Once Josh knew there was interest, he turned the discussion over to Brad, knowing that he really wanted both Kelly and Tom back, wasn’t concerned about managing remotely, and would find creative ways to make it work. Josh asked Brad to come up with approaches, compensation, etc., for each of them, but reserved final approval. Not because he didn’t trust Brad, but, because the program was new and would set precedent, Josh felt he needed a detailed understanding of how everything would work. Brad said he had no problem with that.

Josh next turned his attention to his Doug, his CFO. Josh said that Doug was so talented that even if good candidates were plentiful he wouldn’t want to lose him. I asked about the need for face-to-face meetings and Josh just laughed. He said that they were both so busy that they rarely saw each other during the workday; when personal interaction was needed they usually met somewhere off-site for coffee or a beer so they wouldn’t be interrupted. He said that when he stopped to think about it, Doug was usually holed up with his computer and a phone.

Doug already knew about the effort to use distance workers, so he wasn’t surprised when Josh approached him about being one; his answer was simple, too—he said yes. He really didn’t want to leave, he just wanted the opportunity to see his kids grow up. Josh suggested that Doug develop a plan to work from home, including any additional technology he thought would be beneficial, and they’d hammer out the final effort together.

Josh tackled engineering last because he knew that “Julie,” the VP, was the most resistant to the whole idea.

Josh is a great CEO-he’s a big proponent of management-by-walking-around, believes he can learn from everybody and tries to do so, and takes time to really know and understand his senior staff. I found his analysis of Julie fascinating.

He said that Julie’s young, both age, 31 (I found that funny, Josh is all of 37) and experience; this is her first stint as a vice president, she’s cautious and still somewhat insecure. She’s a brilliant technologist and works hard at helping her people to excel beyond their own expectations. Strangely, since she develops it, Julie’s resistant to technology as a user and seems distrustful of much of the available collaboration software; additionally, she’s a very visual person.

Julie was devastated by each resignation and felt she had lost some of her best talent, even while agreeing with their reasons for resigning she didn’t like losing them; and her solo effort to take up the slack, combined with interviewing replacements and filling new positions, along with her normal duties, was killing her-or, as Josh said, softening her up to try something that terrified her and that she viewed as a major risk.

Continued tomorrow…

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 12:46 pm and is filed under Business info, Communication, Culture, Hiring, Leadership, Motivation, Retention. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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