Warriors

If you are a Warrior in the workplace, you care more about getting things done than your popularity level in the company.  But unfortunately, there are seldom enough Warriors in the workplace, and a high percentage of non-Warrior managers prefer to “run a community” as opposed to “run a business”. 

Of course, there are exceptions –  ”community companies” that operate efficiently, but they are almost always small, frequently family-run organizations that have made the choice for a variety of different reasons.  A high performance company must operate like a company.

In a community, everyone has their say.  Decisions are made by consensus, and the community leaders are dependent on the community members to maintain their status, so they are careful to be inclusive and not offend anyone.  Community members are typically only ejected from the community for really heinous behaviour.  Community leaders will often choose not to make the tough choices for fear of alienating the community. 

A successful business almost never operates this way.  Decisions in a business are made by Warriors or teams of Warriors and trusted advisors, and are based on what is best for the business, not what would make them the most popular with the employees.  Managing by consensus or by popularity contest does not work in a business.  Certainly a successful business should have an industry-appropriate culture that fosters talent, and encourages success and innovation, but maintaining that kind of culture also requires tough standards. Good managers understand that they can’t be friends with everyone in their department, and holding people to standards (and firing those that can’t perform) is their duty as the manager.  Otherwise they foster mediocrity, which threatens the entire company.

Communities are great places to live, but I would not want to work there.

I’m pleased to welcome back our favorite guest blogger, Ray Link.  Since Ray is originally a “Florida Republican”,  I suspect we have disagreed about previous elections, the value of a golf tan, bass versus trout fishing, and other crucial issues.

But Ray is also a very good businessman experienced in assessing talent, and his approach towards this election makes a lot of sense.

Electing a President is like hiring a CEO

By Ray Link

What is the election of the President of the United States similar too?  To me it is simple: we are hiring the CEO of our country with a guaranteed four year package with lots of perks.  Since we cannot fire him for four years, we must do our best to make an informed choice.   If you look at it as hiring a CEO of a very large international corporation the process is easier to understand and judge.  It also eliminates a lot of the “political garbage” associated with the existing process and forces one to look at what really matters.

Years ago I was fortunate to have been a chief financial officer at different times under two very strong and very smart CEO’s.  Both hired me as their CFO yet I did not have the ideal experience to be the CFO of their company.  Both said that they valued talent and chemistry over experience and that many people who have 20 or more years of experience have in fact 1 year of experience replicated 20 times.  They both believed that if you hire smart, energetic people they will “figure it out” and do well over time.  These CEO’s looked at the total package which includes academic credentials, communication skills, decision making skills, ability to cope with change, demonstrated leadership and relevant experience.

Let’s take that view of the presidential election where we have John McCain, age 72,  with 21 years of Senate experience, a war veteran, and a graduate of the Naval academy versus Barack Obama, age 47, with 4 years Senate experience, no military experience and a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School.  Which person would be hired to run a major international corporation?  [click to continue...]

One of the toughest things about managing a business is judging just how tough to be!  It’s easy to be “too easy” – avoid conflict, and ultimately build a mediocre operation because you fail to make the tough choices.  Often managers swing the opposite way, becoming tyrants in the workplace, and building a dissatisfied team that hates the workplace, and accordingly also underperforms.

Today I heard an interesting philosophy that I tend to agree with. “Be ruthless about your business, and gracious about your delivery”.

Entrepreneurs are typically micro-managers.  They believe nobody can do the job better than they can, and accordingly they often control every aspect of their organization to create their ideal vision for the company. And often that is when an entrepreneur is faced with a decision.  They can continue to micro-manage, which typically severely inhibits growth, but allows them control and sustains the vision.  Or, they can loosen the reins, hire really smart people that have diverse talents (hopefully talents the entrepreneur does not possess), give up some control, and try to guide the company to even bigger heights than they imagined.

There are pros and cons and risks to each approach.  But the one path that seldom works is straddling the two approaches.  You can’t bring in talented employees with the promise that they will be integral in growing the company, and then not allow them the freedom to do their jobs.

The entrepreneur that makes this jump successfully is self-confident enough to let talented individuals move the company to new heights, but also smart enough to recognize when they have made a bad hire that ultimately threatens the organization.

You would assume that any competent manager would always hire the most qualified and experienced person for the job.  But I have often observed that even very good managers sometimes “hire down” as opposed to “hire up”.  They pick a minimally-qualified applicant over much better candidates. Perhaps it is sometimes subconscious – they inately fear choosing a candidate that might be able to replace them.  Or it is more indicative of a need to control – a weaker employee is easier to control.

In any case, it is bad for the organization, and ultimately bad for the manager.  A great manager does not fear hiring someone more talented than they are.  They realize it will make their life easier, improve performance for the organization, reflect well on them with upper management (unless they are so completely incompetent that they need to go anyway), and ultimately will allow them to move up in the company.

Great managers always hire with an eye towards finding a candidate that can replace them – so they can elevate to new heights in the company, knowing they have a hand-picked talented team to support them.

I was having dinner the other night with my friend Ray Link – a very smart guy that understands numbers. Ray mentioned he had just completed an analysis of investing in the stock market over the past decade compared to taking the safe route of parking your cash in a money market. After looking at the data, I asked Ray to be my first “guest blog”, as his numbers are pretty compelling. Now to put things in perspective, I am an ardent believer in dollar cost averaging and taking the long approach to investing. If you have the proper time horizon, asset allocation, and discipline, I would always advocate that the market can provide the best return. But Ray’s analysis clearly shows the market risk at shorter time horizons – even though many might not consider ten years a short term investment. Here are Ray’s conclusions in his own words. [click to continue...]

