A team of humans

Lately I’m buying I’m listening some audio books about time management, management techniques and leadership. One of them is talking about “employees” and I found something interesting.
Two years ago I’ve started a company and now we are 3 persons working there. The first year was easy. The second year became much more complex and in several cases my knowledge of “management” wasn’t enough. But believe it or not the difficulties were not with customers or taxes or any other external issue. The problem was internal. The problem is that working with Humans is not easy.
I’m learning the Human soul can’t never stop learning and looking for progress. But it means that we are also creatures very sensitive to change and routine. A contradiction! We react against change because we need security but we need change to feel alive. That also means that if we feel secure about the change we will go for it!
That was the problem! My team was facing bigger challenges, more work pressure and they were reacting against it.
My “huge” question was how to solve the problem. Some friends told me that if my team doesn’t want to work then they should not be part of the team anymore, but that would kill my ideal of “trust” in the persons and I would become a traditional boss; the one that fires people at the second mistake. In that case I wouldn’t like to be a manager. I don’t want “employee”[1] thinking within our team I need partners that love their work.
So I made my bet on the “democratic” boss! I planned a complete organizational change that would bring more independence to each member of the team and at the same time will help to define boundaries and responsibilities. That freedom should awake the creativity in each member of the team and would have to push them to organize their time better.
The long meetings and the process of facing deception is giving great results. It made a feeling of “urgency” and now all of us are working towards success! I’m happy for now. But I really wish to see the long term results.


[1] By “employee” thinking I mean: the persons that are only motivated with the payment and no matter what they go home as soon as the 8 hours of work are finished. Persons that can’t find themselves at that work place.