In writing my post on Ageism in Silicon Valley, I came to think of a good friend of mine who was an extraordinary developer. 

Two years ago he was, in essence, one of the people around 50 with great knowledge and skills, but with little knowledge of how to rejoin the burgeoning Silicon Valley entrepreneurial development workforce after having been focused on other projects for several years. 

 He eventually landed a gig at a young technology startup, one which was badly managed and where he was underpaid.  However, he liked the technology and some of the people he worked with.  But the environment was relatively toxic and he considered leaving quite soon after joining the company.

After slugging it out there several months, he slowly transitioned into a role of being mentor/manager – simply because of his greater experience and maturity.  In fact, despite his frustration with how the company was run, he managed to maintain productivity among the engineers and foster a better environment.  This, of course, had the effect that he became slightly less frustrated.  However, he still harbored thoughts of leaving quickly.

He started discussions with a few other startups – ones where he knew the work environment was positive.  He could easily do this as he now had a track record and people spoke highly of him.  But then a bomb went off – one of the largest internet companies on the planet put in a bid to acquire his company (unfortunately I cannot divulge any detailed information). 

Today he’s a senior manager in one of the most popular internet properties, one which most younger, hotshot, MIT or Stanford engineers would do anything to be able to work at.  He’s the “grey head” among the “young guns” and if he stays at the company for two years he will not have to work another day in his life.  The added upside is that the acquiring company has a fantastic company culture and he’s really happy at work.

This is almost a fairy tale story, but it’s real.  I don’t expect most of you to experience such a surreal ride, but the moral of the story is that nothing good can happen unless you go out there and make yourself attractive.  This means that you will probably not get full value for your past experience, but it does mean that because you do have experience you will progress faster than the younger team members – you have actually learned a lot of the lessons they’ll have to acquire over the next 15-20 years already.

Get out there!

Also, if any of you read this and want to be referred to any startup companies, we are always searching for people and I know several others in the same situation.  Feel free to contact me— kgch@emanio.com

Founders love styling themselves as CEOs.

(I did it too, back when I started RampUp Solutions.)

It says you are in charge; the boss.

Plus, it sounds cool.

As CEO, you are responsible for formulating and articulating the company’s vision to employees, investors and the media.

Heady stuff.

You are also directly responsible for creating a winning culture, developing viable financial plans, instituting a solid hiring process and a wide range of other administrative actions.

No matter what happens—good, bad, or indifferent—you are the person held responsible for everything by the board, investors, employees and media.

As the company grows there are more business and human headaches meaning less time for hands-on creativity.

CEO isn’t a 70, 80 or even 100 hour a week job; it’s a 168 hour, 24/7 job.

It’s not the right job or even a good job for many founders.

Founders need to understand that giving up the CEO role can be the smartest, wisest, and most perceptive decision they will ever make (just ask Brad Feld).

Flickr image credit: TechCocktail

In 2006 I wrote a post detailing a VP’s discomfort after finding out that the wife of one of his senior reports had cited verbal and physical abuse as grounds for a divorce.

The VP said the information was coloring his opinion of the manager.

At the end of the post I asked, “If Ron should continue to manage and evaluate Terry based on Terry’s performance and leave Terry to manage his own personal life.”

The responses, including one from Liz Ryan, all agreed that what goes on in someone’s personal life has nothing to do with evaluating their worthiness or value on the job and the VP should ignore the information. (Both the VP and I agreed with this.)

Fast forward a short six years and consider how that has changed.

Evaluating personal actions via social media when hiring and regarding postings and social commentary as reasons to fire are common.

Just as work has leaked and flowed into personal time, so personal choices, from healthy/unhealthy habits to how you spend your time off to the internal workings of your relationships, now color bosses’ attitudes and evaluations.

The question, ‘should they’ hasn’t changed, but the world has, so the results of personal choices are similar to the ripples that radiate when you toss a stone into a quiet pool.

No matter how passionately you believe and push for a world where personal choices are just that you would be wise to recognize the reality in which you live.

There is a great middle ground between sharing nothing and sharing everything.

Social wisdom is a matter of thinking ahead and choosing your battles; doing worst case analysis and making sure the ones you choose are worth fighting for and that you are willing to pay the price of the battle.

Flickr image credit: Don DeBold

I am republishing this post, because it speaks to the recent questions of several entrepreneurs.

The problem is that entrepreneurs often read something like this and discard it as applying to larger companies or those further along in life or revenues.

They are wrong.

Sure, the information might not fit like a glove, but it can be tweaked; and the underlying philosophy fits any enterprise, large, small or micro.

Accounting Tools a Part of Corporate Culture

Gavin Cassar, a Wharton accounting professor, tested the prevailing wisdom of whether accounting techniques, such as budgeting, sales projections and financial reporting, would, in fact, help prevent business failures. In surprising results, he found that some accounting tools may actually lead them astray.

But he found the culprit not to be the tools, but rather the MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) of those using them.

I sent the article to a long-time CEO who was s serial entrepreneur (now retired) and thought you would find his comments interesting and useful. I’ve changed names to keep the examples he mentions anonymous, but note that Corp A was part of a Fortune 500 company and Corp B was public with sales of several hundred million and a CEO who had been around the block numerous times.

