15 Things I Know Now That I Didn't Know Before I Started

When I interview job candidates, one of the questions I almost always ask them is: "If I was going to start doing your job tomorrow, tell me something that you know that would make me better at the job that you didn't know before you started?" You can learn a lot from the answers you get. With that in mind, 2014 marks the 15th year that I've been a working "professional". During that time I've worked with start-ups in e-commerce, real estate, finance, biotech and healthcare. I've been in some fast-paced and really competitive environments. And I've made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot of stuff that I didn't know before I started.

So I thought I'd put together a list of 15 key things that I've learned (one for each year) that have helped make me successful. Specifically, these are things that I didn't know or appreciate before I got into the real world. Here we go:

1. It's a grind. Work is hard and painful and complicated. If it's not a grind then you're probably not trying hard enough. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.

2. Be candid. Try to facilitate a work environment where if someone is doing well you tell them instantly and if someone is not doing well you tell them instantly. Get used to being honest and upfront about what's working and what's not. This is only hard when your culture isn't used to it. Force people to get used to being candid.

3. Assume that most people are lazy and incompetent and what you want from them isn't important to them. This definitely isn't always true, but you're better off assuming it is.

4. There's no such thing as sales. There are just two parties trying to do something good for themselves and their families. Everything is driven by self interest. Never defer to a buyer. They're not doing you a favor, they're getting something and you're getting something. You are equals. Act like it.

5. Cannibalize yourself. Too long to describe here. I wrote a post on this a while back. But in short, put yourself out of business before someone else does.

6. Always do the the right thing. Don't take credit for other people's work. Publicly recognize your peers that are doing good things. Share your ideas and insights with other people. Don't go over your boss's head. Help people. Don't one-up people. Do the right thing. Don't think about this from an ethical perspective. That might make it too blurry. Think of it practically. I'm telling you with 100 percent certainty, it might not feel like it at the time, but I promise you that doing the right thing is better for you in the long term.

7. The worst trait in a colleague or a boss is insecurity. Avoid insecure people. And avoid insecure managers like they have a contagious disease.

8. Manage yourself harder than your manager manages you. Don't even make it close. If your performance is being actively managed by your manager you are losing. Get in front of it. Innovate on how you should be measured and developed and managed. Never fall behind on this.

9. Try to find the trifecta job. Something that you're good at, something that someone will pay for, and something that you love.

10. Firing someone is almost always the best thing for the person being fired. I've worked in a lot of cut-throat environments and I've seen a lot of people get fired and I've fired a lot of people. Not once can I point to a time where it wasn't the best thing for the person and the company. Both sides always wind up in a better place. And be respectful to people that get fired. Someone that is awful at their job could easily be a top performer somewhere else and someone that is awesome at their job could easily be a bottom performer somewhere else. It's all about fit.

11. Credentials are meaningless. I've worked right alongside several Harvard Business School grads and several software engineers from Apple. There's absolutely no correlation between success at work and these credentials.

12. Hiring good people is really difficult. The traits I look for are grit, adaptability, curiosity and humility. These things are almost impossible to measure in a traditional interview.

13. Admit when you're wrong. If you're the kind of person that can't admit when you're wrong, please stop being that kind of person. Being wrong and admitting it 1,000 times is way, way better than being wrong one time and not admitting it. Embrace being wrong.

14. Be a lynchpin. Seth Godin has a book on this that you should read. But the point is that you should run as fast as you can to be a completely critical piece of your organization. If you're not that, then try harder or move on to somewhere where you can be.

15. Always think in terms of metrics. Whenever you think about an initiative or a new role or a team structure, think of what metrics it will impact. If what you do every day doesn't impact your company's key metrics then you're not a lynchpin.

