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

Analysis by VC Anthony Tjan, founder of Cue Ball, found that 25% of both entrepreneurs and corporate business builders consider themselves lucky.

That’s a big percentage for something considered random, dubious or non-existent, depending on whom you ask.

Further research found “a combination of what we call a lucky attitude and a lucky network” as opposed to random luck.

What happens next? Does that attitude continue as success mounts?

But the biggest risk for top leaders is being complacent and overconfident — which amounts to being disconnected from the reality, attitude, and relationships that can sustain and take excellence to a new place.

Tjan recommends seven MAP functions to avoid the disconnect:

• humility, the lack of which leads to arrogance;
• intellectual curiosity, the lack of which also leads to arrogance;
• optimism, looking first for the positive attracts great people, while the opposite repels them;
• vulnerability, the best preventative for arrogance;
• authenticity, which is lost when shrouded in spin; worse, believing the spin leads to arrogance;
• generosity, no matter your success, share your knowledge sans the ‘what’s in it for me’ attitude; and
• openness, willingness to a listen to new ideas from 360 degrees of non-traditional sources.

Read the article (it’s short) and then share your thoughts on luck below.

Option Sanity keeps you lucky.

Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock process.  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.

Flickr image credit: HikingArtist

Unless you’ve been living on another planet or alternative reality you’ve heard that Facebook is going public.

Facebook loves to position itself as users’ friend, with only their best interests at heart.

In his founder’s letter Mark Zuckerberg said “We don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.”

Huh?

There is far more truth in the editorial comment, “This also seems disingenuous considering that Facebook’s biggest triumph is to help advertisers by mining user data to target ads and to train them to treat corporate brands like friends.”

The exception is the 845 million people who log in on Facebook’s mobile app, “We do not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven.”

But I’m sure they’ll find a way.
How much personal data does Facebook collect?

Consider the disk sent to Max Schrems, a 24-year-old law school student, a Facebook user since 2008, who is spearheading a protest against “Facebook’s illegal practices of collecting and marketing users’ personal data, often without consent.”

The disk contained 1,222 pages of information.

That’s a very rich vein of ore for any marketer to mine.
Privacy is a far bigger deal in Europe.

Europeans demand more privacy than Americans and the EU is far more willing to enforce that desire than the financially beholden US Congress.

That makes international monetization more difficult.

The drive for monetization underlies everything Facebook does—but that’s not what’s bad.

What’s bad is their pretense that it isn’t true.

Facebook as a social force isn’t going away, but you would be wise to remember that Facebook is not your friend.

Flickr image credit: marcopako 

Certain subjects have been discussed and debated constantly over the years; today’s links are updates on four of them.

The first looks at the very sensitive subject of job, creation, loss and outsourcing, using Apple as its case study. (You may also find this op-ed companion piece of interest.

“All these new companies — Facebook, Google, Twitter — benefit from this. They grow, but they don’t really need to hire much.” –Jean-Louis Gassée

In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. Americans at that skill level are hard to find, executives contend. “They’re good jobs, but the country doesn’t have enough to feed the demand.”

Then, of course, there is the ongoing debate on the effectiveness of managers; it started around the time the first hunting party organized to go after a wooly mammoth.

“It’s very tough to believe that there are such wide differences in management out there.” –Raffaella Sadun, assistant professor at Harvard Business School.

(Only someone who has never been in the workplace could make that statement with a straight face.)

The list of companies, not to mention executives, that have crashed and burned as a result of their lies is extensive and very public, while the number that are more or less opaque is uncountable. Is there truly a benefit for those that practice candor?

“In fact, the share prices of survey companies in the top quartile of CEO candor outperformed companies in the bottom quartile by 31%. For nine of the past 10 years, top-ranked companies have outperformed bottom-ranked companies on average by 18%.”

Finally, a disturbing look at the meritocracy called Silicon Valley.

“Silicon Valley is indeed a meritocracy for those to whom these criteria are not hurdles. But others—the blacks, women, and Hispanics whom it overlooks—find it an elite private club from which they are excluded.” –Vivek Wadhwa

(Hat tip to Emanio CEO KG Charles-Harris for sending this to me.)

Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho

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

Last summer I wrote about the damage done by misrepresenting the real facts of your company culture.

Today I want you to think about the damage that can be done by misrepresenting your past—as was done by Yale football coach Tom Williams.

Williams said he had chosen to pursue a career in professional football at the expense of a possible Rhodes scholarship — and never regretted the decision. Witt leaned on his coach for advice, and eventually decided to play in the game. Yale was crushed, 45-7.

But Williams’s story was a lie.

Bottom line, Yale lost the game, Witt lost the scholarship, and Williams lost his job.

