A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Today is Valentine’s Day and a good time to consider how best to show your love for your team.

Basically, there are two ways bosses show their love, either with cool tools or magic minutes.

Think about the old saying, “give a fool a tool and you’ll still have a fool,” which is frequently forgotten in our tech-happy world.

For discussion purposes, the term ‘fool’ denotes an underperforming person or group.

Showing your love by showering them with the latest, greatest technology or apps is unlikely to turn the fools around.

That’s where the magic minutes come in, because the majority of fools really aren’t fools.

They’re more like lost souls looking for a path to productivity, personal satisfaction and success.

Most people want their company to succeed, want to do their work well and want to feel good about what they do.

And whether you like it or not, when you chose to found a company you took on the duel roles of leader and manager.

That means your real job is spending whatever minutes are required to guide them to the path out of fooldom and into becoming an appreciated member of a powerful team.

It’s also one of the most important and satisfying experiences you will ever have no matter what happens to your company.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Do you live in Silicon Valley or one of the Silicon clones (Alley, Forest, etc.)?

Do you focus your early marketing efforts on the tech world of which you are a part?

If so, you may be in for a shock or should I say rude awakening?

The problem is that that market is not the world and much of the “common wisdom” regarding early adopters is misleading or just plain wrong.

Common wisdom says that blacks are not early adopters or a prime target market. But according to Tristan Walker, who helped build Foursquare and was entrepreneur-in-residence at Andreessen Horowitz, that so-called wisdom is way off base.

“The demographic is starved for a company that cares about it,” he said, noting that while blacks tend to be among the early adopters and consumers of social technologies, it is rare for companies to acknowledge that or to market to them directly.

Common wisdom would expect techies to be the perfect audience for Aarthi Ramamurthy’s service that lets people try out high-end tech gear before purchasing it, but they weren’t.

“I thought it would be Google and Facebook employees with disposable income,” she said. But as it turns out, she added, it’s the “middle of the country that is very interested” in the service. (…) but much of the early adoption of its business occurred in states like Texas and Idaho.

Common wisdom says a company that sends customers boxes of personally tailored clothing would resonate with fashionistas in urban areas, but Katrina Lake, founder of Stitch Fix, found her service just as hot not only in less urban areas, but also with an unexpected customer.

“But the service was received almost as well by women in Wyoming, Alabama and Minnesota (…) Ms. Lake said she had expected her market to be busy women in their 20s and 30s who have no time to shop but want nice clothes for brunches and engagement parties. “But it turns out that concept really resonated with moms and people who were busy with their kids and families,” she said.

Common wisdom says that if you spend two years developing a product with the help and input of a specific audience they should be your customers, but that’s not always true.

The Mira Medicine Team…spent years building their first tool MS Bioscreen, which was developed for the physicians at the UCSF Dept of Neurology. So they naturally believed that their first customers would be neurologists. [They weren’t] 70 customers later they are no longer talking to neurologists.

Here are the three critical take-aways—

• Common wisdom is often wrong.
• Niches are often larger than they appear.
• ‘Should’ is a bad assumption and never a guarantee.

Flickr image credit: Chris Potter

Long before I had a career and ever since I have lived by the following rule.

Whatever information, knowledge or even wisdom you are looking to teach, share or impart, whether as official teacher, mentoring manager, friend or just interested party, is more likely to be absorbed if you follow this advice.

“People learn more when they are laughing.” –Confucius

Flickr image credit: kafka4prez

Research by two economists at Kellogg Turned up an interesting insight.

“…CEOs with a military background are much less likely to engage in corporate fraud compared to their civilian-only peers—up to 70% less likely, in fact.”

The problem, to my way of thinking, is that those studied came from a different military culture than the current one.

“…biographical data on chief executives from the 800 largest US firms each year from 1980 and 1991 and from approximately 1500 publicly traded US firms from 1992 to 2006.

The current military is a bit different than the one they were a part of; you might even say it’s not your father’s military any more, let alone your grandfather’s.

The Air Force cheating and drug scandals come at a time when a large number of senior officers in other branches of the military have been investigated, penalized or fired in connection with allegations of sexual improprieties, sexual violence, financial mismanagement or poor judgment.

None of this means you should avoid hiring ex-military, since cheating is just as, if not more, prevalent in the civilian population.

What it means is that you should interview everyone, at every level, carefully and not make assumptions based on generalizations or previous positions.

Flickr image credit: Mike Baird

Ian Larkin is an assistant professor Harvard Business School and he shared some interesting research last spring.