Do What Computers Can't

I read Peter Thiel's new book, Zero To One, the other night. I highly recommend it. It's a quick read (about 240 pages) and is full of great insights on startups and growth. He talks about the fears that the public has over technology. At one time, everyone was afraid that globalization was going to take all of America's jobs because there'd be someone overseas that would do our jobs cheaper than we would. Instead, American jobs have simply transformed. While's there's always some short term pain caused by a transforming economy, unemployment isn't all that much different than it was 20 years ago. The new fear is that software and technology will take all of our jobs. Thiel points out that this is a myth as well. See this excerpt:

Now think about the prospect of competition from computers instead of competition from human workers. On the supply side, computers are far more different from people than any two people are different from each other: men and machines are good at fundamentally different things. People have intentionality—we form plans and make decisions in complicated situations. We’re less good at making sense of enormous amounts of data. Computers are exactly the opposite: they excel at efficient data processing, but they struggle to make basic judgments that would be simple for any human. To understand the scale of this variance, consider another of Google’s computer-for-human substitution projects. In 2012, one of their supercomputers made headlines when, after scanning 10 million thumbnails of YouTube videos, it learned to identify a cat with 75% accuracy. That seems impressive—until you remember that an average four-year-old can do it flawlessly. When a cheap laptop beats the smartest mathematicians at some tasks but even a supercomputer with 16,000 CPUs can’t beat a child at others, you can tell that humans and computers are not just more or less powerful than each other—they’re categorically different.

I love this. There are things that humans can't do as well as computers and things that computers can't do as well as humans. There is now and will always be a ton of opportunity to do things that computers can't.

4 Ways to Improve Email

Many have written before that email is ripe for disruption. Something has got to give and I think we'll see lots of innovation over the next few years. In the meantime, here are four features I would love to get added to Outlook and Gmail that would make my life a little bit easier: 1. Character count. I'd love a character countdown (from, say, 200) to appear in the top corner of a new email. It would be a critical reminder to keep emails short. I'd even love a feature that would not allow the email to be sent if it exceed a particular character count. 'Pithiness', as required by the 140 character limit, is the best feature of Twitter. There's no reason it shouldn't apply to email as well.

2. Like button. I stole this idea from a comment that Donna White made a while back. One of the best features of Facebook is the 'like' button. It's an incredibly easy way to let people know you appreciate something they've posted without engaging in a back and forth. It's a super-efficient, low effort way to keep in touch with lots of people. Instagram and Twitter do this as well. I'd love the same feature to be added to email. Instead of having to respond with a one or two word response, the reader could just 'like' the email and that could be tracked and not require a new email to be generated. This would probably reduce the volume of email by 20%.

3. Reply tracking. I'd love to be able to click on a folder that show all of the emails I've sent that haven't been responded to for easy follow-up and tracking. I know there are plug-ins like Toutapp and Yesware but they're painful to install -- this is so basic it should be native to email programs.

4. External/internal reporting & filters. One of the pitfalls for people that are externally facing is ensuring that you're focusing the right amount of energy towards customers as opposed to internal work. A simple widget that tracks the percent of email flow that is internal versus external over time would be super useful. In addition, it would be great to have the ability to easily switch between internal and external inboxes and sent items folders.

A Word About Employee Stock Options

There's been a bunch of talk in blog circles about employee stock options over the last couple of weeks. I wrote a quick thought on this topic in a comment on a blog post the other day and thought I'd post it here as well. Put simply, in order to have an effective stock option plan that motivates and rewards employees, the employee must know three things:

1. The number of options they have.
2. The current valuation of the company.
3. The total number of shares outstanding in the company.

If an employee doesn't know these three things they should place no economic value on their options. Don't get me wrong, employees should take the options if they're offered, especially if they believe they're working for a high growth company, but the options should not be considered a measurable part of their compensation package.

You can't value something if you don't know its value.

Adaptability

A few weeks ago I read Thomas Friedman's new book, That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back. One of the early chapters begins with this quote from an unknown source:

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

This is so true. I've been fortunate to work with incredibly smart people with incredible credentials: people who have worked at the top consulting firms and investment banks that have worked at some of the world's most admired companies -- Goldman Sachs, Apple, Google and Amazon -- and have attended the best colleges and business and engineering graduate programs. But when I think back on the people who were successful in the start-ups I've worked in, I've seen that there is almost no positive or negative correlation with those great credentials (great companies, great schools, high standardized test scores) and actual success in the workplace.

As the quote suggests, it really isn't the smartest or the strongest that are the most successful.

To emphasize this point, it's helpful to use a sports analogy here (I like sports analogies because sports is very results-driven and the results are extremely transparent).Regarding strength, you might think that the best NFL players are the strongest and most athletic and come from the best college football programs and had the best college football careers. But this isn't true at all. There are countless instances of great college football players not making it in the NFL -- particularly in the more complex and cerebral positions. Case in point: Tim Tebow won the Heisman trophy and a national championship at the University Florida, Tom Brady was a third string backup at Michigan.

