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Archive for January, 2020

Avoiding Unicorn Burn

Wednesday, January 29th, 2020

If you interview or work for a unicorn or unicorn wannabe that excels at raising money you would be wise to take a step back.

Forget charisma and founder vision and consider what is really going on profit-wise and sustainability-wise.

Fast growth is good mainly for VCs, not employees.

If you can discipline yourself not to be dazzled by shiny words and concepts you can learn to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Do that, and you won’t need to buy this sign or tattoo the words on your frontal lobe. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/347269821244887187/

Image credits: Sarah Rebecca on Instagram  and Zazzle

Your Boss’ Values

Tuesday, January 28th, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/41666097@N07/48628989688/

Decades ago, when I was a recruiter in Silicon Valley, I preferred working directly with managers, avoiding HR, so I worked primarily with startups and smaller companies as opposed to large corporations — unicorns didn’t exist back then.

Aside from disliking HR’s bureaucratic read tape, I found I could provide better matches by understanding the culture of the hiring manager, whether founder or not.

Yes, there is an overarching company culture, but the manager-specific cultures that exist in every company rarely duplicate it and may not even bare any similarity.

Culture is the direct result of values.

Culture is only ageist, misogynist, bigoted when that manager’s values are ageist, misogynist, bigoted.

To thrive in a culture, you don’t need to duplicate your boss’ values, but they must, at the least, be synergistic.

Accepting an offer from a boss whose values are incompatible, let alone diametrically opposed, to yours can mean setting yourself up for disappointment or worse.

Image credit: pmillerd

Golden Oldies: Ducks in a Row: the What and How of Culture

Monday, January 27th, 2020

Poking through 14+ 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 in 2015, but when it comes to company culture five years is a blink of the eye. The boss’ MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) that drives the actions that create culture, whether the result is good or bad, has been developing since they were born, although it’s not set in concrete and can change — but only if they choose to.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Steve Blank wrote a great post about changing culture in larger organizations. It’s a must-read for anyone in business, government or non-profit who is looking to juice innovation in their organization.

Blank agrees that there are four components to culture.

Two McKinsey consultants, Terry Deal and Arthur Kennedy wrote a book called Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life.  In it they pointed that every company has a cultureand that culture was shorthand for “the way we do things at our company.” Company culture has four essential ingredients:

    • Values/beliefs – set the philosophy for everything a company does, essentially what it stands for
    • Stories/myths – stories are about how founders/employees get over obstacles, win new orders…
    • Heroes – what gets rewarded and celebrated, how do you become a hero in the organization?
    • Rituals – what and how does a company celebrate?

He goes on to explain what needs to be done for “innovation to happen by design not by exception.”

While I agree with everything he says, I believe he left out a most critical component.

In reality it should be a subset of values/beliefs, but it is rarely thought about by bosses — they either do it or do the opposite automatically.

It can be summed up in four words, don’t kill the messenger—Pete Carroll, coach of the Seattle Seahawks, is a master of this mindset.

To be truly innovative means trying new stuff and a part of trying new stuff is accepting that it won’t always work.

Corporate culture in general and many bosses individually can’t seem to wrap their minds around the idea that some things will fail — it’s the dark side of the ‘but me mindset’ at work.

What they, and anybody setting out to change culture and encourage innovation, need to understand is that it only takes killing the messenger, i.e., responding negatively to the person who brings bad news, once to negate whatever progress had been made and put the effort back to square one.

Flickr image credit: Eirik Newth

Ageist Gender Parity

Tuesday, January 21st, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/numberstumper/142474172/

Hey guys, are you doing your all to optimize your existence?

Success, money and disrupting an industry just doesn’t cut it anymore.

“Optimizing” is the male version of the same techniques women have been forced to use for decades to avoid being labeled old, AKA, unhireable.

Of course, old is relative.

The stretch number used to be 30 for women and no top for men.

While aging out for women hasn’t changed much, men’s has dropped like a stone, especially in the rarified atmosphere of Silicon Valley and other tech environs.

So what’s a guy to do?

The same thing women have been doing for decades.

These men are turning to procedures like Botox, fillers, laser treatments, and radio frequency microneedling, a technique that stimulates collagen and rejuvenates the skin. In some cases, they’re going under the knife for eye and neck lifts, according to the Post.

Who would have thought that any form of gender parity in tech would be driven by rampant ageism?

Image credit: paul stumpr

Golden Oldies: You Are the Total of All Your Experiences

Monday, January 20th, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/luigimengato/16053504967/

Poking through 14+ 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.

Who you are includes all the previous yous in your life. And each you developed unique skills appropriate to what you did and what was going on in that you’s life.

That cumulative effect made the current you deeper, richer, more valuable, smarter, and more adaptive. It doesn’t matter if the skills were developed in response to a need at work or a situation in your personal life. They are there to use if you choose, but first you need to acknowledge them — which can be difficult in a world that worships youth, AKA, no experiences / no depth.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

For decades, I’ve said that people have two sides to their head, personal and professional, and rarely do they use the skills from one side in dealing with the challenges on the other. For example, when you have two employees arguing by email with each other and copying the entire group use the skills you use with your kids. They work on the adults because, in situations such as this, the adults are acting like kids.

