Posts filed under 'management'
When have you spoken publicly about a swift kick you got after you failed at something? Hooray for David Neeleman, Jim Donald, and Ed Zander for having the courage to talk to Fortune about their “Lessons of the Fall“. Each revealed a great deal about his fairly recent experience being canned by his board after years of success, and what led up to that event. The points I most appreciated:
- Regarding boards. Mr. Neeleman said, “… looking at the company through this little hole once a quarter at a four-hour meeting — board members don’t know that much about the company.” I have to admit that reading this line, I expected him to then nicely bash his board for bad advice. Rather he said, “I would have been much more engaged with the board… You have to give them an accurate view of what’s going on… That’s the job of the CEO, and I failed.” We often think those above us know more than we do. Often times, they don’t. They most often have more experience and can give us perspectives, ideas and judgements based on that experience. It is our job to make sure they know what is important in this specific situation, so they can help us.
- Regarding activists. Mr. Zander was asked directly about dealing with Carl Icahn, definitely a powerful activist as a shareholder. His advice: “…what decisions I had to make, what the long-term strategy was - don’t do anything for the short-term. And sometimes that’s painful for short-term shareholders.” From this, I believe Mr. Zander made the decisions he felt were right, despite the activists knowing the consequences. I respect that. In the end, it is your face you have to look at in the morning, not the activists. Listen, and then act in a way that allows you to look at yourself with pride. I think Mr. Zander did.
- Regarding Moms. Most of us have a “mom” in our lives, be it our natural mom or one that has picked us up along the way. They play important roles in keeping the right balance between incredible belief in us, and also, keeping us in check. The most real part of this interview was when Mr. Donald said the hardest and first thing to do was to call his mom and tell her after he had lost his job with Starbucks. He was upfront with her, and also reassured her that everything was fine. He faced it quickly and with grace, but made it clear that it was the toughest day he’s faced.
I respect each of these leaders more now. Thanks for showing the rest of us success in failure, along with your many successful successes.
What is on my shirt today? My favorite failure saying:
What would you do
if you knew
you could not fail?
Now, stop reading and go to it!
P.S. Some of you have asked for more on the IronMan event. First, thanks for asking. Second, there is a post on the Spreadshirt blog about it that was taken from an internal newsletter interview. Hope you enjoy it!
July 28th, 2008
By referral of my friend, Phil Terry of Creative Good, I am reading The Americanization of Edward Bok. I double Phil’s recommendation for anyone that wants to read about an inspirational life from very early years; to understand an entrepreneurial mind from the late 1800s; and to learn a bit about publishing during this time. This man was a friend and confidant to nearly every famous author of this time, not to mention all of the US Presidents and other statesmen. An engaging read.
But, what was that about Mark Twain? It is such a coincidence that I read a passage in the book about Mark Twain’s response to an interview by Mr. Bok. Mr. Bok had secured an interview with the notoriously interview-shy Mr. Twain. He sent the written interview to Mr. Twain for his approval. The response (only the first two paragraphs included, the rest is just as brilliant):
My Dear Mr. Bok:
No, no — it is like most interviews, pure twaddle, and valueless.
For several quite plain and simple reasons, an “interview” must, as a rule, be an absurdity. And chiefly for this reason: it is an attempt to use a boat on land, or a wagon on water, to speak figuratively. Spoken speech is one thing, written speech is quite another. Print is a proper vehicle for the latter, but it isn’t for the former. The moment “talk” is put into print you recognize that it is not what is was when you heard it; you perceive that an immense something has disappeared from it. That is its soul. You have nothing but a dead carcass left on your hands. Color, play of feature, the varying modulations of voice, the laugh, the smile, the informing inflections, everything that gave that body warmth, grace, friendliness, and charm, and commended it to your affection, or at least to your tolerance, is gone, and nothing is left, but a pallid, stiff, and repulsive cadaver.
That paragraph, written by a brilliant author, I hope gives you an idea of what it takes to write versus talk. The problem… email is talk in ”printed” form. Most often you miss everything that Mr. Twain calls out, and therein lies the problem.