Regarding intelligence, each year every professional football recruits takes the Wonderlic Test. It's a test that measures the intelligence of the player and is often used in making decisions about which players to draft. You might suspect that higher scores lead to greater success. Wrong again. Ryan Fitzpatrick, the Harvard educated, backup quarterback for the Tennessee Titans scored a 50 -- the highest score of any current player in the NFL. Peyton Manning, arguably the best quarterback in the NFL, scored a 28.

I see the exact same thing in the workplace. It isn't great credentials or talent or SAT scores that makes people successful in a start-up, it's traits like grit and humility -- and perhaps most of all, adaptability. Something to keep in mind when looking for "A-players" to join your team.

This Is How I Work (Series)

I was asked to participate in Lifehacker's How I Work Series where writers answer a series of questions on their work life. I thought I'd post my answers here. Here goes. Location: I'm based in Manhattan (live in Flatiron, office in Soho) though I'm on the road in another city about 40%-50% of the time.

Current Devices: iPhone 5S, ThinkPad T420s, Eccolo journal, Cross pen, Kindle.

What apps, tools, software can't you live without: A bunch. I use Wunderlist to manage my to-do lists, the Cal app to manage my calendars, Evernote to manage notes, TripIt to manage travel itineraries, Google Maps to navigate, Salesforce to manage client stuff, LinkedIn to manage connections and Feedly to keep up on work-related news and blogs. I use a lot of others but those are probably the apps I use most frequently for work.

What's your workspace like: I try to have a minimalist workspace so that it feels the same no matter where I am (home, office, plane, train, hotel, etc.). I try to eliminate paper and just have my laptop, phone and notebook on my desk. I do all of my calls from my iPhone with my headphones. I even try to do group conference calls from my iPhone's speakerphone. It's important to me to be equally productive regardless of where I am. A minimalist approach helps me do that.

What's your best time saving short-cut/life hack: Working offline. At least twice during the work day I’ll turn my email to “work offline” mode and close my browser so there are no digital distractions.

What everyday thing are you better at than everyone else: I'm not sure I'm better than everyone at anything, but one thing I think I do well is to take a complex situation, strip it down to the core issues that really matter and identify and prioritize solutions to improve it. I think I’m pretty good at getting through the clutter that makes situations more difficult than they need to be and coming up with actionable solutions that will work.

What's your favorite to-do list manager: I've used a ton of different to-do list tools over the years and I think (hope) I've finally found a keeper with Wunderlist. It's super simple and the mobile and desktop experiences are really seamless.

What do you listen to while you work: I almost always listen to music while I work. The music I listen to while working is pretty different from what I listen to when I'm not. Right now it's the Bon Iver station on Pandora and a couple of different playlists on Spotify -- the "Your Favorite Coffeehouse" playlist is a good one.

What are you currently reading: Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire by Paul Smith and That Used Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back by Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum.

What's your sleep routine like: I take sleep really seriously. I freak out if I don't get at least seven hours. I try to get to bed by 11 and up between 6:30 and 7, though more often than not I go to sleep later and get up earlier.

What's the best advice you've ever received: This is a tough one as I've had some great mentors that have given me some great advice over the years. But one that sticks out is: "attitude is everything". The most consistent trait I've seen in people that are successful is that the vast majority of them have a great attitude in work and life.

Cannibalize Your Own Job

If you have a job, especially if you have a good job, that pays a decent wage, the odds are that it's only a matter of time before your employer outsources, automates, or finds a way to do the work that you do more cheaply. And when they do, you're either going to take a pay cut or you're going to be out of work. The days of working in the same job for 30 years, getting a nice watch every decade, and a retirement party at the end are long over.

In a global economy, mediocrity is unsustainable. Companies must constantly be getting better -- faster, smarter, more profitable. Successful companies are perpetually searching for ways to cut costs and add efficiency, and that includes getting rid of expensive humans.

