by David
As I often do, I draw from the curious observer Seth Godin to see what he’s thinking about loyalty.
In particular, loyalty to your founding principles– whether you’re a non-profit, a startup business, a family business, or heck, a family.
His point is “It’s not disloyal to imagine a future that doesn’t include your founding precepts. It’s disloyal not to.”
Check it out here.
by David
Entrepreneurs can gain better cognitive function, execute on multi-tasking challenges more effectively, and solve problems like Sherlock Holmes.
All by a daily or weekly mindfulness practice of as little as 15 minutes a day… it may even build a defense against Alzhiemers later in life.
Check out this timely article in the New York Times on meditation and mindfulness.
by David
My clients will recognize my constant encouragement to set measurable objectives, and then utilize consistent process to apply metrics consciously and mindfully… for business goals and career goals.
Now there’s a book that helps define the benefit of this philosophy for your personal life, particularly if you are a busy and forward-driving executive or entrepreneur.
Clayton Christensen of the Harvard Business School wrote How Will You Measure Your Life? after a series of life events propelled him to share his point of view (an amazing and moving story).
He writes that his first clue that there was a problem with ensuring a happy and successful personal life was when he attended an HBS reunion to discover that nearly every member of his class had been spectacularly unsuccessful (and generally unhappy) in their personal and family lives, despite many accomplishments in their professional lives. Sound familiar?
I appreciated Christensen’s realization that his classmates were extraordinarily gifted, with both talent and opportunity, trained to cast sophisticated strategy into aggressive business plans, and execute accordingly. It wasn’t that they had planned to be unsuccessful in their personal lives, it was simply that they had no plan for their personal lives… and perhaps predictably, the results weren’t what they had assumed.
This realization is at the core of mindful and thoughtful coaching. Set measurable objectives, explicitly and thoughtfully, and then scrupulously measure progress against the objectives.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough for every entrepreneur and business person; get it and read it.
by David
Most experienced entrepreneurs will agree that they almost always took too long to terminate key employees when they don’t work out.
In World War II, the U.S. Army grew from 190,000 soldiers in 9 Divisions to 8,000,000 soldiers in 61 Divisions. General George Marshall is credited with instilling accountability in the officer ranks, including generals.
Below are excerpts from the Harvard Business Review article that I strongly recommend you acquire:
“As transformational leaders tend to do, Marshall began by focusing on people. He truly was ruthless in getting the right people in the right jobs—and the wrong people out of them. When Brigadier General Charles Bundel insisted that the army’s training manuals could not all be updated in three or four months and instead would require 18, Marshall twice asked him to reconsider that statement.
“It can’t be done,” Bundel repeated.
“I’m sorry, then you are relieved,” Marshall said.”
Can you imagine that in today’s army?
As you’ll learn in the article, the U.S. Army is no longer run that way (generals are almost never terminated, and certainly never swiftly when held accountable to a leadership goal).
Which way do you run your startup? With accountability? With swift action?
by David
Turns out that brainstorming doesn’t really work. As early as 1958, Yale University ran experiments that showed single participants came up with roughly twice as many creative solutions as groups “brainstorming” did… and over time the numerous follow-up studies have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone, and then pool their ideas.
Sobering, eh?
What’s really impressive is that even the term, let alone the concept, was the totally made-up, unscientific “tool” presented to the business community by a advertising agency man in his book published in 1948 (predating the Mad Men era).
But since we’re bound to be working on problems as groups, even in a tiny startup, I strongly recommend you read the whole article to get the rest of the story, and implications for current day brainstorming.
by David
I was recently schooled on the importance of the “First Follower” in entrepreneurial startups, and the class was fully resonant. In fact, I’m fairly embarrassed that I hadn’t realized the First Follower’s role before now. Because it is essential.
The key here is that there isn’t much difference between a crazed whackjob and a brave new leader, at least not at first glance, and sometimes not even with the benefit of another look. Is that guy crazy, or just inspired?
Let’s face it, we’ve all known for a long time that the #1 attribute of a entrepreneur is self-denial. After all, the entrepreneur is going to hear constantly that It cannot be done, can’t be funded, can’t be built (or built affordebly), can’t be brought to market, can’t be (easily) sold, etc. etc. Even the well-intended supporters can’t seem to stop themselves from pointing out the difficulties… and the entrepreneur has to ignore this input, has to practice self-denial and forge on ahead anyway.
