Initiative is the most critical ingredient in any kind of success, whether individual or organization.
C. Northolt Parkinson said, “The man whose life is devoted to paperwork has lost the initiative. He is dealing with things that are brought to his notice, having ceased to notice anything for himself.” And sometimes he doesn’t even do that.
Initiative means doing, not just noticing; Henry Ford understood that when he said, “You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.”
Initiative is what moves you forward; it’s what gets you off your butt so you can accomplish whatever you choose.
Several hundred years ago Johann Wolfgang von Goethe put it this way, “Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.” Or you can follow the less poetic version from Zig Ziglar, “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” (Personally I prefer Goethe; beauty in words doesn’t dilute the meaning.)
Initiative doesn’t stay with one person, no matter the position, nor does it end when the original action is complete. As Lao Tzu put it 4500 years ago, “What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly.” And butterflies go on to live another whole life.
All actions should be valued, whether great or small. After all, without the humble caterpillar there would be no butterfly.
But my favorite view of initiative comes from Holbrook Jackson when he said, “Genius is initiative on fire.”
Today I have some great links to share that should bring a laugh, or at least a chuckle, to anyone who has worked in the cubes of corporatedom.
Of all business actions, the one that people are most prejudiced against is meetings. David Silverman offers a great idea that rings organizational bells in a positive way—sanity via the 50 minute hour.
Next is a question asked by a reader of the Boston Globe. Typically questions asked publicly garner a variety of opinions, but not when the questioner is looking for support for pursuing self-recognized unethical behavior—no matter how stupid the underlying policy.
And speaking of stupid, how ’bout the newest device to deal with interoffice romance? Read all about the love contract (yes, it’s legally binding) that some companies are instituting.
Stupid topping stupid today, but first prize has to go to the Burger King manager who invoked the “no shoes” policy when dealing with a barefoot six month old baby.
Normally Saturday is all about multiple links to useful information, but today I have something even more useful.
Every year KG Charles-Harris, EMANIO CEO and founder of M3, attends the Stanford Summit; this is the second year I’ve asked him to share what he learned with you.
I specifically asked that he provide a look at how this premier Silicon Valley gathering saw their role in the coming economic recovery.
As usual, the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit was a breath of fresh air with industry luminaries, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists interacting intensely. The topic on everyone’s minds was, of course, the Grand Recession that the financial industry had brought upon all of us and what would bring us out of it.
One issue was clear in everyone’s minds and that was that the information and computer industries were some of the leading forces that would turn the negative situation into more positive territories. From my point of view as CEO of a software company and leader of a foundation that works with disadvantaged kids, it is clear that innovation and problem solving will be a core factor to bring the US, and the rest of the world, out of recession.
Technology is a two-edged sword and information technology helped create some of the problems.
The efficiency with which trades are executed in the financial markets;
the ability to seamlessly package, re-package and syndicate debt; and
the borderless nature of global finance is all based on computer technology.
As such, tech was a facilitator, not only in the creation of the bubble, but also the in the speed with which it spread from mortgage backed securities to the rest of the economy.
One way or another most people are experiencing the fallout on a global level.
In the same way, it will be due to the possibilities and flexibility of technology that the world will ascend out of “darkness”.
But facilitators are neutral and play both sides, so just as the downturn and bubble were helped along by technology, so the turnaround will happen with the help of technology.
This is what many of us discussed at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit and I would like to share with you the varied thoughts of three entrepreneurs, Lorenzo Carver, CEO of Liquid Scenarios, Jason Seed, CEO of CVSdude and Renee Blodgett, CEO of Blodgett Communications, on how technology will aid the recovery.
In essence, these three have different takes on the value that technology brings and why tech will facilitate the turnaround.
The first CEO I interviewed was Lorenzo Carver, who has extensive experience in the technology, finance and accounting industries, among others. He has founded several companies, as well as having participated in raising billions of dollars in funding for other companies. He is often sought for his strategic advice by both company leaders and venture capitalists.
At present, his major endeavor is Liquid Scenarios, which minimizes uncertainty for investors in different ventures. They provide the various hardcore financial scenarios that an investor needs to calculate—investment amounts, rounds of financing, time to exit, etc.; the different aspects of modeling the future of an investment beyond what spreadsheets can take you. They have major venture capitalists and other investors as clients.