Given this, to survive in this world, most of us have two options:

The first option is to fight it. Stay below the radar and try to fit in. Make friends with your boss and delay the inevitable. Don't make a raucous, don't try to scale things. Stay quiet and stay out of the way. This is not a bad short term strategy. It will likely work for some amount of time. But in the long-term, the forces of profitability and efficiency are going to catch up with you and your average performance will be out the door.

The other option -- the much, much better option -- is to embrace this reality. Instead of fighting it, actually help your company outsource, automate or cheapen the things that you do. You should help make your job more scalable. There's nobody in a better position to identify which tasks can be done more cheaply and which tasks can't. Help your company identify those things that can be done more cost effectively and come up with ideas on how they can be done more efficiently and advocate for it. You don't want to be doing that kind of work anyway.  You want to be doing the hard stuff that adds value. And this will allow you to spend more time on the stuff that your company needs.

And after you’ve scaled your current work, do it again. Keep cannibalizing your own job.

Of course, depending on the complexity of your job, it could take a long time to cannibalize yourself. In some cases it could take years.

Also, note that once you cannibalize yourself, you don't have to leave your company. Just the opposite. You should be thriving at your company and getting promoted, or at least spending more time on more valuable work (which you should be compensated for).

So in your job today, keep producing -- writing great code, building great products, closing big deals, etc., but while you’re at it make sure you’re aggressively looking for ways to scale -- before somebody else does.

Facebook, Twitter & Middle Class Jobs

Thomas Friedman had a great piece a couple of weeks ago in the New York Times, titled Why I Still Support Obamacare. I recommend checking it out. He talks about the ACA but points out a much larger economic trend -- the disappearance of the middle class. It used to be that big companies needed lots of workers to run their businesses. Those businesses created lots of good paying, long-term, reliable jobs. Those jobs are what made up the middle class.

But more and more companies are finding that they don't need as many employees as they used to need in order to thrive. As an example, Facebook is a $110 billion company but only has 8,000 employees. GE, a more traditional company, has about 3 times the market cap of Facebook but has 40 times the number of employees. Fast growing tech companies are creating lots and lots of value but they're not creating lots and lots of jobs.

Friedman quotes James Manyika from McKinsey:

To be in the middle class, you may need to consider not only high-skilled jobs, “but also more nontraditional forms of work,” explained Manyika. Work itself may have to be thought of as “a form of entrepreneurship” where you draw on all kinds of assets and skills to generate income.

This could mean leveraging your skills through Task Rabbit, or your car through Uber, or your spare bedroom through AirBnB to add up to a middle-class income.

Friedman's point in the column is that affordable, mandated healthcare is going to be critical as more people begin working independently.

In many ways this is an exciting trend, but this shift in how people work, who they work for and the emergence of the "free agent" job market is going to have an extremely wide-ranging political and economic impact. It's something our policymakers need to be thinking about.

Being Wrong

Last week Penelope Trunk had a good post on 5 things she was wrong about. I've found over and over again that people that are alright with being wrong are far more successful (and pleasant to work with) than people that have to be right.  People that can be wrong have the right mix of confidence and humility -- two of my favorite qualities in a colleague. I recommend reading Penelope's full post, but in the excerpt below she captures why being able to be wrong makes people more successful. I liked it so much that I thought I'd post it here.

The real reason I don’t mind being wrong is that you can’t ever be right in a way that matters if you’re never wrong. Think about it: if you are right on something where everyone knows you’re right then it doesn’t matter that you’re right. If you are right about something where people think it’s surprising, then you take a risk of being wrong but you also open yourself up to the joy of surprising yourself with your own insight. It’s a risk high performers are willing to take.

Yahoo! & Working From Home

Much has been made of Marrisa Mayer’s controversial decision to stop allowing Yahoo! employees to work from home. I've heard pretty convincing arguments for it and against it. I feel pretty strongly about allowing employees to work when and where they’re most productive. Personally, I’ve often found that I can be incredibly productive working from home on Saturday mornings. And not so productive when in the office on a Friday afternoon. And often it can be vice versa. But having the flexibility to manage my own productivity makes me a better employee. Having that kind of control is really important.

But none of this takes into account collaboration with my company and team. There are things that I can’t do on my own time. I have to collaborate with my colleagues, and when and where we do that is not always up to me. So I need to balance optimizing my own productivity with finding time to collaborate and learn and innovate with my colleagues. Ideally, a CEO should allow individuals to manage that balance on their own. But when a company is going through a massive change in management and structure and mission (like Yahoo! is right now) it absolutely makes sense for the CEO to mandate that balance.

