his own purposes. And as soon as it became unprofitable for him, he simply “disappeared” by shaking the team and the foundations that were born here. It is worth saying that he “disappeared” with a very good “big score” on his hands, a month before the events he was paid a very substantial bonus, which, according to the shareholders' plan, had to solve a number of his current problems and motivate well before an increase.
“Disappeared” - after an ordinary working day, he did not go to work in the morning, the phone is turned off, at home no one opens the door during the week.
In fact, it’s not so bad that Vadim left so early, it would be much worse if he penetrated deeper into the team and already at the key stage he threw out some kind of trick, apparently some kind of defense mechanism you worked.
Based on this logic:
We see that the collective comes to the fore, not the interests of the team, but personal interests.
Examples:
The head of the department (No. 1) - it seems to me that the very first one “fell for” all this. When you talk to him about work, and not only about work, he almost always says “I need to”, “I am uncomfortable”, etc. It was only in one day that I counted 15 high-profile "I" and "Me" (Actually, this is exactly what prompted me to think). There is clearly a dominant "I". To all this I want to note that the requests of the head of department No. 1 have recently been on the verge of reasonable demands, and this concerns me to some extent, no matter how much this may lead to even greater problems.
The head of the department (№2) - with some delay and he began to “play this game”, but in his own way. His “I” began to manifest itself in conversations with colleagues and in communication with customers. It began in the summer when, at one of the key partners, he rolled a barrel on one of the employees, something like “I have been in this field for 20 years! And you are not old enough ... ", then with the staff" I said ... ", etc. It should be said that his main task is to work with external partners and coordinate that external partners fulfill their obligations on time and in full.
Explanation to the Head of Department (No. 2):
In my opinion, it went with him due to the fact that he had not rebuilt in time.
I explain, at first I picked up this infection No. 1, and when I began to move my “I”, No. 2 still “played according to the rules of the Team game”. If you look through the prism of “I”, “I” №1 constantly conflicted with “Command” №2, and after some time crushed “Command” №2 and gradually this very “Command” bent and bent until it turned into exactly the same "I".
The result of the conflict of the two "I":
1) Constant disassembly of trifles, the main task of "disassembly" is not to solve the problem, but to bend its position.
2) The strike in Italian.
3) Result = 0, due to the high interconnection of departments and directions.
Consequences for the team of the conflict of two "I":
1) It's all smoothly transmitted to the rest.
2) Constantly unnerving and exhausting.
The head of the department (No. 3) also picked up the same "contagion", perhaps when he tried to resolve the conflict between the two "I" by force. But judging by the ways in which issues are resolved, he has not fully gone over to the side of evil.
The head (No. 4 and No. 5) - in view of the specifics of the work, it is almost impossible to analyze how the conflict between the two “I's” touched him.
Potential second conflict of two "I" (â„– 4 and â„– 5, â„– 5 and â„– 3):
While it is not yet manifested, but if measures are not taken, then at one fine moment we may find ourselves in exactly the same position as No. 1 and No. 2. So far this has been avoided, due to many years of teamwork.
I want to note that conflicts of this kind are beginning to be traced at the 2,3,4,5 level of the organization.
When a conflict acquires a scale, it becomes destructive, and more and more participants are drawn into it.
As soon as the “I” begins to prevail over the “Team”, then very sad consequences occur, one of which is “bickering”.
When a team starts not to solve problems, and the team members begin to catch, podzhizhivat, poking, substitute, dig, inflate the problem, which ultimately leads to the final destruction of the team.
Example:
For 3 months, a member of the team comes to me at regular intervals of 1-2 weeks and says that His colleague is insane, that he is sick and that he first goes on vacation, then take a couple of pills, and now that he needs a couple in a mental hospital. And so each time on the rise. Begin the bases, begin "podkoly", begins to discredit the individual.
After the holidays, another member of the team began to work better, he really needed to just relax, but the criticism of colleagues not only did not diminish, but on the contrary intensified, and "jokes" became frequent, there were frequent cases when he began to dig for or simply substitute.
