I was reading Oscar de la Renta’s obituary (fascinating guy) and a quote from him caught my eye.

“Being well dressed hasn’t much to do with having good clothes. It’s a question of good balance and good common sense.”

What grabbed me was the second sentence.

Because it doesn’t matter what you set out to do or how much money you spend on accouterments.

It doesn’t matter who you know, where you went to school, how many hours you work or how brilliant your vision.

It doesn’t matter because without balance and common sense you will fail.

Because balance and common sense are the foundation of anything you choose to accomplish.

Flickr image credit: James Jordan

What makes a hit a hit?

When you’re ridding a comet of popularity and constantly need to release a new, better version does it make sense to take a step back and garner outside to better understand why your product is hot?

Or are you confident enough in your vision that you feel it’s unnecessary?

Would it surprise you to know that the success of the iPhone was due to the very feature Steve Jobs belittled in his competitors?

Size.

People became blackberry addicts because they could do more on the larger screen.

The iPhone’s screen was substantially larger than Nokia.

Can you even imagine surfing the Net, watching videos or streaming a movie to a phone with a screen like these?

In hindsight, it’s not weird that Jobs might have been wrong about consumer preference for screen sizes in the four years following his death. Rather, it’s weird that he didn’t acknowledge that the iPhone’s (relatively) big screen size was actually driving its popularity while he was alive.

The iPhone is arguably one of Jobs’ greatest hits, yet he never really understood why—because the ‘why’ clashed with his vision.

To acknowledge something you need to be aware of it.

And no matter how good you are at seeing around corners, you may need to modify your own vision to respond accurately to what your market craves.

Image credits: @Samsung Mobile PH and Jorge Barrios via Wikimedia Commons

It’s incredible how much emotion can completely boost or derail absolutely everything at work and in life.  It completely changes the color and tenor of any discussion or experience, though actual reality remains unchanged. In fact, I’m coming to believe that almost everything is emotionally driven in human experience – history, sociology, culture, psychology, biology, health, etc. 

Emotion is that elusive, inexplicable thing that gives or takes away will and energy, determines perception and choice and, to a large extent, outcomes in life. Yet we know almost nothing about it—or at least I don’t. I know how it feels and what it does, but not where it comes from, what causes it and, most importantly, how to optimize it.  

I do know that hormones and whether I am rested, hungry, etc., influence my emotions. However, I am reflecting on how easily I see exactly the same thing as positive or negative depending on how I feel. How strongly emotions determine my ability to deal well or badly with large, or even the smallest, matters.

Building a company is about creating an emotional drive in a group of people to accomplish something together. I’ve noticed that whenever I’m convincing people to join or am working out problems it is not just a conversation or intellectual work, but a significant outlay of emotional energy.

It’s as if my emotions are a vibration at a certain frequency that has the ability to cause vibration in others as well, as if emotions are sound or music. If we take a comparison to physics:

“If you were to take a guitar string and stretch it to a given length and a given tightness and have a friend pluck it, you would hear a noise; but the noise would not even be close in comparison to the loudness produced by an acoustic guitar. On the other hand, if the string is attached to the sound box of the guitar, the vibrating string is capable of forcing the sound box into vibrating at that same natural frequency. The sound box in turn forces air particles inside the box into vibrational motion at the same natural frequency as the string. The entire system (string, guitar, and enclosed air) begins vibrating and forces surrounding air particles into vibrational motion.

The tendency of one object to force another adjoining or interconnected object into vibrational motion is referred to as a forced vibration. In the case of the guitar string mounted to the sound box, the fact that the surface area of the sound box is greater than the surface area of the string means that more surrounding air particles will be forced into vibration. This causes an increase in the amplitude and thus loudness of the sound.”

This is exactly how you build an organization—as the entrepreneur and founder, it starts with my emotional vibration and transferring that emotional vibration to other competent people who can help me build my vision. And a large part of doing that is to accept that this vision is no longer mine, but that it’s now the vision of the people to whom I transferred the emotional vibration. 

That means, building an organization is like creating the sound box in the above example—it amplifies the effect of the emotional drive towards goals.

I recently spoke with my father about the fact that everything in my life and the world seemingly being emotion-based; that emotion is what provides us with the energy to have a vision within ourselves and the force to transfer it to others while maintaining it within.  

He said that the transference happens in a variety of ways—facial expression, gestures, word choice, etc.—and that the mix of these and other tools can enhance or detract from the vibration.  

