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

Why is it that we assume the people in our own little bit of world see/do/think as we do.

Think about it.

Do you assume that when faced with choices they will choose as you would?

Do you assume the visions presented by your leaders are honest, true and in your best interest?

Do you assume your religious leaders practice what they preach?

Do you assume your spouse/partner/friend will like the movie/book/people that you like?

Do you assume your team will tackle work/projects in the same way you do?

Think about it.

For any of these assumptions to be true, the people involved would have to have exactly the same MAP and life experience that you have—which is impossible.

So the next time you find yourself assuming stop and remind yourself that they are not you.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Do you remember last August when news that Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, was raising the the minimum wage at his company to $70,000, phased in over the next three years, and all hell broke loose?

Reality-show offers, book deals, research requests from Harvard, both complimentary and scathing media attention; and, hilariously, Rush Limbaugh calling a socialist.

He partly funded the move by cutting his own salary from $1.1 million to $70K.

So what happened?

So far, the results are positive.

…the publicity he’s gotten would boost new customer inquiries from 30 per month to 2,000 within two weeks. (…) customer retention rate rose from 91 to 95 percent in the second quarter. Only two employees quit — a nonevent.

The short reason Price did what he did was because he realized he wasn’t living the values he was raised with and in which he believed.

Obviously, it’s more complicated than that, so read the article.

Then think, really think, about how you can translate your values and beliefs into tangible actions, as opposed to empty words.

Flickr image credit: Gravity Payments

Following up on yesterday’s post about women and inequality, Adam Grant linked to a previous post about his own unwitting blindness.

In that post were some stats that should make everyone, including those who think things are improving, wake up to reality and understand just how far we are from anything actually changing.

Today, U.S. corporate boards have more men named John, Robert, William, or James than women in total. Recent coverage by Claire Cain Miller has brought more chilling data to light: in math, when graded anonymously, girls outperform boys, but when teachers know their names, boys do better. [emphasis mine] And when students rate their favorite professors, they describe men as “geniuses” and women as “nice.” This is sad and unacceptable. We may be in the 21st century, but we’re still a very long way from gender parity.

In study after study, on everything from candidate resumes to professor’s evaluations to student preference, where the only difference in identical credentials is the sex, as disclosed by the name, young and old, male and female, rated the women inferior to the men.

Look at the above statement (in bold), what chance is there that anything will change when kids are already subject to the same attitudes?

Women are overtly and covertly denigrated and sisterhood is a farce.

It’s been said change would come as older generations aged out and bosses were replaced by younger ones who grew up in a more diverse, tolerant and inclusive world.

I started hearing that 50 years ago and am still waiting.

In fact, we are moving backwards; the world was far more woman-friendly in the 80s and 90s, than it is now.

So don’t hold your breath; there is a quantum difference between political correctness and authenticity.

Flickr image credit: Anthony Easton

A few weeks ago Wharton professor Adam Grant wrote Dear Men: Wake Up and Smell the Inequality focusing on why men can’t seem to wrap their heads around gender inequality.

In corporate America, 88% of men think women have at least as many opportunities to advance as men.

This is the finding of a major new study—almost 30,000 employees across 118 companies—by LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company.

Just 12% of men felt that women had fewer opportunities to advance in their organizations.

Today, KG Charles-Harris sent a link to an article by Marshall Goldsmith about suck-ups, with an underlying focus on how easily we see traits in others, but not in ourselves. (I call it ‘but me’)

Almost all of the leaders I have met say that they would never encourage such a thing in their organizations. I have no doubt that they are sincere. Most of us are easily irritated–if not disgusted–by derriere kissers. Which raises a question: If leaders say they discourage sucking up, why does it happen so often? Here’s a straightforward answer: Without meaning to, we all tend to create an environment where people learn to reward others with accolades that aren’t really warranted. We can see this very clearly in other people. We just can’t see it in ourselves.

And that brings us to MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™).

MAP, in case you’ve forgotten, is what underlies and drives all our thoughts and actions.

While not seeing things in ourselves may be fundamental to our MAP, that doesn’t mean we can’t change it.

To do so is a choice, yours and no one else’s.

Choice is the most valuable thing that any of us have and it’s the most painful to lose.

Remember Dumbledore? He summed it up perfectly.

“It is our choices that show us what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, p 333)

Flickr image credit: Peter O’Connor

This post first appeared in 2012, but I believe both its premise and its point deserve another airing.

Managing Weeds

As companies grow and managers build their organizations they frequently talk about “weeding out” low performing employees—Jack Welch was a ninja weeder.

If that thought has crossed your mind you might take a moment to think about James Russell Lowell’s comment, “A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.”