But therein is the paradox. An entrepreneur that ignores hard facts, hard constraints, and good advice… does so at their peril. So how to balance the confidence to go on, no matter what, with the wisdom to listen and observe?
As we wonder about the individual on the whackjob-to-brilliance continuum, there is a test that almost everyone else is unconsciously waiting for: the First Follower.
This brief, 6 minute TED talk by Derek Sivers (founder of CD Baby, and quite a whackjob himself) you’ll see a vivid explanation of the concept: http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement.html
While we can lionize the courage of brave leaders, the most important test isn’t their idea (or themselves) but whether they can attract a First Follower. As Sivers explains, the First Follower models for everyone else, what they should do.
Because the esteemed leader isn’t actually modeling the desired behavior. He’s out in front, doing something crazy. The First Follower is literally and figuratively the model of what the rest of us need to do, the catalyst from crazy idea to brilliance.
Obviously, that isn’t sufficient for success, but it is absolutely necessary. And if you think about it, investors, journalists, candidate employees, and definitely customers are looking for it.
Think about it.
by David
Chapter 13 – Version 3
(An excerpt from my upcoming book)
While holding board meetings is not a high priority for most bootstrap entrepreneurs, I would argue that it should be on their priority list, and not at the bottom. If the company has investors, whether friends and family, casual and professional angels, or institutional investors, then I believe it is a requirement.
To be direct, you’re nuts if you don’t hold board meetings regularly, and hold them well. I’ll explain why in a moment.
But first, let’s clarify that we’re talking about early-stage companies, from pre-revenue to about a year of real revenue. If the company is beyond that early stage, then there is no option – they are well in the zone where it simply makes sense to do it, and do it right.
And we’re talking about the Board of Directors, not the Board of Advisors. To learn more about the difference, and how to use Board of Advisors see [future link to Board of Advisors chapter].
Why
There are at least five good reasons for holding board meetings from nearly the beginning:
1. In most states you have to hold at least one board meeting a year, as a regulatory requirement.
2. The officers report to the board, and regardless of the specifics of the company legal structure (LLC, S-Corp, C-Corp) without regular board meetings, there isn’t an effective chain of command. And without that, you don’t secure the benefit of legal rights and protections of a company. For instance, key decisions such as taking on office lease obligations or providing stock to early employees can be ratified and approved by the board, which formally and legally shares the risk associated with those decisions. A sole founder without a board is a founder who is truly alone, legally.
3. Everyone needs a boss, even the independent entrepreneur on a quest. Since the founder will have a shareholders or customers or a Board eventually, why not start early and grow into it?
4. It is rare that one individual can hold objectivity, so do yourself a favor and instill a structure that at least has the possibility of providing objectivity.
5. Perhaps most important of all, like any group, it takes a while for the group dynamics and culture to evolve, and your board will be more effective and helpful after that initial period — in my experience, about six months.
We’ll talk more about how to build a board, and care for it, elsewhere [future link: Building Your Board chapter].
Schedule of Board Meetings
Most early-stage companies will schedule monthly board meetings, because frankly they are moving so quickly that there is significant new progress, and issues related to that rapid movement, every 4-5 weeks. If you can handle that, it is a good frequency for the founder.
But given other distractions, and even potential opportunity cost, as well as Directors that travel, every other month may be more realistic.
But above all, make a schedule, and stick to it. Meeting regularly is more important than meeting frequently. It helps you and your team to get into a routine of preparation, an enjoyable (and necessary) break from the constant opportunity interruptions most startups have to handle every day and week (and sometimes, every hour). The periodic pause, reflect, prepare and present process of the board meeting is most valuable if the period is constant and regular — every 4 weeks, every 8 weeks, whatever works for you and your Directors.
Meeting By Phone
Many companies make it the norm because of the cost of face to face meetings; and it is often enables a meeting to occur despite international travel schedules. Frankly, emergency board meetings (more on those in a moment) will often by by phone, due to prior commitments of the participants.
If you do adopt a practice of regular by-phone board meetings, then I strongly recommend that you vary that schedule, perhaps every other meeting is face to face, or every third meeting. Of course a distributed team works better when it gets the human face to face experience.
