Category: General Management

This is not a fact-based post. It is one based on opinion, anecdotal information, and little research. The post was triggered by a discussion I had with a close friend about advancing in a professional career within a larger organization.

We set the stage as follows. Should one rely on doing great or extraordinary work to advance, make sales, get recognized, etc.?

My general belief is that doing great work is necessary but not a sufficient condition. To win, one also needs to get the overall process and structure right. That’s why I say merit applies only in the small. You can win individual battles on the margin with merit. You have to get the structure right to win big, to win in the large.

As an example on career advancement and recognition, people should only plan on advancing so far with merit alone. At some point, a person needs to make deliberate efforts to factor politics, marketing, and sales into the equation. If a person doesn’t, of course he/she can still win, but I think a win in those circumstances would be in spite of an unfavorable structure. If a person doesn’t factor systemic items into the mix, he/she will be playing in the small and not maximizing the probability of success by playing in the large.

I’m not advocating playing politics or becoming a sleazy-style salesperson, but consider the following:

• a very exceptional but quiet performer progresses nicely in her career, but a more vocal and good performer gets promoted to senior status because that latter one started to get "marketing top-of-mind awareness" with the manager overseeing the promotion
• a salesperson selflessly helps a friend for many months, but never gets an introduction to the friend’s contact (who is desirable client prospect for the salesperson) simply because the salesperson did not follow a proactive, best-in-class process of asking to be introduced to the prospect
• a rising star makes tons of good friends with co-workers, but only spends once a year mingling with the managers that have a say on promotion opportunities
• another post I made which relates to the importance of structure over merit is here ("A Supportive Manager Outweighs All").

My recommendation is to preserve one’s key values but recognize when one is working in the small and ignoring the structure of a situation. Look for opportunities that are consistent with your value system and cultural norms but that align with the structure.

Today I spent some time writing a blog entry targeted at those starting new careers. The entry is at a new blog (which is still under wraps), and it made me reflect on milestone that I crossed when cutting my teeth in management consulting and during business school.

The milestone is this: getting to a point where you are comfortable arguing with your boss.

This is not something that folks with Asian backgrounds (like myself) are culturally used to. Respect for elders and authority are something that is at the essence of these cultures, but some aspects of this culture breed overly passive behavior. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that arguing is disrespectful. Nor I’m a saying that it is OK to be disrespectful to elders and authority. What I am saying, is that when approached the right way and within cultural guidelines, when someone gets to a point that they are comfortable with arguing with the boss, it reflects confidence in one’s business and domain knowledge if nothing else. Of course, arguing has to be done in pragmatic and constructive ways. Arrogance is frequently frowned on. One should also use proper chain of command guidelines (e.g., disagreeing in private versus public). All said, I believe being able to argue with the boss, being able to take a position that may not be in agreement with the boss, etc. – these things mark the crossing of an important milestone in a professional career. Why? Because you have not only made yourself more valuable, but you’ve also made yourself more valuable to your boss. You are no longer part of the "yes man/woman" crowd. You become an interdependent thinker and can better serve the vision of the business.

So go pick a fight with your boss this Friday. Hey it will be a Friday, and he/she may be in a better mood for one thing.

This coming Monday, I will run a Q&A with Will Weider, CIO of Affinity Health Systems, who blogs at The Candid CIO. Affinty Health System is network of 17 clinics, three hospitals, a long-term care facility and a health plan, so it’s quite of mix of clinic, ambulatory, etc. environments which not all healthcare providers have. The first Q&A at The CIO Weblog will provide some insight as to why he blogs, what blogs he follows, and his perspective on employee blogging. If you are interested in healthcare and/or a case of CIO blogging, be sure to tune in next week. Thanks in advance to Will for making himself available!

"Losing your teeth is only a money-making proposition (from the tooth fairy) for a limited period of time," says father Shu to daughter Shu.

Same goes for business. You probably saw that one coming from a mile away.