As with weeds, there are better ways to look at under-performing employees.

Seeing a weed as food changes everything, just as seeing people’s potential does.

95% of the time it’s management failures that create weeds and those failures run the gamut from benign neglect to malicious abuse and everything in-between.

Weeds can come from outside your company, inter-departmental transfers and even from peers in your own backyard.

What is amazing is how quickly a weed will change with a little TLC.

“Weeds can grow quickly and flower early, producing vast numbers of genetically diverse seed.”

People grow quickly, too, and often produce innovative ideas — just because someone listened instead of shutting them down.

And while trust that your attitude won’t change takes longer to build, the productivity benefits happen fairly rapidly.

So before you even think about weeding look in the mirror and be sure that the person looking back is a gardener and not a weed producer.

Flickr image credit: Clare Bell

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

Granted you want to change the world, but whose world?

“If we live in a world where the technologies we’re talking about are for rich white people in Silicon Valley then we’ve failed. The idea is to try and distribute this technology as broadly as possible.” –Bill Maris, founder, Google Ventures

So true.

But what else would you expect when entrepreneurs follow the advice to look inward to identify the problems to solve.

And then there is the question of what purpose our economic growth actually serves. The most common advice V.C.s give entrepreneurs is to solve a problem they encounter in their daily lives. Unfortunately, the problems the average 22-year-old male programmer has experienced are all about being an affluent single guy in Northern California.

Unfortunately, the traits common to entrepreneurs in the US aren’t particularly diverse.

The average U.S. entrepreneur is educated with a college degree, closer to mid-career in age, from a higher income household, and more likely to be male. He is likely to be opportunity-motivated and comparatively likely to be operating in the knowledge-intensive sector (business services).

Most of the under-thirty entrepreneurs whose startups have a strong social side found the problem while traveling or doing some kind of volunteer work and used ingenuity and tech-as-appropriate to solve it.

Other places to find young entrepreneurs focused on solving serious problems are at any of the major science fairs, such as Google’s, and the Society for Science and the Public’ awards to the under 13 crowd.

The Federal Government, in the guise of the National Science Foundation started Innovation Corps, essentially an incubator using the Lean approach to commercialize academic research with the help of Steve Blank; those entrepreneurs are definitely older.

The opportunities to change the world are numerous, all you need to do is open your eyes — if a 13-year-old can think of way to change the world, so can you.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Have you ever considered that the comments and musings of so-called influencers and thought leaders carry more weight than they should.

Insider anecdotes from tech often show just how wrong those at the top can be.

Steve Jobs didn’t believe anyone would buy big phones.

Or the mindset of Jim Clark, as revealed by Michael Lewis, author of The New New Thing, a book about the tech industry in the late ’90s.

“At the end of The New New Thing, Jim Clark, who has made a fortune out of the internet bubble, says he’s getting out because he’s scared. Why’s he scared? Kleiner Perkins, the VC firm, has given $25 million to this startup called Google, which he thinks is outrageous. Why would anyone give $25 million to Google? A search engine is just a commodity, everybody knows that, it’s a silly name.”

There are always experts who will tell you why whatever won’t work.

I’m not recommending that you just ignore or dismiss them.

What I am saying is that you need to take everything with a grain of skepticism and not buy it because of who says it.

Flickr image credit: MSLGROUP Global

It’s always handy to have something useful/uplifting in an easy-to-access format to read when you have a few minutes here and there.

To that end, here is the November Leadership Development Carnival to save on your phone for your edification.

Enjoy!

Anne Perschel of Germane Consulting submitted How to Manage Your Ego – Leaders Guide. Anne shares, “Trouble happens when your ego takes control and causes you to run amuck. To make sure your wise self is driving the bus, follow the Leaders Guide.” Locate Anne on Twitter at @bizshrink.

Bill Treasurer of Giant Leap Consulting contributed Risk-Taking Advice from America’s Greatest Mountaineer. Bill recaps, “Ed Viesturs has summited Mount Everest seven times, helped with the ill-fated Everest expedition in 1996, and climbed all 14 of the world’s 8000 meter summits. He certainly knows a few things about taking risks – and you don’t have to be a mountain climber to benefit from his advice.” Follow Bill on Twitter at @btreasurer.

Bruce Harpham of Project Management Hacks submitted How To Develop Your Business Acumen. Bruce summarizes, “To lead, we need to know our environment and translate that information into insights. This article shares a three step process to build up your business acumen.” Discover Bruce on Twitter at @PMPhacks.

