Let's Do Lunch.....Leadership and Career Growth in Silicon Valley

I saw a great article in the Wall Street Journal that I wanted to highlight, “Fine-Tuning Your Resume for Maximum Impact“.  It really focuses on the important aspects of your resume. I’ve been thinking a lot about this because I’ve spent a lot of time looking at resumes over the last 2 months and helping friends to focus on what’s important. Your resume is a sales brochure that should entice the reader to want to talk to you. It should give the reader enough information about you to understand your unique talents and experience and should convey your understanding of your value to the business.

Many resumes I read describe people’s activities but not what they contributed to the business. As people become more senior they start to craft their resumes around business objectives and measurable outcomes. I’ve said many times on this blog that there are only two reasons that people pay us money, to increase revenue or decrease cost. Oh, sure, there are infrastructure roles that are more difficult to measure their contribution but there are ways.

I work with engineers a great deal and they often struggle with estimating their contribution. I have heard many of them complain that to estimate their contribution is not honest, that it is often immeasurable. This is not true at all. I have worked with many to make good faith estimates about both their relationship to the total revenue of a product or the likely cost savings of features relating to operational improvements. Engineers struggle with the lack of preciseness but they have to understand that good faith estimates are honest and do indicate an understanding of their value and relationship to the business.

Remember that our jobs are “responsibilities” not a series of tasks. Successful resumes must reflect our understanding of why that person was paid and how much return on investment their salary was. You have to map out the story you want to tell and have it reflect your understanding of business and your role in it. Once you’ve mapped out your story and have developed a solid resume, outsource the function to a professional expert. Once you know you’re story have the experts create the final copy.

The economy seems to have stopped its free fall and is wallowing at a bottom. Individual savings has increased as a percentage of earnings and the housing market looks like its begun to stabilize. Unfortunately, credit has not been as readily available as the government policies have promised and businesses are not expanding their infrastructures in anticipation of growth. Jobs are still tough to find and employers are viewing it as a “buyers market’ for talent. With that in mind, job seekers, at all levels, need to be prepared for behaviors that were not possible a few years ago. Hiring managers view the current economic situation as an opportunity to upgrade their talent but some of the methods that are being used will not instill excitement and loyalty from their hires. Sure, some will be proud have having gotten through the interview rigor but many will feel commoditized.

Phone screen interviews used to be an initial scoping of a job to an interviewee and a quick check of appropriate experience and skills of a candidate. Some employers are using phone screens as a first interview (The New Trouble on the Line). The phone screen used to be a “meet and greet”, which consisted of a description of the company, the department, the role, and some clarifying questions to expand on the candidates resume. Many hiring managers and HR departments are using the telephone interview to scrutinize a candidates experience and examine how they respond to extensive questions. This can save time for the hiring manager but they miss the intangible reactions that body language and facial expressions provide. This method only gives voice tone and the responses themselves.

Some companies are using the current situation as an opportunity to try creative approaches to identifying the best candidates. These unorthodox screening methods can be interesting and fun or they can be intimidating and demeaning (What Won’t You do for a Job?). Some candidates are asked to participate in a business case study or to create an ad hoc presentation on an unexpected subject. I had a friend that was asked to develop a presentation that communicated her value in “pirate talk”. Initially, my friend thought the exercise was fun but it wore thin after some time and her enthusiasm for the job dwindled. Another friend of mine, interviewing for an executive manufacturing role, was asked puzzle questions, such as “how many times a day does a clock’s hands overlap?”. Potential employers are feeling comfortable experimenting with hiring methods because, again, its a buyers market and they feel they can risk upsetting the candidates because there are so many.

This is an odd time for job seekers because there are too many applicants and not as many jobs. Employers are trying to find ways that identify the absolute best candidates but they are also taking risks with their reputation and the loyalty of those that they hire. As a hiring manager, you have to be mindful that this glut of talent won’t be permanent and that you want to build a team of people that are the best talent around and excited about your product and the role they play in building the business. As a job seeker, you have to be flexible and, if you’re confronted by an unconventional job screening process, try to understand the goal and spirit by which these methods are being conducted. Its a tough economy but business does continue.

