“All these new companies — Facebook, Google, Twitter — benefit from this. They grow, but they don’t really need to hire much.” –Jean-Louis Gassée
In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. Americans at that skill level are hard to find, executives contend. “They’re good jobs, but the country doesn’t have enough to feed the demand.”
Then, of course, there is the ongoing debate on the effectiveness of managers; it started around the time the first hunting party organized to go after a wooly mammoth.
“It’s very tough to believe that there are such wide differences in management out there.” –Raffaella Sadun, assistant professor at Harvard Business School.
(Only someone who has never been in the workplace could make that statement with a straight face.)
The list of companies, not to mention executives, that have crashed and burned as a result of their lies is extensive and very public, while the number that are more or less opaque is uncountable. Is there truly a benefit for those that practice candor?
“In fact, the share prices of survey companies in the top quartile of CEO candor outperformed companies in the bottom quartile by 31%. For nine of the past 10 years, top-ranked companies have outperformed bottom-ranked companies on average by 18%.”
Finally, a disturbing look at the meritocracy called Silicon Valley.
“Silicon Valley is indeed a meritocracy for those to whom these criteria are not hurdles. But others—the blacks, women, and Hispanics whom it overlooks—find it an elite private club from which they are excluded.” –Vivek Wadhwa
(Hat tip to Emanio CEO KG Charles-Harris for sending this to me.)
As I said then, the thing that sets Hsieh apart is security.
Hsieh is comfortable in his own skin; secure in his own competency and limitations, so he doesn’t need to be the font from which all else flows.
Entrepreneurs can learn from this.
Startup hiring usually comes in waves as the company progresses.
While most founders will listen to their initial team and first few hires, those hired later often find it difficult to get their ideas heard.
Unfortunately, this behavior often sets a pattern, with the ideas and comments of each successive wave becoming fainter and fainter and those employees less and less engaged—and that translates to them caring less and less about your company’s success—call it wave deafness.
Wave deafness is costly.
Costly in productivity and passion, but even more costly in lost opportunities.
As Hsieh points out, there is no way he can think of as many good ideas as are produced if each employee has just one good idea in a year.
And not just from certain positions. I never heard of a manager, let alone a founder, admit to hiring dummies for any position, no matter the level.
So if you hire smart people and don’t listen to them, who is the dummy?
Option Sanity™ rewards creativity.
Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock process. 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.
Don’t kid yourself, ‘but me’ is what makes the world go round.
‘But me’ is why people get married; fly in a plane; text while driving; rob a bank or a myriad of other actions—both good and bad.
Heck, if it wasn’t for ‘but me’ they probably wouldn’t even get out of bed.
It is ‘but me’ that feeds the roots of entrepreneurism—from the hobbyist who dreams of turning passion into enterprise to the serial entrepreneurs on their umpteenth startup.
Lattice Engines, a small San Mateo startup, where she makes “near the top” of the company’s $80,000 to $130,000 range for an entry level product manager, plus equity.
Notice that the young woman is not a techie, so her salary isn’t pay for (supposedly) hard to find programming skills.
Granted I’m no longer in the front lines of hiring, but I’m still going to stick my neck out and say that no new grad is worth that kind of money—not even programmers.
Why?
Because there is so much more to working than what was learned in class. Stuff like
you may not know as much as you think, let alone everything;
experience matters;
understanding that while screwing up your own work is bad it can wreck the project and damage not just your team, but even the company;
not only being present, but also productive five days a week, 12 months a year;
being engaged every day all day—no cramming just before evaluations;
no spring or winter break or summer vacation (it’s a different rhythm); and
many other mundane things
In other words, it’s a different world, with different rules and different measures.
Further, new research is showing that entitlement kills innovation and for a new grad to believe they are worth a six figure salary plus equity compensation package is definitely entitlement.
I’m not saying that they aren’t assets or that they won’t contribute significantly, just that it wouldn’t hurt if they proved themselves first.
Can you imagine the impact on their productivity and creativity if their annual raise is meager, let alone justifying that salary if they change jobs?
There is a world of difference in the skills of someone with one year of experience, let alone five or more.
The problem is that by the time that truth is learned they are no longer entry level.
Shawn Parr, whose company works with large corporations, such as Starbucks and MTV, on innovation wrote a meaty post called Culture Eats Strategy For Lunch.
It reminded me of something I wrote back in 2008, because the title is from a quote by Dick Clark, CEO of Merk and after rereading it I decided it’s worth reposting, so here it is.