In other words, we need to actively think about emotional transference and the tools we can use to promote it. What can we learn from the physics of vibration?

Beyond physics there’s biology. If I know that I am deeply affected in my emotional states and my dealings with people by hormones (such as oxytocin) and pheromones, as well as rest, nutrition and other factors, then to what extent I can control this? Clearly it is necessary to maintain good physical condition, which includes rest, exercise and proper nutrition. My father believes we can determine the hormone levels in our bodies by thought and training; perhaps this is what the practice of Buddhist mediation is all about—the end to suffering through changing our perception of reality.  

Ultimately our emotions determine our perception of reality, so a slight change in chemical balance will enable us to achieve great things or completely derail what we’re attempting to accomplish.  

Some try to use chemistry (pharmaceuticals & drugs) to optimize this, but unfortunately the tools and substances used by psychologists and psychiatrists are woefully crude and we are just in the beginning phases of understanding how this can function.

Emotion is a central aspect of elite athleticism. We obviously can optimize like athletes, so why don’t we? They start by influencing the natural factors that they actually can control, i.e. nutrition, rest, positive environment and focused exercise. 

Shouldn’t optimizing our biology be just as primary a task for entrepreneurs as it is for athletes in order to enhance our ability to execute?  

Why are so many of us neglecting to utilize this tool to help us achieve our goals?

Note: KG Charles-Harris is CEO of Quarrio (former CEO of Emanio). KG’s company was recently awarded SIIA’s (Software & Information Industry Association) NextGen Awards in 2 of 3 categories – “Best Overall” and “Most Disruptive.” Quarrio won from a pool of several hundred applicants. The runner-up was Junyo, co-founded by Steve Schoettler, co-founder of Zynga, and funded by Mitch Kapor, Learn Capital and others.

I’m starting to appreciate the ethos of Whisper co-founder/CEO Michael Heyward a lot more these days.

What changed my attitude were his comments at the Fortune Brainstorm conference regarding threats, whether violent or suicidal, child abuse/porn and hurtful responses.

“You can’t use the service to hurt other people” (…) The company searches for words and terms that indicate threats, crimes or suicide. And it has human moderators that will pull down abusive, inappropriate material and take further action if it seems necessary. (…) “You’re talking about actual people’s lives. We take that very seriously.”

Unlike Mark Zukerberg at Facebook.

Perhaps Heyward can also find a way to help the women who post about the sexual harassment they endure in order to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.

Whisper started with lots of celebrity rumors and still receives thousands of frivolous secrets, but if it stays true to Heyward’s ethics and vision it could play a real role in making the world a little better place to live.

And that is a nice legacy to put on a tombstone.

Join me tomorrow for a look at my personal ethos and what I’d put on my tombstone.

Flickr image credit: Jeffrey

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

Passion is good.

But passion unchecked yields freely to fanaticism.

Fanaticism paves the road to a closed mind.

Fanaticism in business leads directly to ‘not invented here’ syndrome.

Software giant SAP is known for its passion; not for its ability to play well with others, especially startups.

An attitude that is coming home to roost and motivating co-founder Hasso Plattner to change.

It was  “jealousy,” he said, and a “not-invented-here” mentality. “We always worked with other companies, but when they did not do exactly what we wanted them to do, then we developed all kinds of animosities.”

Now, the growing popularity of HANA, SAP’s new database, along with realization that the world has changed is driving change at the software giant.

Along with the normal things large corporations do to connect with startup—venture arm, pitching forums, hacking contests—Plattner is opening a 24-hour café complete with food, coffee, alcohol and even stand-up comedy.

“You know University Drive … the main drag …  in Palo Alto [Calif.]? We have acquired a nice location there and we will open the HANA Cafe by [our tech conference] Sapphire, so in three months.

“… We created it for these [startup] companies. They can come in. They can connect there. We’ll have all the electronic connections to 1,250 companies in the world. They want to have contact to Beijing, they can. … Startup companies can collaborate there. … This is what we want to support.”

SAP plans two more, in Berlin and Shanghai, all running 24 hours a day and fully connected.

New world. New product. New attitude.

The results won’t be in for months, but if stogy SAP does change it will be proof positive that any company can.

In the meantime you have a great, new place to work and hangout.

Image credit: HikingArtist

A few years ago I wrote that stories are a useful management tool.

Stories are also the best way to present your company and its products to the world.

The problem is that most founders are focused on the vision can’t tell the story—at least not the whole story.

Listen to Brooke Hammerling, founder of Brew Media Relations.