Sad as it is in a world where career change is more drastic than ever before, it seems that these self-inflicted barriers are increasing; not so much in general skill usage, but rather in “specialized” skills.

I know several investment bankers, unhappy with what they were doing, who moved to companies in senior operational roles, but don’t use/adapt many of their banking skills to the new environment. The same is true for many of what I call radical career changers—engineers who move to financial services; salespeople who become technical and vice versa.

Because I run into it more and more, I’ve spent time figuring out why it happens and the easiest way to eliminate the barriers. Partly, it’s because people often go back to school for their new career, and so assume that their old skills don’t apply, but it’s also a language thing.

Every type of work has its own language, i.e., applying industry/job specific definitions to various words; because the meaning changes, the associated skill is often relegated to the “previous life.”

Humans are cumulative animals, without an effective delete key, so, when you’re adding new skills be sure to keep using the old ones by remembering to recognize when it’s the language that’s changed, rather than the action, and learning to tweak previous skills to apply to your new situation.

Image credit: Luigi Mengato

Kindness

Tuesday, January 14th, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/planeta/30870467422/

“Kindness is cool” according to Amanda Giese, Founder/President of Panda Paws Rescue, in the opening credits of her show on Animal Planet.

Kindness is a lot more than cool; in fact, kindness can save lives according to new research.

And that applies to work, as well as the world at large.

Old research

A 1978 study looking at the link between high cholesterol and heart health in rabbits determined that kindness made the difference between a healthy heart and a heart attack.

New research

Just to give you an example — because I know that there are probably a lot of CEOs or managers listening to this — but studies have shown that the strongest predictor of a man’s death from heart disease isn’t cholesterol or blood pressure. It’s his job. Or her job. Everyone knows it’s important to have a good doctor, but it’s also important to have a good manager and to give people the skills that they need to be good managers. –Kelli Harding, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center, and author of The Rabbit Effect: Live Longer, Happier, and Healthier with the Groundbreaking Science of Kindness.

Kindness starts with empathy, the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference…

The key here is “their frame of reference.”

This is why it’s so difficult for a man to truly understand what women go through or for a Caucasian to walk in the shoes of a person of color.

So while kindness may start with empathy, it’s also what takes over when empathy can go no further.

Kindness is the most essential trait to teach kids if you want to assure their success.

It will serve them well their whole life.

It’s a critical trait for team members.

It’s the hallmark of the best bosses.

It’s not something AI will ever be able to mimic.

Mark Twain said it best.

Kindness is a language which blind people see and deaf people hear.

And everybody benefits from.

Want to learn more about the benefits of kindness? Here’s a reading list of recent books.

Image credit: Ron Mader

Golden Oldies: Attitude is catching

Monday, January 13th, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/thost/141919700/

Poking through 14+ 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.

This post dates to 2006, yet it is as applicable today as it was then. More, in fact, as a result of social media. In many ways social media is emotional contagion on steroids — nothing short of a pandemic.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

We’ve all heard, in one variation or another, of the ongoing battle between positive and negative that is fought within each person. One of the best versions is credited to the Cherokee and uses wolves to represent the opposing sides. I like this one because it recognizes that there may seem to be no difference in appearance (in other words, you can’t always tell a book by the cover) and goes on to say that the wolf that wins the battle will be the wolf that is fed.

Skipping the biggies (kill, lie, cheat, steal), just what impact does the battle have within the workplace? And what, as a manager, is your responsibility?

A lot, as it turns out—and it even has a name. It’s called “emotional contagion” and much of the recent research that’s been done has focused on emotionally negative or positive bosses. The results won’t surprise those of us who’ve been exposed to “glass half empty” people—the experts have proved that negative emotions, especially in leaders, can bring a group down faster than running air conditioning during flu season.

What can you do? Start by staying aware of your own mood. It’s hard to be upbeat when you walk out of a meeting with an enraged client, or a design review for a project about to go over budget, but if you don’t, you’ll bring down the rest of your team and that’ll blow off the entire day (or week or even longer).

Overcome your mood using a simple approach that I first learned from a book by Napoleon Hill more years ago than matters. He said, “Think, act, walk and talk like the person you want to become and you’ll become that person.” He also said, “Act enthusiastic and you’ll become enthusiastic” Put them together and you have an unbeatable, simple, solution for keeping your own morale and, as a result, the morale of your team, positive and productive.

And what about your people? You need to deal with any kind of negativity, including a “blue” mood, immediately. Talk to the person privately; you can’t force someone to discuss a problem, but you can offer your help. You also need to make it clear that whatever is going on you can’t allow it to bring down the team—that while at work he needs to present a positive front. If it’s a personal life problem, especially a big one (illness, loss of life, etc.) offer your support and find out how much of the situation you’re allowed to share with the team. Remember, with personal information, sharing is the employee’s call, not yours.