Lorenzo’s comments on how technology would play a part in the economic recovery were quite insightful. “Tech has already had an effect on the recovery, just like it had in the downturn at the end of the dotcom era. In fact, tech has led us out of the doom and gloom mentality with earnings from Google, Adobe and others being significantly better than expected. This has provided people with hope that organizations are continuing to invest. These are important signals, considering the leadership position that the technology industry has in this country.”
I agree with what he is saying, however, I remain a bit skeptical of the significant optimism that exists in the market today. Considering the significant job losses and the continuing trend of more jobs lost, in addition to the continued credit freeze for both consumers and corporations, it is difficult to imagine that we are as close to a recovery as people believe. A slowing downward trend is not the same as an upward trend.
When I asked Lorenzo about this, he said “Of course, as a business leader I am planning for continued hard times and am finding ways of doing more with less; I believe that this will continue for some time.”
In short, technology has played and will continue to play a significant role, but we are still experiencing a downward trend.
Everyone I spoke with at the Stanford Summit recognizes this and manages accordingly. In this environment it is all about cash management and to the extent technology can aid in this it will continue to be a winner.
Last year I met Guy Marion, Executive Vice President of CVSDude, an enterprising and innovative version control platform, who had traveled all the way from Australia to attend the Summit. CVSDude is the leading worldwide provider of Subversion hosting and developer solutions to distributed teams.
This year I had the pleasure of sitting down with their CEO Jason Seed, who, over this past year, has driven significant progress, including opening offices in Silicon Valley. When asked about how the tech industry is/would contributing to the economic recovery, he was very clear on the major factor technology brings.
“The major benefit of the technology industry is the efficiency it delivers to all organizations. Clearly both efficiency and effectiveness will be the major drivers of an eventual recovery.” Clearly Jason is correct in mentioning this. Since the inception of technology, efficiency and effectiveness have been the drivers of innovation. Clearly, what we are now seeing in the economy is a retrenchment started by finance, but continued by the search for efficiencies and doing things more effectively using technology.
Many of the people laid off in this recession will have their jobs replaced by technology. They and many more will find that to regain employment some level of retraining will be necessary. This is certainly true for many in Detroit, the epicenter of employment losses.
Jason’s company focuses on delivering these efficiencies to global teams of developers, whether they are distributed across large geographic areas or who work in the same office. Regardless, being able to have scalable, reliable, secure systems to manage version control and other software issues is a core enabler of effective development.
Finally, I discuss the role that technology will play in the economic recovery with Rene Blodgett, CEO of Blodgett Communications. I kidded Rene that maybe she was the sister or wife of Henry Blodget, the infamous dotcom stock market analyst from Merrill Lynch. In fact, she’s not related in any way to “Hype” Blodget, despite her involvement in promoting technology companies.
Blodgett Communications partners with clients, getting to know their business in an intimate fashion, in order to differentiate and create thought leadership. Their core expertise focuses on the absolute fact that revenue and sales are always at the forefront of each management team’s objectives, so they develop media strategies that minimize cash outlay while enhancing cash generation.
Rene believes the way technology will lead us out of the recession is through enabling better decision-making. She says, “It is clear that technology enables analysis of data and acquisition of information in a way that gives companies the tools to understand options and reach conclusions in ways that were previously impossible. This is especially true about business intelligence and predictive analytics; companies, like EMANIO, will be at the forefront.”
Thank you, Rene. It is absolutely true that EMANIO is at the forefront of the information and analysis revolution and I am in complete agreement when you say, “It is only through improved decision-making that we will be able to get the economy on an even keel again.”
To summarize,
Lorenzo believes that tech is already leading us out of the recession and that the “green shoots” that we are seeing are due to the performance of technology in companies or technology stocks’ effect on general sentiment.
Jason believes that effectiveness and efficiencies driven by technology will lie at the base of a robust recovery.
Rene’s conviction is that it is better decisions enabled by technology that will differentiate winners from losers and lead us out of the doldrums.
All our sentiments are valid and interesting, but we’ll have to see how it develops going forward before we can judge how accurate we are.
I read a great description of politics in You Run, a short story by Sarah Shankman, “politics is one long power plan; an exercise in ego”. That seems to be a good description of what leadership is to many people.
It certainly describes the MAP so prevalent in the business scandals of the last two decades, as well as that of the titans of Wall Street who contributed so heavily to the current economic mess.
It’s also a major characteristic of the more mundane populace in general, as witnessed on social media platforms.
The foremost cyber-goal is to be on the first page of Google search results based on designated criteria.
The more friends you have on Facebook the more desirable you appear.
