Three factors for creating a winning workplace:
It’s always believed you can be the best CEO in the world – but without the right people behind you, success can be hard to come by. One of the most important parts of the role is making sure everyone to work with feels encouraged, motivated and proud to be part of the team. Three key factors that stand out for as a winning combination are trust in the talent around you, encouraging a bold mind-set and creating the right culture.
Trusting talent
After dropping out of school at such an early age, you know that you don’t respond well to being controlled or overly disciplined, which is why you don’t believe in micro-managing. For some, they have good people around them who can be trusted completely and they will be able to make decisions if they can’t. They also know what we are looking for which is mainly about the people behind the business. You learn a lot from seeing the people who are behind the businesses and seeing if they are going to fit in with how we operate and if we would be able to trust them. That’s a big thing for you.
It is believed your biggest strength is seeing the talent in other people and bringing them together to create magic, your job is to learn to trust them and then they take it from there. Technology is a huge driving force for this – we are constantly using Google Hangouts and Whatsapp Web to stay up-to-date with all of our employees and the various CEO’s of the brands we invest in, around the world.
Being bolder
In the opinion, British start-ups and employees in general can be perennially held back by their fear of failure. This can result in being content to tick over and plod along at a rate that keeps risk low, people’s need for control often encourages them to think about how small they can stay rather than how big they can get.
Rapid-growth is certainly not for the faint hearted, but it is something some personally have always been obsessed with; from saying yes to as many business opportunities. As you can to investing as much money as you can, fast growth is your passion.
It’s important to you to encourage your colleagues to lose their fear of failure. Everyone says no idea is a bad idea and your approach. Has always been that failure can be seen as a rite of passage. Our failures have always led to rapid learning and greater long-term success.
Creating culture
At JDi we are about as far from corporate as it gets. We’ve always preferred shorts and flip-flops to suits and ties and that’s definitely a reflection of our attitude. We’ve always been very big on the ‘work-hard. Play-hard’ motive, which we try to pass on to the employees as much as possible.
Employee benefits are important to us, we like to look after our work-family as best we can. For instance to like to ensure your team are well fed and ready to work. So you can provide catered lunches every day, for free. You can also provide full country club memberships, offer healthcare and should start investing in fitness apps.
Last year in a report of Google its loved the layout of what they had for their employees. The open-plan layout meant you could see conversations happening everywhere. You can spend more time at work than anyone does at home. And wanted to bring this buzz and atmosphere to JDi.
You if moved into your new offices anytime in the year, you may spared no expense when designing the building. It’s complete with glass office rooms for plenty of light, a small library, snooker table. Ping pong tables and a basketball court. We must want people to be proud of where they work, and most importantly, to enjoy where they work.