Culture Trumps All
A post on Dave Brock’s blog led me to an article at IMD’s site called “An Unpopular Corporate Culture” and, as Dave said, it’s a must read for anyone who still thinks that corporate culture is some ephemeral concept with no real impact that consultants use to sell their services.
And a double-must for those who talk about culture’s importance, but don’t walk very well when it comes to creating a great corporate culture.
For those who prefer to put their faith in plans and strategy, hear the words of Dick Clark when he took over as CEO of Merck in 2005 and was asked about his strategy for restoring the pharmaceutical company to its former glory. “His strategy, he said, was to put strategy second and focus on changing the company’s insular, academic culture.” The fact is, culture eats strategy for lunch,” Clark explained. “You can have a good strategy in place, but if you don’t have the culture and the enabling systems that allow you to successfully implement it… the culture of the organization will defeat the strategy.””
If you’re looking for a best practice corporate culture silver bullet forget it—one size doesn’t fit all.
Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, describes that company’s top-down command and control culture of consistency and discipline as “the source of our competitive advantage,” and has made it a priority to reinforce it.
Meanwhile, Robert Iger and Steve Jobs, in their discussions about the acquisition of Pixar by Disney, have been concerned with avoiding an Exxon style command and control culture. Jobs says that, “Most of the time that Bob and I have spent talking about this hasn’t been about economics, it’s been about preserving the Pixar culture because we all know that’s the thing that’s going to determine the success here in the long run.””
It took Lou Gerstner a decade to remake IBM.
The key lesson Gerstner learned in his time with IBM, as he later reflected, was the importance of culture.”Until I came to IBM, I probably would have told you that culture was just one among several important elements in any organization’s makeup and success—along with vision, strategy, marketing, financials, and the like… I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game—it is the game.”
The article is more than just additional proof for my favorite hobby horse.
The analysis of the role of employee complaints/negativity play in culture and the importance of what to keep when setting out to change a culture as opposed to what to jettison will give you new insight on your own company’s culture.
In case you still doubt the power and value of culture I hope that Dick Clark, Rex Tillerson, Robert Iger, Steve Jobs and Lou Gerstner combined with the articles in Fast Company and IMD have finally changed your mind.
An “expert blogger” at Fast Company wrote a post about what large companies can learn from startups (next month she’s writing the flip side, i.e., what startups can learn from large companies.)
Here is her advice in a nutshell,
Startups are flatter; if you can’t flatten, delegate and empower.
Startups have tighter timelines; a mandatory deadline is a pretty good way to shut up any last-minute hesitations.
Startups value disruption; when a company is setting out to define their corporate culture “risk” should make an appearance right between “honesty” and “respect.”
All well and good, but not exactly new information.
At Davos, John Kao, who advises corporations and governments on innovation, said that training and discipline and improvised creativity are the yin and the yang of innovation and used Google and Apple as examples of the two approaches.
Useful information and stuff you can put to work in your organization, but not particularly electrifying.
One problem is that so much of the talk about innovation cites either startups or technology companies as examples of risk and creativity.
Yes, Esquire; a print magazine in an industry that most experts have written off as dead.
In 2011, a year when the magazine industry was flat to down a bit, Esquire was up 13.5 percent in ad pages from the previous year.
To put that in perspective, consider that in 2009 it lost 24.3% advertising pages as compared with 2008 and the brand was predicted to disappear in 2010.
What happened?
Esquire’s editor in chief, David Granger did lay off 20% of his staff and substantially reduce editorial pages, but what he did not do was fire the big name talent in favor of younger, i.e., cheaper, staffers.
He did not, as they say, throw the baby out with the bathwater.
And the staff responded with an outpouring of creativity.
For its 75th anniversary issue in 2008, right about the time magazines were heading off a cliff, he and his designers put together an “E-Ink” cover that flashed, right there on the newsstand. (See video below.)
On almost any given day there are dozens of articles on how to juice innovation and creativity, but I think the Esquire article stands out.
Not because it gives you a list of what is wrong or spells out what to do, but because it proves that just because the “experts” say that not just you, but also your industry, are dead doesn’t mean they are.
What truly innovative companies have in common is a culture that embraces a willingness to live or die by risking failure.
I dream; you dream; everybody dreams—without dreams there would be no reason to get out of bed in the morning, let alone do anything else.
