As a Founder, How do you Build your Startup Team?

We have been very strategic in assembling our startup team and it all starts with your cofounder. I have written an answer to previous question about what I was looking for in a cofounder, but in short I wanted someone that had complimentary set of skills and strengths but the same level of commitment that I did to the vision and our partnership. These two factors carry over to the rest of the team as well.

Additionally, we knew there were a few key functional roles (positions) that we would need to support clients and future clients through their entire lifecycle using our product, which included:

• Marketing
• Sales
• Customer Success
• Product (engineering)

We spent some dedicated time thinking not just about what we needed in these roles at that early stage but also about how the roles would evolve. We needed to define the competencies and skills for day 1, but also for day 360 and year 3.

Understanding how the role was likely to evolve allowed us to not only find someone for today, but someone that was most likely able to evolve as the demands of the business dictated new approaches. We were also able to communicate this to candidates and get their commitment that it was something that would still interest them as the role evolved.

This also highlighted the cultural values that we needed from our employees. Curious people that had a growth mindset and were persistent at pushing through obstacles were a few of the factors that emerged for all the roles. I elaborate a little more on our approach to defining this in another answer I provided here.

To see the original question and answers on Quora click here.

Are Remote Teams Less Effective Than Onsite Teams?

Remote teams are not necessarily less effective than onsite teams, but there are unique challenges to managing or being in a remote team.

Before we talk about those unique challenges, it is important to point out that most research on remote workers seem to indicate that they are much more productive than workers coming to an office everyday. Here are a couple links to studies that point to that evidence:

To Raise Productivity, Let More Employees Work from Home

Are Remote Workers Happier And More Productive? New Survey Offers Answers

You can google more but an overwhelming amount of evidence points to greater levels of satisfaction and productivity of remote workers.

The downside or challenges of this stem from creating a common culture and creating a sense that you are part of a team. The isolation of working remote can be a challenge to building relationships that are critical to building team trust and establishing a commitment to the larger mission of the team / organization.

Communication technology (Slack, MS Teams, Skype and Zoom) can help keep the flow of communication working well but oftentimes establishing relationships with others occurs in the day to day interactions had around the proverbial water cooler. It is face to face or across the cube that you learn about the unique challenges that people are faced with on a day to day basis in their personal lives or the meaningful relationships they have outside of work. This helps build empathy and understanding that working remote doesn’t often afford.

To see the original Quora question and answer you can click here.

To see more about how Cloverleaf can help you build empathy, understanding and trust in remote teams click here.

What is the Ideal Company Culture?

The ideal company culture is the one that allows you to execute your strategy in an effective way.

I know that is a bit of a cop out, but the reality is there is no one ideal company culture and each culture should be the right mix for the people that in your organization and is built to allow your people to do the best work they were hired to do.

This means each organization should have a different culture. After all, culture is created by people and every organization is made up of a different set of people. We founded Cloverleaf on the premise that culture is created by the collection of individuals that are a part of the organization. And at the most basic level a team has its own unique culture. This is why even in large, established organizations you will find many subcultures exist across the organization. IT and Sales often have completely different cultures inside the same organization.

Oftentimes I see teams or organizations try and emulate other cultures. This happens frequently with organizations in the midwest that try and create “startup culture” by adding beer kegs and ping pong tables. But the reality is it is the mix of day to day to motivators that influence decisions that often have the biggest influence on culture.

For example, a manager that says quality is most important but when confronted with production targets places efficiency over small decisions that contribute to a quality process / product. Employees notice these subtle shifts or incongruence and it will impact morale and ultimately culture.

Oftentimes organizational culture is heavily influenced by the founders and reinforced with hiring practices. When we started Cloverleaf we invested time early to identify values we wanted in the people we hired. After all, these values are key factors in creating the culture you want. We looked at ourselves and the characteristics that had been instrumental in getting us to key milestones as an early stage startup and identified the following values and embedded them in hiring practices to ensure we hired people that could reinforce this on a day to day basis:

• Relationships Matter - We are interdependent.
• Authenticity - the whole person matters.
• Optimistic Persistence
• Bring delight to work.
• Curiosity for growth
• Candor

You can read the original Quora post here. 

Are Your Coworkers Distracting or Helpful?

Yes. They are both helpful and distracting.

The idea of building relationships is that there has to be a balance between what I get from someone and what I give to someone and that middle ground is where trust and shared experiences lie. The cost of relationships is a loss of personal time and sometimes choice, but we often agree it is worth it in the long run.

In a work context this balance is also important. You want to accomplish great things but you need others to do so. What comes with that is distraction is an opportunity to leverage your coworkers experience, skill, knowledge and capabilities to create something better than you can do on your own.