Garner enough followers on Twitter and you are suddenly a leader.
Every social media rates its members and people work mightily to improve their ratings.
For those who aren’t celebrities of one kind or another or are verifiable in the real world, this is done based on the ancient principle of “I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine.” (As you might guess, this isn’t my forte.)
That means the ratings can be manipulated—and they are.
There are dozens of classes, webinars, coaches and businesses, along with hundreds of books, all focused on ‘managing your online persona’. They teach all the tricks to raising your authority level, acquiring more friends and followers, and the achieving first page status on Google.
But there are no classes, webinars, coaches or books that explain how to tell the wheat from the chaff, i.e., sort through these impressive exercises in ego to find real value.
What do you do? Please share your approach to finding and validating the authenticity and value of your cyber-connections.
Most managers are, whether by sins of omission, i.e., unintentional, or commission, i.e., intentional.
Unintentional sins are usually a matter of
being unaware of the effect of your words or actions on others;
time spent in a culture where it’s the norm;
rushing;
acting before thinking; and
not doing or ignoring doing what needs to be done.
Intentional sinning falls in the category of abuse.
The great problem is that the same words or actions from manager A would be omission, whereas from manager B they are intentional.
The people who work for them need to figure out the difference, which is easier said than done.
How do you determine if your boss is blind to her effect or just plain evil?
One of the best ways is to look at the words or actions through the lens of the larger picture as opposed to the isolated incident.
Does the manager frequently say or do things that produce similar effects and then blunder about trying to eradicate them?
Are the offending actions random or meted out across the board/directed at a constant target?
How do they compare to the actions of other managers?
Are they in line or at odds with the company’s culture?
By analyzing your boss’ comments and actions you can gain insight as to what is really going on.
Unintentional = unconscious = correctible—as long as the manager is willing. You and your colleagues can accomplish that by privately pointing out what’s going on each time it happens. In most cases the manager will be horrified and apologetic. Accept graciously, it doesn’t help to rub her nose in it, and repeat as necessary; the problem will lesson as her awareness increases.
Intentional = conscious = with malice aforethought. The best way to correct this is through diligent polishing of your resume, cultivating recruiters and becoming more active on LinkedIn, so that you are in a position to vote with your feet.
The Stanford Summitis exciting; a marvelous opportunity to catch up with people you know and to make new contacts. Obviously, the economy was a major topic of conversation.
Lorenzo Carver, CEO of Liquid Scenarios, and I sat down for a conversation regarding the positive and negative experience we have both had bootstrapping our companies during the past few years.
We both, after extensive experience sitting on the venture capital, investment banking and entrepreneurial sides of the table, chose to bootstrap our companies through product development and product launch.
I first met Lorenzo at last year’s AlwaysOn Stanford Summit and met him again at this year’s Summit. It was a pleasure seeing him again as we have both moved forward strongly during the difficult economic environment. Lorenzo has had a varied career advising companies, developing strategy and assisting in raising capital. He has raised several billion dollars for his and other’s ventures during his career.
Also my ventures, EMANIO and the M3 Foundation, have developed well during the recession despite strict fiscal discipline. Or maybe thanks to it.
As I spoke with Lorenzo, he mentioned that bootstrapping is “a double edged sword; companies that are bootstrapped need to have customers and serve customers in order to survive”.
In other words, the order of business for bootstrapped companies is business. Making money is the order of the game. In contrast to VC funded companies, bootstrapped companies quickly have to find their way to revenue and profits. All investment in product or market development is coming from revenue and profits, so acquiring these are the core responsibilities of the CEO and the rest of the management team.
Lorenzo continued, “Companies that have financing when things get tough have more options, but often lack the strong teams and lack control in how to keep the team together when things get tough”. In other words, the act of bootstrapping builds a certain discipline in a team. Everyone is aware of the fact that their livelihoods are dependent on getting that revenue and profit. Costs have to be kept low and sales have to get done.
Well financed companies most often lack that discipline and there is tremendous waste in a lot of VC funded companies. However, they also are able to do more and grab opportunities that bootstrapped companies are unable to act upon because of a lack of resources or the need to stay profitable.
We were both in agreement with the fact that everyone we had worked with was in a similar situation to the one we found ourselves in. The business environment turned toxic overnight and fourth quarter last year and first quarter this year were horrendous for everyone we had spoken to, including partners and customers.
