Nearly all of the entrepreneurs we met built a brain trust and strategic partnerships, even if they were operating a solo company. If they were growing a larger business, they also built a team of full-time partners.

Building your brain trust

The larger your brain trust, the more successful you’ll be in your business. So how do you find these people? I’ve put together a simple process from the hundreds of entrepreneurs I’ve interviewed over the years.

Step 1:

Complete a detailed inventory of the critical skills needed in your business. For example, some businesses are very la­bor intensive, while others are sales intensive; some require manufacturing and quality control, and others require eCommerce, information technology, and social media.

Step 2:

Conduct an honest evaluation of your own skills relative to the critical skills needed in your business. In other words, what are your strengths and weaknesses relative to your profile of required skills? Knowing this will help reveal the gaps you need to fill with advisors and team members.

Step 3:

Select one or two primary mentors who know you well and are willing to help. These are often friends, family members, or colleagues who are willing to take your calls and meet with you regularly. It’s best if they understand business, have a large pool of contacts, and are passionate about what you are doing.

Building your core team

My wife, Mary, and I ran our business — a frozen dessert shop — by ourselves until we had three stores and 30 employees. Although we had three great store managers, it was clear we’d eventually need more coverage in the field than we could provide. So we sat down and discussed the characteristics of a great general manager. This person had to “get” teenagers, enjoy working with them, be firm but fair, and be a great teacher and motivator. It sounded like we were looking for a scout master. Mary and I both thought of Gregg Morrow, he was super with young people, a key requirement for the role.

He was also honest, intelligent, hard-working, and savvy with technology. The problem was, Gregg had a good job 3M, and we were sure he wouldn’t be interested in the job. So we used him as our ideal persona in our search for a general manager. A few months later, we still hadn’t found anyone who measured up to Gregg, so I visited him at his office. He listened to my story and thanked me for thinking of him. Then he told me no.

A year later, we had five stores and 60 employees. I needed a general manager now more than ever, so I went back to visit Gregg. He had watched our progress during the past year and was intrigued with our growth. He decided he wasn’t going to change the world at 3M. He wanted to have more influence on young people and the community, and our position was now a good fit for him.

Gregg learned the business quickly and took our company from five to more than 60 stores. He was a phenomenal partner for eight years until we sold the company.

Just like our experience with Gregg, the entrepreneurs we interviewed over the past year chose team members primarily based on character. Since many of them run smaller companies, they can’t afford to have noxious people in their organization. They tend to look for decent people first and skills second. When you only have five or six people in your company, you can’t bury a difficult person deep in a corporate structure. So quality of character has to be a major emphasis when finding team members.

Most important, your team members should be passionate about your purpose, share your values, and fit the culture you’re trying to create. Nothing is more exciting than like-minded people enjoying the entrepreneurial experience together. And a highly motivated team with a common purpose will always go farther and faster than any individual working alone. So the best hiring strategy for an exciting company is purpose first, character second, and finally, skills third.

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These are not all bad behaviors to have, especially for high-performing individuals. This is a space in which we thrive. However, it is only a matter of time before the impact and pressure of these activities show up in our behavior. This is why coaching for high-performing individuals who work in innovative and fast-paced businesses is a great fit.

First of all, let’s define coaching, as it means many things to many people. Many times a certain technique that is referred to as “coaching,” isn’t really coaching at all; it’s actually counseling or feedback.

Now more than ever, there is a great opportunity to bring coaching into organizations. According to Gallup’s study on the global workplace, only 13 percent of employees worldwide are engaged at work or are psychologically committed to their jobs and likely to be making positive contributions to their organizations. Therefore, many team members are “not engaged.” If this is the case, then why not integrate coaching into your talent management strategy?

Not only will it increase employee engagement but will help achieve other talent development goals such as developing certain competencies like problem-solving, strategic thinking or filling your talent pipeline with ready-now talent for upward or lateral. To integrate coaching into your talent management strategy, the following five steps should be taken:

1. Educate your leaders

Start at the top and educate your executives on the differences and benefits of coaching versus counseling. Interview them on their perspectives on coaching and assess their willingness to participate and support a coaching initiative. Explain the benefits of coaching and ask them where they see applications for coaching inside their organizations.