If you were to plot each of these interactions along an axis (see chart below) each of them would lie somewhere along a line where some interactions were more distracting than productive and vice versa but more often than not a good work relationship allows each of you to be more productive than distracting and finding this balance is key.

Also, what can masquerade as distraction can also be the creative process. Who knows how many of those conversations become the next product or process breakthrough? I find that oftentimes what starts out as a disruptive conversation can lead to tips on how to be more productive with my own time. Small ways to use the technology or tools that I use each day a bit more productively.

Bottom line, learn to embrace a little of the distracting for the hope of being more productive and more satisfied with your work. Most research indicates that strong relationships at work are a key to being engaged in your work.

To see the original post on Quora click here.

What factors are most likely to change when a company grows very rapidly?

One of the biggest changes that happens with companies that grow rapidly is a sense of loss of control of the company culture. This happens because of a few key areas:

1. New people are added to the team frequently. For those employees that were there in the early days they feel a sense of loss of control. They may ask themselves questions about these new employees such as ‘what is their role?’ These people also don’t typically have the history and the context on why some things are the way they are at the company, which is why onboarding new employees effectively and accumulating organizational knowledge in a way that tells a story for new employees is increasingly important.
2. New strategies aren’t as widely known. In the early days any shift in strategy or new process / approach is often widely known because it is a small team that can be involved in that process. However, as the team grows larger and you add layers of management early hires lose proximity to decision making and an understanding of new strategies.
3. New locations or remote workers. As the company grows larger geographic proximity can start to become a barrier. New locations or remote workers mean there are more people who may not be connected to day to day decision making or have opportunities to build relationships with each other. This can cause the levels of camaraderie or trust to erode.
4. More process and control. Bigger organizations also need more process and control to make sure that information moves up and down and throughout the organization and that decisions are aligned with organizational strategy. Also, as organizations get larger there is more to lose and risk management becomes more important. This can cause less autonomy and more people that need to be involved with decision making.

These are just a few of the ways that fast growing companies can change, and not always for the better in the eyes of employees that feel a sense of loss for the changing culture.

See the original question & answer on Quora

How can a small business compete with a much larger one?

In short, be nimble and faster.

As a small business you have something the big co’s don’t have - Nothing to Lose. This makes you dangerous.

The bigger a company gets the more it has to lose and the more their decision making is based on protecting what they have and less about capturing new ground. Often, these companies lose track of what is even happening in the larger environment because they build their sales processes, operational control functions, marketing approaches, etc around keeping others from taking what they have and completely lose track of or unable to go after other opportunities.

But this isn’t your problem. You can be focused and try things the others would never be able to try.

One of my favorite examples of this is the early days of AirBNB. As a two-sided marketplace they needed supply of great homes / apartments to rent. They got so desperate to build their supply that they literally walked around NYC knocking on doors with a professional photographer to enlist people to rent some part of their home to complete strangers. And it worked. Before long they were growing fast, reached $1B in market valuation (unicorn status) and in just a few short years had passed Marriott in market valuation.

This fearless nature allowed them to try things they never could have done on their own and it paid off handsomely.

You can read more about how to fully capture this spirit in my book Corporate Bravery

See the original post at Quora.

What CEO Pay Says About Your Culture

This week I was reminded of Chapter 4 on Trust in my book Corporate Bravery when I saw two very disappointing news stories in the headlines.

While the two headlines may seemingly be unrelated that couldn't be more about the same issue - a culture of trust in business organizations. Or sadly, what has become a culture of mistrust.

The first story was the incredible arrogance of Mylan, the company that manufactures and has the patent for the Epipen, the shot used to treat severe and life threatening allergic reactions. While the news story of its apparent accelerating price increases has been bubbling to the surface for some time, it hit a crescendo this week when the CEO of Mylan Heather Bresch appeared on CNBC to answer questions.

What happened next was, well just see for yourself...

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000545943

One of the things Heather was confronted with in the interview was her sizable pay increase to over $18 million. To which, like most of the other questions, she changed the subject and failed to answer the questions.

My feelings regarding the entire Mylan saga was punctuated by a study released this week by Glassdoor, the online recruiting site that allows employees (and former sometimes disgruntled employees) to rate their employers. In the study they found that, "No matter how you look at the data, we found a negative link between CEO pay and CEO approval ratings."

The report continues by saying,

"Then, Glassdoor's researchers controlled for other factors, such as the company's financial performance, CEO demographics and how the culture was rated by employees on Glassdoor. After doing so, researchers still saw a clear link between the lowest approval ratings and the highest-paid leaders, though the effect was lessened in companies that also had a good corporate culture."

