Value People. Speak Directly. Don’t Deflect Responsibility—Own It.

I increasingly notice how some companies forget a simple truth: business is, first and foremost, about people. Not processes, not reports, not KPIs, but real living employees who do the work every day. And if you do not know how to value those people, do not be surprised if one day you are left either in an empty office—with KPIs and financial plans but no team—or with a well-coordinated team of indifferent people who formally execute directives based on incompetently written job descriptions.

Startups, at the stage when they are transitioning into larger companies, often catch one typical disease: backroom talk. I, an old chauvinist, would dare to suggest that it is more common among women, though men suffer from it too. Quietly firing people, building intrigues, setting others up, lying, pretending that "everything is fine" while someone decides another person’s fate behind closed doors—that is not strategy. It is weakness.

Teams do not fall apart because of competitors. They fall apart because of internal distrust. And distrust is born when people choose backroom games instead of open dialogue.

Yes, it can be hard to speak directly. Yes, not every conversation is pleasant. But one uncomfortable face-to-face conversation is better than dozens of rumors behind someone’s back. Respect is not about coffee in the kitchen or smiley faces in chat. Respect is about honesty—even when it is uncomfortable.

And those who build intrigues always end up the same way: first they grow in the shadows, then they disappear in them. Because trust is not built on manipulation. In the long run, the people who play fair are the ones who win.

And one more thing. Demanding financial results from production teams may be normal—but only after you have invested: time, money, attention, and resources. A startup is not a money-printing machine. It is a complex system in which processes do not assemble themselves, a team does not become cohesive in a month, and information systems do not get set up overnight.

If you want output—provide conditions. If you want efficiency—provide focus. If you want stability—remove, or at least do not introduce, chaos and bureaucracy. Requiring every employee to account for every minute of the day is the path to raising fantasists who will skillfully invent tasks that nobody actually needs.

A startup does not need people who think within the boundaries of "this is my narrow function; the rest is not my problem." In a startup, the wider your field of view, the more valuable you are. The most effective people are the ones who are not afraid to step beyond the formal job description, who do not wait to be told, but go and do. Quite often at work I run into employees who say to my face, "that is not my area of responsibility," even though their very position implies that it is exactly what they should be doing. Or, even more interesting, people have mastered a great trick: it is easier to say you do not know, cannot do it, did not see it, or did not hear it than to dig in, understand it, and help. I have suffered from this constantly ever since I adopted a proactive approach years ago—one I have always aspired to and considered the highest good.

But the main thing is attitude. If you work as if this is just a temporary stop on the way to a "real" job at a large company, you will not be very useful. But if you work as though it were your own business, everything changes. That is the entrepreneurial mindset that moves a startup forward. Success comes where people genuinely care about the work, not where they are merely on payroll. I regularly encounter employees who treat a company as a springboard into another company that is more interesting, prestigious, and successful.

Excessive control, mountains of reports, and fear of making decisions are not the path to growth. They are the path to nowhere. A startup needs flexibility, speed, and the ability to adapt. Which means trust in people and the freedom to act. With mistakes, perhaps—but with belief in the result.