There are countless people who recommend walking away from deals that are either too one-sided and/or are money losers (where you are losing your teeth) up-front with expectations on the come. While I’m more in agreement with the former than the latter, I anecdotally agree that it’s uncommon to see deals that are money-losers up-front generate dollars on the come. Exceptions that come to mind are if the loss process is tuned into the product or product line, if substantial investment is required for first-mover advantages (e.g., multinationals doing business in China and not getting returns for many years because of culture and economic structures), and if complementary product sales are part of the biz strategy (e.g., giving away video game players to make money on the game cartridges).

But I’m not such a hardliner on walking away from individual deals on the margin as some may be (even when factoring in cost of capital, provided that cost of capital is not ridiculously steep in some dimension). Based on my comment to my daughter, it was implied that one could make money for a period of time by losing one’s teeth. Heck counting teeth and quarters is easy. Just a little different kind of economics and counting when you are dealing with companies because you may be sizing up business development, controller, execution bandwidth, and partner capabilities in addition to the teeth in various intercompany agreements.

Just some other areas to consider before taking a deal on the margin:

• if you finding yourself praying that the deal will turn positive in the future ("spider sense" is tingling)
• if you are a small business, independent practitioner, or venture, consider the psychological role that momentum plays in entrepreneurial settings
• how you feel about how committed folks are on realizing post-deal value (if it’s too complicated on this dimension, then that may set off your spider senses again)
• if you personally have any biases that may be affecting your judgement in this particular deal.

I found this post at the Entrepreneurial Mind (indirect via Christian Mayaud here), which focuses on the topic of firing employees because of a lack of culture fit. The general tone of the article, in my mind, supports the case for small employers and ventures to let go of employees that do not fit into the culture fostered by the business.

In general, I can support such a notion, but there are some pre-conditions that should be met (some more than others):

• the manager should be very conscious that while discrimination is allowed, it is illegal for some classes/criteria explicitly protected by employment laws (e.g., gender, veterans)
• the manager should work with the subordinate as much as possible to make sure the subordinate is aware of areas where they could improve – can be a delicate subject, but things should be well-intended by the manager in any case
• the manager should clearly understand the terms of the contractual agreement with the employee (e.g., at-will employment, termination clauses)
• the manager should be cognizant of balancing culture fit, diversity, creative tension, and disharmony prior to making a termination decision.

I guess to frame things in a bit of a different light, as compared to larger companies, some ventures will only succeed if the chemistry is right up-front. As opposed to thinking about things as discriminating against those that don’t fit the culture, one can think about things as actively selecting those that fit with and/or complement the vision, culture, and needs of the company and shedding the rest. Shedding people is tough. In some cases, even if the manager doesn’t want to shed people, the whole company may be in a bind (or dead) if it doesn’t.

As a sanity check, I think that a manager also needs to reflect on when people are fired and feel at least a little bad. That sort of sensitivity keeps an organization in check and helps to ensure that firing someone for a lack of culture fit (for lack of better words) is not just rationalization for unjustified discrimination.

My partner over at The CIO Weblog, Prashanth Rai is addressing an interesting topic over at his personal blog on non-technical managers managing technical people.

As a person that has two engineering degrees but has been involved in management and business development for awhile, another interesting flavor is getting salespeople and engineers/programmers to work together. It is something that I face very frequently in my role at 21Publish.

Some things I would say about the sales & engineering linkage topic (some of which is generally relevant to Prashanth’s topic, even though what I describe is a peer-to-peer relationship versus a strict manager-subordinate role):

1. have respect for the strengths of the different parties in the different functional roles
2. know one’s own limits
3. expand one’s knowledge about what the other party needs to do on a day-to-day basis to win and try to help where you can (or at least be supportive)
4. remember that salespeople and business development folks are looking for opportunities to win customers and grow the business on a day-to-day basis (but they need to be careful of overselling)
5. recognize that engineers like to build quality/foolproof stuff … salespeople people need to listen carefully to what engineers are saying on issues, etc. because what they are saying is often rigorous and precise
6. at the same time, engineers need to recognize that salespeople need to boil things up, if only to be able to communicate with management associated with the sales prospect.