I read this passage on the plane on Saturday, as I had just had three conversations the past week with people that were emailing problems back and forth and not picking up the phone. This included senior managers who weren’t talking to their team members regularly, but thought it was OK because they were emailing them daily. There is immense value in talking to someone, and it is worth your time. If you think that email takes less time, you are not spending the time writing that the issues deserve.
Before you hit send on an important, even semi-important, email, ask yourself, are you using a wagon on water? If the answer is possibly, then pick up the phone or stand up from your chair and walk a few cubes down… start to talk.
I have a dizzying array of meetings each week. Not all of them are great. The best ones have agendas prepared in advance (something I request of every meeting I’m in) and send to me at least a day before the meeting. This allows me time to think through what is needed and prepare some thoughts and responses. I would not trade that dizzyness for more emails. Meeting with team members gives me more energy than an email could, because of the soul that Mr. Twain points out comes across in a talk.
If you are a manager, have regular one-on-ones with your team members. If you find yourself with nothing to say in those meetings, then you are missing the point, and you and your team member need to prepare for those meetings more. Spend time in advance reviewing emails sent since the last meeting and thinking about goals, then you will have plenty to discuss.
What’s on my shirt today?
email is cheap
talk is valuable
P.S. Creative Good is a wonderful organization. If you don’t know them, you should.
May 13th, 2008
Though those that grew up with me would laugh, I am often asked how I stay calm in various, stressful situations. The reason my friends and family from long ago would laugh is that I’m not known by them as having an even temper. I’m passionate about life and that comes out pretty clearly and quickly, but what I’ve learned from my experience that they haven’t seen… perspective.
HSBC has been running an ad campaign for about a year that hits perspective well. The ads juxtapose two images with labels, then show the images again with the labels switched. My favorites:
With each of these I can remember my own perspective turning point. I am not and never have been interested in having children, and earlier, I often wondered why anyone woud do it. As my friends have had kids and I’ve gotten up close and personal with kids, I’ve seen what a sense of fulfillment and happiness children can bring. It has not changed my beliefs for my life, but it does make me much more calm and centered when I’m sitting on a flight next to a screaming, breast feeding baby. (I am completely serious.)
In business, even when I don’t have specific experience perspective, I do ask myself, “Why would that be happening?” And then try to realize what different perspectives there might be. This helps come to not only a sense of calm about the status, but a set of possible solutions based on different perspectives.
As I am writing this, I’m reminded of a Dan and Chip Heath Fast Company Make Goals Not Resolutions article from this Winter. Their analysis of how you achieve your resolutions is to visualize how you are going to reach what you want. Perspective is exactly that… visualization from different angles. In this case, it is to understand and succeed.
What is on my shirt today? In another post, I’m going to cover my thoughts on Danny Meyer’s book Setting the Table, which is an extraordinary book on business and hospitality. He introduces the word
umbuntu
as a South African greeting, which was translated as “I see you.” As Danny says, “That simply and effectively addresses the core human need to be seen and to feel seen.” To me, understanding someone’s perspective is the best way to really see them.
April 20th, 2008
I’m getting a little defensive over the Wal-Mart “thing” due to living in the Northeast and Germany, where Wal-Mart has been chewed up and spit out. I have to admit that I hate having the Wal-Mart conversation with many people in both of these places. Most typically, they boastfully say, “Well, Wal-Mart couldn’t succeed here.” I’m not completely sure why that is something to be proud of in itself. I think that folks are saying it because the big company didn’t overrun their town or country and turn everyone into mindless (money-saving) zombies with small businesses left in the wake. But that’s not the point of my post… that’s another conversation that maybe I’ll find interesting enought to write about at some point. My point is that
- Even though they are a very large corporation and I’m quite sure there are people involved with Wal-Mart that have both deliberately made unethical decisions and mistakenly made bad decisions
- And yes, turning a ship that big is hard, and they can’t react in the way they used to be able to react
- And yes, they have lost some of their charm with Mr. Walton gone
… I still respect what Wal-Mart has done and I’m proud they are from Arkansas… my home state.
