Sunday, March 16, 2008

Who is in your crew?

picture from http://www.aolcdn.com/aolr/oceans-13-400a320.jpg

A good crew is as essential to a business as it is to a casino heist. The success of your project depends on the people you have on it. And of course as the saying goes, you're only as strong as your weakest member.

According to this blog at Mind of a Hustler, every good crew must have a few essential players: The Leader, The Brain, The Anchor, and The Soldier (and any other necessary freelancers you must pick up along the way). In my crew, I am obviously the leader, the brains, and the pretty one ... oops that wasn't an option.

So what exactly defines these crew members? Well the leader comes up with the whole idea and picks the other people. The brains is all about the strategy and details. The anchor is the one questioning the dubious nature of the plan and preparing for problems, and the soldier is the person behind the action and physical execution. Freelancers would make up for special tasks that you may need, like a code breaker.

What is great about the internet is that now you can access the best crews possible across the world virtually. You can use social networks like Linkedin to find people with the skills and experience you want on your crew. And hey, if they are all the way around the globe... you can always meet in Secondlife! Thanks to the internet, establishing a good crew has never been easier.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Ok. I don't agree with what that article said. There aren't just leaders, brains, anchors and action guys. It's more complicated than that. There are ambitious people. There are creative thinkers. I would say I am a creative thinker, but not a brain! I am a mixture just as you are. I have leadership skills and I always question authority. However, the "crew" I roll with are usually just friends or good teamates who are all equally smart, ambitious and hard-working.

ae said...

Dave, off course there is more people to the crew, but the article mentions the most important and actual developers of the plan. The other members are refered to as freelancers which do other taks..there can be multiple of those! So it is true it takes more than 4 people to get things done but first there needs to be a plan which is developed by the actual crew, not that many people come up with great ideas that work!

T-Bowz said...

But can you trust the crew in virtual world? If your crew does something bad in other side of the globe. Can you catch him/her? The law system might be different? What if some crew decides to quite the job and leave without telling. Can you catch the guy without knowing his/her face? I'm not sure...

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the nod.

First for dave - Creative thinkers without a leader, money or brains is called a dreamer. I am a creative person too. But sitting on your butt being creative and not motivated doesn't pay the bills. Creatives are freelancers who hook up with stronger crews. After a few projects, you have experience and this could put you either in the Money, Leader or Brains positions.

To T-Bows - keep reading the other posts. I cover that situation. You only give each player what they need to do their job. You cant prevent someone from acting on their own or going "Lone Wolf". You can mitigate damages by beingstingy with the whole plan. This has saved my ass more than once.

Right now I am about to open a restaurant and because no one knows, I can judge people already in my organization for how they act now. If they knew what I was doing - the whole plan - they would be acting differently to "get in on it".

In business it is always good to have contracts that indemnify you against the actions of the people that you are working with.

On the street, there is an understanding that if you roll on the "Boss" you better watch your back. No one's life is worth more than $100 to a crack head with a hammer.

I once paid a guy $75 to sleep in bushes next to a guy's house (who owed me money) for 3 days until that guy showed up and then run to a payphone to call me.

That sounds like a good post. I will have to think about sharing that story.

The moral is that you shouldn't partner up with anyone who you can't keep an eye on or you can't guarantee is dedicated to the success of the project.

Keep Hustling

Alyssa said...

Darcie,
I just have to tell you. I love the Ocean 11 picture. A plus on the visual for that week.