And it all goes back to trust and CEO pay is a major barometer for the kind of trust being established all the way down to the lowest levels of the organization.

In addition to mistrust, I document in Corporate Bravery how this disproportionate increases in pay packages at the top also cause fear based decision making that is clouded by protecting the growing pay they are receiving. "When focused on protecting what they have or what they can continue to accumulate, executives are far less likely to make good, bold decisions that create lasting, long-term value for the organization."

The same thing appears to be happening at Mylan as Heather and the executive team has clearly lost focus on the long-term impacts of their ability to raise prices past a point the public is willing to tolerate.

The Bravery of IKEA

This weekend I returned two Ikea chest of drawers, which could have been any weekend for any family. But this trip warranted a blog post on the bravery of Ikea.

As you may have heard about in the news, Ikea is voluntarily recalling many of the chest of drawers produced since 2002 because of the risk of tipping over and harming or even killing children.

Safety recalls are a regular occurrence in the retail / consumer products world so why is this one so special? It really comes down to the unprecedented response by Ikea on the issue.

Most people recognize that this isn't an issue that is specific to Ikea, but haunts much of the furniture industry. And despite many efforts to educate consumers and provide anchoring brackets with their products they went to unprecedented lengths to keep additional children from harm.

Included in the options provided to consumers were the following:

• Free wall anchoring kit
• Free installation of the wall anchoring kit on existing products
• Free pickup of existing Ikea products
• Full refund without receipt with clearly identifiable products (requires a bar code still be attached)
• $50 in-store credit for non-marked products

I received $265 in cash for the two products, both of which had been damaged over time by my young children.

As I remarked to the Ikea associate during my return process, this is the first recall or class action type situation where consumers actually won. Typically many attorneys get involved and consumers only see a fraction of the sum paid out by the company.


A fearful company would have continued to offer the anchoring kits and refused to do anything which could have offered a hint of responsibility for the deaths but Ikea went above and beyond the call of duty and set a new standard for how to handle product recalls. They truly put consumer safety above the bottom line. But I would say they still put the long-term bottom line first as they continue to acquire and retain satisfied customers that are loyal and will continue to buy their products.

The Nestle Noodle Example

At Corporate Bravery we highlight examples of bravery but we also highlight epic examples of fear-based failures. Lost in the details of major corporate blunders is the role that fear played in management decisions and how the culture of fear or elements of a fear-based culture contribute to major losses.

Fortune magazine's May 2016 provides one such example. While we don't typically think noodles when we think Nestle, the international conglomerate is in a lot of food lines beyond chocolate and sweet confections.

The Fortune article dives into the problems surrounding their Maggi line of Ramen Noodles sold in India and issues it had with the Indian version of the FDA. If I could sum the problems up in a few words I say that pride, dismissiveness and fear created a host of problems.

In the words of the Fortune author, "a violation punishable with a fine of up to $4,500 - had Nestle paid it, the story might have ended there." But they didn't and after a series of blunders ended up costing the company 1/2 billion dollars.

Nestle's culture was to avoid using the press because of fear resulting from a past experience. As the story states, "Chalk it up to a natural Swiss reserve, but Nestle's aloofness also has to do with the long shadow cast by the company's notorious baby formula scandal." A scandal from 1974 had informed the company approach some 40+ years later. The author continues by saying "Nestle executives lost their appetite for broad public engagement. It has taken a generation to overcome this feeling."

This aversion to engaging the press caused many problems with public perception.

"Why wasn't Nestle more proactive? Partly because , as a general rule, the Nestle way is to deal with authorities directly rather than through the press. To outsiders, Nestle appeared paralyzed - or worse, guilty. Rumors spread in the hinterlands that Maggi contained glass particles - a mix-up due to the linguistic similarity of the words "lead" and "glass" in Hindi."

What followed was a succession of fear-based decisions that led them to fighting regulators in the legal system. This was based on words used in a statement by regulators that the product was "unsafe & hazardous for human consumption."

"They felt the phrase exposed them to legal action. Millions of people in India ate Maggi. What was to stop anyone who had health problems from blaming Nestle's noodles?"

To recap, at this point Nestle has violated several key tenants of a brave organization. This includes aversion to media engagement, use of the legal system as a weapon, uncooperative approach to regulators. That is 3 of the 8 fear factors we outline in the book Corporate Bravery.

Ultimately the issue would get swept up into a larger national debate in India about multinationals. The case went all the way to the nation's high court where they would side with Nestle but not before fear-based decision making led to the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in shareholder value, new competitors and a tarnished reputation among consumers.

