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Candidate Due Diligence

Tuesday, September 24th, 2019

http://blog.chaukhat.com/2011/04/13-funny-t-shirt-quotes.html

Last week we saw how the best places to work rankings change — Google was number one for six straight years, now it’s number eight, while Facebook dropped to seventh place.

People change too. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who was named the world’s most reputable CEO in 2018, didn’t even make the top 10 this year.

Friends and family often aren’t aware of the most current news about a company and even when they are they may minimize it, especially if the company is hot or an icon.

This isn’t just about Google; Facebook, Amazon or dozens of others that are just as problematical.

Hot startups encourage you to jump in without due diligence. WeWork may seem like an extreme example, but it’s not as uncommon as you might think — remember Theranos, Uber and Zenefits.

It’s about how fast things change, both the big stuff and the little stuff, all the stuff that underlies culture and trust, which can and should affect your decisions.

Because it’s your career, your life and, corny as it may sound, your soul.

Image credit: chaukhat.com

Golden Oldies: The MAP of “But Me”

Monday, June 11th, 2018

 https://www.flickr.com/photos/yanivba/325214173/

 

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

I wrote this 9 years ago, long before Facebook, Uber, Zenefits, Google, and a myriad of other companies that started on the light side of ‘but me’ and, over time, migrated to the dark side.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

A few days ago I read Fourth Down, Death, an old mystery by Michael T. Hinkemeyer, and I’ve been thinking about how true was the statement, “Power is the ability to sustain illusion.”

We see the illusions fail all the time in the news these days—think Enron, WorldCom, options backdating.

What will it take for the corporate elite to realize that the illusion is fragile and that it takes very little to crack the power that sustains it?

Put another way, when will they stop operating on a “but me” basis? ” As in, “the rules apply to everybody, but me.”

However, “but me” is also

  • the mindset that yields the greatest inventions, as when two brothers thought, “everybody thinks that man can’t fly, but us,” and fosters innovation at any level;
  • what lets each of us continue functioning in our crazy world, knowing that the bad and scary stuff we hear about in the news can happen to anybody, but me.

Think of “but me” as having both a light side and a dark side—then choose the side on which you want to play.

Please join me tomorrow for an updated look at the quote that started me thinking way back in 2007.

Image credit: Yaniv Ben-Arie

If The Shoe Fits: Selective Emulation

Friday, February 16th, 2018

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hikingartist/5726760809/

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

If you heard only the following comment who would you think it’s about?

He was determined to succeed by any means necessary, subordinating questions of right or wrong to the good of his career and driving himself crazy with his hunger for power and control, his hypersensitivity to perceived threats to his independence and stature, and his overarching need to measure up.

Travis Kalanick? Howie Hubler? Parker Conrad?

Nope, none of the above.

What about this quote?

“It is a great profession. There is the fascination of watching a figment of the imagination emerge through the aid of science to a plan on paper. Then it moves to realization in stone or metal or energy. Then it brings jobs and homes to men. Then it elevates the standard of living and adds to the comforts of life. That is the engineer’s high privilege.”

Marc Benioff? Pierre Omidyar? Henry Ford?

Nope, none of the above.

Both the description and the quote are about the same man.

Someone lightly touched on at school, but not explored in any depth, as were those who held the same position at other times.

Certainly most of the information in the article KG shared was new to me and I’ll bet it would be new to most of you.

The person is Herbert Hoover, the 31st President of the United States.

The book, published last year is “Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times” by Kenneth Whyte.

Read the article (if not the book); you’ll find it very enlightening.

Then choose which parts of Hoover are worth emulating.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Ducks in a Row: Humble Or Charismatic

Tuesday, May 9th, 2017

https://www.flickr.com/photos/edvinajh/5710373433/

Many of the actions of people such as Travis Kalanick, Donald Trump, Parker Conrad, etc., are deplored, yet they seem to have no effect on people’s opinions.

They go their merry way while thousands of far superior leaders are ignored.