When two “I's” meet, the larger “I” will always try to suppress the smaller. And it’s not even a matter of how much a person is able to withstand criticism, it’s just that the less emaciated "I" begins.
When a person sees that he is simply being crushed and crushed, he starts screaming for help, but when the people he calls for help tell him: “Shut up and be quiet, you are a fool!” (Sometimes, when there is no leadership, it came to such .) And so from time to time. As a result, a person begins to overestimate their contribution to the organization. And he thinks that his contribution is much more than the contribution of others, he even remembers and manages to count how many times and whom he gave for free and treated, how many paper clips and pens he bought with his money, how much he spent on the road during working hours, he remembers how he worked on Saturday and Sunday, he remembers everything .... all .... all. ... And after that, he realizes that his attitude towards him is already so low that due to the fact that his fat "I" crushed him so much that he is not considered a person. It is then that he will try to somehow save the contribution he made. And there is theft - "Rat-racking".
As soon as the small “I” No. 2 is cornered, soon it learns from the large “I” No. 1 and begins to “play” by its rules. Starts to dig, substitute, sniff, pin up, etc. Then the "contagion" is transmitted from No. 2 to No. 3 and No. 5 and so on exponentially. That soon leads to complete paralysis of the organization, and the "contagion" turns into a "general plague"!
This analysis gave me my "zaslanets".
I want to say that the key problems were very successfully identified, after a couple of days, we developed a solution, agreed it with the investor and started the second experiment.
About how we pulled Startup, what we did, and what results have been achieved, I will write in the next post.
I want to add:
“Our young promising employee” - who then disappeared, as it turned out, having received a good cache, probably thought that he had climbed to the top of the world and was already a very good manager and specialist in one person, he decided to “divert” the developed client and himself “stir up” him, it is worth saying that at the initial stage it turned out to be beneficial both for the client and “Our young promising employee”. As a result, we can say that he cut down in 6 months, about five bonuses. Naturally, other employees gradually found out about this, and already with a delay it served as a bomb for a sharp burst of socially destructive energy.
Somewhere a year and a half ago I encountered a number of problems in the project that could not be solved in the traditional way.
It was necessary to do the following “fraud”, under the pretext of a new employee, a psychologist and a personnel audit specialist was introduced into the team. We successfully worked with him for several years in overlapping projects, he showed himself as a good specialist, we had good relations, but life spread us to different areas, to the area of ​​personnel management, and in particular personnel audit. So when I told him what the problem was, he happily volunteered to help.
About the project:
The project was designed for 3 years, exactly 1.5 years have passed. Under this project at the very beginning of development, it was decided to create a new independent organization, so that it would not have anything with the general structure of a larger organization. The first year everything went perfectly, time after time they took a new bar, the schedule and the “business plan” fit, but there were no serious problems besides the turnover. All fulfilled their obligations, investors gave resources, the team gave results.
"Everything went according to plan!"
')
About the command:
I take the staff for the team, on whose shoulders lies the decision-making function and, accordingly, responsibility, it is worth saying that the team was formed from the first month of work. It consists of 5 people, 4 of which were distributed according to the functional areas of the organization, 1 had to take on a new designated area, but then got ready to go on maternity leave. Another potential team member has disappeared. It is worth saying that part of the team was lured away from other jobs, some were lured away from our competitors, some were taken from related industries, and only one member of the new team had experience with me and a successful result!
About the organization:
Information at the time of the problem:
Segment: Regional IT market, organization sharpened only for work in the region.
Structure: Department No. 1 - it directly assumes responsibility for the quality of our work, Department No. 2 - it is responsible for communication with partners and external partners of the project. Department number 3 - it is responsible for diverse non-profile activities. Departments are headed by managers, Boss & assistant boss is in charge of managers - who coordinate the work of the organization, the implementation of control and intermediate results of the organization’s activities, report to investors, etc.
The number of employees - 21 people
The number of levels in the organization - 3 - 4 levels, depending on the direction.
