A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here
After reading Alexander Haislip’s post, I scurried around and removed the “CEO” from as many profiles as I could find/remember.
Back in 1999 I started RampUp Solutions I called myself “founder” and I was happy with that, but I kept being told I should use ‘CEO’, so I did. (Hey, even smart people can give poor advice.)
However, I was never comfortable with the title because I’ve worked with dozens of CEOs and knew that I didn’t/couldn‘t do what they do.
Not only did not, but could not.
Now, thirteen years later, my gut reaction has been confirmed; not only the reaction, but the reasons.
Ask yourself: would you still be CEO if it were a $100 billion business or would you require what’s euphemistically called “adult supervision?”
Considering what passes for a $100 billion business these days you may want to add ‘sustainable’ to the description.
There is nothing wrong with bringing in a “real” CEO and learning the ropes—think Larry Page and Google—but assuming a title of which you aren’t really capable smacks of a five-year-old dressing up in mommy’s/daddy’s clothes.
I hope Haislip’s and my post inspires you to find the time to expunge CEO from your social profiles and other places, including your business cards.
You might also want to take a hard look at other company titles, especialy on the executive level.
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It’s great because in addition to being oh-so-true it’s tongue-in-cheek sarcastic enough that it might even penetrate the minds of those guilty of what it says.
Zwilling writes for entrepreneurs, but most of the actions he describes apply equally well to any manager at any level, as well as parents and pretty much any human interaction.
Call it universal DEmotivation.
Here are the headings, but you should really read the article to know for sure if you are guilty of some more covert version.
Be sure your team doesn’t know what is important to you.
Never explain your actions.
Hire team members who will follow your instructions.
Keep people on their toes with a threat of consequences.
Team meetings are for delivering the latest decisions.
Agree to milestones and then accelerate them.
Thank your employees for the little extras.
Be careful not to get too involved in your employees own goals.
In the decades I worked as a recruiter and those since starting RampUp Solutions I’ve heard these or variations of them listed as reasons people left their company.
Because when you get right down to it, people quit managers, not companies, and that is especially true when a manager is also a founder.
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An excellent article on loyalty citing research from various Wharton professors on the subject of worker loyalty is a valuable read.
It’s good for bosses and employees alike; the former can use it to analyze and improve their approach, while the latter can give a printout (anonymously, if necessary) to their boss.
One of the most valuable findings is that in some ways nothing has changed on the employee retention front over the years.
Human nature, Harter adds, “doesn’t change when the economy changes. It might take on a different dynamic” during a recession, but what remains constant is “the need to be connected — to a manager, a co-worker and/or a purpose, and also the need to be recognized.” People’s perceptions of their own standards of living “did drop as the economy dropped,” he says. But that same drop was not registered in workplaces where employees said they have “someone who encourages their development. There is something about having a mentor, or someone in your life who helps you see the future in the midst of chaos, that can make a difference.”
Wharton marketing professor Deborah Small cites a body of research on what is called “procedural fairness,” indicating that much of what employees feel about an organization “is not the outcomes they get, but the processes. If people feel like processes are handled fairly in the organization, even if they don’t get the best for themselves,” that would tend to encourage loyalty.
Recognition, fairness, being valued and encouraged to grow are still the most powerful intangibles when it comes to retention and their source is still the immediate boss and maybe their boss.
As I wrote last year, caring begets caring and the actions that show you care aren’t found in compensation packages.
Since the mid-80s when Semler arrived on the scene, that has meant an ever-evolving experiment in upending the organizational status quo: no organizational chart, no fixed offices or working hours, no fixed CEO, no HR department, no five-year plan (or two- or one-year-plan), no job descriptions or permanent positions, no approvals necessary—and an endless array of clever practices and initiatives to increase individual autonomy and agency, participation at every level, trust, and informality.
The result? Market success—Semco is private but Semler reports average annual revenue growth at 40% and profitability. (…)
“We constantly talk about passion—serving customers passionately, filling in forms passionately—but what if we created the conditions for people to feel exhilaration, to get involved to the point they shout ‘yes!’ and give each other high fives because they did it their way and it worked?”
Would your people thrive in a going concern that functions more like a startup than most startups?
If yes, why? If not, why not?
Knowing why it would/does work is useful because you can share the knowledge and lessons learned with others.
If you don’t believe similar actions, tweaked for your organization, would work you need to ask why not.
You can ask your peers or, better yet your people, but first ask the mirror.
Back when I worked for other companies I was considered “difficult.”
When I was young I was fired from one job for not taking my 15 minute breaks twice a day and from another for being too honest with a customer.
I spent 12 years working for a manager who never understood that all I wanted was acknowledgment and/or appreciation—without having to ask for it.
“Good job;” “congratulations, hell of a deal;” “good to see you back, we missed you.”
I was one of the top producers in his office, but the only time he said anything was when I brought whatever to his attention.
As most anyone will tell you, positive feedback or compliments are worthless when you need to prompt the source for them.
Often small efforts yield large results. My boss wanted me to move to the next level, but gave me no reason to put out the effort—the money wasn’t enough, I wanted to matter.
I recently told this story to a manager with high turnover in his department. He responded that he didn’t have time to “babysit” and expected his people to act like adults.
Of course today is about mom, but most of the quotes are so saccharine I couldn’t make myself use them, so I decided to focus is on the thing without which there would be no moms—kids.
Right away I want to say that “mom” is a concept, not the female half of a marriage or, as Oprah Winfrey said, “Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.”
An anonymous quote makes clear something else about mothers that is frequently ignored, “All mothers are working mothers.”
Aristotle’s words not only predate DNA testing, but the attitude of many modern males, “Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.”