The economic downturn drags on and the job market has gotten tough. There is a lot of speculation that the economy is at or near a bottom of this slump but how long will we stay there until recovery begins? Companies continue to let very talented people go as they hunker down against slower sales. Companies that are hiring have changed the way they’re hiring. Instead of finding an excellent candidate that have strong credentials but will grow into their new responsibilities they are hiring people that have enough experience that there is little room to grow. Sure, these folks will hit the ground running but business is a marathon, not a sprint, and they’ll be the first to leave when more exciting opportunities for growth and greater responsibilities arise.

I’ve talked to several people in companies around Silicon Valley and in other areas of the company who are seeing the same trend. One friend argued that the job market is flush with very good people so he has the luxury of hiring someone that would have never taken the job 2 years ago. My question to him was “do you really want someone who is just happy to have a job or do you want someone who is excited about the opportunity?” That excitement is infectious and is absolutely necessary for a leader to get people in their teams motivated and other organizations enthusiastic at new directions and ideas.

I’ve recently seen an organization led by someone who was in the “happy to have a job” mode. The group was performing a function that was important for the company 5 years ago but needed to update its mission significantly. The group sank deeper into obscurity over time and was either ignored or ridiculed within the company. The entire team advocated methods and activities that they’ve ‘always done’ but they didn’t understand why they did them. The leader didn’t inject a passion for the job and eventually the group went away. What a waist of people.

Hiring leaders is about hiring future capability and future growth. Companies have to be very cautious that they bring in the right talent and that they’re there for the right reasons. Sure, you can find immensely qualified people but will they help guide you into the recovery and on to healthy growth? Fear keeps people motivated for a little while but the culture created by “captured talent” will be lackluster and temporary. If your people feel trapped, they will always be looking for an exit.

It’s the spring of 2009 and the economy is in the dumper. The average American family’s wealth has dropped by 18% and California’s unemployment rate has topped 10%. Just about everyone in Silicon Valley knows someone who has been laid off from, what were once, promising economic high flying companies and employees are feeling insecure about the future. Leaders have to be very careful about how they define and communicate goals and expectations with this frightening economic backdrop. Unfortunately, some leaders believe that economic crisis is an opportunity to increase motivation because workers are afraid of losing their jobs. Despite the limited job market, companies can always find room for top tier performers. Managing by “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt” (FUD) is a surefire way to lose your top performers once the economy turns around.

During economically troubled times everyone needs to step up their game. Companies have to fight for every sale and come up with greater innovation for even a minimal return to ensure company growth. Every team member has to play their “A” game by either increasing sales or decreasing operational expenses. It’s a fine balance for leaders to set the appropriate level of urgency without creating an environment of fear. If groups become fearful productivity falls and workers spend much of their time trading rumors about who’s next on the “chopping block” and which groups are likely to be laid off first. If there are multiple rounds of layoffs, organizations come to a standstill as workers spend their time thinking about if they’re next.

Both leaders and workers have to understand the gravity of our current economic situation. Workers in larger corporations sometimes feel removed from influence on the company’s overall performance because their role is more compartmentalized than it would be in a smaller organization. When this attitude becomes dominant in a group it’s soon labeled a “bureaucracy” and becomes a target for cost cutting because the organizational value is not articulated well enough for workers to see their direct contribution to the company. This cultural attitude can also become a leader’s frustration which can lead to FUD when the organizational attitude, and perceived value, is to slow to change.

I’ve been close to a number of organizational change efforts over the last couple of years. As the economy declined the transformations have become even more important to the businesses and to the organizations. Groups have to find a way to realize their value quickly by either demonstrating how they increase revenue or decrease cost. Leaders are obliged to define the future organizational vision and help their people understand what is required to get to that vision. The partnership requires a great deal of effort for both leaders and their employees. Change is mandatory in tough economic times and folks have to accept that business as usual won’t succeed. Leaders, however, have to understand that they must crisply communicate what is needed and create an environment that encourages success by focusing on defined goals. If this partnership is executed well there doesn’t have to be fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

I’ve known many leaders that are extremely protective of their staff.  You know, those managers who people go to when they’re struggling with problems or have gotten themselves in trouble.  These “paternal” leaders often provide answers and approaches to problems that are clear an easy to follow.  The loyal follower just goes off and executes on the direction provided and their attachment grows deeper to that leader.  The downside of paternal leadership is that the staff member doesn’t have the opportunity to learn how to solve problems themselves and to reach out to peers for guidance.  Paternal leaders will also “save” previous employees who are experiencing performance challenges in other organizations.  This “safety net” behavior ensures that the individual doesn’t grow from the experience and they often stop growing with the company and industry.