Problem: After a small expansion (a new large office, several new employees), we “stuck” - for three months in a row we flew through all the checkpoints, the team really collapsed, everything at one point turned upside down, something happened, what exactly, I could not understand personally, my eye was zamylen, objectivity was lost.
As everything was expressed:
- violation of subordination
- Constant conflicts, squabbling, gossip, "Bickering" in the team and in the team.
- Theft - "Ratty"
- Our competitors and team members started competing and trying to lure themselves into the organization (even at a very convenient time, a new job was offered with very favorable conditions)
- Efficiency and performance tends to zero.
- We began to stand out from all the graphs and scenarios.
- Began to escalate relations with the investor.
- Team spirit, mutual support and mutual assistance have become rare for us.
And this is all for a couple of months? (I understand that all the above has been accumulated, but what was the reason for such a sharp burst of socially destructive energy?)
"Startup started to die!"
As a result, this is what my "zaslanets" gave me .
I received two reports, the first was written for me in a language that was clear to me, the second was a psychological analysis that was analyzed with an expert evaluation for investors. (The text, which was intended for me slightly, corrected and spread: I added a little somewhere, removed the names and examples in more detail, but the essence remains the same):
The essence of the problem:
1) The predominance of the bloated personal “I” over the “Command” on a personal level.
2) The team spirit disappeared in the organization! The whole team stopped to consider themselves part of the team.
3) Each person believes that the project is five minutes as completed and now it is for itself. All that remains for him is “not to mess up”, no matter what to fly out at the final stage.
A little explanation:
How I managed to find out, it all started when Vadim left the organization. He very quickly moved from ordinary employees to the team. Several members of the team wanted to assign him a referral.
He was actively involved in the life of the organization and wanted to be part of the team, he did everything for this and it is worth saying, he was perfectly suited to the missing link to our team! But as it turned out, he acted solely for his own purposes. And as soon as it became unprofitable for him, he simply “disappeared” by shaking the team and the foundations that were born here. It is worth saying that he “disappeared” with a very good “big score” on his hands, a month before the events he was paid a very substantial bonus, which, according to the shareholders' plan, had to solve a number of his current problems and motivate well before an increase.
“Disappeared” - after an ordinary working day, he did not go to work in the morning, the phone is turned off, at home no one opens the door during the week.
In fact, it’s not so bad that Vadim left so early, it would be much worse if he penetrated deeper into the team and already at the key stage he threw out some kind of trick, apparently some kind of defense mechanism you worked.
Based on this logic:
We see that the collective comes to the fore, not the interests of the team, but personal interests.
Examples:
The head of the department (No. 1) - it seems to me that the very first one “fell for” all this. When you talk to him about work, and not only about work, he almost always says “I need to”, “I am uncomfortable”, etc. It was only in one day that I counted 15 high-profile "I" and "Me" (Actually, this is exactly what prompted me to think). There is clearly a dominant "I". To all this I want to note that the requests of the head of department No. 1 have recently been on the verge of reasonable demands, and this concerns me to some extent, no matter how much this may lead to even greater problems.
The head of the department (№2) - with some delay and he began to “play this game”, but in his own way. His “I” began to manifest itself in conversations with colleagues and in communication with customers. It began in the summer when, at one of the key partners, he rolled a barrel on one of the employees, something like “I have been in this field for 20 years! And you are not old enough ... ", then with the staff" I said ... ", etc. It should be said that his main task is to work with external partners and coordinate that external partners fulfill their obligations on time and in full.
Explanation to the Head of Department (No. 2):
In my opinion, it went with him due to the fact that he had not rebuilt in time.
I explain, at first I picked up this infection No. 1, and when I began to move my “I”, No. 2 still “played according to the rules of the Team game”. If you look through the prism of “I”, “I” №1 constantly conflicted with “Command” №2, and after some time crushed “Command” №2 and gradually this very “Command” bent and bent until it turned into exactly the same "I".