My good friend Jonathan Sills passed along an interesting list of “Common Mental Mistakes” that I think we can all relate to. The list was originally developed by Whitney Tilson, and it occurred to me that I see many of these mistakes occur in my own business and among friends and clients on an almost daily basis -

Common Mental Mistakes

1. Overconfidence
2. Projecting the immediate past into the distant future
3. Herd-like behavior (social proof), driven by a desire to be part of the crowd or an assumption that the crowd is omniscient
4. Misunderstanding randomness; seeing patterns that don’t exist
5. Commitment and consistency bias [click to continue...]

Over the years I have conducted dozens – maybe even hundreds – of yearly performance reviews of employees. Typically when a review goes badly, it is because an employee makes one or more of the following mistakes:

1. Over-rate yourself. On our reviews we utilize a 1 to 5 ranking system (5 being the best) for an employee to rank their performance over the previous year. The employee does their self-ranking first – turns the review in to their manager – and the manager puts in their ranking. Occasionally I will have an employee give themselves a perfect score – all fives. I would not rate myself with all fives – and I have never had an employee perfect in every facet of their job. I would love to have someone like this working for me – and pray for the day that I get a solid fiver – but I suspect it may never happen. The employee that gives themselves all fives is almost always a “soft three or four” on my ranking, and of course their inflated self-opinion always gives me great concern. If they are deluded about their job performance it usually indicates even bigger issues. We all have areas we can improve in – and identifying those areas with a plan for improvement will usually impress your boss and make the review go much better. [click to continue...]

I am a big fan of Cesar Millan, also known as “The Dog Whisperer” on his hit television show and books. Cesar’s personal story is a true Warrior tale – the classic American story of an immigrant that comes to our country and becomes famous and successful via his own hard work and talent.

I first began to follow Cesar when I was seeking help in training my own dog. And as I learned more about his philosophy, I realized how it paralleled my own beliefs about people and business. Cesar often speaks about the pack leader. He explains that dogs need and crave a pack leader, and to have a satisfying and fulfilling relationship with your dog you need to be in control. Once I understood this I began to see Cesar’s teachings in action. An ill-behaved and wild dog is almost always accompanied by a meek owner that is unwilling to “lead his pack”, thereby allowing the dog to take them both into a relationship they can’t enjoy.

And I see this same scenario often played out in business. Successful companies require a Warrior to set the standards and guide the company. While a good business leader carefully plans and analyzes, and consults the essential people around them, they don’t manage by consensus or let the organization lead them. They take responsibility for the decisions they make – good or bad.

Great dogs have great pack leaders. Great companies do too – Warriors that often do the sometimes difficult job to lead the organization.

If you have read much of this blog, you know I am an unabashed critic of all things concerning air travel.  But today I am not going to specifically whine about the complete incompetence and blatant silliness of airport security, the incredibly dangerous management of our skies, or the sorry anti-customer state of most American airlines.  We’ll certainly cover that ad nauseum some other time – most likely when I crawl off a flight that arrives home twelve hours late.  I tend to get testy when I am forced to sit on a tarmac for half a day because the airline booked ten flights to arrive at a gate at the same time – stewing in the same air 200 people breath – while angry flight attendants keep me strapped in an uncomfortable filthy seat and stuff salty peanuts down my throat as if they were processing veal.

However, when checking in at the Delta counter at JFK on my last trip I encountered a prime example of a either a Worker making a quick transition into Whiner world – and/or someone missing a prime opportunity to shine.  When my wife and I arrived at the Delta counter it was pure pandemonium.  There were no signs telling people what to do, and some misguided Delta employee was apparently sending people to the wrong counter.  Passengers were confused, milling around, looking for direction.  Instead of helping their valued customers, one of the Delta employees behind the counter began rudely screaming at people, “this is first class only, you need to go to another counter if you are not first class”.  She started to admonish me when I approached her – until I explained I was in first class and at the right counter. “Why don’t you either post a sign right there so people know what to do, or better yet post someone there to help people.  It would be a lot nice than just screaming at people”, I suggested. “Hey, I don’t run this place.  I have no power around here.  Why don’t you take it up with the manager”, she rudely replied.

Which is actually something I would have done if I wasn’t in a hurry, but since I was running for a flight I suggested she should perhaps take it up with her manager.  “Your customers would really appreciate it”, I commented.  “You can see the problem.  Make some suggestions as to how to fix it.”

“Nobody listens to me around here”, she complained.  “I don’t have any power here.  They could care less what I say.”

Now, perhaps the JFK Delta first class counter is run by the worst manager in the aviation world, but I doubt it.  People that blame their managers for their own poor work performance are deluded Whiners, and they miss the potential opportunity to advance. A company may not give you the tools, or manage the operation in a way that allows you to do the best job possible, but companies don’t force you to be rude to customers or act with personal incompetence.  That is your choice.  If your workplace is so awful that it turns you into an angry screaming maniac, then perhaps it is either time to find a new job, or take the Warrior’s mentality and try to improve the workplace by taking over.  Having a bad manager is frustrating, but it also might signal opportunity for you.  After managing people for twenty five years, I can tell you that I appreciate well-thought out solutions to business problems, and I notice employees that take the time and effort to think through how the company might be improved.  And when I promote people – those are the first employees I look at.