Chery Gegelman of Giana Consulting shared Maximize Your Purpose with an Altered Path. Chery writes, “Faced with or in the midst of something you didn’t plan?  Peace for your heart, mind and soul:  Catalysts for maximizing your purpose are often disguised as distractions and delays.” Chery is on Twitter at @gianaconsulting.

Chris Edmonds of the Purposeful Culture Group contributed Change is Hard. Chris describes the post as: “a personal example and a client example of how change is, well, hard. It’s not fun – at least at the start. It’s work – but it’s worth it.” Follow Chris on Twitter at @scedmonds.

Dan McCarthy of Great Leadership submitted Stop Criticizing and Start Leading Your Youngest Workers. In this post, consultant and speaker Claudia St. John provides advice for leaders on leading younger workers.” Find Dan on Twitter at @GreatLeadership.

David Dye of Trailblaze, Inc., shared How to Lead a Team – Look Here. David asks, “Do you have employees or colleagues that irritate you? (Hint: We all do.) Here’s a specific strategy you can use to build productive teams – even with those people.” Discover David on Twitter at @davidmdye.

Jesse Lyn Stoner of the Seapoint Center provided Are You Unconsciously Perpetuating an Outdated View of Leadership?. Jesse summarized: “When I noticed that over 90% of popular leadership quotes are by men, I did an experiment. I created a new list with 85% quotes by women. Guess what, the list is very popular AND no one noticed the skew. Does any of this matter? I think it does, and here’s why.” Follow Jesse on Twitter at @JesseLynStoner.

Jill Malleck of Ephipany at Work contributed In Praise of Powerful Admin Assistants. Jill shared, “Many leaders are overwhelmed because they don’t have an assistant, or if they do, they aren’t partnering well with them. Here are some tips to make this role pivotal to your organization’s success.” Connect with Jill on Twitter at @epiphanyatwork.

Jim Taggart of Changing Winds submitted Should Executives be Allowed to Telecommute. Jim says, “The traditional organizational pyramid has been around a long time. An increasingly outdated concept in a global economy, the Pyramid is accompanied by the physical presence of employees within organizational silos. Managers want their staff within arms-reach. Enter the teleworking concept with its supporters and detractors, each making their separate cases. But what about executives being able to telecommute?” Find Jim on Twitter at @72keys.

Joel Garfinkle of the Career Advancement Blog submitted Are You Afraid to Speak Up at Meetings When You Have Good Ideas? Joel recaps: “Casey has become The Reluctant Leader. She feels she is not being noticed for all her hard work and accomplishments. Yet she doesn’t feel comfortable bragging, talking about how great she is, or publicly calling attention to all her accomplishments. Here are three ideas to help just start the raising of her profile.” Discover Joel on Twitter at @JoelGarfinkle.

Jon Mertz of Thin Difference sent Shifting from Digital Native to Digital Citizen. Jon summarizes: “What’s the difference between a digital native and a digital citizen? And why is the shift that is occurring so important?​” Discover Jon on Twitter @ThinDifference.

Karin Hurt of Let’s Grow Leaders gave us Do You Hear Them Now? 11 Signs You Have a Listening Culture. Karin discusses her current work with CEOs/CFOs of large manufacturing companies, and how it has focused on development of  a listening culture. This post provides readers an opportunity to chime in. Find Karin on Twitter at @letsgrowleaders.

Lisa Kohn of The Thoughtful Leaders^TM Blog provided Don’t Buy Into the Drama. In this piece, Lisa shares shares: “as leaders we can remember to do our best to calm the worry and ease the anxiety, so that we have the energy to handle the real issues and challenges when they actually arise.” Follow Lisa on Twitter at @ThoughtfulLdrs.

Mary Ila Ward of Horizon Point Consulting submitted 3 Steps to Winning a Best Place to Work Award. Mary Ila writes, “At the end of the day, an organization wins a best place to work award because employees feel valued.  This post gives you a framework for building a company culture where employees love what they do and find value in doing it.” Discover Mary Ila on Twitter at @maryilaward.

Mary Jo Asmus of Aspire Collaboative Services, LLC contributed What Happens When You Have a Real Conversation. Mary Jo says, “There is a lot of action going on in our organizations, but not a lot of real conversation. Here are some reasons to slow down and have dialogs in service to more effective action with rich learning and deep connection.” Find Mary Jo on Twitter at @mjasmus.

Miki Saxon of RampUp Solutions, Inc., contributed Ducks in a Row: Culture Made Easy. Miki continues, “Culture is recognized as a determining factor in success. In the interest of the ‘keep it simple’ approach, here is the basic premise and associated action needed to build a great culture.” Discover Miki on Twitter at @OptionSanity.