When the subject does come up the usual response involves the infamous “yes, but…”

Why is that?

I finally found an answer that makes sense from Margarita Mayo, a Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at IE Business School in Madrid.

Mayo terms the first type of leader ‘humble’ and the second ‘charismatic’.

Humble leaders improve the performance of a company in the long run because they create more collaborative environments. They have a balanced view of themselves – both their virtues and shortcomings – and a strong appreciation of others’ strengths and contributions, while being open to new ideas and feedback. (…)

[Charismatic leaders], despite their grandiose view of themselves, low empathy, dominant orientation toward others, and strong sense of entitlement, their charisma proves irresistible. Followers of superheroes are enthralled by their showmanship: through their sheer magnetism, narcissistic leaders transform their environments into a competitive game in which their followers also become more self-centered, giving rise to organizational narcissism, as one study shows.

Mayo’s research and the other’s she cites (with links) provide proof of the value produced by the humble leader vs. their charismatic counterpart.

However, I think there is another problem happening in the background that is word-related.

Ask most people if they want to be remembered as ‘humble’ or ‘charismatic’ and most will choose charismatic.

Warren Buffet aside, ‘humble’ is more often associated with dorky, weak, shy, and unassuming.

Not adjectives most people would choose to describe themselves.

Thanks to Wally Bock for leading me to this article.

Image credit: Edvin J.

Ducks in a Row: Cheating As A Basis Of Culture

Tuesday, February 28th, 2017

What do Hampton Creek, Theranos, Zenefits, Lending Club, WrkRiot, ScoreBig, Rothenberg Ventures have in common?

They all channeled the “fake it ‘til you make it” ethos of Silicon Valley.

Only they didn’t make it.

Previous well-known cheats include MiniScribe, WorldCom and Enron and they’re only the tip of the iceberg.

Cheating is the getting of a reward for ability or finding an easy way out of an unpleasant situation by dishonest means. It is generally used for the breaking of rules to gain unfair advantage in a competitive situation. — Wikipedia

Yesterday’s post focused on the prevalence of cheating at all school levels and its acceptance as a laissez-faire, “everyone does it” attitude.

Of course, cheating isn’t new, but the more ubiquitous it’s become the more it’s been shrugged off.

And it’s this cheating mindset that has shaped Silicon Valley over the last decade or so.

Along with faking it is the “do whatever it takes to win” form of cheating as exemplified by Uber’s Travis Kalanick.

Cheating on ideas, such as meritocracy and fairness, has certainly contributed to the rise of the bro culture, also exemplified by Uber and recently documented by Susan Fowler. However, as Uber engineer Aimee Lucido points out, Uber is far from being alone.

It does seem that a large percentage of the egos that drive, and aspire to drive, innovation, along with the egos that fund that drive, have lost touch with the society they claim to serve and, instead, bought into an attitude espoused by Donald Trump.

“And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

We would be better off if they would channel Sophocles, instead.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/5382067751/

 

Image credit: Sean MacEntee

If the Shoe Fits: Parker Conrad and Zenefits

Friday, February 19th, 2016

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

5726760809_bf0bf0f558_mZenefits founder Parker Conrad traded over-the-top growth predictions for the kind of excessive funding that gooses valuation and earns the company unicorn status.

In doing so he did exactly what Sam Altman warns against, “If a company is profitable, the founder is in control. If it’s not, investors are in control.”

Investors brought pressure (it’s what they do), so corners were cut.

Zenefits never was and still isn’t profitable and, worse still, was cutting corners when those corners are highly regulated.

Now Conrad is out and new management will pick up the pieces.

Conrad could have learned from serial entrepreneur Xenios Thrasyvoulou, who warns, “sanity is more important than vanity” when it comes to fundraising and Andrew Wilkinson’s belief that revenue-based horses have it all over funding-based unicorns.

Instead, once again, the emperor has no clothes.

Image credit: HikingArtist

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