Right now, according to Mayer, it appears that Yahoo! is in transition. And in need of better collaboration and teamwork and that’s why she made the decision to bring employees back to the office.

In short, I guess my opinion is to not have an opinion. Those of us that are not on the executive team at Yahoo! can’t really know the circumstances at Yahoo! and, given those circumstances, can't really make an intelligent judgement about the most appropriate work from home policy.

The Power Of LinkedIn

I received this email from LinkedIn the other day.

I'm surprised I'm in the "LinkedIn one-percent". I don't share all that much on the site, or many other social networks for that matter. 95% of my sharing is done on this blog. I've always been reluctant to share very actively in too many places; I prefer to share in one place that I can be really proud of.

That said, I have built up an amazing network of colleagues, friends, partners, clients and mentors that I can easily speak to through LinkedIn's platform. And this email is a good reminder of how much of an asset that network can be.

Failure

People of Groupon, After four and a half intense and wonderful years as CEO of Groupon, I've decided that I’d like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding — I was fired today. If you’re wondering why … you haven’t been paying attention.

These were the first two sentences of Andrew Mason's letter to employees announcing that he had been fired as CEO of Groupon following a disappointing fourth-quarter earnings report. The letter goes on to explain some of his failures, as well as express his hope for the future of the company.

It was really refreshing to see Mason take this approach. This guy built an amazing company (I wrote about their growth a while back). And I give him a ton of credit for talking about his failures so publicly. This is so rare in public and private life.

When I interview job candidates I always ask them about the biggest mistakes and failures in their career. Candidates are so reluctant to talk about this topic. They often don't answer the question or talk about a failure where they didn't really fail. They're afraid that I'm going to view their failures as a bad thing.

But failure is a good thing, a great thing actually. Because it shows that you've tried things that are hard and have been through difficult times and persevered. And I want to work with people that have tried hard things and been through difficult times and persevered.

When you try to do great things you're going to fail. A lot. And failing is the best chance to learn. Personally, I learn much more when I fail than when I succeed.

When I interview someone and they can't think of a failure, there are three possible takeaways: 1.) the candidate isn't self aware 2.) the candidate is lying 3.) the candidate has never tried anything difficult. All of these are bad.

I hope we see more business leaders (and interviewees) become more open about their failures like Andrew Mason was last week.

Productivity Tips

I came across some really good productivity tips this past week. One group in a great post from Matt Heinz and the other in a post from Erin Schulte from Fast Company. I'll add two things to their lists that have worked really for me:

1. Each morning I write down my top three priorities for the day. That is, the top 3 most important things that I need to accomplish that will help me get to where I want to be. I actually capture these in the Chatter app in Salesforce.com, but you could capture them anywhere. Then, at the end of each day, I update the Chatter post confirming that I got them done. You'd be shocked at how productive you can be if you only do the 3 most important things on your list each day.
2. To prevent myself from spending the day responding to incoming streams of messages, I work 'offline' for large portions of the day. I put on my headphones and close all web browsers and switch to "work offline" mode in Outlook and go to work. These are typically the the most productive parts of my day.

I'm sure I have others but those two stand out as things that have really helped me ramp up my productivity in recent years.

How I Interview Job Candidates

I think a lot about the best way to interview job candidates.  I’m always trying to determine how effective they’ll be at my company but also how much they’ll actually want to be at my company.   I want to be sure that we’re going to like them long after they’re hired and, just as importantly, that they’re going to like us long after they’re hired. Here’s the framework I’m currently using when I interview a job prospect:

