Maybe the most difficult thing when it comes to running

a business or even getting a band together is finding the right people.

It's not just about finding the best bass player or

the greatest drummer or the guitars with all the great chops,

you also want to make sure that there's a cohesion among them.

That, the sum is greater than the individual parts if you will.

When I look at the early days of my company,

the people that I had assembled weren't necessarily ones with

the big pedigrees or MBAs or necessarily big accomplishments.

But as a unit, we made sense.

There was a magic there.

So what you're looking for is

that particular magic when you're assembling a group of people.

I've had previous companies where we've hired from the top down.

We bring in captains of every industry,

and we expect that by having key decision makers in place,

that the right decisions are going to be made.

But the flaw in that particular concept is that,

you bringing people who have normally had

scores of people who were doing things for them.

And when they point their finger and say hey, this needs to be done,

in a startup company they kind of look on the end of

their finger and they're like well hey, no one's there.

Right. If I don't get it done myself,

it's not going to get done.

So, really try to hire from the bottom up.

I do think finding the right people early on is really a key thing.

And I also believe that we have the tools to do

that which is you work with them and it feels good.

One of the simple things I would do is instead of doing a lot of interviewing,

I would just say, come on in, come into this meeting,

we're trying to figure this out and just see what it feels like to work together.

And what I found is that if it felt good, then it was.

It's also very important that just like you're using

empathy as a means of connecting with your audience and co-creating with them,

that you use empathy as a way of

understanding the type of people that you work with and be able to tap

into the unique strengths that they

have and almost give them the ability to liberate themselves,

express themselves, and bring that strength into the collective team.

I think a great example of this is a guy like Miles Davis.

If you look at albums ranging from Kind of Blue,

to Bitches Brew, all the way towards the end of his career with an album like Amandla,

I think Miles is brilliance wasn't in just him being an amazing trumpeter,

but it was in his ability to take different people together and somehow help

shape them into a unique whole that created a wholly unique sound.

And that is in many ways your job as a startup founder,

is to bring these different people together and help them almost break out of themselves,

and as a comprehensive unit create

something totally different that blows your audience away.

You know, sometimes we like to hire people who think like we do.

Who sort of we connect to.

Who we want to go have a beer with.

Who we want to hang out with.

But I would really say we have to hire diversity.

You know, diversity in thought, diversity in talent.

My husband worked on a project when he got his MBA about how more projects

failed because of the team makeup

versus the outcome or the product that was being produced.

So, if you're creative,

maybe you'll relate to this.

We love to generate ideas.

We love to generate, generate,

generate, but you need an editor to come in.

You need a critic to come in.

You need a closer to come in.

So I think you have to look at the talents of your team,

and I think you also have to hire people that can wear multiple hats.

I pick people who are going to bring something that I can't.

I want them to make me go,

"Oh my God, you did not do that. That's awesome."

I'll give them prompts like,

"I don't know, this song feels like too

sweet and pretty. Can you fuck it up a little bit?"

And they'll be like, "Goody."

You know, and then I pick a guy who's good at that.

So when I need somebody,

I meet a musician or I hear something that really,

that I think wow, that's an interesting player or that producer's really got an ear.

He's got a special way of hearing.

I make sure that I find and meet those people if I possibly can.

So, never underestimate your job to be in many ways a collector of unique talent,

and shift your mindset from one where these are people that work

for you to the team being in many ways the enabler,

the catalyst for things to happen.

Building a Team

Creativity And Entrepreneurship

Meet the Instructors