Sometimes, when really bad stuff happens, it’s hard to act, let alone, be positive, but it’s easier on the team if they understand, even generally, the situation and can be supportive. Also, remember that you aren’t, and shouldn’t be, either shrink or confidante, but you can help them find and connect with resources that offer support and solutions.

Sure, these approaches may seem simplistic, but oft times simple is best. After all, you’re not trying to solve the cause, but to mitigate the effect.

Image credit: thomas stein

Living Life or Living Work?

Wednesday, January 8th, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewleddy/5540168094/

 

It used to be that work was part of life.

As tech connectivity increased, it became more life is part of work.

Now, instead of a work/life discussion, it’s a work/work conversation.

A year ago I wrote about Millennial optimization and burnout.

This year engineers are talking about how founders take advantage of it and that working for a big company is a viable alternative.

It’s a convenient narrative for the founders and CEOs who count on employees to put in extra hours—often without extra compensation—in order to keep their companies afloat. (…) Basecamp founder and CEO Jason Fried noted on Twitter, “If your company requires you to work nights and weekends, your company is broken. This is a managerial problem, not your problem.”

Working extra long hours was considered the way to get ahead, but it was also the road to burnout.

So, what’s changed in a year?

The advice to get ahead.

Instead of working long hours, nights and weekends for others the recommendation is to use all those unpaid hours working for yourself.

The answer may vary depending on the specifics of your job. But in general, you’re far more likely to get ahead by channeling your enthusiasm and ambition toward your own independent projects—not the company’s. (…) That is, after all, how many founders and CEOs achieved their own success. (…) Other ambitious young people may find that the best way to advance their careers is to dedicate their free time not to the jobs they have, but to the jobs they want.

In other words, continue with the 80-100 hour weeks, just shift part of those hours to your own projects.

Great advice.

Doing so would mean there’s a second party responsible (blamable) for your depression/anxiety/burnout/atrophied social skills/blown relationships/etc.

The truth is that whether those 80-100 hours is for yourself, someone else, or split, they will ruin your health and, eventually, your life.

Image credit: andrew leddy

Silicon Valley’s Biggest Con

Tuesday, January 7th, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/theilr/5091351124/

A couple of years ago I wrote about a stupid, soul-gutting Silicon Valley myth about work and people’s value.

It spelled out the idiocy of believing that only the best were hired by startups, let alone unicorns, and everyone else was second caliber. As I said then, what a crock.

Throughout a long career as a recruiter and since I’ve said the same thing and it hasn’t changed.

The right place for you to work is the one that satisfies what you want — whether that’s the opportunity to work on bleeding edge technology, build a network, upgrade your resume or even plain, old curiosity.

The wrong place is the one you join with an eye to getting rich quick or for bragging rights.

For some people those reasons still stand, but a lot has changed.

For many Silicon Valley engineers money has taken a front seat to most considerations and it’s startups that are suffering, since they can’t compete salary-wise with giant companies and unicorns (which are nothing more than giant companies that haven’t gone public — often because they aren’t profitable and likely never will be.)

That’s understandable, considering the cost of living, but when you add the aspirations so many consider “necessities” then salary becomes even more important.

The problem, for both employers and employees is the same.

Money is not and never has been a source of loyalty — in either direction.

When companies feel the necessity to lower their burn rate the highly paid are often the first to go.

And my old adage that people who join for money/stock/perks will leave for more money/stock/perks still holds true.

Loyalty is the result of managers and companies giving a damn and employees invested in a mission that has meaning beyond money.

Silicon Valley is big on smoke and mirrors; the two biggest are

Image credit:  theilr

Golden Oldies: If the Shoe Fits: Why People Join Startups

Monday, January 6th, 2020

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

Poking through 14+ 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.

First, Steve Wozniak’s comments from 2016 are even less true today than they were then. Secondly, money has become the all-consuming focus for most people regardless of profession, driven for some by necessity, but in tech more often by ego, stuff and an aspirational lifestyle. That said, startups as a source of wealth may be falling out of style, as you’ll see tomorrow.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

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

I only partly agree with Steve Wozniak’s recent comment.

“I think the money that’s been made has attracted a different kind of people looking at technology today and saying ‘Oh my gosh, I could maybe have a startup and make a bunch of money,’” Wozniak said. “And the ones that come out of business school, money’s the priority. For the ones that come out of engineering school, being able to accomplish and design things that didn’t exist before is their priority.”

 Woz gives too much credit to the engineers.

It’s not just the biz school crowd that’s focused on the bucks.

The money bug has bit a good number of techies, too.

Years ago, no matter their role, people joined startups because they craved the bleeding edge, whether software, hardware or services.

This was true of both tech and non tech. In the words of Star Treck, they wanted “to go where no man has gone before” — or at the least go there differently.

Today the journey is more about getting rich and/or making connections for the future.

For decades I’ve told clients, “The person who joins your company for money/stock/perks will leave in a heartbeat for more money/stock/perks.”

That hasn’t changed, if anything it’s just gotten more so.

Image credit: HikingArtist

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