Teja Chekuri

Great advice on this thread. My experience in completing several projects in the volatile F&B space and managing delays that invariably happen due to circumstances beyond your control have helped me develop a five-pointer system to manage delays : - Assess damage, timelines, inventory, impact, skill set along with people doing the jobs. Each point is crucial. - Based on the importance level, make a plan that brutally prioritizes. - All relevant stakeholders need to be made aware of the upcoming delays avoiding surprises & altercations. - Get over the analysis paralysis & pull in all hands on deck. - Evaluate - Delegate and take over the reins as you continue to evaluate and keep things moving towards the end goal.

Love this one.

Provide support, counsel and guide. Don't do the work for them. Allow your team to make mistakes and learn from it so they can self reflect and improve. The saying that goes ... " Give a man a fish he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish he will eat for life." ...is very true in this case. Teach your team how to collaborate, recognize and foster innovation. They are the ones after all who will be creating the team 'culture'.

This is easier said than done. Biases are deep-rooted in our society hence training at regular intervals helps people understand conscious and unconscious biases and work on them in a continuous manner. While you can get training experts to do these, what they would need from an entrepreneur in the mix is to showcase the will to change, actively lead from the front, champion the cause and set the tone for the entire team to follow. Top leadership support goes a long way in motivating people to undertake training and work on their biases.

Let's face it...it is almost humanly impossible to revert back on all the invites you get for networking. Each one will offer a different USP and value. While each has its own value ,you have to be brutally critical about what value you want to add to your circle at this point. Evaluate how this particular network can aid in your growth as an entrepreneur - individually or professionally. If it doesn't fit either bill then this might not be the right value to add to your network at this point.

Diversity is a crucial element that sets students up for success. Giving their young minds an opportunity to meet entrepreneurs from different industries who would have created different models of success and organisations is essential to create the right idea of what entrepreneurship means. I cannot stress the amount of times I meet youngsters who have been taught only one model that defines their success parameters and it is so deeply ingrained in their minds that it becomes a dis-service to the fabulous models created by others. Add as many diverse voices to the course as you can. From Dabbawallas to PE backed startups. All have a model you can learn and emulate.