Our teams are going to have missing skills and experience. Our teams will also have members who are not used to the pace or the pressure.
These may be ongoing skill gaps for our team or just a lot of blips along the way. Here’s one an example of one:

We had prepared for an important meeting with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida for several weeks. We were finalists for their request for proposal (RFP) to be their reward vendor. I traveled with one of our sales people who had spent 15 years selling to health plans like Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida. One of the things we always wanted to know was – who were the major employers that a health insurer like Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida insured. This was standard operating procedure for any meeting with a large health plan and would be so for any experienced health plan salesperson.

We met in their lobby for him to brief me on details and I asked him who their major employers were and he looked at me like I had three heads. I got angry that this simple request had not been fulfilled by an experienced salesman. As my blood started to boil, I think the entrepreneurial gods were mocking me because when I looked over his shoulder in their headquarters lobby there was a big wall with the logos of all the major companies that they insured. I told him not to ever show up for a meeting without doing his homework, and then to “Turn around.”

Despite our appreciation for their commitment and dedication, the people we consider our early stage team—whether they are employees, consultants, or vendors—may not have the skills or qualifications to advance our business. This is not to say that they can’t be effective members of the team. For us to remain sane, and not be frustrated every day, we must accept that the team is dysfunctional—it just happens to be our dysfunctional team. Try not to drive yourself, or them, crazy along the way.

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