How to Lead a Team from Scratch

I built my teams from scratch.

Back in college, I introduced JD's campus ecosystem to campus. Or take my current mini-program e-commerce team—all of the people I hired were fresh graduates with zero experience, some barely able to handle their own basic tasks. It was a true ground-zero start.

(To be honest, I haven't achieved much yet, and these insights are little more than my own speculation.)

1. Figure out why people are willing to listen to you and follow your direction.

① Is it driven by interests or reputation?

② Is it coercion—forcing them to comply?

③ Is it their internal sense of responsibility? And so on.

If you can't identify what makes them accountable to you, you won't be able to manage effectively.

2. Define your management goals and desired outcomes, then assign clear responsibilities.

Whether leading JD's campus team or my current e-commerce team, I made a major mistake early on: I never clearly defined the goals and results I wanted. Well, I had thought about them, but I failed to break them down into specific, actionable targets for each person. That led to the misconception that "more bodies mean more done," resulting in unclear roles, buck-passing, and everyone hoping to do less while others did more.

① Identify your management goals to determine the final results you want.

Based on those goals, assign tasks and define the value each person contributes, clarifying what small objectives each individual is responsible for toward the bigger picture.

(This isn't just about assigning tasks—it's also about clarifying authority and accountability: what power someone has, what responsibilities they carry, so you can reward or penalize accordingly.)

② Compare phased results after execution against your management goals, and adjust accordingly.

The purpose of management is to compare results against your intended goals. Identify what's working well and where you're falling short, so you can correct mistakes quickly and build on strengths to achieve even greater results.

(When you have both results and goals, you can perform performance evaluations.)

3. Invest in training.

If your team members are experienced, just tell them your goals—they'll figure out how to execute and achieve them on their own. But if they're inexperienced, training is essential. (Some motivated individuals will teach themselves outside of work, but turnover is constant, so solid training preparation is necessary.)

Once roles and responsibilities are clear, you need to help inexperienced new hires understand: What do they need to do? How should they do it? To what standard must they deliver to meet their targets?

Training should focus on making sure they understand:

① What do I need to do?

② Why am I the one doing it?

③ How should I do it?

④ What does "done right" look like? (To what level of quality?)

Leading a team with no prior experience from scratch roughly works like this: First, figure out why they're willing to be managed and identify your leverage points. Then, define your management goals and desired results. Start with solid training, then monitor and adjust as you go. That's about it.