Adrie's Blog

Team Building

Building a team has been one of the hardest things I have come across as an entrepreneur - as many different factors play a role in getting the team right. Sometimes chance seems to play a large role although I am sure experts may have a different view. The team, and the success they experience also have to do with the goals of the organisation - in my case that was a roll-up and fast growth, in 6 years we grew to 1100 employees which requires determination, creativity and entrepreneurship of everyone in the team.

Your team will determine to a large extent the success of your organisation. It is important when you select new members to watch for chemistry, expectations and the ability to work in the team. You really want to have an entrepreneur, without him/her necessarily immediately want to start out on their own.

My most successful team was in my company Rijnhaave, where I had a group of entrepreneurs as my Board who were able to grow the company spectacularly. They were competitive - towards each other as well as externally, goal-oriented and only hired people that fit in their culture. Everyone was very open, all business was discussed and as my CFO said to me on various occasions, "If they can't handle bad news, they don't belong at this level".

With a strong team like that, it is always task to communicate what the common goal is, as it will undoubtedly get lost from time to time as you are being pulled in different directions. This was company where everyone, all employees, worked incredibly hard, looking back you'd almost say, they worked too hard.

I have always had an issue with giving too much input when selecting new managers, as there is a tendency to select people that are equally good or less so then the people there, whereas I have always looked to hire people that were better!

For many roles I liked to hire people between 25 and 35 years old, energetic, competitive, creative, not formed yet by procedures, and obviously harder to direct. You have to put time in managing these people. For some others, I would opt for older, more experienced people - wise, understanding, experienced, stress resistant. Having a mix of these two gives a good balance to the organisation.

Out of the people in my team then, at least 20 went on to become successful entrepreneurs in their own right...