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’ve read a lot about Sam Palmisano and previously written about him.
That said, I still found Wharton management professor Michael Useem’s interview with Palmisano covering his 40 years at IBM, including the last decade as CEO, interesting and informative.
It’s a long interview and, if you prefer, you can use the link to read it or download an audio version.
Most importantly, be sure to read the comments, most by IBMers, which, by and large, are anything but flattering.
Do you agree that his focus on the company screwed the employees or did he get it right?
How does a CEO balance the legacy needs of employees against the needs of the company to survive in a different world?
What would you have done differently to achieve the same success?
I have often heard managers refer to their job as “herding cats;” this is especially true in technical fields where much of the work requires individual efforts.
Scientists are probably the most difficult, since they often come from an environment where publish or perish is the mantra and egos are super-sized.
This was the difficulty that David Ferrucci faced when he set about building the team that created Watson for IBM. He not only had to herd cats he had to hire cats.
As most of the world knows, Ferrucci’s team was wildly successful and created a computer that won playing Jeopardy against its two top past champions and is moving on to far greater challenges.
He says, “In the end, the hero was the team, not any individual member or algorithm.”
What do the researchers think? This comment from one of them pretty much says it all, “Compared to the way we work now, it’s like we were standing still before.”
These scientists are all considered ‘stars’ in their respective fields, but none of them could do anything close to Watson on their own.
Nor could they have done it if their egos and desire for personal recognition had stayed their driving force.
“As for the members of the original Watson team, they’d tell you that never in a million years could they have imagined what we accomplished. Just like Watson itself, we all learned that the sum is much greater than the parts.”
Hiring and herding cats is the true talent of a great manager/leader and absolute proof that in today’s world the boss needs to be both.
And Watson is proof positive that the only stars worth having are the ones who join the team.
Today is the first day of the rest of MAPping Company Success’s life and there are changes for 2012, some of which involve you.
As most of you know Jim Gordon simultaneously got married and retired from drawing mY generation. I have two excellent Creative Commons sources from which to draw comic commentary, however, I would much rather invite one of you.
If you feel an affinity to drawing a comic based on your experiences in the workplace please call 360.335.8054 or write me. And remember, it’s more about your sense of humor, irony and irreverence than your drawing skill!
I’m also looking for guests who want to share their own experiences in areas of interest to my readers. These include culture, management, motivation, people acquisition and retention and startups in all their gory glory. Whether you are a boss (at any level), a worker or a founder and you have an interesting story, lesson learned or anything else to share please contact me.
Readers seem to have a preference for shorter posts, 300 to 500 words or less; what I’m not interested in are thinly veiled promotional posts, whether for products or services, although I will include links in your (brief) bio.
Wordless Wednesday is history, although Miki’s Rules to Live By will randomly continue as before. If you have a great rule of your own please send them to me, I am always looking for additional useful, pithy and/or irreverent rules to live by.
Also, don’t hesitate to share any suggestions you have for making MAPping Company Success more relevant and useful.
Personally, I’m looking forward to more input, commentary and interaction with my readers.
I hope you had a great holiday and accept my wishes for a happy, healthy, wealthy and successful 2012.
not all startups are Net startups – Net startups get most of the press, just as they did the last time, but the idea that the only companies worth funding or working for must be engaged in providing some consumer service that requires massive numbers of users and often relies on advertising for revenue (assuming it has a revenue model) is not only inaccurate, but also ridiculous;
‘find a need/nitch and fill it” can change the world—even if it only changes small pieces at a time it often does it in a way that flashier models don’t;
intrapreneurship is not only alive and well it’s also extremely successful, as shown in the Wall Street Journal article—or just think ‘Apple’, ‘Intel’, ‘IBM’, the list is endless;
As the Wall Street Journal article points out, real-world happenings, especially disasters such as hurricanes, inspire both innovation of existing products and the creation of totally new ones; both entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs.
Whether it’s disaster or downtime, you need to keep your mind as open as your eyes.
I read an interesting article from a Forbes advisor called A Young World is No Place for Old Corporations; in a nutshell it talks about nostalgia for “what the WSJ calls America’s ‘Midcentury Moment’, those post war “golden years of the 1940’s, ‘50s and early ‘60s?” The boom years when Americans forged the world’s new super power, as those in Europe diminished.“
It goes on to say, “During this time US companies became dominant corporations on a world stage, strongly influencing how business was conducted all over the world.