Update (8/4/05): A follow-on thought: salespeople should also try to tap into engineers and programmers for creativity. Getting sales, business development, and R&D to work together can spark innovation (or at least it can make for a fun environment).

Carlos Velez has had a series of posts (e.g., here, here, here) that has provoked some thought on doing business internationally and virtually in an early-stage company or as solo practitioner. One of the questions I think he asked me at one time was whether I noticed any differences or had any problems when doing business internationally. I mentioned that I don’t think I have (with respect to recent business) on a day-to-day basis given new collaborative technologies.

That said, when I reflect upon one area that seems to have a common thread across all of the business I’ve done internationally, I forgot this one:

Legal business contracts in the United States seem more complicated than in other countries I’ve worked with. The disparity seems to go up as one moves from the spectrum of simple agreement (e.g., sales documents) up towards corporate infrastructure (e.g., equity and organizational documents).

There is a lot more trust involved with international contracts from my perspective.

And tools like babblefish (for online language translation) will only get you so far. It’s a one thing to translate blog posts written in other languages related to oneself (e.g., here, here), but when it comes to legal you have to get resourceful and/or find specialized help. Heck, we can barely define some of the legal terms and mechanics crisply in English let alone trying to pose the question to babblefish.

I’ve worked contracts in Japan, Latin America, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, the UK, and India. Perhaps legal complexity has to do with the fact that the number of venture capital firms and software manufacturers is much larger in the United States. This leads to higher legal intensity and more complex terms and conditions. When tied with the litigious culture of the US, this just feeds the fire. In any case, when I look for tight protections in international contracts, and they are not there as a matter of general culture, I feel more naked.

Some specific differences I’ve seen (at a lower-level than the general American call option versus European call option academic training one gets in b-school):

• Par value of equity in the US is set $0.01. Par value in other countries may be 100+ times higher. This can be, in some circumstances, a less friendly stock-option environment.
• Stock option vesting and acceleration clauses may not be there, whereas they are more typical in the US and protect the employee.
• Equity survivorship (i.e., if one dies) clauses may not be present to the same extent as in the US.
• Stock option expiration may be much shorter as compared to the United States.
• Whereas stock options can be printed for free in the US in many cases of start-up, some of the countries require nominal cash transaction for the stock options issued at the money (i.e., strike price at market).

Simpler international legal documents can be a breath of fresh air for smaller companies looking to do business internationally. There’s just less paperwork and formalities to cut through. But the question is, are you protected?

I generally don’t like to share advice on my blog. I think that without understanding a person’s unique perspective or a company’s specific situation, advice is probably one of the lowest tiers that one can get on in terms of a consulting relationship. Thus, my blog posts should be viewed as perspectives.

All said, I know there are a number of younger readers of this blog – some of them just starting their careers. This post may be one of the closest things to advice that I am comfortable offering. It is this:

When considering working for a manager, a supportive manager may outweigh all other factors in career advancement and personal growth.

It is a somewhat unusual and reactive position for me to take. A proactive position would advocate taking active control of one’s career and to work with whatever manager you have to try to determine the best way to achieve personal and professional growth. By all means be proactive. Try to get to the working environment you want to work in. Be proactive. Always. Always. But I have seen star performers working in sexy areas that have not progressed very far because they underestimated the importance of having a supportive manager. I have seen star performers that worked for supportive managers get switched over to non-supportive managers who were rising rock stars and literally forced out of firms. I have seen non-star performers work for supportive managers in non-sexy areas and get uplifted by orders of magnitude from the experience. I have seen this effect in client organizations. With business partners. With myself. With friends. With my wife.

Do I have reputable research data to back my perspective? Can’t think of any rigorous research offhand. Maybe there is some. I’m sure there is also disconfirming evidence to my perspective too.

Thus, I’ll revise my initial statement. I suppose my real takeaway is this:

Don’t underestimate the importance of having a supportive manager (or partner).

And this takeaway doesn’t apply just to newbies. I think about this everyday, and it is something I weigh very heavily (even when advising my wife on career choices, weighing business partners, etc.).