There’s only one important accounting problem described in this article.

The other problems discussed are really problems in human psychology, such as being guided by hopes instead of realistic considerations and ignoring (widening) gaps between plans and results.

But the serious accounting problem described is the failure to collect and publish accurate and timely accounting information.

If you have a carefully worked out budget, unless the monthly accounting figures are available quickly and are correct, the budget is useless as a planning tool because it’s impossible to really judge whether the company is on plan or not.

To some extent, both Corp A and Corp B suffered from this.

Accounting was not held to high enough standards. Expenses were misclassified and weren’t posted in the months in which they were actually incurred.

Managers initially tried to sit down with accounting and straighten out the discrepancies. But it was impossible, either because of poor accounting tools or probably just gross incompetence.

After a time, managers stopped trying to correct the internal financial reports. They thought it was just wasting their time.

They also stopped trying to control their expenses. Why bother? The financial reports were so inaccurate they didn’t show up even large and willful expenses outside budget limits.

This, of course, led to increasing attempts by higher management to exert personal control over expenses.

At one point, the Corp B CEO was signing all expense reports. You had to receive his personal permission to go on a trip or to even take a client to lunch.

The budget meant nothing. And there was a line of managers outside his office asking permission to buy essential test equipment or fly an applicant in for an interview.

Stuff that should have been decided instantly by the managers concerned was delayed, frustrated and often cancelled altogether.

The Corp B example is very close to what is going on with one of the entrepreneurs mentioned at the beginning.

He is micromanaging every dime spent in his fast-growing startup.

So far, his impulse to exert control has cost his company two excellent recruits and two of his senior staff are in revolt.

He needs to let go, trust his people and give them the authority to do their job.

If he doesn’t there probably won’t be a company for him to micromanage.

Think about it.

Flickr image credit: Paul Downey

How many times have you interviewed candidates who performed superbly in multiple interviews, but not once they were hired?

Conversely, have you taken a chance and hired candidates who didn’t interview well, but turned out to be some of your most productive and innovative performers?

Have you wondered why? More importantly, have you wondered how to avoid having this happen or at least have warning that it might?

An article details new brain research that explains what may be going on even though it is focused on kids and test-taking.

It comes down to the genes and brain chemistry that regulates an individual’s response to stress.

The researchers were interested in a single gene, the COMT gene. This gene carries the assembly code for an enzyme that clears dopamine from the prefrontal cortex. That part of the brain is where we plan, make decisions, anticipate future consequences and resolve conflicts. “Dopamine changes the firing rate of neurons, speeding up the brain like a turbocharger,” says Silvia Bunge, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley. Our brains work best when dopamine is maintained at an optimal level. You don’t want too much, or too little. By removing dopamine, the COMT enzyme helps regulate neural activity and maintain mental function.

Here’s the thing: There are two variants of the gene. One variant builds enzymes that slowly remove dopamine. The other variant builds enzymes that rapidly clear dopamine. We all carry the genes for one or the other, or a combination of the two.

While you can’t condition the brains of your candidates to respond well to the stress of interviewing, you can provide an environment that allows the “worriers” to perform better and gives a clearer picture of the “warriors” true skills.

To some extent you can level the field by eliminating as much stress as possible for the entire interview process. For instance

• take time to put them at ease;
• avoid two and three-on-one interviews;
• avoid interviewing actions that feel like judgments or tests;
• make the process transparent;
• inform them about the process; and
• avoid surprises.

Lowering interview stress allows the “worriers” to perform better and removes the “warrior’s” edge.

Flickr image credit: Josh Gee Photography

Have you heard about a very smart startup called Developer Auction?

Developer Auction, which allows companies to bid for the services of high-performance software engineers. It’s a disruptive idea because the San Francisco-based company makes it easier for companies to find workers, which in turn get more money for their services.

It generates revenue by taking 15% of the negotiated salary and then kicks back 20% of that to the candidate.

I’m sure it will make a lot of money, at least in the short-term considering the current hot market.

It also is the absolute stupidest hiring move companies can make, not that that will stop them.

I can think of no better way to find developers to whom money is everything and product passion and loyalty are words in the dictionary.

Not to mention the effect on the current team, company culture and internal salary structure.

But it does offer the wow factor of cutting-edge bragging rights and the fanfare will probably camouflage the hiring manager’s lack of staffing skills.

Rather than address the stupidity again, I refer you to three posts I wrote early last year, insanely stupid hiring, insanely smart hiring and insanely smart retention and stars that thoroughly cover the subject.

Take time to read them and feel free to call or email me (contact info on the right) if you need any assistance at no charge—I never charge for doing good deeds.

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Tuesday I wrote that you should always consider the source of a comment before considering the comment itself.

The same day Serguei Beloussov, founder of Parallels and Runa Capital, said the same thing with regard to money sources in TechCrunch.

By viewing money as the most important thing for their business, startups often bring themselves into a corner.  Entrepreneurs must place a premium on the quality of the investor(s) and understand why a smaller amount of money can serve companies better, in most cases, than big money with little or no relevant business expertise.

