A brief discussion on the division of labor in new ventures: take responsibility and start by doing things well

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This article is written by You Shufan, who is active in various technical communities and has been selected as Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional (MVP). He hopes to become an “expert generalist” who has studied extensively in many different fields and connected the principles of these fields. Not only talking about business, strategy, organizational management and products, but also about development. Thank you for your permission to publish. I would like to express my gratitude.

At work, we always hope that everyone has enough awareness to understand [responsibility](https://www.books.com.tw/exep/assp.php/vista/products/0010516321?utm_source=vista&utm_medium= What is ap-books&utm_content=recommend&utm_campaign=ap-201707) (accountability)? But in the real world, there are many people who don’t understand it, or even if they understand it, they are unwilling to practice it.

The so-called accountability (accountability) is not something as simple as “if something goes wrong, you take the responsibility”, but to try every means to make things happen. For example, those officials who resigned due to corruption cases could at most only shoulder their political responsibilities, but I don’t think these officials are “responsible” for their jobs.

When talking about responsibility, we often mention the terms leadership and ownership. The so-called leader is not necessarily the person who responds to everything, stands on the top of the mountain and shouts to go forward. His more important task is to tell everyone what to do? A good leader must be able to take the lead and set an example so that everyone can see the possibilities and be willing to follow suit. As for the owner or person in charge (owner), it is the owner who represents the power and responsibility, and must be able to do things best.

Therefore, we would say that the product manager (PM) is the owner of a certain project. Since you are the owner, you must take these things as your own business, and try to eliminate any obstacles that may hinder your success.

In my observations over the years, most people with leadership and ownership are responsible people. I like to work with such people.

Yesterday, I was invited to share at the [Human Resources Weekend] (https://www.facebook.com/hrfriday/) event. I talked about not dividing labor for the sake of division of labor in the early stages of a new start-up. Because the early members of a new company often play a very critical role: usually in a place where the division of labor is too clear and the system is too strict, it is easy to cultivate many managers; but in a place where the division of labor is relatively vague, there is an opportunity to cultivate many leaders.

This group of people are willing to jump out and do things right and well. If you sometimes explain things too clearly or distinguish them too clearly, it will limit the development of these people and lose the opportunity for them to show and cultivate leadership.

My advice to new startups is to train your employees to do things well first. When your company grows to a certain scale (for example, more than 10 people), you can start looking for professional members for some functional departments. Because at this time, your company may gradually enter a stage where efficiency and professional division of labor are valued. At this time, experienced people will be needed to assist the management team in establishing processes and systems.

★ Photo Credit: unsplash.com

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