I’ll give you my top 5 reasons why I respect Wal-Mart:
- Before Ben & Jerry’s, Google, and Southwest, Wal-Mart shared success throughout the ranks. Yes, across the South, there are people who were cashiers at Wal-Mart who are millionaires now. Sam Walton believed in his employees and rewarded them with stock in the company through ESOPs and stock grants.
- Note… The company doesn’t have that leverage for employees now due to their size. This is a law of nature, not something evil they are doing to their employees.
- Sam Walton was a communicator, and he built a company that values communication. Being from Arkansas, I saw examples of this from friends who worked there. I knew about the Saturday morning meetings that drove the business for years and years. I know about the incredible satellite network used for communicating across the country to all the remote places where Wal-Mart was.
- Wal-Mart defined relentless focus on execution. An example: Their distribution centers lay out let stores have the minimum amount of space dedicated to storing inventory without risking selling inventory… they used 40% of what most competitors did. Why? They knew that stores were about selling and they wanted maximum space to selling space. Wal-Mart knows what is important to them and then execute with keen focus against that.
- Wal-Mart is not a slave to their systems. Their systems are built and bought to support their business. (I was a vendor to them… this one I know keenly.) For example, their retail systems were designed to give local flexibility with centralized control. Stores were allowed to adjust prices as needed to respond to local competition, but only to a certain point, as defined by the business objectives set in Bentonville. In all my interactions with Wal-Mart, I have to say they are the best at being the master of their systems.
- Sam Walton set up the company to learn. This is one reason they’ve struggled more in recent years, there are very few people from whom they can learn. Mr. Walton set the company up to be driven by benchmarking themselves across industries and departments. Every single group was expected to benchmark with people that were the tops in their areas… across marketing, communications, HR, retail, distribution/logistics, etc.
I recently learned from the book What I Learned from Sam*Walton that there was an internal rally cry at Sam’s Club, HEATKTE, which stood for “high expectations are the key to everything”. This is how Mr. Walton ran the company. He expected more… all the time… from everyone. He was tough, but inspirational, and he built an outstanding company that has been the most successful company in my lifetime.
Please know I am not saying Wal-Mart is perfect. I don’t think this. I also don’t think they deserve the ire they have stirred up in people. Before you bash them, make sure you know the facts. The company has done a great deal of good and are a model company in many ways, particularly looking at the first 4/5ths of their existence.
OK, I’ve gotten that off my chest. Feel free to hurl insults my way for standing up for the big evil American corporation.
December 17th, 2007
[Aside… At 3:20a I shouldn’t be doing this, but I don’t learn…]
I’m reading Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science. There’s a great description of a then recent study (book from 2002) from HBS on learning curves in different industries. One “industry” that the HBS students decided to study was the medical industry — surgeons specifically. In this case, they followed 18 cardiac surgeons as they learned a new technique of minimally invasive surgery.
The surprise from this study was that the surgeon on one the fastest learning teams was relatively inexperienced to the surgeon on one of the slowest learning teams. The fast learning surgeon:
-
Picked specific team members and kept a consistent team for max learnings
-
Conducted a dry run before the first case
-
Scheduled six operations for the first week to increase knowledge retention between cases
-
Held a planning and update meeting before each surgery and a debrief afterwards
-
Tracked results carefully
The slow learning surgeon did not carry out these points.
It reminded me of one of the areas where we are struggling a bit now as we grow. Folks are understandably frustrated by the number of people with whom they “have to” coordinate now. I’ve often thought about this and wondered how you inspire the excitement of working with a team more. Sure, it is easier to be “fully in control” yourself, but you miss so much learning and improved solutions… and really collaboration fun. Yes, it takes work… and more work than if you were able to do things yourself. You need to have the dry runs, and the planning and debrief meetings. Basically, without this kind of structure, you do have the overhead of a team, without the rewards.
Hope this spurs some thoughts for you as it did for me.
What is on my shirt…
What do you pack
to pursue a dream?