Trump Feeds on Fear

"Fear is limiting. It is content with living small, constrained and underwhelmed. Fear doesn't accomplish. It defeats. Fear plays the short game. It masquerades as momentary success. But then, once it has infected your culture, it destroys you in the long run."

This is the quote from my book, Corporate Bravery, published last year. It was written for businesses and organizations to free themselves from negative cultures that create sub-par returns and are full of demoralized workers.

But a year later it could have been written for the Trump campaign and the man himself. I don't know the culture of his business organization. By many accounts there seems to be some success - there are even good people that work inside of Trump's many businesses. But that is the way it is for many cultures run by fear.

This is not, nor was it ever intended to be a political blog, website or think tank. But as I sit silently watching the theatrics and mud wrestling that has become the 2016 campaign I keep getting reminded of why I wrote Corporate Bravery.

Going back to the quote I started this post with, I want people to live lives that are not limited, small, constrained and underwhelming. I want people to have a long-term perspective, not satisfied with short-term victories at the expense of their future.

But this is exactly what Donald Trump offers as President. And by proxy I don't want this for the people of the United States.

Take this tweet for example:

Yes Trump is striking a chord with terrorism. He is also striking a chord with immigration because in both cases he is preying on American's greatest fears. His campaign slogan may be "Make America Great Again" but you can't make any organization or culture great by playing to its members' greatest fears.

What happened to real men presidents or presidential candidates that led with slogans like "The only thing to fear is fear itself"? Notice the massive shift that has happened to our culture in a few decades?

Despite the campaign slogans, Trump doesn't offer any real hope, only escalation, litigation and anger. When I think of the motivations behind Trump's rhetoric I am reminded of a recent quote from Seth Godin's newest book, "People in power have taken advantage of glitches in our personalities and errors in our instincts to create an environment where they profit and we come out behind."

While publicly he uses slogans such as "Make America Great Again" his entire history has been motivated by his own personal gain. I would challenge anyone reading this post to point out anything he has accomplished that has been for the greater good, yet suddenly his only motivation is to make America great again?

A recent article in Quartz discussed in more detail how Trump is tapping into these primal instincts.

These ancient instincts explain why so many are instinctively drawn to Trump, says Shenkman. Less educated voters are particularly vulnerable to Trump’s demagoguery, he says, as they have no alternative source of knowledge to counter their biological instincts. “His base is low-information voters and he’s just coming right out and saying it: ‘I love the poorly educated,’” he adds.

 One of the strongest instincts is tribalism, says Shenkman, as we instinctively favor those with shared ancestry:

"Since Donald Trump began his election in June, he’s been activating an ancient instinct in human brains, which is fear of the other. For many people, who lack other knowledge on which they can make their judgments about Mexican immigrants of Muslims coming into the United States, this winds up becoming a powerful trigger for their political beliefs."

It takes a brave leader to provide real solutions that considers the potential, far-reaching impacts. To rise above organizational fear factors and to sow seeds of hope instead of fear.

Lets revisit the eight fear factors as outlined in my book Corporate Bravery:
1. Mistrust
2. Squashing individuality
3. Politics
4. Competition
5. Regulation
6. Control
7. Media
8. Legal system

While regulation isn't exactly relevant to this discussion, Trump uses each of these as a weapon to move up the polls. A dysfunctional organization could exhibit a strong tendency toward three, but seven out of eight is a level of dysfunction that is unprecedented.

Going back to these primal instincts, we may not be able to just ignore them all together. But as the article points out,

Shenkman adds that we have the means, through culture and education, of countering our instincts. “We’re not slaves to our instincts,” says Shenkman. “We do have higher-order cognitive thinking.”

But we must all step back and ask what type of culture will we create by allowing these primal instincts to lead us toward a possible President Trump. I have seen the outcome from leaders like Trump and I am confident in saying - that is not a culture I want to raise my family in.

What Morgan Spurlock Can Teach Us About Brave Business

I recently watched this Ted Talk by Morgan Spurlock that is an oldie but a goodie (released in 2013). For those of you that may not be familiar with Morgan he came to fame with his documentaries the most famous of which is Super Size Me. He parlayed that success into a series on A&E entitled 30 Days in which he walked in other people's shoes to provide a perspective on issues that were controversial at the moment.

What I like so much about his Ted Talk is how he exposed the fearful decision making in the Advertising industry. But this isn't a hit piece on that industry and the same decision making processes and cultures exist in any industry and in most organizations.

One of my favorite moments in the talk involves a clip at the 10 minute mark where he is meeting with the Ban deodorant marketing execs and asks them what the one word they would use to describe Ban and there is silence. Then the first answer is superior technology... for deodorant!