“I can’t tell you how many times we’ve met with early-stage companies, and they start by telling us their big vision. They say, ‘This is what we’re about and what we want to change.’ But when we ask them what they actually do, they can’t tell us. If you can’t answer that question, don’t do anything else until you can. Nothing else matters.”

I certainly don’t have Hammerling’s experience or knowledge, but I hear the same thing.

To start with, a vision isn’t a story—it’s an overview.

Usually a macro level overview drawn in sweeping strokes that quickly degenerates into a micro description of the technology.

Worse, the vision is almost always a product of the founder(s), often conceived before the company actually started, and enshrined as stated unless there’s a pivot.

It’s a unilateral view that often misses peripheral or subtle background factors that may yield better positioning.

But if not the founders, what’s a better approach? What’s the source of the story?

When Hammerling takes on a new client, the first thing she does is separate the key members of the team, including the investors. Then she fires questions at them about the product: “What are you? Why are you? Who are you? What problem are you solving and how are you solving it? Why should people care right now?” The idea is to hear what all of them say — where are the differences? Where are the overlaps? What do the people who care most about the company’s success think it is?

While founders can’t/shouldn’t create the story alone, everyone agrees nobody can provide the passion that must permeate the story like a founder.

When a product, message and strategy align with a founder who can deliver it all clearly and persuasively, there’s no telling how powerful that can be. 

So if you’re looking for a great strategy to develop your brand’s voice use the link; the information Hammerling shares will give you an excellent, workable framework to build upon.

Flickr image credit: portland general

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

As a founder you

• identified a market itch;
• crafted a way to scratch it that will delight and de-stress;
• polished the vision so people would get it;
• wowed investors to get funding;
• hired the best talent you could find; and
• worked your tail off building them into a team.

But deep down you believe that teamwork is actually a lot of people doing what you say.

What are your odds for success?

Image credit: HikingArtist

Last year, Brad Feld of Foundry Group joined a roster of gurus who recommend hiring for cultural fit above all.

I said it again last week.

Henry Ford was one of the first to explain why, If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.

This is true for every company from startups through the Fortune 10.

And the key word isn’t “forward” it’s “everyone.”

Research has shown that culture trumps strategy and the most important component of culture is people.

Without people there is no company.

With the wrong people there is no team.

It is the team that makes vision reality.

It is the team that draws investment and customers.

It is the team that lets you pivot, innovate and change when necessary—no matter your size

It is the team that saves your ass when you screw up.

Your team is made up of the people who focus on the success of the company, knowing that its success ensures their own, not the people who work primarily for their own success.

A strong team always trumps a group of individual players—no matter how good they are or what each has done in the past.

Team needs and candidate attitude should always trump individual credentials, experience, previous title and company.

Flickr image credit: Glyn Lowe Photoworks

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

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

To many in the startup world speed is a holy grail—speed to market, speed to hiring and firing, speed to pivoting and speed to growth.

If you are one of them consider Frazier & Deeter.

It’s grown 25 percent a year for seven consecutive years to more than 250 employees in 2010 and named one of the best US firms to work for by Accounting Magazine.

…the firm is poised to go national but the guy who founded and ran the firm for eight years is no longer leading the charge. Was that his choice? It turns out it was not. David Deeter, the founder, got bounced down the organization chart.

While that may be the kind of growth investors salivate over, it often requires a “bet the company” mentality and matching action that’s not always appreciated by others.

Employees get scared, but you, the entrepreneur, keep their heads in the clouds and you keep thinking, boy, isn’t this great? Why? Because you are having the time of your life.

And therein lies the greatest danger for entrepreneurs who wants to stay at the helm.

Entrepreneurs start with a vision and do a pretty good job communicating it to the original team or they wouldn’t have bought in.

As time goes by and the organization grows founders get “busy” and start counting on those under them to communicate their vision to the new hires.

Sometimes the vision changes and the changes aren’t communicated, so the vision shared is no longer the current vision or, worst of all, the driving force mutates into one of growing just because you can.

The article author says,

Show them you can be both an entrepreneur and a chief executive. How? Let the employees see that you put the company’s interests ahead of your ego and your own personal interests. Otherwise, the real talent will leave — or boot you out…

but you have only to look at the corporate merger and acquisition debacles of the last few decades to know that too many corporations, both public and private, are driven by CEO ego and personal interest.

The best advice is to not only stay close to your people, but also to your mirror and remember you are not a god.

Image credit: HikingArtist