2. Identify coaches, participants and executive sponsors

Look for individuals and managers that can become trained to be internal coaches inside your company. These individuals may be inside your talent management and organizational development areas or could exist inside the business itself. Consider having talent management or human resources executives trained and credentialed by the International Coach Federation as professional coaches. Alternatively, you may choose to utilize external coaches.

If so, you can submit a request via the International Coach Federation Coach Referral Service website or ask colleagues for recommendations.

Simultaneously, you will want to identify candidates to participate in the coaching program. Participants should be excited to be part of the program and willing to make a commitment. Just as important as identifying the coaches and participants is to make certain that you have executive sponsorship. Determine which executives would like to sponsor the program and be a participant. Request that they support you in your coach and participant identification, marketing efforts, during participant enrollment and throughout the program’s life cycle.

3. Manage expectations

Be sure to clearly set expectations with your internal coaches, individuals being coached, the executive sponsors and, of course, your managers and colleagues. It is best to run the initial program as a pilot and build upon its success. Make certain everyone is clear on the goals of the program, time commitment and their roles and responsibilities.

4. Train

Enroll your internal coach candidates in a coach-training program that is designed to train individuals that work inside companies as a coach. If you choose to enroll internal employees to become coaches, ensure they’re being coached by a coach with experience coaching internal coaches. In addition, be sure to train the individuals who are to be coached on the role and responsibilities of the participant, while establishing a clear and consistent process for enrolling clients, coaching time and exiting clients.

5. Measure success

Prior to starting the program, determine how you will measure its success. It may be done simply by using a net–promoter score or setting up a simple impact study. (It doesn’t have to be a rigorous measurement such as ROI.) If your program is embraced and utilized (coaching clients show up and participate in the coaching), then that’s a great sign. Interviewing them or surveying them on the benefits they received is also an excellent idea. In addition, be sure to ask the managers of the program’s participants about the changes they may have noticed in their employee’s behaviors after being coached.

In a time where we’re surrounded by change and have so many demands on our personal and professional lives, the need for coaching is at an all-time high. Coaching is a model for engagement, empowerment and accountability. It teaches those being coached to be responsible and to “own” their results. By engaging in coaching, you’re making a decision to replace mediocrity with high-performance.

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Post from Entrepreneur

Motivation comes from two places — intrinsic, which comes from within, and extrinsic, which comes from external forces. As a leader, it’s easy to rely on incentives, penalties and other extrinsic motivation – “If you do X, you will get Y” — but these kinds of incentives only go so far. The best coaches on the ball field and the best leaders in the office understand that to build a truly winning culture, you need to create intrinsic motivation. Inspiring those you lead to do great work for the love of the work itself and not because they’ll receive a trophy at the end of the game or a mention in the next company newsletter.

But how do you instill that passion? Here are six lessons I’ve learned from coaches to foster intrinsic motivation in your office.

Link individual to team Growth Control Group

Motivation soars when athletes know their actions can make the difference between a team win or a loss. On the field, this can be clear cut – hustling for a loose ball can mean the difference between a turnover or a goal. At work, the link between an employee’s day-to-day work and the success of the business can be less obvious but employees must understand the importance of their contribution to the success of their department and company as a whole.

Shoot for ‘small wins’

One secret of successful athletes is their ability to break down goals into discrete parts. Instead of focusing on their dream of breaking a record, they focus instead on the small steps that will help them get there — increasing their mileage, lifting more in the weight room, even something as small as drinking more water.

Small wins allow your team to focus on making steady progress and motivate them to keep working towards the larger goal.

There’s important reasoning behind this: psychologist Karl Weick says goals can be counterproductive to motivation. People are often discouraged when confronted with a large, daunting challenge. Weick’s advice? Reframe goals into smaller challenges with visible results that he calls “small wins.” Small wins allow your team to focus on making steady progress and motivate them to keep working towards the larger goal.

Practice makes perfect

As athletes notice their skills improving, their intrinsic motivation grows and they work harder. Give your teams the chance to practice and hone their skills, whether it’s through internal training or external resources. There are so many great professional development platforms (from General Assembly to Coursera) and skill-building events available today, and making these available to your team will only bolster their performance and attitude about their work.

Build relationships

Athletes who care about their coaches and teammates become invested in their team’s success as well as their own. Great managers create bonds that spread among team members. This doesn’t mean just friending your direct reports on Facebook or taking them out for drinks. It means making a concerted effort to understand them, their strengths, weaknesses, passions and fears.