Some of the takeaways from the talk include:
1. The brands that were obviously brave and took a risk with Spurlock's movie were ones that cut out the middle man (advertising agency) because they understood that they may not have the brand's best interests at mind. This is a theme covered in my book Corporate Bravery.
2. Spurlock's summation of what he experienced with trying to make the movie was, "When you train your employees to be risk averse, then you train your whole company to be reward challenged."
3. It is remarkable that EMC won the rights for his Ted Talk with just over $7K. A small sum for the millions of views that this clip has experienced.

Fearful Business Examples to End the Year

1. I recently read an article in Fast Company about the 4 Ways CEO's Accidentally Mess Up Company Culture. The article highlights four common actions that can begin creating a toxic culture including

• Micromanaging
• Being inconsistent 
• Outsource too much
• Don't embrace new employees

These aspects are all ways that coincidentally can create a culture of fear. When the author wrote the headline for 'mess up' the culture a typical by-product can be fear and it keeps employees from contributing their best work. To read more about how this can happen and its affects read my book entitled Corporate Bravery - available on Amazon.com

2. Another recent news story that has generated headlines is the upcoming paternity leave for Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook. More specifically, he announced that the upcoming birth of his first child would prompt him to take a leave and that he would be taking two months as a result.

The move was hailed as an example for other executives and employees to take the time for your family and overall it sounds like a brave example but when you look a little deeper at this example it has the potential of impacting culture in a negative way.

This potential negative impact isn't because Facebook is giving their employees additional benefits or because they are giving men an additional benefit but rather because of the context of this new benefit. If you read the story you will notice that the change to the policy occurred after or simultaneous to Zuckerberg's announcement of his intent to take two months. This indicates that the policy change only happened because it was real to Zuckerberg despite the fact that it had been a real issue to other working parents since the beginning of Facebook. A subtle nuance I know, but one that is likely understood by Facebook employees and just reiterates the divide between management.


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Lessons in Bravery from In the Heart of the Sea

You may have seen the following trailer for the upcoming move In the Heart of the Sea, about the whale ship Essex. If you haven't give it a look.



Most of you are probably familiar with the fictionalized story this move depicts known as Moby Dick, but the real story is more gripping and holds many important lessons for anyone in management.

I use these lessons as a through line for my book, Corporate Bravery. Its application to our subject matter is the role fear played in decision-making by the townspeople, the ship’s owners, and the ship’s crew.

Was the town afraid of losing its status, pressuring citizens to work where they weren’t equipped? Were the owners afraid of losing profits, making them rush the ship to sea? Was the crew afraid of coming back empty-handed, pushing them to take reckless risks? Beyond any single decision, many small decisions can create a culture of fear and negatively influence our ability to make the best decision in a crucial, potentially life-threatening (or profit-maximizing) situation.

Leadership, management styles, team political environments, the role of investors, and competition — these and other factors are explored in depth throughout Corporate Bravery along with some practical ways to rise above fear-based management and decision-making and become the bravest manager you can be.

Some of the critical leadership lessons that this story raises include:

• What unique combination of factors in your corporate culture could lead you down a route that feels safe only because it’s familiar? 
• Are you clinging to any broken and tattered whaling ships? 
• What imaginary fears might actually lead you into even greater dangers?

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GE's Sad Recruiting Campaign Lacks Bravery

I was listening to the radio this past when I heard a recruiting ad for one of the largest companies on planet earth - General Electric. This particular recruiting ad is part of a much broader campaign to recruit younger high tech workers into their company and for a full recap of the campaign I suggest you read this post from the blog Marn's Market.

Suffice it to say, I believe this campaign is a giant dud. The particular radio spot I heard was actually offensive to me - because it communicated something about the culture at GE and the people that this spot will undoubtedly attract.

In this particular radio spot that I heard a newly hired GE employee is talking with his girlfriend about an upcoming family gathering. The girlfriend proceeds to coach him about what to say about GE and what he is doing for them. She repeatedly suggest that he portray his new job as “working on a trendy app” and insists he leave out the “machines” and the “GE” part when they meet her parents that evening. In other words - at best misrepresent what he does and at worse lie about his job.

My guess is the only people this message resonates with are potential employees that don't have a strong sense of who they are, can be easily influenced (manipulated) to meet an outcome and lack integrity.

According to GE's website they have the following mission for their culture:

Our culture is about providing everyone who works here with opportunities to exercise their responsibility, integrity, and creativity while growing themselves, their careers, and our business.

The word integrity sticks out to me in this statement and appears to be opposed to the person I hear in the radio spots.

You may be wondering, 'why does it matter?' - because it is incredibly important to GE's future. I am guessing that GE is spending millions of dollars on this campaign because they are having difficulty attracting millennials. Anyone that has studied millennials or that is a millennial will tell you one of the things they value the most is authenticity. Neither of the people in the ad are authentic. If they can't be authentic with their own family their is no way they can be authentic in the GE culture.

