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Archive for August, 2017

Ryan’s Journal: Culture Is A Reward

Thursday, August 31st, 2017

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gotcredit/32943610593/

I attended an AA-ISP* event tonight and heard something that struck me, “culture is a reward.” What a profound statement.

I’ll back up and explain what transpired tonight. I am in B2B sales and I have found that I must constantly sharpen my mind.

Sales is, to some degree, a game, but one requiring confidence. There is a lot of rejection and stress. Add to that the fact that most folks view sales as a negative field and it makes for a combustible result. I attended an event tonight that focuses on improving sales and the profession.

With all the negativity that surrounds the role, I have found the absolute opposite when actually at work.

Yes there is rejection, but there is also a lot of positive outcomes. I meet with clients that are trying to solve massively complex problems and I get to somehow help. My clients are usually more knowledgeable than I am, so I also learn something new.

That said, let’s get back to the statement I made earlier regarding culture as a reward.

Have you ever started a job thinking it was one way when it the reality turned out much different?

You felt like you got the rug pulled out from under you? I have and I hated it. The culture was negative and nothing was as it seemed. From the outside it was fine; from inside terrible.

On occasion, though, we luck out.

We stumble across an opportunity that delivers as promised, whether Google or some local shop that has a great team.

Doesn’t it feel like it’s a reward to just go to work? That is it!

A good culture is its own reward. I could not add to it because it is so true.

Now I just need to surround myself with it and never let go. 

* American Association of Inside Sales Professionals
Image credit: GotCredit

Managers, Micro Cultures And Values

Wednesday, August 30th, 2017

Note: It’s imperative to recognize that culture has nothing to do with perks, such as free food, fancy offices, free services, etc.

Culture is about values and how they play out in both the internal and external functioning of the company.

But company culture isn’t the end game — micro cultures are.

Micro cultures are based on individual bosses’ values.

Both cultures are fundamental to that perennially popular subject, employee engagement.

HBS’ Jim Heskett recently asked his audience what’s needed to engender employee engagement given that engaged employees are 2.7% more productive.

Most of the responses talked about the need for managers to respect their people, listen to ideas from everyone, have better people skills, etc., and several mentioned the skills acquired with an MBA.

But, as I pointed out, and Heskett cited in his summary, “Respect and valuing employee input have little to do with education and much to do with personal values.”

Unfortunately, education is no guarantee of values.

Colleges are no different, with MBA students leading the pack. “56 percent of MBA students admitted to cheating…  In 1997, McCabe did a survey in which 84 percent of undergraduate business students admitted cheating versus 72 percent of engineering students and 66 percent of all students. In a 1964 survey by Columbia University, 66 percent of business students surveyed at 99 campuses said they cheated at least once.”

If scholastic success was based on cheating it’s likely that that lack of respect/get-ahead-at-all-costs mentality would carry over to their management style.

Yesterday’s post ended with this comment,

That [provide an environment in which people can learn, grow and excel] is what a good boss is supposed to do.

But it’s the great ones who actually do it.

In fact, they go beyond that and shelter their people from any kind of toxic culture coming down from above.

Image credit: thinkpublic

Ducks in a Row: Good Boss Culture

Tuesday, August 29th, 2017

https://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewwippler/4556732144

There’s no question that tech, just like every other industry, is highly biased. It’s become a major issue not because it’s new, but because tech drives much of the economy, which puts it in the spotlight. Added to that, more women and people of color are and speaking out publically about what they have to deal with.

Tech’s main excuse for its lousy diversity numbers is a lack of talent, so they focus on kids to fill the pipeline — but all that really does is provide 5-20 years of avoidance in dealing with the real problem

Consider the hard data.

Among young computer science and engineering graduates with bachelor’s or advanced degrees, 57 percent are white, 26 percent are Asian, 8 percent are Hispanic and 6 percent are black (…)  technical workers at Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter, according to the companies’ diversity reports, are on average 56 percent white, 37 percent Asian, 3 percent Hispanic and 1 percent black.

Those numbers certainly don’t add up.

The real problem is culture (duh!) — why spend eight-or-more (usually more) hours where you’re actively not wanted?

