Vivid Curiosity

So this has come up a bit lately, and it has always been a pet peeve of mine so I’m doing a quick blog post in the middle of my work day.

STOP WASTING TALENT. You probably have a lot more talent around you than you realized. That intern in the corner? Probably could do more than watch videos all day, waiting to be assigned work.

This goes beyond interns and entry level as well. Everyone seems to be either unemployed or absurdly busy. It’s a good time to see who can step up and who can’t. Go give people higher level work, , make people stretch a little, just try to minimize the busy work. 

Challenge everyone to be better, not just busier. It’s also a good time to see if you’re a leader, or just everyone’s boss.

The converse of this, is to make sure you’re not asking an unsustainable amount of work from your employees… but that’s at the other end of the scale and a post for another day.

This came up on Twitter not too long ago, but I’ve been thinking about it. The idea is that you should only have 3 goals to focus on as a company. Everything with high priority should be working towards those 3 goals. I suppose the trick is to not making those 3 things too broad (ie, be profitable), but I’ve been having a hard time setting just 3.

What I like about my work is that it doesn’t reside in a single silo, I end up working throughout various parts of the company. But the hard part is I can’t even come up with one goal per department. Or if I do I end up with three lopsided goals, one being far more broad or far more important than the others. The same is true for my personal life–in fact I’ve made 3 overall goals for myself that encompass personal & business aspirations, but it wasn’t easy.

So here’s a short little list I have to help guide my goal setting. 

• Edit your list. You can start with more than 3 goals that are important to you, but realize you’ll have to cut some out (not  merely combine them into some sort of uber-goal)
• What is most dire? I know everything needs improvement, but what key areas will give you the most bang for your buck? (Often times it is those weaknesses we’ve been avoiding for so long)
• Feed your goals. Treat your goals like a new plant or pet (pet goldfish do count for those of you with allergies). Don’t forget to feed them, give them time and nurture them. Don’t forget to change your schedule to suit your goals
• Publish or Perish. Publicize your goals, tell people about them, post them on the fridge (or better yet your office door). If you tell people, you’ll be less likely to let them go. Especially tell people who will ask you about them

When growing a company you’re always being asked (or at least you should ask yourself) will this scale? Will this process that works for 20 or 30 customers work for 50? For 100 or 300?. 

In a recession, the question is does this downsize? If your company shrinks, does your process shrink downward? How do you shrink products or services that are no longer in demand? Can you nurture sectors that are growing?

Oh, and do you have someone watching your customers like a hawk? This is when customer habits, taste,attitude, loyalty and socioeconomic status change.

The Wall Street Journal writes about how the Latvian government detained a economist for issuing gloomy economic forecasts. That’ll definitely avoid a run on the bank…

RIGA, Latvia — Hammered by economic woe, this former Soviet republic recently took a novel step to contain the crisis. Its counterespionage agency busted an economist for being too downbeat.

“All I did was say what everyone knows,” says Dmitrijs Smirnovs, a 32-year-old university lecturer detained by Latvia’s Security Police. The force is responsible for hunting down spies, terrorists and other threats to this Baltic nation of 2.3 million people and 26 banks.

Now free after two days of questioning, Mr. Smirnovs hasn’t been charged. But he is still under investigation for bad-mouthing the stability of Latvia’s banks and the national currency, the lat. Investigators suspect him of spreading “untruthful information.” They’ve ordered him not to leave the country and seized his computer.

Finance is a highly touchy subject in Latvia, one that the state tries, with unusual zeal, to shield from loose tongues. It is a criminal offense here to spread “untrue data or information” about the country’s financial system. Undermining it is outlawed as subversion.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122809308553167889.html 

I am continually surprised at the numer of leaders who don’t have a plan b for when things head south. Additionally, where are the reserve resources? And by resources I mean more than just cash, but assets that might have dual uses or can be leveraged in recession situations. Banks are mandated to keep reserves, personal finance insists that we have extra for rainy days, so why do so many business fail to have anything left for recessions? They do come around fairly regularly.

In particular there might be some expertise to leverage. I always think it’s a good idea to hire for the future as well. Usually in the short term knowledge beats intellect and in the long term intellect beats knowledge. In these situations with a lot of uncertainty, intellects wins all around.

So I’m a little late on this, but Tesla Motors lost its lawsuit against Fisker Automotive. To be honest, I’m not quite sure why there was a lawsuit to begin with, seemed like more of an ego trip than anything else. I think these two companies are going to continue competing with each other for the foreseeable future. Also, Fisker is opening up an R&D center in Michigan just as Tesla is pulling out. I’m putting Fisker up 2-1, Tesla gets 1 for having a car rolled out already. 

Things to watch for in the rest of the year.