Robert Kennedy summed up the human attitude towards dreams when he said, “There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why… I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”
Why not, indeed?
Walt Disney tells us, “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”
And Jesse Owens elaborated on that when he said, “We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.”
But if you find yourself dreaming more than doing Baltasar Gracian’s advice should help, “Dreams will get you nowhere, a good kick in the pants will take you a long way.”
Entrepreneurs are dreamers big-time and entrepreneurism is truly a global force; Jack Kerouac understood not only the universal appeal of dreams, but also its universal effect, “All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together.”
Entrepreneurs looking to hire would do well to remember the words of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and make them their mantra, Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.”
When times are darkest and your dream seems unlikely to reach fruition you will find the words of Christopher Reeve inspiring, “So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.”
Are you ever too old to dream? John Barrymore has a great answer to that, “A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.”
Finally, you can do a lot worse than let the words of Malcolm Forbes be the driving force in your world, “When you cease to dream you cease to live.”
“Unmentionables” has a whole new meaning and it can damage or even destroy your organization; once again, the problem and the solution are found in your culture.
Now for the fun stuff.
Millions of people base their buying decisions on peer reviews, AKA, the “wisdom of crowds,” but how wise is it when the “wisdom” is for sale?
Heads up! This is a rant. In today’s world of ‘citizen journalists’ I may wince at the misused words, but given our educational system I’m not surprised. However, when I see them in major online media sites such as Vator.tv I get really annoyed, as I did yesterday at this sentence, “Zynga is not loosing steam when it comes to entering 2012 with a whole new lineup of games for its users to get addicted to.’ I’m not referring to the fact that the sentence ends in a preposition, that’s way too common to cause a reaction. But if Zynga does start ‘loosing steam’ I at least hope the water isn’t too polluted.
This final entry should probably be called something like ‘when disparate things converge’. If you happen to have abundant disposable income and require a hospital stay shop around; you may be surprised at what’s available.
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here
I seem to write too many stories about bosses who don’t walk their talk, which, I realize, is an overused, hackneyed expression.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not an accurate one.
Here’s the background and I have to admit it really floored me.
“Mark” is a thirty-something engineer and was the third person to join 23 year old “Jim’s” startup early in 2011.
Out of several offers he chose Jim’s. He’d read and heard a lot about the values that Millennials demanded and Jim’s description of his values and the culture he was building based on them closely matched Marks own.
Things were going well and they had grown to 6 people when they landed on the radar of a major corporation.
Near the end of the year Mark heard a rumor that the company was being acquired.
When he asked Jim if it was true he said it was and that they hoped to keep the staff.
Mark was flabbergasted; not because Jim was selling, but because the acquiring company’s culture was known to be diametrically opposed to almost all of Mark’s stated values.
When Mark said as much Jim said that it was an amazing offer and that he would be a fool to turn it down. Although they could easily raise an investment round, his holdings were far more valuable with the acquisition than if they were diluted by new investors.
Mark asked Jim if he had meant anything he said during the interview or if it was all just BS.
Jim’s response really blew me away.
Mark said he shrugged and said “that was then and this is now.”
What do you think? Was Jim justified? What would you do?
Several people I’ve talked with recently have quoted from Eric Ries’s The Lean Start Up with almost the same religious fervor people espouse Guy Kawasaki or Steve Jobs.
I haven’t read it yet, but after reading a brief column in WSJ’s About Tech Europe and watching the video I realized that Ries probably doesn’t appreciate that kind of blind devotion any more than Kawasaki or Jobs and is quick to say so.
Much of what he says is common sense,
“If 10 people in a row hate my product is that statistically significant? It is not conclusive evidence, but it is certainly telling you something.”
If you have 100 customers you can already say what percentage are paying. If it is zero then I can already start to be a bit worried about the model.”
which is often the easiest to rationalize or ignore.
Of course, you ignore it at your peril.
If you have read The Lean Startup please share your thoughts below; I’ll share mine after I’ve read it.
Certain subjects have been discussed and debated constantly over the years; today’s links are updates on four of them.
Last year I wrote about 
Northern California startup land is once again the Golden State for new grads—especially those with a strong sense of entitlement.
Shawn Parr, whose company works with large corporations, such as Starbucks and MTV, on innovation wrote a meaty post called 
I dream; you dream; everybody dreams—without dreams there would be no reason to get out of bed in the morning, let alone do anything else.
Subscribe to MAPping Company Success 