If you’re still hiring “employees”, then you’re still in the land of the 20th century.  In today’s fast moving, challenging world you need to recruit nothing but business athletes.  These are fearless individuals that take the ball and sprint through a maze of challenges to the finish line.  These folks don’t dance around a problem, they don’t wait and they don’t whine.  They carve their own future and enjoy every minute of working alongside others like themselves on a common mission.

Here is a list of 10 ingredients found in these individuals.  If you have 75% of these, then you aren’t an “employee”, you’re an athlete in today’s work world.

In Early, Out Late, Never Counts the Hours

A business athlete works long hours and loves every minute of what they do.  They’re very hard working, frighteningly efficient and will never let you do the work for them.   They don’t spend their time finding extra ways to live off the company, but rather have the company’s interest in mind at all times.

Their Work Becomes a Part of Their Life

A business athlete doesn’t end the day at 5 PM, or the equivalent of 8 hours.   Their commitment and dedication is to the mission, not just the money, and this is fully apparent in after hour emails, texts and phone calls.  Be weary of keeping anyone on your team who shuts off after a certain time.  More than often you will end up driving them, rather than them driving the company.

Skin Thick as a Dinosaur’s

A business athlete understands that intense work can create intense conversations and criticisms.   They understand that sometimes information must be communicated with a tone and passion that sets the appropriate intensity and urgency for a project or challenge at hand.  Their mind is not fragile and can withstand any harshness in delivery for the sake of accomplishing the mission.

Driven to No End

These folks are driven and are an absolute source of energy. They are usually ambitious and almost never satisfied with the status quo, seeking self betterment in nearly every corner.   They will go to their managers with ideas, projects, challenges and solutions to keep themselves, their teams and the company growing. When the work load increases, they simply smile back.

Perfection is Never Perfect

More than often their own harshest critic, a business athlete is almost never satisfied with the quality of their work.   They constantly seek betterment and work long hours to ensure the quality of their work remains optimum.  Their drive for more and their drive for better often serve as a lightening rod for their teammates and colleagues.

Smart

In any business, its important for team members to be able to make quick decisions with less than 100% of the necessary information.   A business athlete is smart and can take the information available, deduce, induce and extrapolate estimations by which they can make a quick and quality decision.  They make intelligent assumptions to maintain speed and keep moving forward.

Proactive as Paranoia

A business athlete is driven paranoid with a pro-activeness that is made to ensure their success.  They often have a plan A, B and C for everything.  They continuously double check and triple check their work for quality and accuracy.  And.. rarely will they miss directives, fail to update managers or be caught missing a deadline.   They are proactive and will not allow circumstances or the environment to blind side them or derail their missions.

Whining is For Losers

Business athletes don’t whine, they don’t blame others and they have very little excuses.   They take what they have and get the job done.  They are identifiers of problems and makers of solutions and almost never make it personal.  Every struggle in their way to success is viewed as a challenge.

Strong as An Ox

Its not easy for circumstances of a challenge to knock these folks off their course.   They will speak their mind, they will never take no for an answer and if something gets in their way, they will move it.   They are strong willed and rarely have trouble maintaining control over the destiny of their initiatives.

Confident Enough to Make Mistakes

Its takes a certain amount of confidence to take risks knowing you may fail.   These folks aren’t middlemen, they have substantial skin in the game.  They personally take on Big Hairy Audacious Goals that not only promote their own growth but also the growth of those around them.   They expect a lot from themselves and they’ll commit to big quotas, take on difficult projects and set nearly impossible deadlines knowing full well they may fail.  They always see the glass half full and they shoot for the moon every time.

I was asked by Forbes today to offer up some experience around some actions companies take during tough economic times like these to maintain or even increase employee happiness and wellbeing. We all know that without a happy and thriving team, there’s no growth, especially in a recession.

At DotNext we strive to employ a two pronged approach to increasing team happiness and wellbeing during recession times like these.  First, we immediately roll out substantial, structured and predictable performance based compensation in the form of bonuses and spiffs. Nearly anyone, including managers and directors, can earn additional compensation if they are able to perform above general standards on a challenge by challenge basis. As a result, regardless of economic slow downs, team members are still able to maintain control over their financial destiny.

Second, we aggressively enhance the quality, frequency and quantity of spirited culture activities that play directly into happiness and wellbeing.  For example, our team holds competitive monthly ping pong tournaments, gathers weekly at pubs and cafes, has weekly trivia contests and just recently joined a corporate softball league. Simply put, there is a direct correlation between increased positive cultural events and team happiness and production.

Each of these efforts enhances our level of happiness, strengthens our bonds and positions us for great production and growth even in recession times.

Best,

Ben Behrouzi

It’s been 2 years since the inception of DotNext. A company dedicated to entrepreneurship and innovation.  It’s been a long and tough road with all sorts of surprises, twists and challenges, but I am proud to say that the team of once 3 members is now near 100 strong and growing. Happy Second Birthday DotNext!

Our Vision

From the get-go our vision has been to create and grow ground-breaking Internet companies that challenge the status quo. Our goal has been to find areas where we can deliver new found value back to consumers and execute. And we’ve done that with some of the most innovative service products out there including LeapFish, iHype and up-and-coming Ziddler.

Hard Work

The team has worked extremely hard to build sophisticated applications and systems in record time, assemble one of the most successful sales forces in the country and navigate through some of the most brutal economic times we’ve ever faced. We continue to employ, we continue to innovate and we continue to take on the big risks that help push the envelope as well as stimulate our ailing economy.

Our People

Without our people DotNext is nothing. I am thankful to our people as they are our driving force and it is through them that we’ve been able to perform month after month and build a great company from the ground up. It is through their will, commitment, creativity, and relentless drive to build that DotNext has been able to produce the very companies it now operates. A big thank you to all of you.

And what a great culture we’ve fostered. From brutal ping pong tournaments, blowing off steam in Vegas, sweating it out in long go kart races to our day to day interactions with each other, I can honestly say we work hard, play hard and we all love to work here.

What We’ve Learned

We’ve learned that it’s a brave new world. From challenging market and economic conditions to online predators, we’ve learned of the new terrain that companies like ours will have to navigate.

The Future :

We continue to be excited at operating and growing our current companies, serving our clients, and developing our future products and services. We continue to grow rapidly while maintaining our profitability during these harsh economic times and look forward to a bigger and better 2009!

Come join our team!

Ben Behrouzi

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