Good stuff comes and bad stuff happens; people come and go—and die; great bosses join—and leave; companies start, grow, get acquired, shrink, layoff and file bankruptcy.

It’s called life; and no matter what you do, it rolls on inexorably

You can influence it, but you can’t control it.

The only thing you can control in life is yourself and your MAP.

We all have a tendency to forget this.

For better or for worse, you are the only thing you will always have; the only thing you can truly count on, so why not appreciate yourself? Value the best and improve the rest.

There is only one you and you get to live only one life, so focus your time and energy on changing/adjusting/enhancing what you do control and let the rest go.

Image credit: Celestine Chua

Steve Jobs is an icon and a beacon to entrepreneurs around the globe, although not as a management role model.

Many have weighed in on what made Jobs so great, but in a recent talk Malcolm Gladwell focused on a trait that anyone, in any field and any position can cultivate and become great at.
It’s not a trait that’s inborn nor does it require any special abilities.

It’s what Jobs had in abundance; it’s what drove him.

It’s what you can have, too.

What is this magical trait?

“Urgency,” Gladwell declared, characterizes Jobs and other immortal entrepreneurs. (…)  “The difference isn’t resources,” Gladwell said. “It’s attitude.”

Cultivate urgency.

Own it.

Flickr image credit: Pati Morris

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

Founders constantly talk about their need for ‘self-starters’ and ‘independent workers’.

They look for people who will ‘take the ball and run with it’.

They want high initiative and creative problem-solving.

What they really crave is a self-managing workforce or as close as they can get.

The disconnect results from the differences between what they say and their MAP.

If MAP fears any of the following then there is no way the walk can live up to the talk.

And while the answers to these questions require being brutally honest with yourself, they do not require being made public.

• Does letting go/delegating equal loss of control?
• Is your self esteem tied to methodology or accomplishments (AKA, your way or the highway)?
• Do you believe it’s more important that work is done well, than where or how it happens?
• Does your self-esteem equate control to power?
• Do you believe that people are intelligent, motivated and really care about their company’s success, OR that they are that you need to watch them every minute if anything is going to get done?
• How much of a micromanager are you?

Once you identify attitudes that need to change it’s up to you to modify your MAP as needed.

MAP can be changed, but those changes must originate internally—they can’t be forced by circumstances or other people, although either can be motivators.

Image credit: HikingArtist

What makes a great boss?

What traits do they have in common?

Obviously, great bosses are

• excellent communicators
• good at hiring,
• superb motivators,
• world-class team-builders, and
• caring mentors

Beyond those basics, with almost no exceptions, all are egalitarians.

That basic MAP trait permeates their actions and is apparent in their communications.

Great bosses, no matter the level of interaction, speak and act with the same respect, interest, appreciation, and consideration that they would want in similar circumstances.

Flickr image credit: Celestine Chua

In 1992 I saw a cartoon with the following statement (credited as Pot-Shots #5585, but I can’t find it on the Net).

I WANT ALL MY RIGHTS IMMEDIATELY,
But have no urgent need of my obligations.

I was reminded of it about a decade later after hearing a 15 year-old testify in a community meeting on having a curfew.

She was against it and her reasoning was as follows, “I’m old enough to get pregnant, so I’m old enough to decide when to go home.”

And I was just reminded of it again when I was told by a manager, “I’m the boss. It’s not up to me to show them the ropes; if they don’t get it I can fire them.”

Listen around; I’m sure you’ll hear multiple examples of the original idea, whatever the words or application.

Then listen to yourself.

Have you/do you invoke the same sentiment?

If yes, you may want to rethink your approach and tweak your MAP.

Flickr image credit: BK 

What do you think about when you take stock of your life? What do you strive for? What makes you feel successful?

But first…

What I’m about to write is NOT a judgment call—having been brought up in a judgmental family I don’t judge. Sure, I have opinions, we all do, but I don’t judge. The most I can say is “X doesn’t work for me, but Y does.”

Granted, I might recommend Y; I might even argue passionately regarding the merits of Y, but in the end it’s your decision and you need to tweak/modify/change Y to fit your MAP—if you decide you have any interest in it at all—because Y is a product of my MAP and no two MAPs are identical.

Back to taking stock.

Someone once said to me,

“I still have more than half my life left to live… Still, with each birthday I feel the anxiety of wondering if I am living up to my potential. … Often, I can’t wake up from my daydreams of a disciplined and directed life long enough to make that life happen. … I have learned from experience that I need both [self awareness and willingness to change] if I want to be successful in life and leadership.”

I found it sad because the focus seemed to be so personally judgmental and the person set such store on an intangible like ‘leadership’—which, to have any real meaning, needs to be bestowed and substantiated by others.

But that is just me.

I’m substantially older than most of you and have bounced and blundered through life opening doors as the mood moved me.

I’ve made and lost money as well as friends as our lives diverged.

I once read that success is found in what you do for others, but I believe it’s also in what you don’t do and based on both I am enormously successful.