Which is exactly the problem with most traditional large corporations. I write extensively about this in my book Corporate Bravery - available on Amazon.com and iTunes. In chapter 11, I talk about communications and how effective cultures (and hiring strategies) start with an alignment of values, people and communication (internal & external) - depicted by the graph below.

Brave companies are tightly aligned and fearful companies have little alignment between the three. Put another way, 

The totality of our communications is the external manifestation of who we are — and it’s bigger than just what we say. Throughout Corporate Bravery, we have talked often about core values and about how hiring and management practices should reinforce those core values. Any misalignment between these elements lets fear creep into your organizational culture.

Given this circumstance - how effective do you think this campaign will be for GE and what type of culture are they likely to create?


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Interesting Aspects of Bravery - Slack and Diversity Edition

The Corporate Bravery post for this week focuses on two interesting areas of thought around management concepts.

1. The first is a Harvard Business Review spotlight of a study on the results of companies led by CEO's with daughters. According to the researchers, of the 367 public companies where personal information could be identified for the current chief executives there was a strong correlation between  the social responsibility of those companies and the fact that the chief executive had a daughter.

You can see some of the aspects reviewed and the results were impressive for most of the areas reviewed. The strongest being a more diverse workforce and the lowest being human rights with even still a 1% improvement.

In Corporate Bravery we talk about the trust of leaders and having leadership that cares about the individuality of the team goes a long way toward building trust, eradicating a culture of fear and improves performance.

2. The second piece was a Time Magazine piece on the company Slack. For those of you not using slack, it is a team messaging app that is helping teams and entire organizations communicate more effectively and in real time. I find myself using it more with my startups and it has been helpful. 

The article mostly paints a picture of typical fast growing start-up culture. But some of the quotes from a recent company gathering brought to mind the question about how it is possible to keep a company moving toward a culture of bravery when so many new people are being added and ultimately shaping the culture of the startup every day.

The article concludes focusing on a plan that the founder, Butterfield, has to spread the wealth from an increasing valuation and ultimately an IPO or acquisition, to the rank and file. While ultimately not a cure all for culture it speaks to some core values that they are creating as a company.

Do you have any thoughts or experiences you would like to share around keeping your fast growing company's culture strong?   



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Corporate Bravery - Fearful Business Examples

We have been on hiatus for a few weeks while we launched our book - Corporate Bravery (now available on Amazon and iTunes). But we are back and this week we feature a few recent examples of fearful management.

1. First we begin with the slow death of Google+, although many will be quick to point out that Google+ hasn't been killed (yet), as documented by a Mashable article entitled "Inside the Failure of Google+"

I also want to point out that Google is typically a brave company (coming in at #2 on the Brave Rankings) but this was a clear example of a fearful manager talking a brave leader into a fearful decision.

I'm not going to ruin much about the article for you but this quote stood out to me and highlights the fear-based decision making that led to the birth of Google+:

"Vic was just this constant bug in Larry's ear: 'Facebook is going to kill us. Facebook is going to kill us,'" says a former Google executive. "I am pretty sure Vic managed to frighten Larry into action. And voila: Google+ was born."

2. There is a very cool example from Popular Science about ants and the biological example of how conservatism (often based out of fear) can keep organizations from meeting its full potential 

The article chronicles studies of ants and how they cooperate together to carry larger pieces of food for long (relative to the spatial sizes of ants) distances. It was partially due to the ants conformist mentality, but there was much to be learned about their group leadership and efficiency. Specifically, the group think of the group required that individual leader ants from outside the group get involved to re-direct them to the best, direct path until they lost track and then another leader ant would join the pack. The conclusion of scientists? In effect, says Feinerman, the larger groups were collectively too conservative, which prevented them from completing the task." Read the whole report, there is a very cool video of the scene to kill some time as well.

The Point of the Amazon NY Times Article

There has been a lot of conversation about the recent New York Times piece on Amazon.com. While there has been some negative backlash from Bezos and insiders at Amazon, it appears, based on other accounts that the author's perspective on the culture at Amazon is closer to reality than fiction.

But as this Fast Company article points out, why has this article about work culture in the tech industry created so much buzz? Isn't it true that Amazon's culture just mirrors that of silicon valley or other great technology centers in the United States?