1. Complaints about the Tesla Roadster. This may be quiet or there might be a loudmouth or two. I think Tesla’s customers are more likely to be gracious than whiny. A lot of these were the same folks who bought and loved the EV1. But if these first customers turn agains Tesla, it’ll be a long long road ahead.
2. Number of Roadsters delivered by Christmas. If you could figure out who, that could be interesting list as well. But everyone on the waiting list will want one before Christmas. I say 100 is the magic number they should shoot for.
3. Does Fisker Delay? The supposed number is 100 by the end of 2009. I recall there being a 2011 projection, 2 years seems like quite a bump up. My best guess is that their new round of funding has let them bump up their timeline. But they should either confirm or deny this by New Year’s.
4. Infighting at Tesla. Will December stress cause someone to throw a tantrum? If someone threatens to resign or to do another round of layoffs… or what Elon calls Special Forces Philosophy.

Sorry I’ve been AWOL for a bit. But I’m back to tell you about LinkedIn Apps. It’s really pretty cool, LinkedIn will finally have some cool integrations with some of your other favorite online websites. And you probably guessed, SlideShare is definitely one of them. For some, it’ll be a great way to show off your expertise as you do different speaking engagements. But I think for many more, it’ll be a place to create a slide resume. I’ll be uploading one so you guys can see what it might look like. Until then you can check out this presentation on using LinkedIn:

The other cool third parties include Amazon.com, Wordpress and SixApart/Typepad.  Amazon lets you make book recommendations throughout your network, and while I do love my business books, they often get recommended by people in a different age group than I. I’m definitely interested in seeing what my peers are reading. The other two let your blog feed be integrated into your LinkedIn profile. My only concern is, well, how much time do people normally spend on LinkedIn? I don’t use my profile too much, and would probably rather bookmark those blogs and read them individually rather on LinkedIn. But then again, the economy down so I’m sure visitors and time on site are up.

Well folks, we’re in a bad, bad place right now. I do have money in WaMu and I’ve been texting back and forth talking about accounts and FDIC and other things I didn’t think I’d ever have to worry about. Lovely.

I’m actually very glad JP Morgan made it’s move. From what I understand this saved the FDIC from having to dry out its cash pool and lets WaMu branches open tomorrow as normal. Or at least as normal as possible. JP Morgan is going to have a very interesting balance sheet next year.

So I’m going to hit up an ATM in the morning, but largely I’m not too afraid. Now I completely understand why FDIC insurance exists. I remember in high school not being able to figure out what in the world would have to happen to cause bank failures big enough to justify FDIC insurance (especially in big banks). I wish I were still that naive.  A Wells Fargo bank manager warned me about this a few months ago. Perhaps I should go open an account over there.

I’m also very glad I didn’t move into the finance or investment banking sector. At the Haas Business School there’s sort of this momentum to go in that direction because so many other people are doing it (and because of the huge salaries). Whenever people tell me, or my friends, or future children or some other young folk that they should go do something because it ‘pays well,’ I’m going to point to this. 

Passion may not let you avoid massive meltdowns, but it’ll help you keep your sanity. It’ll probably also help keep you employed. If I were in the banking business I would be changing careers because I wouldn’t know what else to do.

So two bits of advice. One, make sure you’re in a career that you love and would stick with (as much as realistically possible) in the event of an industry-wide meltdown.

Two, if you think dumb and ethically questionable things are happening, say something. Even if everyone else is going along with it, even if it seems to be raking in money. Make sure what you’re doing makes sense in the big picture and in the long run. If not, then speak up. There were a lot of very smart, very dedicated at Enron and WorldCom as well. I would like to think I wouldn’t hesitate to quit. But I hope to never need to find out.

So we, or at least I, have heard over and over again that Starbucks doesn’t sell coffee, they sell the “experience.” This is why they can charge $4 a cup. And the experience I often hear is their coffee shops are lush, well decorated little bits of paradise, but I doubt that. How many times do people go to Starbucks to sit and enjoy the coffee? There isn’t enough room for people to do that, I would say part of the experience is to have fewer people hang around so Starbucks can have a nice open, spacious (and mostly empty) space. Think about when you are looking at houses and how spacious everything feels before you move your stuff. I believe the Starbucks experience is the aura connoisseur-ship and, importantly, the ability to wrap that up into a nice little cup and carry it around with you as a badge.

You buy your coffee somewhere nice and spacious, where the people behind the counter get health insurance, you get to specify exactly how your coffee is made and they call out your name instead of a number when your coffee is done. I think this subtle distinction is rather important, especially if you’re trying to learn from Starbucks. Can you imagine if you tried to open up a coffee shop downtown SF and you believe you need to get people to sit down and enjoy the coffee in the shop? You might end up buying too much real estate not realizing the profit is in people buying cups with a minimal store size.

When trying to create a strong customer experience (or value proposition), don’t give main roles to your supporting characters and vice versa.