Sources also matter when it comes to the skills you need in your startup.

When a badly needed set of skills walks through the door managers and even team members will often turn a blind eye to the possessor of those skills.

The red flags that pop up during interviews are rationalized or ignored—even when they are waving madly in a high wind—a ‘get the skills and we’ll worry about the rest later’ attitude prevails.

The problem, of course, is that ‘later’ comes very quickly, often with weeks and sometimes just days.

At that point, you are faced with the choice of keeping the person and having your team damaged or even torn asunder or terminating her and starting your search over.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re evaluating comments or money or skills it’s the source that counts.

Or put another way (paraphrasing), it’s the people, stupid.

SUBMIT YOUR STORY
Be the Thursday feature – Entrepreneurs: [your company name]
Share the story of your startup today.
Send it along with your contact information and I’ll be in touch.
Questions? Email or call me at 360.335.8054 Pacific time.

Flickr image credit: Hartwig HKD

In 2007 Google developed an algorithm to improve their hiring. In a post citing that I wrote, “Google’s known for only hiring grads with a 3.7+ GPA, double 800 SAT scores and world-class interviewing skills—none of which are viable predictors of creativity or working success.”

Considering the story related by George Anders in his new book The Rare Find: Reinventing Recruiting it must not have worked.

These days the hot recruiting strategy for Google, Facebook and others are puzzles—at least for tech types, since the puzzles are focused on technical issues involving software and coding.

The great point about the puzzles is that they are open to anyone who wants to solve them, no matter their education or experience.

That’s right, no-name school or no school, iffy or rotten GPA; what’s important is how they think and how creative they are, but if you’re in the very early stages of hiring, even brilliant puzzle solving isn’t enough.

Your first hires are so critical, not just to traditional success, but because of the impact they have on determining the course of your culture, which can impact hiring forever.

Cezary Pietrzak, co-founder and director of business development at Wanderfly offers excellent insights on identifying your own gold-plated hires.

He assumes the candidates are “smart, talented, and, generally speaking, a rock star” and talks about the characteristics for which you should look.

Most of these are behavioral in nature; you’ll likely not find them on a resume, and traditional interview questions won’t uncover them, either. Yet their importance cannot be overstated, as often times they’re the difference between a great and poor working relationship.

Identifying these assets requires real work and a lot of it; ideally you’ll make interviewing a core competency for yourself and your entire company.

It requires committing time ungrudgingly, because you recognize the stratospheric ROI of good hiring.

After all, you are betting your company on those you hire.

Flickr image credit: {Guerrilla Futures | Jason Tester}

Are you familiar with KISS? It stands for “Keep It Simple, Stupid” and is the best guidance for developing your culture.

KISS culture is a product of the boss’ MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy)™.

KISS culture attracts the best people and is a powerful force for retaining them.

A few years ago I wrote about KISS culture and this seems like a god time to revisit it.

KISS Corporate Culture Instead Of Branding

A blog post from India caught my eye earlier this week. Its premise was that retention starts with hiring (absolutely true) and went on to explain how to create and use “employment branding” for recruiting.

Essentially, pretty much everything that falls under the banner of employment branding also falls within the company’s culture—call it corporate MAP—along with the necessary processes.

But corporate culture isn’t static, it’s a living organism that shifts and changes as you grow and hire.

So it’s about hiring to match your corporate culture and using your corporate culture to screen candidates, limiting your hiring to people who are at the very least synergistic with your it—something I first wrote about in 1999.

Understand, I’m not disagreeing with what Sourabh said, just with the way he said it.

Using jargon to cast it as ‘branding’ makes it far more complex than it needs to be—especially if you want the knowledge to permeate your organization from top to bottom.

If that’s your goal, then take the time to understand your culture, KISS* it and communicate it to your people through a Cultural Mission Statement; once they understand it they’ll talk about it using language and terms with which they’re comfortable.

The result will be a culture that sounds and is real—not one invented by the marketing department.

Flickr image credit: ZedBee | Zoë Power

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

The referral source is awesome.

The resume is amazing.

The candidate asks great questions.

He is excited—interested in you, your vision and your product.

The team is thrilled.

The offer is made and accepted.

Everybody cheers.

As the euphoria of landing a “star” wears off you find yourself reviewing the interview like a favorite video looking to regain that feeling of triumph.

Instead, you find yourself with a slightly queasy feeling—because you can’t remember any of the candidate’s specific answers to critical questions.

So you ask your team and it turns out that either they thought someone else had asked those questions or were so caught up in his enthusiasm and answering his questions that they ran out of time.

And you suddenly realize that you have no idea going forward if he will be a star or a dud.

Option Sanity™ helps screen candidates.
Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock process.  It’s so easy a CEO can do it.

Warning!
Do not attempt to use Option Sanity™ without a strong commitment to business planning, financial controls, honesty, ethics, and “doing the right thing.” Use only as directed.
Users of Option Sanity may experience sudden increases in team cohesion and worker satisfaction. In cases where team productivity, retention and company success is greater than typical, expect media interest and invitations as keynote speaker.

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