The study focused on the effect of rewards, and although the subjects were laundry plant workers the results apply to knowledge workers, too.

The plan rewarded workers for being on time and not missing days.

The results were not as expected and productivity dropped.

In other words, the rewards plan ended up demotivating the workers.

Why?

Because it was easily gamed and structured to reward actions that were an expected part of the job, such as being on time.

Rewards should always be for going above and beyond the job description, showing initiative, creativity, reaching out to support not just the team, but others with whom they interface, etc.

It’s also important to remember that money isn’t always the best reward.

Most studies have proved that praise is an excellent driver of performance, productivity and good feelings—public recognition/kudos usually carries more weight than bought rewards such as meals or movie tickets.

“You can’t put a price on that. The recognition of hearing you did a good job and that others are hearing about it is worth more than money.”

The main thing to remember is that awards aren’t a solve-all panacea for an ailing team.

“You can’t say awards are good or bad. It depends on how they’re implemented.”

And they certainly won’t/can’t replace good management skills.

Flickr image credit: FSNR

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

I’ve cited Harvard Business School’s James Heskett’s insightful questions and the discussions they foster many times.  

This time he asks if listening is becoming a lost art.

In his new book Quick and Nimble, based on more than 200 interviews, Adam Bryant concludes, that, among other things, managers need to have more “adult conversations” —conversations needed to work through “inevitable disagreements and misunderstandings” —with our direct reports. Such conversations require careful listening.

In the same book he reports that CEOs expressed major concerns about the misuse and overuse of e-mail, something that they feel encourages disputes to escalate more rapidly than if face-to-face conversations had taken place instead. The latter, however, would require people to listen.

As to the concerns about email, I would add abuse to the misuse and overuse, as well as adding texting, instant messaging and, although not as obvious, cell phones. (Nobody is really listening while navigating rush hour, zipping down the highway at 70 or listening to the GPS when they are late to a meeting.)

Listening is both skill and art, but it’s also a revenue generator—just ask Tony Hsieh, whose own willingness to listen helped create a culture that’s the envy of corporations everywhere, while the listening skills he encourages in his CSRs have sold millions of pairs of shoes, or the Asana founders, who built the company on mindfulness, a philosophy grounded in listening.

Incorporating listening into your cultural DNA requires it to be universally manifested starting with you.

If you aren’t willing to put down your phone, discuss stuff in person, facilitate and carefully listen to disagreement then don’t expect anyone else to do so.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Elon Musk is everywhere these days; played up by the media as a guru and role model.

But is he?

Malcolm Berko, a financial writer who’s not afraid to say when the emperor has no clothes and with no ties to anyone but himself shares a different take on Musk in response to a reader’s question.

I understand your enthusiasm for SolarCity, founded in 2006 by the Rive brothers in collaboration with Musk. But you’re ascribing extraordinary powers to this Musk chap, who, with Peter Thiel, founded PayPal in 1998. In 2002, PayPal was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion after Musk was contentiously removed as CEO by its board of directors. Musk is kind of a geeky, spacey guy who, in late 2001, designed the project “Mars Oasis.” He intended to land miniature greenhouses on Mars, containing food crops growing on Martian regolith. But Musk put his Mars Oasis on hold when he realized that current rocket technology would not allow humans to become “true spacefaring” people. Hello! He sought to address this problem by founding SpaceX, which so far is flying in the red and running up debts. His Tesla Motors, founded in 2010 and financed with four partners, hasn’t made a dime, either, but the company has a ridiculous market cap of $18 billion. In late 2011, this wacky genius spent millions researching a new form of transportation between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and in August 2013, he unveiled his “Hyperloop,” a subsonic air travel machine relying completely on solar energy that would permit commuters to travel the 350 miles between the two cities in 30 minutes. As long as Musk has billions in the bank, he’ll be a genius, but take away his money and people will call him a fool. Meanwhile, Madison Avenue’s marketing has done a splendid job of promoting his name and reputation.

But very few things he touches turn to gold; Musk is a geek without management skills, and investors should realize this.

I have no idea how accurate Berko’s analysis vs. the media in general, but I do know that no matter who says what it’s wise to check out both sides of any story.

Not only to check it out, but to do so with an open mind.

Because even if 99 out of 100 have the same opinion that doesn’t prove that the one dissenting opinion is wrong.

It may just prove that the emperor really doesn’t have any clothes.