Neal Burgis of Burgis Successful Solutions shared Leaders Shifting Gears to Hire Introverts. Neal summarizes, “Leaders overlook introverts for various positions. Introverts, also known as Ambiverts are those who have a lot more of the strengths, skills and talent to generate and create ideas for problem-solving. They also interact longer in team interactions longer than the average introvert. Follow Neal on Twitter at @exec_solutions.

Paul LaRue of The Upwards Leader contributed Are You a Vision Caster? Paul continues, “vision is no good if, as a leader, you have it and don’t give it away.” Discover Paul on Twitter at @paul_larue.

Randy Conley of Leading With Trust provided Are You a Boss or a Leader? 7 Ways to Tell. Randy shares, “Anyone can be a boss, but it takes special attention and focus to be a leader. In this post Randy Conley shares seven key differences that make someone a leader rather than just a boss.” Follow Randy on Twitter at @randyconley.

Susan Mazza of Random Acts Of Leadership submitted 7 Steps to Break the Cycle of Inaction. Susan asks, “Have you ever had a really great idea – something you knew you should do – and yet somehow you did not act on it? Unfortunately, when you get caught in the cycle of inaction, the tendency is to remain at rest. Here are 7 steps to break through that cycle and put the law of motion to work in your favor.” Find Susan on Twitter at @susanmazza.

Tanveer Naseer of Tanveer Nasser Leadership Coach contributed Understanding the Power of Our Words. Tanveer summarizes, “Learn how the words we use to communicate our message to those we lead can either inspire others to believe in their potential … or take the wind out of their sails in bringing their best to the table.” Locate Tanveer on Twitter at @tanveernaseer.

Wally Bock of Three Star Leadership shared 5 Praise Pitfalls. Wally writes, “Praise is a powerful tool for any boss. But, like any tool, it can be misused.” Follow Wally on Twitter at @wallybock.

William G. Steiner of Executive Coaching Concepts provided Great Business Stories. Willy says this post is “a look at how to ‘craft’ a great story from your own experiences for the purpose of influencing others in business. This post includes 4 key steps to constructing great business stories, as well as well some specific storytelling tips to make your stories more impactful and memorable.” Find Willy on Twitter at @coachforexecs.

In one way or another, I’ve been involved in staffing for more than 30 years; first as a recruiter, then as a coach and mentor.

I’ve worked with companies from earliest startups to Fortune 500; with bosses ranging from CEOs and other executives to first-line supervisors and team leaders.

The best and smartest companies/bosses never have an opening and almost never lay people off — the ‘almost’ being directly connected to the the bosses’ level of control within the company.

How they accomplish this is often a mystery to outsiders, but it’s simply the result of specific MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™).

I’ve listen to many bosses tell me why this approach wasn’t feasible, often using their industry as the reason.

Most of the ‘reasons’ fall apart when you consider Intuitive Research & Technology, which has never laid off an employee.

That’s impressive for any company, but it’s especially notable for a 16-year-old aerospace engineering and analytics firm that’s a contractor for the federal government.

Intuitive also never has job openings.

Harold Brewer, Intuitive’s co-founder, chairman, and president, says the company has avoided reductions by taking a unique approach to hiring. “We don’t really have job openings,” he says. Instead, the company operates like a talent agency—always scouting for skilled employees. (…)  Brewer calls it a “speculation hire.”

His mantra is simple, “If it’s good for employees, it’s good for business,” so the company supports training, advanced education (unlimited tuition reimbursement) and pays substantial bonuses.

It’s what I’ve always said, hire great talent, instead of filling openings, cherish them, so they stay and watch your organization prosper.

Flickr image credit: Serena

What do you do when your stock price has plunged 25% in five months and a substantial number of your executive team leave?

What’s your spin when a number of those leaving were hand-picked by you?

If you are Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer you publicly proclaim that they weren’t good enough to do what needed to be done.

“Recently, there has been external interest and speculation in a few shifts amidst our management team. The design and changes in Yahoo’s leadership team are the result of careful planning to achieve the necessary skills, passion, and the ability to execute growth in our business.’

The people who weren’t good for Mayer were scooped up by the likes of Facebook, Square, Helix and STX Entertainment — not exactly companies known for hiring passionless castoffs.

The exodus isn’t all that surprising, considering Mayer’s management style and need for control and the fact that in the three years she’s been at Yahoo there has not only been no turnaround, but everything is worse.

Of course, these days CEO all provide reasons for whatever is happening, but only rarely admit to being one of them.

As I said last January, this is what happens when people buy into their own wunderkind status.

But the truly sad thing is the ammunition she has provided to the anti-women-leaders crowd who will use her to prove that, in fact, woman don’t belong in the corner office.

Flickr image credit: Tech Crunch