1. Resume Walkthrough.  First, I walk through their resume to get to know them.  I try to understand why they chose their schools, companies and industries and I always ask why they left each job.  Walking through their resume gives me a really good sense of who they are.  It can be somewhat of an intense conversation so it helps me get to know them right away.  On the surface, I don’t care about gaps in resumes or sabbaticals but I like to understand the choices that the candidate made and why they made them.   At the end I always ask them my favorite interview question.  I ask them to tell me what they want to do without naming a company or an industry.  Specifically I want to know how they want to add value to an organization.
2. Analysis of Strengths.  Next I dig in on their strengths.  I assume that they’re really good at what they do but I like to understand exactly why they believe they are so good.  Often I’ll ask something like, “if you’re the top performer on your team and I asked the average performer on your team what makes you so good, what would they say?”  This gives some insight into how analytical they are about their success.  I don’t really care that much about hearing about their success, I want to hear about why they’re successful so I can assess whether or not that’ll be transferrable to my company.  Candidates that can’t intelligently tell you why they’re successful are risky.
3. Hesitations.  At this point I’m in a good position to assess my hesitations.  In a nice way I tell them exactly what I think of them so far and what I’m hesitant about.  And I give them a chance to respond.
4. Tension Breaker.  Then I lighten things up and ask what they do for fun.
5. Questions.  Lastly I ask if they have questions for me.   I can usually get a good sense of how much they’ll like working at my company by the questions they ask.

This approach has been working well for me lately so feel free to borrow it.  I’ll try to document how this changes over time.

Is There A Shortage Of Sales Talent?

An article on the Harvard Business Review blog today talked about the shortage of good sales talent and the need for more formal sales training programs. My theory is that there's actually a lot of sales talent out there but those people simply don't want sales jobs. Here's the comment I posted.

Great post and an important topic.  I believe that in today's business environment you need a variety of skills to be a good salesperson -- it's not about back slapping on the golf course anymore.  Sales is much more complex now.  You need to have a strong understanding of finance, economics, accounting, marketing, strategy, technology, product and management to understand what makes a good prospect, what problems your prospects have, where markets are going and how your company's products can fit in.  These skills are not easy to acquire.  In my experience, they come from getting an MBA or working in a client-facing role in a very early stage company where you're forced to wear a lot of hats and figure out how to make your product work or, in a rare case, you've gained these skills on your own by educating yourself.  And I've found that people that have that kind of experience under their belt are, for the most part, uninterested in filling a typical "sales" job.  They're interested in getting into finance or consulting or strategy.  This is because sales has a stigma to it.  People with that kind of ambition and experience often don't want to tell their friends and family that they're a "salesperson".  Not because sales isn't an admirable job -- it is -- but because there's a stigma attached to it.  People that don't understand the complexity of today's sales environment think of the used car salesperson trying to sell them a lemon.

As a result, I believe we need to begin to stop using the word "salesperson" to describe the roles we're trying to fill.  And not just for recruiting reasons.  Because the word no longer describes what these people are being asked to do.  These people aren't selling knives door to door to every house in town.  They're not pitching and responding to objections.  They're seeking out and understanding business opportunities, carefully selecting the appropriate individuals to connect with, having open, informal business conversations, validating assumptions, iterating those assumptions, refining products and services, participating in internal and external strategic planning, creating mutually beneficial partnerships, negotiating legal & business terms, setting goals for the partnerships and seeing that those goals are met.

I believe that the sooner that companies create roles and job titles around this new skill-set, the sooner we'll see more professionals signing up to fill these jobs.

Hard Work Isn't Enough Anymore

There was a good op-ed from Thomas Friedman in yesterday's New York Times titled, Average Is Over, Part II.  The key line for me is:

Thanks to the merger of, and advances in, globalization and the information technology revolution, every boss now has cheaper, easier access to more above-average software, automation, robotics, cheap labor and cheap genius than ever before. So just doing a job in an average way will not return an average lifestyle any longer.

I've written in the past that hard work isn't enough anymore and as Friedman points out this is becoming more and more true. If a person or a machine anywhere in the world can do your job as effectively as you can at a cheaper cost it is simply a matter of time before you're unemployed. You have to find a way to add irreplaceable value.

In some ways, I think the key to thriving in this new environment is just to simply be aware that doing a "good enough" job isn't enough anymore.

I'm glad Friedman is giving people that awareness.

Retaining Your Employees

Fred Wilson had a good post a while back on employee retention. I posted some of my thoughts in a comment there and thought I'd post them here as well. One trend that I’ve seen is that employees leave companies, for the most part, for one of three reasons:

1. They don’t think they’re great at what they’re doing

2. They don’t feel like what they’re doing is important

3. They don’t feel appreciated for what they’re doing

Smart, ambitious people want to be winners. They want to be awesome at what they do, they want to be doing work that is meaningful and impactful and they want to feel appreciated for it. If an employee feels this way, it’s very unlikely that they’ll leave. But with so much going on, busy managers often forget about these things. It’s critical for managers to stop and recognize when an employee is good at something. Verbalize it, don’t just think it. Tell them they’re awesome. Say thank you. Show appreciation.

