@Pavani Gajendra Thanks for doing the AMA. What is the one thing managers/leadership tend to get wrong when it comes to driving performance in these early days of scaling a team?

From Managers - It is data! Giving clear visibility to the team spikes performance: - Helps the team understand their performance quantitatively - Establishes accountability - Helps you plan and coach the team on the improvement areas Typically the problems I have observed around getting the data in my previous stints: - Low or no budgets for tooling - Lack of bandwidth of dependent teams to set up data pipeline How to get around it: - Utilize the existing systems to get as much information as possible from your end. Maybe learn some basic SQL / relevant skills to reduce dependencies. - Even something like a Google sheet works wonders in tracking daily/weekly performance. Figure out how to best optimize this process. Is it an extra 2-4 hours of manual effort every week to aggregate the data? But totally worth it till the time systems are in place. - Once you have shown the power of data to the higher ups and can get some bandwidth/budgets, invest in tooling which can give you great data insights From leadership - Focusing on Speed over Perfection(frequently applied in the Startup world). Instead of Speed AND Perfection. Speed ⚡️ - Deadlines are sacrosanct: Once timelines has been mutually committed to, everyone, including the founder / co-founders, HAVE to adhere to them. Follow ups for anything from anyone are not expected or required. - Every meeting should have an outcome: If a meeting has been set for 30 mins, the prep for the meeting needs to be done beforehand and the outcome (defined by clearly set agenda) needs to be decided in 30 mins. If more time was required for the decision, the meeting should have been set for a longer duration - Everything that can be automated, is: Payroll, reimbursements, taxation, everything is. What this results in is a very lean, largely focused team (leading to a smaller burn as well). A small example, for reimbursements, everyone has a company credit card with varying access and limits - the spend and transactions automatically go to the right places for accounting etc. -Every single minute is precious: There are SOPs and processes for everything. And I mean everything. -Correct expectation setting with every employee: Responsibilities and expectations are well explained at the start. Growth and learning is promised but it is explained that it will realistically not be a 9 to 5 job. Perfection ⭐️ - Vision to be a world class team from Day 1: The backend, processes, Team and tools etc. is world class and has been robustly built for large scales. Which makes a lot of sense for the business they are in. Competitors would take years to catch up. -Employee feedback is relentlessly implemented: Every single piece of feedback is gone through, thought through and acted upon -Strong founding team with distinct core strengths and clearly demarcated responsibilities All of the above results in 4X speed with perfection. But of course, it is supremely tough to implement, that by itself is a strong moat for the business :)