There is no question that there will be more bootstrapping as companies are having difficulty finding investment capital or lenders. This, in turn, will bring greater scrutiny of budgets and purchase orders across the spectrum. We both believe, though Lorenzo is more optimistic than I am, that bankruptcies will continue to grow and that the business environment will continue to be difficult for years to come.
However, there are few times better to grow a company than during difficult times. Many of the great companies of today were started during difficult economic environments, had difficulty finding capital and had to find innovative ways of growing. This developed their corporate cultures to be strong and focused toward creating great value propositions with scant resources.
To any budding entrepreneurs out there, this is the time to truly consider your dreams and take the step.
Today I have the pleasure of interviewing M3’s founder KG Charles-Harris.
Why did you start M3? I started the M3 Foundation when I became aware of the plight of black boys in school. In the San Francisco Bay Area, 73 percent of black boys drop out of school (nationally the average is 54%). These statistics places one of the wealthiest areas of the world on par with war torn areas like the Congo or very impoverished nations like Laos. The statistics, along with meeting some of these kids, shocked me into action.
Another issue was that I wanted my own children to receive a good public school education.
To ensure that this happened, it was necessary to put a structure in place that enabled teachers to do what they were supposed to, i.e. teach students who were performing at or above grade level.
Sadly, most teachers and schools are unable to do this because of the significant portion of students lagging several years behind grade level; that results in remedial teaching and a lower level of education for all.
How did you come up with the approach? The approach was based on common sense. We cannot expect people who are lagging behind to work less and still achieve the same results as those who have worked more in preceding years. Also, we have to make a fundamental decision. Are these boys unintelligent, or is it their environments that are affecting them negatively?
We put together a program which used sports and hip-hop as a carrot and focused on providing homework assistance, extensive mathematics tutoring and surrounded the boys with role models (UC Berkeley male students) as tutors and team leaders.
The program is intense; we work with the boys three times per week for 4 hours in the afternoon and 4-6 hours on Saturdays. One of the keys to the program is our excursions; it is difficult to have vision and dreams when one never has been exposed to something beyond the few blocks of inner-city where one resides.
What have been the most difficult roadblocks? We are encountering road blocks all the time. We are still a startup, though we have proven that black low-income boys can perform well. We now have an average GPA of above 3.0 across all the school sites where we are active.
The most difficult roadblock we encountered was being shut down by the school district because of a perception that we discriminate. We have created a model for the most difficult student population, African American boys from low-income backgrounds, and have proven it works. Unfortunately, due to legal restrictions, it is difficult to serve this population since we are unable to select students based on race, gender or other characteristics.
Luckily, thanks to the assistance of one of our Board members, we were able to move beyond this with the school district and are now experiencing them as good partners.
Of course, we are always experiencing challenges of hiring strong team members, retaining and motivating students, working with parents, and many other issues.
Is M3’s approach scaleable? When I started M3, one of the goals was to create a scalable and cost-efficient model. Because these were some of the founding thoughts, we constructed the program around these objectives and are managing to have a cost per student that is significantly lower than other programs working with these types of students. In fact, we have lower costs and better results (in most cases).
We have managed to accomplish this by leveraging the resources we have through partnerships with other organizations and also measuring everything we are doing to ensure we get the results we desire. If we fail to achieve the results, we are able to evaluate our performance from an objective perspective.
This has been difficult to engender since most non-profit organizations are more “touchy-feely”; we want to ensure that we are both empathetic and results oriented.
A personal note from KG. I cannot have this opportunity to speak to all of you without appealing to your generosity.
Since more than 50% of US African American males fail to graduate high school, and 64% of those who drop out end up in the penal system, one of the strongest ways to lower crime is to ensure that these boys receive a good basic education.
The absolute proof is that less than 1% of college educated black males end up in prison while 64% of drop-outs end up there.
Please feel free, whether to fight crime, enhance education or because of racial pride, to donate to M3. Please visit our website; click to donate or send a check to M3 Foundation, 832 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94710
I have a contest running on Leadership Turn, so click over and share your favorite business OMG moments for the chance to win a copy of Jason Jenning’s Hit The Ground Running.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
C. Northolt Parkinson said, “The man whose life is devoted to paperwork has lost the initiative. He is dealing with things that are brought to his notice, having ceased to notice anything for himself.” And sometimes he doesn’t even do that.
Of all business actions, the one that people are most prejudiced against is meetings. David Silverman offers a great idea that rings organizational bells in a positive way—sanity via the 
losers and lead us out of the doldrums.
It certainly describes the 
The 
