Mike Maples Jr.: Startup Teams Must Operate Like Improv Jazz Bands, Not Marching Bands
Mike Maples Jr. · #77 Mike Maples: Living in the Future · Mar 3, 2020 · at 10:05
Mike Maples Jr., founding partner at Floodgate, explains why early-stage startups require improvisational team dynamics rather than corporate management frameworks.
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“Teams are different in startups than they are from companies because I like to say that in a company, it's more like a marching band. People need their sheet music and they need to dance in formation and play their instruments in exact terms. Whereas I don't know if you've ever been to New Orleans and seen improv jazz, but it's, you know, with improv jazz, you have a tune, but you're kind of going in a direction and usually the lead performer Starts to do a riff and goes in a different direction. The rest of the band just kind of goes with them. And so that, that tune is never going to be played exactly that same way ever again. And startups are a lot like that. They're these close knit teams of people who enjoy the craziness of the ambiguity and they enjoy improvising and they understand that startups are ambiguous and that you're trying to improvise your way to success rather than, you know, have Objectives and key results and a lot of the basic management frameworks that a larger company needs.”
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