Everybody gets insecure at some point, even top performers. I remember Mike Krzyzewski, Duke’s basketball coach, explaining that once or twice a year he calls his best player into his office to tell him how much he’s appreciated. This kid is in Sports Illustrated and on ESPN and is the most popular kid on campus, but as Coach K says, everybody gets insecure. And when they do, results suffer.

It’s management’s job to create an environment where people feel awesome. They feel like they’re good at what they do, they’re doing important work and they’re appreciated by their company. When you have these three things in place,you’ll see your retention numbers soar.

As Jack Welch used to say, self-esteem is the fuel that powers great companies.

You're Not Special

Here's my favorite excerpt from David McCullough Jr.'s highly publicized commencement address at this year's Wellesley High School graduation.  It's about time educators starting sending this message...read the entire speech if you get a chance.

Contrary to what your u9 soccer trophy suggests, your glowing seventh grade report card, despite every assurance of a certain corpulent purple dinosaur, that nice Mister Rogers and your batty Aunt Sylvia, no matter how often your maternal caped crusader has swooped in to save you… you’re nothing special.

Yes, you've been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble-wrapped. Yes, capable adults with other things to do have held you, kissed you, fed you, wiped your mouth, wiped your bottom, trained you, taught you, tutored you, coached you, listened to you, counseled you, encouraged you, consoled you and encouraged you again. You’ve been nudged, cajoled, wheedled and implored. You’ve been feted and fawned over and called sweetie pie. Yes, you have. And, certainly, we’ve been to your games, your plays, your recitals, your science fairs.  Absolutely, smiles ignite when you walk into a room, and hundreds gasp with delight at your every tweet. Why, maybe you’ve even had your picture in the Townsman! And now you’ve conquered high school… and, indisputably, here we all have gathered for you, the pride and joy of this fine community, the first to emerge from that magnificent new building…

But do not get the idea you’re anything special.  Because you’re not.

Is Sales A Dying Profession?

A commenter on the 'A Sales Guy' blog asked this question the other day and Jim Keenan posed the question to his readers. There's a decent discussion on this topic on his blog so I recommend checking it out. Here's my answer:

Short version: Absolutely Not.

Longer version: Before you can answer the question of whether or not sales is going away, you have to define what salespeople do.  To me, salespeople make connections and tell stories that allow products to be diffused into the market at a faster pace and on a wider scale than they would be if a salesperson wasn't involved.  So companies hire salespeople when they believe that the investment in those people will be outweighed by the incremental revenue that will be produced from their activity.

That said, the commenter is right that because of the internet there are some products that can be sold to enterprises without the involvement of a salesperson.  But that doesn't mean salespeople are going away, it just means that salespeople will have to continue to adapt to selling those things that can't be sold off the shelf -- this means more complex sales and more innovative products.  This has always been true -- products adapt and salespeople adapt.

If a company decides that they can rest on their laurels and its products are so refined that they don't need people out making connections and speeding up the diffusion of their innovative products into the market, then salespeople aren't going away, that company is going away.  

In short, if a company feels like it doesn't need salespeople then that company either isn't innovating or doesn't have very ambitous goals.

The 40 Hour Work Week

I came across what was supposedly a very, very controversial graduation speech given by a right wing talk show host to students at Texas A&M.  It turns out that the speech was simply a chapter in his (fictional) book.  Much of the speech is totally over the top.  But if you’d like to get your blood flowing you can check out the entire speech here. 

The reason I’m posting about it is there was one line towards the end that struck me as pretty good advice for college graduates… 

Speaking of earning, the revered 40-hour workweek is for losers. Forty hours should be considered the minimum, not the maximum. You don’t see highly successful people clocking out of the office every afternoon at five. The losers are the ones caught up in that afternoon rush hour. The winners drive home in the dark.

Also, related to this topic, Salon.com had a good article a while back on the advent of the 40 hour week, that argues bringing it back would increase productivity -- interesting read when you have a few minutes.