Schedule Logistics
It may seem like a detail, but a vital component of the board meeting is the informal time before the meeting, especially if meeting face to face. So when plotting out the schedule, and requesting commitments from your team and your Directors for the meeting, don’t forget this nuance. In fact, make it part of the culture of your board.
Dinner the night before is ideal, in my experience, but your culture may involve other methods — customer visits, product demos with the development team, even leisure activities (um, I mean “team building” activities). Anything that provides the “air space” for informal interactions between board members and yourself.
More about informal time in a moment.
Material Logitistics
Interviews with experienced board members (and new board members) reveal one source of constant frustration: materials delivered at the last minute, which forces the participant to either try to absorb the information as the meeting is unfolding, or wing it without the material. Obviously, you’re not getting the most out of that participant.
And they’re feeling like they can’t do a good job. The profile of a typical board member is that they are the kind of person that finds it very important to do a good job. So don’t hamper them, no matter how busy you think you are with competing priorities. So how to do this?
Develop a schedule for the materials, even if you’re the only one involved (unlikely) and especially if others on your team are involved — this will always include your finance person, your sales lead (if it isn’t you), and potentially your legal counsel. So treat all of those folks helping you develop materials with respect, and get them a schedule like this:
1. Develop a list of needed materials 5 days before the meeting;
2. Be at final draft 3 days before;
3. One last pass for typos and mistakes 2 days before, and Hit SEND;
4. Confirm by email with each participant that they received the materials (goes wrong all the time);
Note the use of email to send the board materials (consider using DropBox or similar large file sharing site). Electronic everything isn’t just for your convenience, but for your board members. If they prefer paper, they’ll print it. They will appreciate the convenience of electronic copies (rather than a Fedex) and you need to save money.
If necessary, scan in original documents if you don’t have the electronic form.
Finally, print two or three paper copies of everything you sent electronically, and bring these packets to the meeting so that a participant with a computer problem isn’t dead in the water.
Emotional Content
Students of mine will not be surprised to learn that I view the Board Meeting as primarily a conduit for emotional content, not distribution of logical, analytic material and forum for judiciary-like decisions. Indeed, business is about people, and between people, and people are emotional.
Keeping that in mind,
[to be continued]
by David
There will be much said in the coming days from technology industry people far more articulate than me, with valuable insights and first-hand experience, regarding the passing of “Steve”. I’ll be interested in what they have to say, as it will be better than me. And since I’ve been using the products since the Apple-II and the Lisa, I’ll be eager to read them. But for tonight:
Someone once mentioned to me that Seattle was the only place they’d ever been where prestigious (and rich) business leaders were casually referred to by their first names, by people who had never worked with them. “Steve”, “Bill”, and “Paul”.
I had to agree with their observation. And add this: “Larry” in the Valley will never be as recognizable as “Steve”, and that habit started before “Bill”. I know this, because I went to high school in the Valley, with Apple employee #17 (yes, he was in high school too at the time, and he would give me a ride from school to Apple, and I’d walk home from there). I’ve been keenly aware of Woz and Steve since then.
I didn’t even like him, but I admired him. And followed him.
Andy Grove was and is a great leader, and I kneel at the feet of Gordon Moore whom I had the honor of “working with” (I’m exaggerating my role) more than once. But Steve, well, Steve I could relate to. He wasn’t like me, but I thought maybe I was like him.
Dropped out of Reed College, check. Cultivated geeks more capable than himself, check. Started a company working the Net 30 financing method, check. Embraced UNIX before most knew what it was, check. Curious about everything and anything, check.
After that, it gets pretty different. Billions of dollars different, but other things too, many of which offend me still, decisions he made and people he screwed. I hope, not what I would have done, given his resources. And of course, he has awesome design (and I have none).
But I can’t deny it. He was not just figuratively, but literally, an inspiration. Thank you.
by David
The always articulate and insightful Atul Gawande explains in the New Yorker magazine how coaching might improve almost anyone, not just athletes and singers… he’s a surgeon, and he got a coach, and improved.
Fascinating: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/03/111003fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all
by David
Chapter 2
(From my upcoming book)
You’ve probably heard how fantastic coaches can be, and how they can truly leverage your commitment and investment. You’re wondering if that’s really true, and if it is, how do you choose one? And you may be wondering if the expense is worth it.