Fast forward to 2011, America now competes in a fierce global market against young and dynamic economies.”
It lauds the dynamic spark that drove the US economy; a common theme, but one I get tired of seeing.
Tired because it only tells only the upside of the story and ignores so much.
I am neither an economist nor an historian, but here is my view of the same history.
European industry didn’t diminish, it was crippled by WWII.
The US became dominant because we were the only country in a position to produce as opposed to spending our efforts and money to rebuild.
In other words, in comparison to the material and psychological devastation experienced by the rest of the world what the US suffered was more like a serious inconvenience.
But not too inconvenient, since we kept on producing and selling.
War’s end left us in the cat-bird seat—not rebuilding, just retooling to sell what the rest of the world needed to rebuild.
A lack of competition breeds arrogance, sloppy practices and fat—fat management and fat labor; it is easy to succeed in a world with little-to-no competition.
When countries no longer needed us because they produced their own we were surprised; when they went beyond and more efficiently produced what we produced and innovated where we had not bothered we were shocked.
When comfortable, we humans seem to believe that some version of what is will always be; it isn’t that we don’t believe in change, but we seem blind to radical change.
We are taken by surprise when it happens and long instead for whatever version of the “good old days” brings us back to our (false) comfort zone.
There is a sizable difference between accepting positional leadership when a company is at the bottom and there is no place to go but up and taking over when its at its height—even more so when what was the growth engine and source of extraordinary profits disappears from the economic landscape.
It is one thing to maximize what you have, wringing out every last possible dollar, and investing in innovation for sustainable growth in the future.
It is one thing to create a culture where public shame and the likelihood of termination for missing your numbers rules and changing that to a culture that encourages appropriate risk-taking and never kills the messenger when the risk doesn’t pan out; a culture that understands not every innovation will be a home run, but encourages and applauds the effort anyway.
These are the differences between Jack Welch
But Welch had taken over when the company was in the bottom of an economic cycle. He took over GE in a recession, not the height of a bubble. Immelt got the job right after the end of the high-flying 1990s, an era which crowned CEOs with mythical, God-like crowns, and Welch was bestowed the biggest of them all.
and Jeff Immelt.
Immelt had known before the meltdown the company needed to ween off the leveraged risk from finance that was begun under Welch. … He admitted mistakes, as any good leader must do, and GE more quietly if not humbly went about its business in making the company a 21st century sustainable and reliable profit engine.
I frequently see comments on blogs and social sites along the lines of “I know I could be an entrepreneur if I just had a good idea” or “I want to be an entrepreneur and change the world.”
Sadly, it seems that most are looking for ideas to make them the next Groupon or Foursquare and while that might make them rich, it will hardly change the world.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it won’t change much or get you into the history books.
You change the world by tackling real-world problems, often with hard science
But you don’t need to be a scientist; self-taught Gary Cola invented the world’s lightest, strongest steel that takes less than ten seconds to make.
In fact, you don’t have to be an adult. Take a look at the winners of the first Google Science Fair and you will be blown away; none are 18 yet and none of their ideas involved the Internet.
Here’s an idea; if you want to change the world look for problems with global impact. Blake Mycoskie is changing the world with shoes and glasses, while Anthony Capone, CEO of Nimbus Water Systems, is changing it with inexpensive, solar-powered, portable water purification systems.
Then there are toilets.
Yes, toilets.
That handy gadget that we take for granted (unless it isn’t working) and that many parts of the world only dream about.
“No innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by invention of the toilet.” –Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s global development program
And the Gates Foundation is putting its money where its mouth is.
Look around; think about changing the world by reinventing or innovating something that addresses a basic need.
You may not end up as rich as Mark Cuban, but I guarantee that it’s the sexiest, most exciting, rewarding, feel-good thing you’ll ever do.
I have often heard managers refer to their job as “herding cats;” this is especially true in technical fields where much of the work requires individual efforts.
Today is the first day of the rest of MAPping Company Success’s life and there are changes for 2012, some of which involve you.
There is a sizable difference between accepting positional leadership when a company is at the bottom and there is no place to go but up and taking over when its at its height—even more so when what was the growth engine and source of extraordinary profits disappears from the economic landscape.
I frequently see comments on blogs and social sites along the lines of “I know I could be an entrepreneur if I just had a good idea” or “I want to be an entrepreneur and change the world.”
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