… as I go off to pursue a dream! (By the way, this is written on my shirt in our new Santa’s sleigh font. Perfect for this thought…)
December 12th, 2007
First, my apology, and then we’ll move on. I am sorry for not posting in so long. I do not know what happened. I enjoy writing and I’m not doing enough of it. My days have turn into evenings, which turn into nights, which turn into early mornings, which turn into 2-3 hours of sleep. Most of you know that I am OK on little sleep, but I need 4-5 hours to feel good, and I haven’t been getting that lately. I think the question becomes… what have I been doing?
We’ve been working on budgets at Spreadshirt. We are doing a more extensive round than before, so that means lots of meeting and work. Along with this, we are also talking about our priorities for 2008. These are always fun processes because you are talking about the future, but they are also wrought with one word, “No.”
“No” is a post I’ve been meaning to write for awhile. First, let’s take the definition of the word. The Oxford English Dictionary says no is “a denial”, “a refusal”, “the negative side or party”, and “a person who votes against a proposal”. Ouch, such harsh words for two little characters. But, it shows how powerful language is. These two letters often bring up lots of emotion. So, whenver I’m saying “no”, I try to think how the other party thinks about the decision. What does it mean from their perspective?
Remember you hired your team to be the best advocates for their department/group. If they aren’t passionate about your saying no, then are they the best advocates? You need to remember that there is trade off between local (departmental) and global (corporate) optimization, but there should be push back on a no vote. Because, as defined, no is a denial. (Note… Your team won’t always understand your reasons for this denial, but as a leader, try.)
As more help in understanding why “no” is so hard, I had a revelation a few years ago when reading a terrific Fortune article by Jerry Useem on decision making. The piece that I repeat to myself (for two+ years now): (bold added by me)
Start with the Latin decidere. It means, literally, “to cut off.” Decisions force us to foreclose other opportunities–jobs not taken, strategies never attempted, options unpursued. Would that sales gig in Houston have worked out better? You’ll never know.
This little piece helped me understand why people have problems with decisions. I never have had a problem with decisions… in business, in personal life, in shopping even. I make a decision and move on. Though not conscious, I think it is because I don’t look at a decision as cutting off anything, but rather the flip side… I look forward to the road taken, or at least, if the road looks bumpy, I look forward to having a road to take, rather than sitting at the crossroads waiting. Thanks to Mr. Useem, I now understand the struggle with decisions more, and can help coach them to the right answer.
So, as I said when I started this blog, I want to learn from you too. What is your experience with decision making? Are you consistent across business and personal decisions? Do you struggle with any particular types of decisions? Do you think that these definitions and latin roots have an impact on how we look at decisions and ”nos”?
P.S. Jerry Useem also interviewed Jim Collins on decision making and it was a good piece too.
What is on my shirt today? What else?
I (heart)
decisions
December 10th, 2007
It has been awhile since I posted on a book that I’ve read. A couple of months ago, I finished My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud’Homme. I enjoyed living through Julia’s words from the 40s through the 60s, a time when both the world and her life changed greatly. My friends know that I’m an active reader, and often write in books, as well as turn pages over to mark interesting passages. So, what did I find interesting in Julia’s book?
- “The word is not the thing.” Borrowed from semanticist Alfred Korzybski, this was one of Julia’s husband’s favorite sayings. I’m a word geek, so this resonated with me. (As I typed that I used my OED subscription to make sure I knew the etymology of resonance.) This is a great saying to remind us that words aren’t sufficient often times in communication. One of the best things we did in the Innovation Lab was hire Anna Simmons to help us visualize our words, as an additional way of communicating between ourselves and with customers. I think designers are so lucky that they have this additional outlet to help express themselves!
- Ta-Da. When Julia finished her first book, she declared a “ta-da”. I’m a believer in “ta-das”. Just before I left Intuit, we had started using them in the Innovation Lab. One challenge working with high achievers is that they often forget to step back and realize their accomplishments. Usually when they solve a problem, rather than feeling proud, they are annoyed that it took them so long to figure it out… it all seems so clear once you know the answer. Our “ta-da” effort in the Lab was meant to make sure that we realized when we solved problems… and besides that it was fun!