In general, coaching in almost any discipline or sport is “worth” it because the one-on-one attention can be so productive. It is scarcely imaginable that a sports team could exist, let alone consistently win, without a leader with more experience than the players, the benefit of a “big picture” perspective, possession of a literal or figurative book of strategy, and the objectivity inherent in standing on the sidelines. While there are exceptions to this rule, where the coach is also one of the players, the weighty load of leadership combined with sheer scale quickly pushes “player/coaches” exclusively into the coaching role — successful company officers in the military are continually promoted to roles away from the sharp end of the spear. There is a long tradition of successful performance of individuals counseled and aided by effective coaches.
My First Coach
While both of my parents seem to have had the “math gene”, I credit my Uncle Stephen (an honorary title) for my achievements in math, high school Advanced Placement status, and a lifelong comfort with numbers and calculation. He was my one-on-one tutor at the end of fifth grade.
Freed from the constraints of other students and a regulated pace, we quickly covered the necessary ground of my delinquency — to my parent’s horror I had somehow avoided learning my multiplication tables, and thus the recruitment of Uncle Stephen, a math professor from a university in Budapest, recently fled to the U.S.. Within weeks, we were covering elementary algebra, and then to my delight, moving on to geometry and base number systems other than 10, and so on. Late into high school I would suddenly realize in class that I already had covered the material with Uncle Stephen, 5 to 6 years earlier. What a gift.
If I have a profound regret in my 30 year career, it is my relatively late (and weak) adoption of mentors and coaches along the way. Despite the deep lesson of Uncle Stephen, I made it a regular practice to go it alone, to tough it out, to prove to myself (and my parents, and others) that I “could do it myself.” It wasn’t just that I had something to prove, it was a source of comfort and reassurance to myself that I was worthy, valid, and capable. Even today, I value self-reliance and competence among the highest accomplishments one can achieve. And it isn’t any coincidence that this is a measure that one can take of one’s self — external objectivity doesn’t seem necessary. One can be self-reliant in measuring one’s self-reliance!
See where this is going?
Many, if not most, of the entrepreneurs I have met in the hundreds of startup companies that have contacted me for investment, endorsement, and assistance fit this profile. They are confident, armored with thick skin, and ready to prove themselves. And perhaps too ready to prove that they can do it without help.
What’s Important About Your Coach
As with any close working relationship, the first requirement is communication. You’re going to want someone you feel comfortable talking to, and what that really means is that from your first interaction with a prospective coach, you should feel like you are heard.
I mean “heard” in the fullest sense of the concept — pauses where they listen, questions that clarify and confirm what they thought they heard you say (so that they can fine-tune what they heard), and the hard-to-describe sense that they “get it” about what you just said. The style and specific tactics for achieving this will vary from coach to coach, but the results are easy to feel. You are heard.
This isn’t just because it feels good to be heard (it does). It is essential that they get your perspective, because they can’t help you achieve your goals unless they can hear you describe them. And this isn’t just a one time deal — your goals will probably evolve, and certainly your situation will evolve.
By the way, their ability to “get what you’re saying” should be relatively instantaneous. Their ability to “get you” and understand who you are, and where you are coming from, well that might take a while.
If you have any doubts about the listening abilities of your prospective coach (or your current coach!) then it isn’t a good match.
Shared Values
As we will discuss in another chapter, I’ve found that we’ve all developed coping strategies for getting along with other people. Scientists have worked to quantify this, and better understand this, but to summarize their results — entrepreneurs are generally more successful when they have a highly defined “EQ”, emotional intelligence. In contrast to I.Q., the ability to reason, use metaphors, and solve problems, EQ can be broadly defined as relating well to other people and communicating effectively with a broad spectrum of personality types. For many experienced business people, it is no surprise that EQ is an indicator of success in business, particularly in new ventures.
Yet if you benefit from this advantageous attribute, it can undermine your choice of a coach. In other words, just because you can get along with nearly anyone, don’t use that low hurdle in evaluating the fit of your prospective coach to your style of interaction. Raise the bar, and seek a coach with whom you have shared values.
The coach-client relationship is most effective when it is intimate, in the sense that any subject, problem, or issue is within bounds. Even extroverts may not share everything they feel, fear or hope for with their friends and colleagues. Discussing fears and goals are part of the coaching process, but you’re just not going to get your full value unless you disclose them. And you’re unlikely to do that with someone you can “get along with” but with which you share few values.
How do you determine your values, and your prospective coach’s values?
[to be continued]