It doesn’t matter if the lie is large, like Williams’ was, or a minor tweaking of the facts; these are personal lies and they go beyond damaging cultural touchstones, they damage lives.

Too many entrepreneurs believe there is wiggle room as long as the words or actions further company goals or land rare and needed talent.

These entrepreneurs are willing to sacrifice not only everything, but everybody, to their vision.

Are you one of them?

Option Sanity™ isn’t for liars

Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock process.  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.”
Option Sanity™ is not recommended for micromanagers, manipulators, or politicos. Founders and CEOs with large egos, or a sense of entitlement, should avoid prolonged exposure to Option Sanity™.
Use only as directed.
Excitement and a strong feeling of virtue are expected; contact your Option Sanity™ rep at the first sign of smugness or if you experience any difficulty explaining Option Sanity™ to others.
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.

Flickr image credit: HikingArtist

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

Today is not another rehash of the Zynga fiasco or CEO Mark Pincus’ follow-up email to the troops.

What I found fascinating is that the entire problem could have been averted by using Option Sanity™.

Seriously.

Yes; I know; every founder believes his or her product is the perfect solution in its nitch, but rarely are we gifted with such a high profile, real-life demonstration.

Rather than simply firing under-performing employees and handing unvested options over to the replacement, Pincus often likes to find another position within Zynga where the employee might still be able to contribute. But because that new position was often lower down the corporate totem poll, Pincus basically wanted to cut the person’s compensation by reducing his or her number of unvested options (vested options were not touched).

Some say bad hires just shouldn’t happen, while others accept them as a normal part of business and believe fast hire/fast fire is the right approach.

I believe Pincus’ approach to a miss-hire is valid; in the heat of a high growth hiring frenzy managers do hire good people for the wrong positions, oft times because candidates oversell their experience and/or managers are desperate to fill their openings.

Think of it as a people pivot—repositioning talent for the good of the company.

The problem is that any unexpected changes made after the fact, no matter how valid, breach the social contract and, in doing so, break trust.

The hiring errors and the associated stock grants should have been corrected as soon as they were identified. Waiting until just before the IPO significantly exacerbates the damage to both Zynga’s and Pincus’ street rep and puts employee morale in the toilet.

It’s a different result when incentive stock grants are based on a transparent, fair, structured methodology that everyone understands, especially when it’s rooted in the company’s stated values/culture.

A methodology that

• assigns positions to levels based on its ability to influence the company’s success as opposed to urgency or charm and history of the candidate;
• assigns an ISO baseline to each level that dictates both the initial hiring grant and
• the Annual Stock Bonus, so that a significant portion of each person’s stock rewards are based on the actual success of the company over time, as measured against quantified annual goals approved by the Board;
• allocates based on the current risk level as defined by set milestones; and
• spells out what happens for both promotions and demotions

It’s easiest to put that structure in place at the very beginning when it’s just the founders.

That’s why we provide Option Sanity™ free for six months to any startup with fewer than four people.

(Feel free to email me or call 866.265.7267 for more information or if you are just curious.)

Option Sanity™ prevents Zyngavitis

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.

Image credit: hikingartist.com

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

A young programming whiz called me after reading this post and requested some help.

“Jim” had job offers from two strong startups and wasn’t sure which to accept.

I discussed which technology he found most interesting, which position he thought would be the most challenging, where he thought he would learn the most, which people he felt most comfortable with, which company seemed to have values/culture that was most synergistic to his own.

I asked if there was anything about either one that bothered him and Jim said that was the problem, he wasn’t sure.

In both cases, his final interview had been with the respective founders. Both shared their vision and seemed open when responding to his questions. He left each feeling excited and enthralled with the opportunities.

Jim said the problem surfaced when he was telling his parents about the companies (call them A and B).

He said he was easily able to explain B’s vision, market, opportunity and even culture, but when he tried to describe A’s vision and the founder’s answers to his questions he couldn’t.

What seemed so clear when they were talking wasn’t when he used his own words to explain it to his folks.

When he replayed the founder’s actual sentences and even wrote them out and re-read it they didn’t make as much sense—worse, some didn’t make any sense at all.

What happened to Jim made me think of a recent post by Steve Roesler about keeping things simple.

Truth comes in sentences. B_ llS_it comes in paragraphs. If you can’t say it with a noun, verb, and object, you aren’t clear about your thought.

I suggested he read it and also yesterday’s post and apply the information to the problem.

Jim just emailed me to thank me for the time we spent and the links; he also said that he had accepted B’s offer.

Which do you remind your candidates of, A or B?

Option Sanity™ makes ISO allocation transparent.
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.