Praise the effort – not the outcome

Too much generalized praise such as “You’re awesome” and “You’re a rock star!” can actually decrease motivation.

Recognize your employees’ contributions, big and small, with positive reinforcement. But keep in mind it’s better to reward the effort than the person. Too much generalized praise such as “You’re awesome” and “You’re a rock star!” can actually decrease motivation. Researchers from the University of Chicago found that children who are praised for their performance – for example “You worked really hard” – instead of abstract personal praise such as “You are smart” are more likely to embrace challenging tasks in the future. Your direct reports aren’t toddlers but the idea is the same: reinforcing the hard work helps an employee understand what worked.

Have fun

The most motivated teams are also the happiest. But what comes first: the motivation or the enjoyment? Economic expert Andrew J. Oswald studied the impact of happiness on productivity and found that a positive mindset can improve performance. In one study, subjects were shown a video – either of comedy routines or a “placebo” video that wasn’t as funny. Those shown the comedy video were 12 percent more productive than those who saw the less funny video.

Intrinsic motivation is essential for high-performing teams. Those leaders who understand the difference between internal and external motivators and know how to harness them will have the edge on their competition, on the field or in the marketplace.

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Post from Entrepreneur

Today’s Fortune 500 list is a mere shadow of what it was in 1995. In fact, fewer than 50 percent of those who were on the list in 1995 still remain today. That’s a big change in just 20 years and the evolution is continuing to happen even faster.

This change has been largely due to those aforementioned smaller companies and startups and their success holds exciting promise for entrepreneurs of the future. But what made those small startups leap to the top, while so many others grew slowly or not at all?

The key to startup success

The answer is innovation and speed. Where big corporations generally have layers and layers of corporate bureaucracy to wade through, not to mention the livelihoods of thousands of employees in their hands, and many stock and stake holders to answer to, smaller companies have always had the advantage of being able to pivot fast by making quick decisions. They’re freer to be spontaneous, and to change their business model according to the latest trends.

Technology like cloud computing, big data, and the move to mobile are helping to launch startups faster than ever before.

Being open minded, and embracing these innovative new business platforms and models, smaller companies adopt change quicker than large corporations. Small companies keep innovation at the very heart of their goings-on, using it to propel their business into the limelight, yet at the same time remaining sensitive to the needs and wants of their consumers.

How to cultivate innovation

By making creativity a building block of your business, you can encourage your employees to generate new ideas and embrace the newest technologies, enabling you to harvest better business plans and capitalize on the latest innovation in ways the big enterprises can’t. Every company wants a leg-up on the giants of the industry, but most don’t realize they already have a head start.

Creating an atmosphere of internal communication, constant connection, and positive energy, small businesses can not only begin to transform their workplace into a company of the future, but they can beat their larger competitors. Startups everywhere are opting for flexibility over the old way of doing business — encouraging employees to work from home, come up with new ideas and be an integral part of business processes instead of just a workhorse. These changes will ultimately lead to a company better able to serve evolving needs.

Why small businesses will overtake the big

The 21st century is the age of the underdog. People everywhere love nothing more than a good rags-to-riches story, and they are supporting local and small businesses more often than larger corporations. My prediction is that small businesses will continue to challenge and at times beat the large enterprises (perhaps sooner rather than later), simply because they will appeal to the consumers desire to support the up and comers, the dreamers and the entrepreneurs that are often much easier for people to relate to.

Small organizations can embrace innovation and profit from their lack of size and increased flexibility, promoting rapid growth.

A smaller staff allows for increased employee connectivity, minimizing the corporate gaps large businesses suffer from. Small companies can faster adapt to new situations and new technologies, benefits that will help them become just as successful as big enterprises — all the while retaining their edge. Not only are small companies capable of widespread success: The odds of a startup succeeding are better now than ever.

If you had any doubts about the foothold your small business has in the larger scheme of things, take a breath. Small businesses are steadily on the rise, and are projected to only get more popular in the coming years. Millennials are attracted to small, local businesses that support the community, and are pouring their physical and monetary support into startups instead of into big corporations. By encouraging innovation and embracing change, your small business can be on its way to outpacing industry big shots.

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