For many in the business press it is seen as yet another example of a 'win at all costs' culture that typically drives disengagement and an unhappy workforce. Typically I would decry the kind of behavior and attitudes embodied in the Amazon culture. For example, take a look at this early quote in the article:

At Amazon, workers are encouraged to tear apart one another’s ideas in meetings, toil long and late (emails arrive past midnight, followed by text messages asking why they were not answered), and held to standards that the company boasts are “unreasonably high.” The internal phone directory instructs colleagues on how to send secret feedback to one another’s bosses. Employees say it is frequently used to sabotage others.

This is the kind of fear inducing behavior that creates corporate politics run amok - similar to what I discuss in this my Slideshare on corporate politics.

However, I have a different perspective on this particular story. Understand that I am not condoning this type of behavior or even the culture that has been created but it can make sense for a company like Amazon. Take a look at this quote from the story about the conflict that employees feel about the culture:

However, more than 100 current and former Amazonians described how they tried to reconcile the sometimes-punishing aspects of their workplace with what many called its thrilling power to create.

I contend that Amazon has actually done a wonderful job of creating alignment with the culture, hiring & people practices and the brand they are creating in the eyes of their customers.

In my forthcoming book, Corporate Bravery, I argue that one of the hallmarks of fearful vs brave organizations is alignment of these three aspects of culture.

According to the article Amazon has very clearly defined core values (of which they are quizzed and expected to be able to recite and they have a clearly aligned hiring process as shown in the following two quotes:

To be the best Amazonians they can be, they should be guided by the leadership principles, 14 rules inscribed on handy laminated cards. When quizzed days later, those with perfect scores earn a virtual award proclaiming, “I’m Peculiar” — the company’s proud phrase for overturning workplace conventions.

The process begins when Amazon’s legions of recruiters identify thousands of job prospects each year, who face extra screening by “bar raisers,” star employees and part-time interviewers charged with ensuring that only the best are hired.

Which leads to a process where employees begin to internalize the culture. According to one person interviewed for the article "she and other workers had no shortage of career options but said they had internalized Amazon’s priorities."
Again, I am not advocating Amazon's culture or the individual aspects of the culture that has made it what it is today. I am just saying that the article paints the picture of a company that has one of the most aligned core values, hiring practices and communications that I have ever seen.

Where Amazon runs into criticism (and the article chronicles), is in the moral / human cost of this culture.  If you could only have this type of alignment that values the employee as a human and recognizes their own individuality (coincidentally another fear factor chronicled in Corporate Bravery) then you have a great example of building a corporate culture.

What Nature Teaches Us About Fear & Microsoft Being Brave

In Chapter 13 of my forthcoming book Corporate Bravery we talk about Reprogramming the Core of your organization. I begin the chapter by using a human biological example of what this is like,

The body, in fact, is built for reprogramming, even down to the cellular level. Physically, reprogramming can come through workouts. Mentally, it can happen through education. Emotionally, it can come through relationships or therapy.

We’re also susceptible to environmental factors. Being infected by viruses and bacteria or suffering an injury can — and usually does — happen to everyone. But our bodies frequently withstand these external factors. That is why diet and exercise are so important. Daily disciplines that strengthen the core improve our survival, not to mention attitudes and sheer enjoyment of life.

There is a biological impact from protecting or keeping yourself from harm in small doses as it often results in larger reactions later on.

I introduce this as a lead-in to the latest example of this from an article in Quartz about how your gut feeling isn't just a metaphor. The article talked about a study in mice that simulated traumatic (fear inducing) events and using bacteria (in this case a tape worm) in the mice stomach prevented them from neurological shock that can often present itself in humans as neurological diseases such as MS. The article concludes: "This kind of effect is called “biome depletion,” where a lack of exposure to infections causes immune systems to overreact to infections later in life. Thus exposure to some microbes can help avoid such a response, and, in the case of the rats, help prevent memory loss." Yet another example where our desire to shield ourselves or others (children, employees, etc) from bad experiences creates more harm in the long run.

Microsoft Being Brave
The second article that points to how to be brave in the face of possible fearful situations comes from Microsoft of all people.

I am hesitant to hail this as a victory for bravery because every time there is a new major release of Windows they say they are doing it differently and it still ends up being the monstrosity that Windows applications become.

The story of Microsoft's development of Windows 10 marks a big departure from their traditional approach - and not just because they are offering free upgrades.

The biggest change is their change in approach. Take a look at how things were done in previous iterations from a Microsoft exec in charge of the development process.

"During the days of Vista, Microsoft’s lawyers ended up at my doorstep because I dared to write about prerelease versions of Windows. And while Windows 8 had a few public previews, it was largely developed with little consideration to feedback. Windows 8 shipped despite user concerns about fullscreen apps and a lack of attention to keyboard and mouse users. Microsoft’s management seemed to spend more time explaining every new feature in sprawling, technical blog posts instead of understanding why users hated the changes."

