Communication is critical for successful teamwork and productivity. Office politics lead to bureaucracy and inefficiencies. Only take a job where your boss is your mentor. The biggest challenge in business is ethics.
I ran a high growth startup, managing a 30 person team in the US and Philippines. The company provided virtual assistant services to small businesses looking to scale by helping them maximize their operational efforts and create a more robust office support team.
With the company being properly capitalized and with the strength of the US dollar against the Philippine peso, I was able to provide my team with competitive salaries and benefits. Currency was relative. Above that, the most gratifying part of my role was building a team that shared the same commitment and dedication to the success of the company. The relationships we forged with each other were the product. Being the leader that built the environment and fostered the culture, I found myself in a role of purpose.
As the founder, first hire, and change agent in this startup, I built the company from proof of concept to functioning entity. I was responsible for conceptualizing the business direction, creating a comprehensive executive proposal, building its infrastructure, and ensuring the final model was aligned with its respective industry needs. The goal was to become a world class service provider in the US and global marketplace.
The key was delegation. I entrusted team members with leadership roles, combining their interest with their respective skills. This model of responsibility was new to my offshore team. Call centers were one of the fastest growing job markets in the Philippines. Most available roles were low-level functional roles, and employees easily jumped from one company to another. This high level of accountability prompted employees to solve company problems as their own. Employees willingly stayed after hours to work on projects, convinced their individual contributions were a reflection of the team as a whole. My experience reinforced my belief that people were inherently valuable and a successful company was one that invested in their own people.
Our company culture played an integral role in attracting and retaining employees. I encouraged the employees to bring creativity, critical thinking, and innovative solutions to our company problems. Communication was the foundation of our trust and the culture was the driver to our success. What I experienced was a profound learning experience and reinforcement of my belief that, when you provide a supportive and sustainable working environment to the people you employ, no matter their background or where they reside in the world, they can be successful. Soon the company began to stabilize. Employees started referring their colleagues to join the company, we had growing sales, we had our systems in place, all of which allowed us to hire many key positions.
There were many challenges before the company launched. My plan to recreate the San Francisco startup culture in the Philippines was not always well-received. The fluidity of a startup did not suit all. For some, the startup culture was too all-consuming. While we were constantly hiring, there were evidently employees leaving. A quarter of the team left to pursue other opportunities. Some didn’t think it was realistic to hit our sales goals in a saturated market competing against more established companies.
With impending deadlines and quotas to meet, I prioritized the company’s bottom line instead of dedicating more time to employees. We had to let go of underperforming members who did not get the valuable time needed for training. Whereas I gave the annual performance reviews, I never received feedback on my leadership. With no prior real-world work experience, I had no benchmark for certain situations I could have avoided. Leadership meant listening, giving direction, finding solutions, and, above all, managing people. While I was successful in positioning the company for growth, I felt I had failed my team.
I believe there can be a balance between the responsibilities for my team and advancing a fast-growing company. Trial and error was inevitable but guidance from proven leaders can save precious time and prevent the same mistakes from being repeated. Through my failures, I learned the key motivation to what inspired me to come to work every day was the people.
The lessons learned throughout this process have made me to be a leader that puts their people first, understands the importance of the culture, but yet realizes there is still much to learn. My desire is to build a company where there is a role for everyone, where they can be the best versions of themselves. Thus, I need to first know how to be the best version of myself.