- “I just walk away from it–fin!” When Julia decided to stop going to her house in France, her niece was having a tough time leaving the place. Her niece asked Julia if she was going to miss the house. Julia said, “I’ve always felt when I’m done with something, I just walk away from it–fin!” I have this same feeling as Julia. I have such an appreciation for my memories and how I’ve lived my life. From experience, I know things end; I don’t feel the need to dwell on their ending, but rather always celebrate their happening. As Julia said, “I will always have such wonderful memories of the [house];” I agree with her… I’ll always have the memories!
My thanks to Julia and Alex for a fun read… letting me share in some of those memories, and for giving me some examples and experiences for use in my life.
So, what is on my shirt today? Evan and I checked out, Cafe Indigo, a Vegan bakery in Concord, NH. We aren’t vegans, but we do try to eat healthy. Since we were going to the vegan cafe, I decided to wear the shirt I made for the launch of our organic shirts at Spreadshirt:
I’m organic!
(and so is my shirt)
The shirt was a hit!
May 21st, 2007
For the past few months, we’ve been working on driver-based analysis and planning for our different business units at Spreadshirt. The effort reminded me of why so many businesses do not attempt such an analysis. The main reason: lies, damn lies, and statistics. What happens is that you start at the highest level. Like most retail businesses, for us, we can start with traffic, conversion and basket size for each of our business units. Kind of feels cold, huh?
The next step for the drivers is to get to what makes each business unit special to its customers. For us:
Shop Partner. Number of selling shop partners and sales per shop is where you head next. And, once you have that, you start thinking about the different levels of shop partners used to judge sales per shop. For example, major accounts, power sellers and then the “long tail” are typical classifications. Then, what about recruiting of those different partners? Lead generation and direct advertising can be broken into impressions, click through, registration, activation, and shop set-up. What about shop traffic and customer WOW (I believe in Net Promoter for this measure)?
For each of these, you then argue more critical drivers. And, we haven’t even gotten into regions, and their maturity, which has a big impact on the drivers.
The question is where do you stop? When do the numbers matter and when do they become details that are distracting? My experience… stay at 5-7 drivers. No lie. Pick 5-7 and stick to them. Period.
Team members can focus on levers that impact these drivers, but don’t let those levers become drivers themselves. Keep the team focused on the drivers for their business, which will help you focus on the business as a whole versus get stuck on one number.
Another recommendation… be careful not to let drivers be self-referencing. For example, we could define major accounts as accounts over a certain level. The problem with this is that you don’t know if an account is major until it becomes major. You want to be able to target leads as having “major” potential. We did this at QuickBase by defining major accounts as Fortune 500, with a special emphasis on Fortune 100, as an example. While not all Fortune 100 accounts turned major, the hit rate was higher than going after accounts with “potential”, than waiting and seeing if those became major to define them as major.
What are your thoughts and experiences with driver-based analysis and planning? When have you seen business drivers used well and when not?
What am I wearing on my shirt? To bring some levity to a serious post, I’m going to turn to one of my favorite mood lighteners, Yogi Berra.
Don’t make the wrong mistake
April 30th, 2007
Most viral marketing ideas go something like this:
a) We’ll create something really funny (outrageous, edgy), so people forward it around
or
b) We’ll add our logo and link to the bottom of every message our customers send from our product
Both of these end with:
…and we’ll sell lots/make lots of $$
Both of these techniques can be critical components of a viral campaign. But most often they become the focus – above the message or action you want taken — and that’s why 98% of viral marketing campaigns fail.
P&G has an example going viral, but missing the messaging/action point:
P&G’s ThermaCare Heat Wraps team created a campaign that went viral, because they listened to customers. (YAY!) They were looking for a way to promote their menstrual cramp relief line. In talking to women about menstrual cramps, the team learned that top issue from women is that they wanted men to get what having cramps felt like. The team had the idea that they could use this information to create something viral… something that hit the exposed nerve they had found. So, they created, MENWITHCRAMPS, a website devoted to the (fictitious) study of male menstrual cramps.