Flickr image credit: Huw

There’s been a social media firestorm since Tom Perkins had his say in defense of the so-called 1%.

I asked a retired serial entrepreneur who was funded by KPCB decades ago when the names on the door were actually working partners what he thought.

Tom was reasonably liberal when he was running KP. Many VC’s who had made tons of dough became very conservative as they aged, supporting right wing Republican and Libertarian causes. They seemed to regard it as an insult that the government was trying to take even a tiny smidgeon of their billions in taxes.

I get why Perkins comments incited so much noise, both sincere and politically correct, but the real story a few days earlier didn’t get the play it deserved.

Here’s the headline that should have gotten more attention.

World’s richest 85 people have as much as bottom half the population

This means the world’s poorest 3,550,000,000 (3.55 billion) people must live on what the richest 85 possess.

The statistics are from non-profit Oxfam and are neither political nor partisan—they just are.

Nor are they an indictment of the US, since they are global.

In line with the mantra of “think globally, act locally” what can you do to help change this?

KG Charles-Harris says,

“It’s really action in the little ways that makes a difference.  Not everyone has to do big things, but small things are possible every day with little cost.”

Here are some ideas,

1. Choose your role models more carefully; Richard Branson, Bill Gates and, more recently Mark Zukerberg are all in the 85%, but they model their lives very differently from Larry Ellison or the Koch Brothers.
2. Commit to giving one week’s worth of what you normally spend on coffee to a cause you care about.
3. Do the same with the time you save.

I’ll end by borrowing a line from a 1971 Alka-Seltzer® ad, “Try it, you’ll like it.”

Flickr image credit: playerx

Over and over research has shown that money is no where near the top of what people want in their jobs.

Ask people what they want in a job, and meaningfulness looms large. For decades, Americans have ranked purpose as their top priority—above promotions, income, job security, and hours. (…) After more than 40 years of research, we know that people struggle to find meaning when they lack autonomy, variety, challenge, performance feedback, and the chance to work on a whole product or service from start to finish.

But even those aren’t enough to make it to the number one position.

First and foremost, what makes a job meaningful is doing something that has a “significant, lasting impact on other people.”

But what can you do if you work for a real-world pointy-haired boss and/or a company stuck in a Fifties mindset?

You need to take control, since changing jobs isn’t always an option.

How?

Try one or more of the following

1. Don’t buy into your boss’ or your company’s view of you.
2. Find what meaning you can in your work, even if it’s not the “change the world” kind or all that obvious.
3. Add more meaning outside of work—you are not your career.
4. Invest in a meaningful future by developing skills and/or contacts that will lead to the changes you desire.
5. Hang out with meaningful people—as defined by you, not those around you or society in general.

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Be sure to click over to see the February 2014 Leadership Development Blog Carnival: What Great Leaders Do

Flickr image credit: Max Klingensmith

Harley-Davidson is my hero.

Not because I’m a motorcycle nut, but because they do everything I believe makes a company successful—not to mention all the stuff about which I know nothing.

What I do know is that Harley proves there is more than one way to skin a cat.

They didn’t outsource manufacturing; they didn’t bust their union; they didn’t dump people for robots—in fact, there are no robots on the main assembly line.

They did redesign production to take advantage of the knowledge inherent in line workers with an average tenure of 18 years.

There are around 1,200 different configurations, and a new bike starts its way through the production line every 80 seconds. Virtually each one is unique, and workers have no idea what’s coming 80 seconds later. Surprisingly, robots can’t adjust on the fly like that.

They did spread 150 problem-solvers through the 5-6 man production teams that hand-build each bike.

Every time a new bike came down the line, it took a few extra shoves to push it into place. In fact, it took an extra 1.2 seconds. But Dettinger, who had spent some 20 years at the York plant, knew that every second counted. With 400 motorcycles built each shift, on two shifts a day, an extra 1.2 seconds per bike added up to 2,200 lost bikes annually. Millions could be lost in revenue. Maybe it wasn’t such a small problem.

Each problem-solver has the same core mission: “to monitor his small section of the production line and search for better ways to make motorcycles.”

For decades, management and economists have driven a mantra that to prosper manufacturing in the US meant no unions, low wages and no benefits.

At Harley, costs have fallen by $100 million and the stock is trading around $62 (it was around ten in January 2009).

Most importantly, from a customer’s viewpoint, what used to be an 18 month wait from order to pick-up is now two weeks.

Harley went against the tide and the results are proof that the “experts” aren’t always right.

Flickr image credit: Gonmi