Yolanda Mangolini, Google’s director of global diversity, recognizes this problem.

“We know that it’s not just about recruiting a diverse workforce. It’s about creating an environment where they want to stay.”

True, but, in fact, the greatest company culture possible won’t cut it.

Even more important than company culture is the boss’ individual culture.

For hard proof there is Mekka Okereke, the black engineering manager who runs Google Play and seems to be missing (or controls) both conscious and unconscious bias.

That team is 10% black, 10% Latino, 25% women and 50% female managers, and has become a role model for other managers,

Obviously, Okereke doesn’t just hire strong talent; he provides an environment in which they can learn, grow and excel.

That’s what a good boss is supposed to do.

But it’s the great ones who actually do it.

Image credit: Andrew Wippler  

Golden Oldies: Cope or Control (That is the Question)

Monday, August 28th, 2017

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over more than a decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies are a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

We live in stressful times. Escalating political discord, both in the US and abroad, disappearing jobs due to technology and disruption of those that are left; bullying has reached new heights and FOMO is on the rise — and there is nothing you can do to control any of it. However, it is within your power to choose how you respond to the stress factors in your life.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eamoncurry/6072966411/Stress is bad, right?

Bad for your health, bad for your relationships, bad for your life.

Or is it?

Actually stress can be a positive motivator.

So perhaps it’s not stress, but how we handle it.

The article may be looking at kids, but kids grow up to be adults and genetic traits come along for the ride.

One particular gene, referred to as the COMT gene, could to a large degree explain why one child is more prone to be a worrier, while another may be unflappable, or in the memorable phrasing of David Goldman, a geneticist at the National Institutes of Health, more of a warrior.

Granted, the researchers were looking at short-term, i.e., competitive stress, but the solution was still the same as it is for stress that lasts longer. (The COMT gene also has a major impact on interviewing.)

They found a way to cope.

For many people stress is the result of losing control.

But if there is anything experience should have taught you by a very early age is that you can’t control your world; not even a tiny part of it.

I learned that lesson as a child of five when my father died and nothing ever happened after that to change my mind.

If you put your energy into controlling stuff to avoid stress you are bound to fail.

Energy spent on control is energy wasted.

Energy focused on coping provides exceptional ROI.

Image credit: Eamon Curry

If The Shoe Fits: Parse.ly Finds Enough

Friday, August 25th, 2017

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

5726760809_bf0bf0f558_mI’ve been working with startups since the 1980s; long before many of the current crop of entrepreneurs were born.

Back then, startups were focused on raising enough.

Enough was the minimal amount needed to develop their product start selling it — with the tightly focused goal of building a viable, sustainable business with strong financials and profit.

An old fashioned idea in an era where founders are lauded for their fund-raising skills and their companies are valued accordingly.

However, the idea of enough is gaining supporters.

The most recent is Sachin Kamdar, CEO of Parse.ly.

Kamdar needed to raise $5 million and couldn’t, in spite of strong financials and substantial growth.

Why?

They didn’t want enough money.

While they wanted 5 million, the VCs said they weren’t thinking big enough and offered 25 million and, eventually, 40 million.

What’s really going on here?

As has been noted by many entrepreneurs, and even some investors, VCs don’t offer what’s best for your company.

They offer what is best for their company.

Because they are awash with money, then need to deploy it. They’re limited by how many companies they can work with, so their preference is to make larger investments in fewer companies.

From studying the data, this much is clear: VCs are cash-rich right now, and it’s affecting startups. It pushes companies to raise more money than they actually need. Their viewpoint is, if VCs focus on writing bigger check sizes to companies that have a conceivable path to $100M in annual revenue, then they can put their capital to work “efficiently”. But that efficiency is self-defeating: writing bigger check sizes doesn’t, in itself, put that capital efficiently to work. It might, instead, breed company inefficiency.

VCs also don’t really care who succeeds; they only need one or two 10X successes for their fund to succeed.

In the end, Kamdar turned to his board for advice and found the solution, instead.