The result of the conflict of the two "I":
1) Constant disassembly of trifles, the main task of "disassembly" is not to solve the problem, but to bend its position.
2) The strike in Italian.
3) Result = 0, due to the high interconnection of departments and directions.
Consequences for the team of the conflict of two "I":
1) It's all smoothly transmitted to the rest.
2) Constantly unnerving and exhausting.
The head of the department (No. 3) also picked up the same "contagion", perhaps when he tried to resolve the conflict between the two "I" by force. But judging by the ways in which issues are resolved, he has not fully gone over to the side of evil.
The head (No. 4 and No. 5) - in view of the specifics of the work, it is almost impossible to analyze how the conflict between the two “I's” touched him.
Potential second conflict of two "I" (â„– 4 and â„– 5, â„– 5 and â„– 3):
While it is not yet manifested, but if measures are not taken, then at one fine moment we may find ourselves in exactly the same position as No. 1 and No. 2. So far this has been avoided, due to many years of teamwork.
I want to note that conflicts of this kind are beginning to be traced at the 2,3,4,5 level of the organization.
When a conflict acquires a scale, it becomes destructive, and more and more participants are drawn into it.
As soon as the “I” begins to prevail over the “Team”, then very sad consequences occur, one of which is “bickering”.
When a team starts not to solve problems, and the team members begin to catch, podzhizhivat, poking, substitute, dig, inflate the problem, which ultimately leads to the final destruction of the team.
Example:
For 3 months, a member of the team comes to me at regular intervals of 1-2 weeks and says that His colleague is insane, that he is sick and that he first goes on vacation, then take a couple of pills, and now that he needs a couple in a mental hospital. And so each time on the rise. Begin the bases, begin "podkoly", begins to discredit the individual.
After the holidays, another member of the team began to work better, he really needed to just relax, but the criticism of colleagues not only did not diminish, but on the contrary intensified, and "jokes" became frequent, there were frequent cases when he began to dig for or simply substitute.
When two “I's” meet, the larger “I” will always try to suppress the smaller. And it’s not even a matter of how much a person is able to withstand criticism, it’s just that the less emaciated "I" begins.
When a person sees that he is simply being crushed and crushed, he starts screaming for help, but when the people he calls for help tell him: “Shut up and be quiet, you are a fool!” (Sometimes, when there is no leadership, it came to such .) And so from time to time. As a result, a person begins to overestimate their contribution to the organization. And he thinks that his contribution is much more than the contribution of others, he even remembers and manages to count how many times and whom he gave for free and treated, how many paper clips and pens he bought with his money, how much he spent on the road during working hours, he remembers how he worked on Saturday and Sunday, he remembers everything .... all .... all. ... And after that, he realizes that his attitude towards him is already so low that due to the fact that his fat "I" crushed him so much that he is not considered a person. It is then that he will try to somehow save the contribution he made. And there is theft - "Rat-racking".
As soon as the small “I” No. 2 is cornered, soon it learns from the large “I” No. 1 and begins to “play” by its rules. Starts to dig, substitute, sniff, pin up, etc. Then the "contagion" is transmitted from No. 2 to No. 3 and No. 5 and so on exponentially. That soon leads to complete paralysis of the organization, and the "contagion" turns into a "general plague"!
This analysis gave me my "zaslanets".
I want to say that the key problems were very successfully identified, after a couple of days, we developed a solution, agreed it with the investor and started the second experiment.
About how we pulled Startup, what we did, and what results have been achieved, I will write in the next post.
I want to add:
“Our young promising employee” - who then disappeared, as it turned out, having received a good cache, probably thought that he had climbed to the top of the world and was already a very good manager and specialist in one person, he decided to “divert” the developed client and himself “stir up” him, it is worth saying that at the initial stage it turned out to be beneficial both for the client and “Our young promising employee”. As a result, we can say that he cut down in 6 months, about five bonuses. Naturally, other employees gradually found out about this, and already with a delay it served as a bomb for a sharp burst of socially destructive energy.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/142513/
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