Peter De Vries makes a nice point that is equally true for urban and rural moms as it is for those who live in suburbia, “A suburban mother’s role is to deliver children obstetrically once, and by car forever after.”
I heard Sam Levenson’s comment many years ago and find it just as amusing (and true) now as then if not more so, “Insanity is hereditary; you get it from your children.”
John J. Plomp noticed something that every parent, especially new ones, is very cognizant of, “The one thing children wear out faster than shoes is parents.”
And while we’re on that subject, we’ll let Lionel Kauffman have the final word today, “Children are a great comfort in your old age – and they help you reach it faster, too.”
Rather than leave the future of the convents to prayer and chance, Sister Elaine Lachance has turned to the Internet. She’s using social media and blogging to attract women who feel the calling to serve God and their community. “But I knew I had to go there, that I had to do it,” said Lachance, who turned 70 on Sunday. “You have to go where the young people are. And that’s where they are.”
With 80,000 people surrounded by not much of anything — with no Interstate, no university, and the closest major city 160 miles away across steep and snowy mountains — beer has had room to make a difference. (…) “You have to thank Gary Fish for kind of creating that culture,” said Larry Sidor, a former brew master at Deschutes who left last year to open a brewery of his own this summer, CRUX Fermentation Project. “It’s been kind of a training ground, a spawning ground for the craft movement.”
We’ve put a self-perpetuating cycle in motion. The more anxious, isolated and time-deprived we are, the more likely we are to turn to paid personal services. To finance these extra services, we work longer hours. This leaves less time to spend with family, friends and neighbors; we become less likely to call on them for help, and they on us.
Young couples have long signaled their devotion to each other by various means — the gift of a letterman jacket, or an exchange of class rings or ID bracelets. (…) It has become fashionable for young people to express their affection for each other by sharing their passwords to e-mail, Facebook and other accounts.
Fast forward to adulthood and that tell-the-world social sharing is still creating mayhem, although not because of changing affections.
After a few relationship-testing episodes, some spouses have started insisting that their partners ask for approval before posting comments and photographs that include them. Couples also are talking through rules as early as the first date (a kind of social media prenup) about what is O.K. to share. Even tweeting about something as seemingly innocent as a house repair can become a lesson in boundary-setting.
Enjoy today and have a memorable Mother’s Day tomorrow.
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here
Today is a mental health day.
(Try it; you might be surprised at the difference it makes!)
See you all tomorrow!
Option Sanity™ saves your time.
Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock allocation system. It’s so easy a CEO can do it.
Warning.
Do not attempt to use Option Sanity™ without a strong commitment to business planning, financial controls, honesty, ethics, and “doing the right thing.” Use only as directed.
Users of Option Sanity may experience sudden increases in team cohesion and worker satisfaction. In cases where team productivity, retention and company success is greater than typical, expect media interest and invitations as keynote speaker.
As I’m sure you’re aware I love stories. I believe that stories are the best way to excite and engage people no matter the relationship and definitely the best way to teach.
Today’s story is from Arthur Bart-Williams, a client whose startup involves a masterful story-telling platform.
Arthur’s story is proof that a great idea is worth pursuing—even when there is a six year lag between first thought and market testing.
From Arthur…
I founded Canogle in late 2010. The name—from the words, “can” and “ogle” and pronounced kan-og-uhl—means to look without restrictions; to be fully immersed in and a part of a particular world.
Canogle is a platform on which to tell a story.
People love stories; stories about the natural world and places they visit and stories about things, happenings and the brands they love.
They want curated stories, but they also want commentary from their peers and the Canogle platform provides both.
The idea first surfaced in 2004 when I was honeymooning on Maui and Jess, my wife, was using a paper map to navigate and to note interesting sites.
She said she was paying more attention to the map than to the things around her and I thought someone ought to come up with a way to know about sites as you pass them.
By the time we got home, I was excited enough to write the first version of a business plan and convince my brother to develop a prototype.
Then life happened. We had a daughter, I co-founded Combase, which was acquired by ViaNovus and then by Sword Group, fielded a few of life’s curve balls and had another daughter.
I was inspired again while watching a Silicon Valley technology show called “Press: Here” in mid-2010 and decided to find out if anybody cared about my idea.
I told one friend about the project, her eyes lit up and she introduced me to her friend who introduced me to the Executive Director of the Muir Heritage Land Trust, which became our first beta.
The good thing is that things are changing. Even mighty Google that once hired only 3.7+ GPAs has changed how they recruit using puzzles to identify talent that might fall through the cracks—assuming it even got that far.
Probably the greatest value of higher education—all education, actually—is learning how to learn.
It’s knowing where to find information and how to assimilate, tweak and synthesize it
so it becomes useful in both the short and long terms; more value comes from learning how to focus and think critically.
Skill in the actual major has value for two to four years—less in technical fields that change with radical speed.
From that point on the value of actual degree content goes down 20% or more each year, whereas real experience goes up.
That means in five years specific degrees become meaningless, while specific experience holds all the value.
Moreover, those with the ability to successfully move from industry to industry, field to field, department to department, position to position sans ego and hype truly have a price above rubies—although they rarely think so.
After reading Alexander Haislip’s post, I scurried around and removed the “CEO” from as many profiles as I could find/remember.
Marty Zwilling wrote a great essay detailing exactly 
An excellent article on loyalty citing research from various Wharton professors on the subject of worker loyalty is a valuable read.
Back when I worked for other companies I was considered “difficult.”
Of course today is about mom, but most of the quotes are so saccharine I couldn’t make myself use them, so I decided to focus is on the thing without which there would be no moms—kids.
Maybe because it is finally spring where I live, but my mind is skipping around topics like a butterfly (although I haven’t seen any yet).
Today is a mental health day.
I founded 
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