How Housing.com CEO Rahul Yadav could have done better by investing in social skills

Start-ups need to invest in building personal skills, especially for senior management teams, says the author

There is a much-bandied term - nouveau riche. It’s used loosely to describe arrivistes on the social scene who throw massive parties with a paid for VIP cast, invite everyone who is anyone to town and pay for media coverage. Ask people more about them, and possibly all you will hear are adjectives around the money. Few have little, if anything, to say about the person.

Transpose this situation to recently invested start-ups. A bunch of bright young folk, banded together through common goals and skills who suddenly get invested in, get ink and media, and boom - you have the 25-year old arrivistes of the digital world.

When startups are young, they tend to spend investor money on ramping up, scaling product, building teams, getting facelifts with new logos and much advertising. Their road to fame is quicker and faster than most.

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• The founder's dilemma

They have sudden access to big money.

They take risks.

They are unafraid.

They are brilliant.

They are passionate.

And sometimes they are rather stupid.

Case in point - Rahul Yadav, CEO of Housing.com and his emotional outburst.

Forget the lack of grammar in an email that sadly went public. What jarred was in fact the arrogance. When writing to anyone who has believed in you; invested in you and perhaps even mentored you, that email pretty much just showed them the finger and not the polite one.

The pressures on invested companies are huge. There is much scrutiny both from the investors and the media. At this point they are surrounded by so much rah-rah, and indulgences by the VC that brash moves or interactions are overlooked putting it down to “techie behavior”, lack of experience or wisdom that comes with it.

And therein lies the problem. Few examine what skills they personally need to scale up.

Start-ups need to invest in building personal skills, especially for senior management teams. Coaching is a great way to do it. You speak confidentially and individually to your coach on the challenges you face in terms of your own personality that are manifested in symptoms like arrogance, anger, inability to delegate, struggle to build teams, and that sudden pressure to look at the big picture. It is one of the strongest investments you can make for yourself that will carry you in good stead throughout your working life.

I recently spoke to the people head of a global tech giant who mentioned that many young start-ups in Silicon Valley are seeking inputs in developing people skills to ensure their teams start young with the right values, personal development, beliefs and correct communication. This, the head believed, was most encouraging to bring much needed changes in the workplace for the most basic value that was easily forgotten.

Respect. And dignity.

For one another.

For your partners.

For your investors.

For the outside world.

Following global trends many VC’s insist on coaching for the leadership teams of their investee companies. This is a good thing.

For there is no golden rule for 'how to write a good email' or 'how to communicate'.

But if you have the right value, the right attitude and the right approach, you will not need a mantra.

Aparna Jain is an Integral Master Coach who coaches C-Suite leaders and entrepreneurs.