I’ve given a helping hand to hundreds, thus facilitating their ultimate success.

More importantly, I work hard at not hurting anyone by word or deed, advertently or inadvertently.

I doubt that I’m always successful, but I do try like hell.

I do not lie, cheat or steal.

If I were to have a tombstone (which I won’t, since I’m being cremated and scattered) it would look like this.  

Image credit: JJ Chandler

Five years ago I told you how reading a story by Trevor Blake in Inc led me to terminate a 10+ year “friendship” because of the constant negativity.

Even worse, being exposed to too much complaining can actually make you dumb. Research shows that exposure to 30 minutes or more of negativity–including viewing such material on TV–actually peels away neurons in the brain’s hippocampus.  “Typically, people who are complaining don’t want a solution; they just want you to join in the indignity of the whole thing. You can almost hear brains clink when six people get together and start saying, ‘Isn’t it terrible?’ This will damage your brain even if you’re just passively listening. And if you try to change their behavior, you’ll become the target of the complaint.” the part of your brain you need for problem solving,” he says. “Basically, it turns your brain to mush.”

I recently terminated another long-term friendship for the same reason.

In the original post I ended by saying, “…I’d done the right thing in severing the relationship—even though I did it years later than I should have.”

Obviously I didn’t learn the first time or I wouldn’t have waited so long.

There’s an old saying, “the first time you [whatever] is experience; the second time it’s a mistake, but the third time it’s stupidity.”

I had the experience; now I’ve made the mistake.

Hopefully I won’t hit stupidity any time soon (or later).

Anonymous email image

Stanford management professor Robert Sutton has a new book out called Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More without Settling for Less.

In it Sutton says, “Scale means the spreading of excellence from the few to the many”.

As usual, Sutton is right on and TechCrunch columnist Andrew Keen is way off.

So is Bob Sutton right? Is everything in Silicon Valley really about people? And are the most successful companies those that are best able to scale their organization?

I say that because anywhere, not just in Silicon Valley, but in every town, city and country, it’s about people.
It’s about people because there is no such entity as a company.

What is a company other than a piece of paper showing that the government recognizes its existence and that it owes taxes?

Is it the office buildings that house it? The manuals that explain it? The stock that represents its value?

No.

A company isn’t an entity at all. It’s a group of people all moving in the same direction, united in a shared vision and their efforts to reach a common goal.

And that group attitude is best summed up as culture, which is a living/growing/changing depiction of those people and their MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™).

Google, 3M and P&G are examples of a number of people who are all eager, or at least willing, to move in the same direction.

Whereas at Yahoo people move in multiple directions or refuse to move at all. In part that reflects the differences of people hired over the years through multiple cultures that were not all that synergistic.

Yes, it’s the people. It has always been the people all the way back to our hunter ancestors.

And it will always be the people.

Flickr image credit: Kitty Schweizer

Lying and cheating are common occurrences and recent research shows that, contrary to popular wisdom (wishful thinking?), they do not make people feel badly.

In an interview, Dan Ariely, a leading behavioral economist at Duke and author of The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone – Especially Ourselves, made two comments that especially caught my eye for both their perception and accuracy.

“I have had lots of discussions with big cheaters — insider trading, accounting fraud, people who have sold games in the NBA, doping in sports. With one exception, all of them were stories of slippery slopes.”

“When you are in the midst of it, you are in a very, very different mindset…. You are not a psychopath, and you are not cheating. You are doing what everybody else is doing.”

There’s a lot I could say about this, but I prefer to share a quote that KG sent me after reading the article.

I believe it is the key to the solution and states it succinctly.

It is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge.

The question is not how to get cured, but how to live. –Joseph Conrad (1857 – 1924)

The only problem with this solution is that it requires self-awareness, personal effort, determination and grit.

All of which are in short supply these days.

Flickr image credit: Sean MacEntee

There are two attitudes when it comes to investing in people.

The common one considers it a cost that should be minimized.

The more astute believe it provides significant ROI.

Providing benefits can raise productivity and reduce turnover no matter the size or type of business.

Training is just as important (in England it can even stave off a corporate manslaughter charge).

It’s a well-documented fact that attitude/cultural fit are the most crucial factors when hiring, so where’s the sense in dumping people who are not only good cultural fits, but also possess institutional knowledge?

The graphic elegantly sums up the fear of the cost minimizers and the pragmatism of the astute.

One boss lesson that really needs to sink in is the true cost of replacing people.

• A decade ago replacing cost 2-6 times the annual salary and although the dollar amount has risen I’m sure the multipliers haven’t gone down—they’ve probably gone up, too.
• Losing the wrong person at the wrong time has the potential of crippling or even destroying the company.

As to ROI, look no further than Frederick Reichheld, founder of Bain & Company’s Loyalty Practice and author of Loyalty Rules!, and other loyalty books, whose carefully researched studies that a 5% improvement in employee retention translates to a 25%-100% gain in earnings.

That is one hell of a return for creating a culture that does the right thing by investing in its people.

Flickr image credit: Peter Baeklund