Contrast the fear and legal overlording to the approach that they are taking with the current development:

Microsoft now solicits feedback directly from users in a very public way: over the past nine months, the company has been testing Windows 10 with 5 million "Windows Insiders." Anyone can sign up to test, and the results of Microsoft’s work will go on display today as Windows 10 launches to millions of people around the world. 

Initially, "there was a lot of hand-wringing around what was that going to be like and were people going to form opinions too early," explains Gabe Aul, engineering general manager for Microsoft’s operating systems group. "I think we just decided to go for it."

Does that mean that Microsoft suddenly 'gets it' and is a changed company? Doubtful, but changing the culture from one of fear to one of making bold bets on doing things differently than they have in the past is a great start.

Corporate Politics - Good or Bad?

Often the phrase corporate politics leads to emotional reactions. It could be greeted with eye rolls or a sinking feeling inside your gut.

In the forthcoming book Corporate Bravery we spend a chapter on corporate politics and its role in creating a fear based culture. While there are many examples where corporate politics has gone wrong, I have created the embedded slide share to talk about how corporate politics doesn't have to be a culture killing practice.


I have embedded a slideshare below and I would love to hear your personal stories, feedback on the approach or other ways you have seen corporate politics play out in a good way. The comments section is below.

Corporate Politics - Turning a Negative Into a Positive from Darrin Murriner

Jerk Bosses and Their Successes (or failure?)

I recently came across one of my favorite news articles of the year in the Atlantic. The article, entitled "Why It Pays to Be a Jerk" is a long read and includes some great photos like the one below:

The article looks at scientific (and unscientific anecdotes) evidence regarding jerk-ish behavior - primarily in the workplace - and its impact on your ability to have success in the short and long-term.

This is relevant at Corporate Bravery because we spend a lot of time in the forthcoming book of the same name discussing bad managers' role in creating a culture of fear. Trust is at the heart of good managers and creating a culture that isn't fearful but brave in attacking new business opportunities and growing a long-term, sustainable business.

If that is so why does bad behavior that erodes trust persist in Corporate America? The article cites a few reasons. The first is embodied in the following quote.

But “to the extent that innovation and risk taking are in short supply in the corporate world”—an assertion few would contest—“narcissists are the ones who are going to step up to the plate.”

Grant argues that many takers are good at hiding their unpleasant side from potential benefactors—at “kissing up and kicking down,” as the saying goes. The article mentions a video series experiment where regular people were shown two different management styles to gauge their preference in managers.

And in a series of follow-up studies involving different pairs of videos, participants, responding to prompts, made statements such as “I would like this person as my boss” and “I would give this person a promotion.” The conditions had to be right, but when they were, rule breakers were more likely to be put in charge.

In fact, it’s easy to see how an initial advantage derived from a lack of self-awareness, or from a deliberate attempt to fake competence, or from a variety of other, similar heelish behaviors could become permanent. Once a hierarchy emerges, the literature shows, people tend to construct after-the-fact rationalizations about why those in charge should be in charge. Likewise, the experience of power leads people to exhibit yet more power-signaling behaviors (displaying aggressive body language, taking extra cookies from the common plate). And not least, it gives them a chance to practice their hand at advocating an agenda, directing a discussion, and recruiting allies—building genuine leadership skills that help legitimize and perpetuate their status. 

The commonality for most of the examples provided in the Atlantic article is a lack of trust.

Should something go wrong, jerks don’t have a reserve of goodwill to fall back on. The article tells the story of Howell Raines at the New York Times and how a scandal broke on his watch in 2003 when a Times reporter, Jayson Blair, had been fabricating material in his stories.

A town-hall meeting that was intended to clear the air around the scandal, during which Raines appeared before staff members to answer questions, turned into a popular uprising against his management style. “People feel less led than bullied,” said Joe Sexton, a deputy editor for the Metro section. “I believe at a deep level you guys have lost the confidence of many parts of the newsroom.” 

Raines himself had acknowledged as much earlier in the meeting. “You view me as inaccessible and arrogant,” he said. “Fear is a problem to such an extent, I was told, that editors are scared to bring me bad news.” It was an attempt to show he was a listener, Seth Mnookin reported in his book Hard News. But after listening to Sexton’s comments, Raines blew up. “Don’t demagogue me!” he shouted.

The article concludes - being a jerk will fail most people most of the time. Yet in at least three situations, a touch of jerkiness can be helpful.

1. leadership involves a series of onetime encounters

2. at the moment after a group has formed but its hierarchy has not.

3. when the group’s survival is in question, speed is essential, and a paralyzing existential doubt is in the air. (when fear is driving behavior)