Our existing investors knew our business better than anyone. They understood how we were able to scale revenue and product on a lean budget. While they’d seen other SaaS companies come and go since our 2013 Series A, Parse.ly maintained rapid growth. And as it turned out, not only was there enough money to meet $5M in financing, most all of our past investors wanted to double-down. As a result, we ended up raising $6.8M.

A good outcome for Parse.ly and the data they uncovered means a better one for you.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Corrupting The American Dream

Wednesday, August 23rd, 2017

http://www.ethos.org.au/online-resources/engage-mail/is-there-a-christian-way-to-vote-voting-your-values

Do you watch Shark Tank? I do, but there is one thing that drives me nuts.

It’s the constant reference by all the Sharks, especially Mark Cuban, to the American Dream.

It’s the idea that starting a business and financial success is proof that the American (every country has it’s own version) Dream is alive and well.

Only problem is that making money and owning a house were never what the original dream was about.

The term was popularized in a 1931 book, “The Epic of America,” by James Truslow Adams, and referred to far more intrinsic values and I seriously doubt that even .05% of people are aware of the original meaning.

Mr. Adams emphasized ideals rather than material goods, a “dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.” And he clarified, “It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and recognized by others for what they are.

We’ve come a long way since 1931, but seem to have forgotten to bring our values along.

Thanks to KG for sending the article.

Image credit: ethos.org

Ducks in a Row: Handwriting Enhances Creativity

Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pazzani/15583603389/

Yesterday’s post focused on the importance of good writing when in a professional setting.

Pure coincidence, but an article today in the International Business Times talks about the negative effect of using smiley faces in business emails. (Emphasis mine.)

According to the study, while smiling during face-to-face communication was perceived as warm and indicated more competence with regards to the first impressions created, a text-based representation of a smile in computer-mediated communication did not have the same effect.

“Our findings provide first-time evidence that, contrary to actual smiles, smileys do not increase perceptions of warmth and actually decrease perceptions of competence,” said Ella Glikson, a post-doctorate fellow at the BGU Department of Management, Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management.

Definitely something to share with your team.

What else can writing do?

Free up your creativity.

But only if you put down the keyboard and pick up a pen or pencil.

Anyone can benefit from penmanship’s cognitive benefits, whether you’re taking notes at a meeting or just trying to figure out what you think.

Put another way, writing by hand engages your brain, while keyboarding does not.

Brain scans during the two activities also show that forming words by hand as opposed to on a keyboard leads to increased brain activity (pdf). Scientific studies of children and adults show that wielding a pen when taking notes, rather than typing, is associated with improved long-term information retention, better thought organization, and increased ability to generate ideas.

Writing by hand forces you to turn off distractions, whether smartphone, computer, or music.

Writing by hand forces you to focus.

Writing by hand forces you to really listen; it makes you process what is being said and be more selective in what you record as opposed to running on autopilot.

If you never learned to write by hand, or have forgotten how, there are classes.

And if you don’t believe it works, try it.

You may find yourself very much surprised.

Image credit: Mike’s Birds

Golden Oldies: The Write Way To Success

Monday, August 21st, 2017

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over more than a decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies are a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

Eight years ago I wrote for a blog network called b5media (the posts are archived here). Since then I’ve waited in vain for writing to improve, but guess what — it hasn’t. Even professional writing, Is pretty bad. I read Business Insider daily and the errors I see make me cringe; not subtle grammatical errors, but the obvious kind that tell you that the articles wasn’t even spell checked. In other words, just plain sloppy. I get asked all the time, does anyone care? The answer is a resounding yes. People “feel” when something’s off, whether they can explain it or not. Often, it’s not even conscious, just a subconscious itch they can’t track, but makes then squirm. We’ve all seen business casual dress carried too far; business writing shouldn’t be carried at all.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Wally Bock left a comment today on a post at Leadership Turn. In part it said,

“When I was responsible for hiring management trainees years ago, I discovered that grades and degrees and schools didn’t tell me much. What I looked for where two things. Could a prospect write? If not, there was no need to go farther. The other thing I looked for was actual work experience.”

Wally would have trouble hiring anyone these days considering the atrocious stuff written by students and grads who are so busy texting that they can’t be bothered to learn to write readable, coherent, English.