Image credit: Bun in a Can

After all that’s been written and discussed it shouldn’t surprise you to know that most people crave a positive corporate culture and an open-door policy, but would it surprise you that this desire isn’t a product of the US or even the industrialized west?

Yesterday I mentioned I would share a universal truth from an unlikely source.

A positive corporate culture (40% of respondents) and an open-door policy (100%) are the two key elements of an ideal workplace, according to a recent region-wide human resource (HR) survey conducted by IIR Middle East.

Employee engagement and transparency were also found to be essential to enhanced employee performance within an organizational culture.

One of the reasons I find this so intriguing is not so much the desires themselves, but the local in which they are found.

Granted, my knowledge of the Middle East is limited, but the prevailing customs and culture don’t seem particularly conducive to the development of that kind of MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) in management

(And this has nothing to do with an Islamic vs. Judeo-Christian sub-text.)

Workers all seem to want the same thing, whether in the Mid-East, North and South America, Europe, Russia, India or Asia.

Of course, the surface results of implementing those desires might look different, but the basic cravings that drive them are the same, as is the main stumbling block—management.

Changes in transparency, door policy, not killing the messenger, etc. require changes in managers’ MAP and those changes can not be ordered or implemented from the outside in.

Flickr image credit: FlyingSinger

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

Do you lie?

When you hire you assume that what you see is what you get.

In other words, you expect the person who reports to work to be the same person, with the same attitude and interests, which you interviewed and hired—a reasonable expectation.

It holds true on the other side, too.

Candidates expect you, your team and your company to be the same people and culture they learned about during the interview.

• If you presented yourself as a motivator, innovator, team-builder, mentor-type during the interview, but in reality are a micromanager without an original thought who screams at your team you lied.
• If you presented a cohesive team that supports each other and shares knowledge, but in fact it is filled with backbiting and out-of-control egos you lied.
• If you presented a culture that’s about fairness and merit, but promote your friends and play favorites you lied.
• If you shaded anything to be more appealing to that candidate you lied.
• If you used words such as ‘trust’, ‘transparency’ and ‘authenticity’ to close the candidate you lied.

Those three words are cultural touchstones that are sacrosanct. Once broken they are nearly impossible to mend.

Lies don’t just break them, lies shatter them.

Do you lie?

Option Sanity™ protects cultural touchstones

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.

Image credit: kevinspencer

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

Team and culture are a startup’s bedrock for success, but culture takes priority because it is culture that attracts a great team.

Founders talk constantly about ‘the team’ and those listening, investors, media and employees, assume that “team” refers to all the company’s employees—not just a select few.

However, some founders have two teams, the one about which they talk and the team that exists covertly in their minds.

Mental teams consist of direct reports and pets, who are often close personal friends; public teams encompass everyone.

But it’s the mental team that takes priority and stays front and center in all decisions.

Having two teams is akin to having two sets of books—one reflecting reality, the other for show and tell—and, like a second set of books, mental teams trash cultural touchstones such as transparency, authenticity and trust.

Over the years an entire vocabulary has developed to talk about teams. When it’s used by founders who buy it, own it and mean it that language is enormously empowering; for the others it is pap—good for keeping all those not on the ‘real’ team in line.

One would think that trashing those touchstones would wreak more havoc with younger workers, who are considered more demanding, but in actuality older workers are just as turned off.

The exceptions, of course, being those who don’t see a problem, since they do the same thing.

Option Sanity™ supports transparency

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.

Image Credit: Bun in a Can

Pizzled is a cross between puzzled and pissed and it’s what people get when forced to work in a Triple A Culture.

RAT culture, on the other hand, leaves employees engaged, motivated and productive.

RAT means rational, authentic and transparent.

• Rational actions that make sense to your people and rational communication that doesn’t employ emotion to manipulate them.

• Authentic eliminates BS, yours and all those who report to you, and stays consistent, stabilizing everybody

• Transparent is saying clearly what you mean, doing what you say and holding everyone to the same standard—no exceptions.

RAT culture is always a top-down function imposed by any manager at any level on those who report directly or indirectly. Sadly, it is almost impossible to enable or enforce RAT culture up through the organization.

Assuming you have RAT MAP, RAT culture is satisfying to build, because it means

• doing what comes naturally;
• not having to remember what you said or did to stay consistent, because it was the truth;
• creating a working environment that’s full of sunshine instead of sh*t where people can grow and excel; and
• where fun, happy, productivity and success are the norm.

Finally, propagating RAT culture is profitable—not just for the company, because of high productivity, and your people, because of goals reached and dreams fulfilled, but for you as you’ll see from your reviews, the ease with which you hire and the pleasure you take in what you’ve accomplished.

So forget pizzled and go RAT, you won’t be disappointed.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedbee/103147140/