This campaign did hit “viral” status. Lots of talk, lots of website visits. But… people didn’t have any idea what it was selling. A typical quote:
“I am not quite sure what they are selling at menwithcramps.com, but I am buying it as soon as I can.”
Nice sentiment, but if you don’t know what you are buying, it is hard to buy, and you definitely can’t tell others to buy it. So, this team “sold” the site, but not the product. And most folks, thought it was funny and shared it, but wondered why someone had made the site, as they noted how professional it was. (Note: For awhile the site didn’t even link to the ThermaCare site, as it does now.)
Dove and Live Vault each have great examples of ads that became viral and got their message across:
Dove’s Evolution video hits both the emotion of how people feel, and goes to the core value of Dove’s message… real beauty. Even if it hadn’t gone viral, it would still be an awesome ad that got across their message, which has to be the foundation of your campaign.
Live Vault’s John Cleese video (requires registration) shows you can be funny and get across your message. They used Cleese as a doctor at the Back-Up Trauma Clinic. Every IT manager (their target) relates to this and it gets across the message of the pain that’s associated with “out-of-date, tape-based back-ups”.
So here’s my 3-step recipe for making something going for viral without wasting $$:
- Talk to prospective customers to find out:
- What is important to them about your product? E.g., ThermaCare’s [missing message] ”relief”, Dove’s “real beauty”, Live Vault’s “easy, up-to-date recovery”
- Is there an emotional trigger for them around your product? E.g., ThermaCare’s “men understanding”, Dove’s “fake beauty”, Live Vault’s “out-of-date back-ups”)
- Make a campaign that you know nails what is important to prospective customers about your product.
- See if you can come up with a simple, unexpected, and concrete story around the emotional trigger. (For those of you that haven’t had a chance to read Chip and Dan Heath’s book Made to Stick, these qualifiers, including emotional, come from that book. This is the clearest set of qualifiers I’ve seen for viral yet.)
And if this doesn’t work, you can always attend the Viral Learning Center. (Thanks to the Church of the Customer blog for that one!)
So, what’s on my shirt? Well, I have an idea for small business marketing that may or may not be viral. It gets across a key message that many small businesses want to get across to their customers and it brings up a funny childhood emotion:
I know something you don’t know
See most small business owners start their business because they have an expertise that they want to share/live… something they are passionate about. I believe, if they created fewer logo shirts, and instead wore a shirt like this, they would be better marketers. This shirt would spark the conversations that they want to have… telling people about their passion.
I’ll tell you how it works! I’m going to be wearing this one at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival this weekend. Evan got me this trip as a Christmas gift (we are foodies), but we will also be talking to the chefs about working with us on culinary cruises for SureCruise.
Other shirts we’ll be wearing this weekend say:
Ask me about sea + food
Sea the world
Eat the world
Of course, I’ll also be sharing that Spreadshirt is what enabled me to get these targeted messages across simply, unexpectedly, concretely. See… I have several of the points going for viral on this idea! :-)
February 20th, 2007
I’m someone who craves quick and thoughtful decisions. (We called this “think smart, move fast” at Intuit.) Balanced with that, I’ve always been a believer in stopping meetings and conversations that are not moving forward; sometimes you just need the break to change the way something is progressing. Lately, the number of meetings and conversations I’ve stopped for this reason is more than I want. (Not an extreme, just more than the “rarely” that I like.)
My general guideline for knowing when to stop is if I find myself repeating the same thing in a different way a fourth time, it is time. The key point is “in a different way”. Make sure you are listening to understand the other party well enough to change your response to answer their objections, or clarify your position. You should also listen to hear the differences in their explanations. Overall, if you are both just repeating yourself, then you likely won’t move forward at all.
So that’s how I approach it… do you have any rules that you use for when something isn’t moving forward and how you solve that?
For what’s on my shirt, I have a line that is appropriate for this story, but actually happened to me a week or so ago. I was paying for parking at an automated machine. I swiped my credit card, and on the screen it said:
Waiting for an answer
Here I sit now waiting for your answer… and looking forward to the conversations this t-shirt starts when I wear it. :-)
February 7th, 2007
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