It’s a good thing that writing isn’t most managers make-or-break or offers would be few and far between—and I don’t just mean new grads.

I don’t have a great desire to be forced to decipher hip-hop, Valley Girl, Ebonics, Spanglish, Country-Western, 18-wheeler or all lower case with no punctuation in order to communicate.

None of these may matter in private life, but they don’t contribute a whole lot in the context of what it takes to make it today.

Several years ago I wrote Good writing fast—an oxymoron and last year I asked, “Are most people loosing their minds while I am losing mine? during another minor rant.

I’m not a total dinosaur, if all that’s wrong in most communications is a misplaced semi-colon or an occasional preposition at the end of a sentence who cares?

People don’t realize that, consciously or not, they’re judged by what they write, just as they are by what they wear or drive or went to school—even people whose own writing is terrible will downgrade others for the same thing.

If you can’t write and want a future take classes; if you’re people can’t write send them for training.

And if you won’t/can’t do that, there is one simple thing you can do to improve your writing.

Read. Turn off the computer and the TV; take off your iPod and turn off your phone; pick up a well-written book and READ. It doesn’t matter if it’s great literature, a biography, mystery, or hilarious chic lit.

Read every chance you get and make more chances; pay attention and you’ll be amazed at how fast your writing improves.

Image credit: sxc.hu

If The Shoe Fits: Tech R People

Friday, August 18th, 2017

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

5726760809_bf0bf0f558_mThe top stories currently engaging the tech world and spilling over to the real world are the Google memo and Uber.

A major underlying point of the memo is how unnecessary soft skills, such as empathy are in tech, which has been soundly refuted.  

Tech is an umbrella term embraced by a wide range of industries; hence there is fintech, medtech, legaltech, etc.

The inclusion of the word indicates that companies within that industry, frequently startups, are revamping/revolutionizing the business using various kinds of technology.

But none of it happens in a vacuum.

No matter how large or small or how disruptive — from Uber to a solitary founder — they are still part of a larger community.

Consider Uber.

It’s ideal because it is a perfect microcosm of a disruptive startup, with the machinations, interactions and effects on its industry and society in general, since it includes all the elements — positive and negative.

Founders take note.

Uber’s storyline hasn’t moved in a straight line, nor will it in the future, because it involves people.

Companies are people.

Societies are people.

People are messy.

Technology is not an end in itself, but a means to many ends.

One way or another, all those ends are people.

Successfully navigating people requires empathy (keyword: successfully).

Image credit: HikingArtist

Ryan’s Journal: Culture Of Extremes

Thursday, August 17th, 2017

This past week has been unfortunate. There have been violent, racially charged protests, attacks and murder. All committed in the name of one cause or another. As an American I am ashamed. As a human I am saddened.

I never thought I would need to publicly state that I am against Nazi rhetoric or white supremacist views, but I am.

As a white male I find the fact that this thought still exists to be abhorrent and disgusting.

The thing that bothers me most about this is not that it exists; there will always be people that think a certain way. It’s the fact that the reaction of some leaders was to place blame on all, including the victims.

I never feel comfortable wading into race relations dialogue. I typically feel inadequate and too uniformed to truly understand the challenges that minorities feel. As a result I seek to learn and absorb.

However, in the case of Charlotte, Virginia the stance is clear. If you are an individual who claims that your so called purity as a white man/woman means you have more value than those of different colors, you’re absolutely wrong. Science does not support you, nor does history.

I failed to mention the train wreck that is Google right now.

One engineer writes a manifesto claiming women are emotion-driven and as a result are not as capable at STEM careers as men are. Google fires him, there is a major uproar and everyone now has an opinion.

One article I read showed how Google is acting as thought police preventing any idea that is not approved from being made public. Other articles I read show how, if we appease intolerant viewpoints, we risk allowing intolerance to abound and have extreme cases, such as Nazi Germany.

What does all of this say for society? I believe it shows that we are now on the margins of culture.

Only the extreme survive.

If you have an easy going and inclusive view on society then you are not to be trusted. However, if you take a hard stand on either the left or right, you are to be championed.

When did this culture of extremes become the norm?

Image credit: Steve Snodgrass

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