A friendly acquaintance of mine in an engineering firm is the strongest paternal leader that I’ve met.  She instills a staggering amount of loyalty for a number of reasons.  She has been in the trenches with the folks and has shared experiences, is remarkably charismatic, and she will come to the assistance of anyone who asks.  When these traits are focused outwardly to customers, that loyalty becomes a business asset; however, it has limited my friend as her responsibilities grew.  People within the organization know that those people who have known this leader a long time receive preferential treatment and are “untouchable”.  Over time those “untouchable” staff members lose some of their professional edge but their managers reach a point where they cant performance managed these staff members for fear of “breaking loyalty” with the senior leader.

I brought this subject up with a friend in an electronics manufacturing firm and he shared a similar observation.  There is a Vice President in his company that runs an organization with the nickname “the pirate ship”.  About half of the staff are his loyal followers and the other half cannot understand how the “protected” keep their jobs.  My friend described the people within the organization as having been immensely valuable in the startup phase of the company because they were fresh out of college, bright, and had an abundance of energy.  Over time, he said, they lost that energy and got out of touch with industry trends but their paternal leader created jobs for them that were marginally useful out of nostalgia.  Unfortunately, these loyal followers are unaware of their dwindling value and their leader is not doing them the favor of helping them understand what is expected and then holding them accountable for their business contribution…and their professional development.  Now they are far less marketable in a tough economy because they stopped growing with their company and their industry.

Organizations that are run by paternal leaders start showing their limits in a tough economy.  Employees who have not been challenged in years struggle to meet the increased needs of changing market situations.  Staffs are in place to deliver and leaders need to find ways to get the most out of their people.  If a leader has coddled and protected their staff, or has not insisted on professional growth, the organization is incapable of foreseeing changes in the competitive landscape, and changing the organization’s direction as necessary – a process that is critical in today’s ever-changing business landscape.

Product Management is often an under appreciated skill in large companies.  Organizational structures are built around product delivery and support.  Early in a company’s life the definition of products allow for economic survival.  As a company grows more cross-functional organizations try to have greater impact on product definition so that they can perform their functions more efficiently and enhance customer satisfaction.  Once this begins to happen, companies often lose sight of the role of Product Management.  Instead of identifying customer’s business problems and creatively defining technology-based solutions, Product Managers begin to accept feature lists from sales and from customers.  Unfortunately, that devalues the role of Product Manager and it devalues the company’s partnership with the customer.  Soon customers become frustrated with “quality” but they’re really frustrated with Product Definition.  They want the product to do what they expect it to when they purchase what was sold to them.

After reading Marty Cagan’s book “Inspired”, I had the opportunity to have dinner with him and discuss Product Management.  This is particularly interesting to me because I’m currently trying to build a “product management” function within my organization and we have not had that skill set in the past.  The important message that Marty sends is that Product Managers have to understand customers and what their business issues are.  From this deep understanding of a customer’s goals, the Product Manager applies technology to a solution.  The best people in this role will identify business problems that customers don’t realize that they have.

The 2 warnings that Marty had was to be careful of environments where product definition is done by committee and also be careful of taking the customer’s descriptions of issues at face value.  There is no substitute for that deep understanding of what customers are trying to accomplish and their business goals.  I’ve seen too many Product Managers assume they know customers and their products fall flat.  Nortel was one company that defined their products not by what they learned about their customers’ businesses but by what their customers told them.  Their PBXs became custom solutions that were applied to a broader market.  They declared bankruptcy this month.

A close friend of mine was doing some consulting work at a major SCUBA equipment manufacturing company that also supplies breathing apparatus to emergency services.  They were having a very difficult time defining customer’s impressions of their “touch points” and wanted to know how to improve these impressions.  They didn’t know who their customers really were and hadn’t distinguished between the people who purchase their products and the ones that used them.  This company “assumed” that some “acquisition” person purchased equipment by price point without an understanding of differentiated quality and didn’t know if the “user”, which would be people like fire fighters, had any input into the purchasing decision.  This is the kind of intimate customer knowledge that is crucial to the definition of what you sell.  If they can get an understanding of those fire fighter’s needs and impressions as well as their level of input on the purchasing decisions this company may be able to become the preferred vendor for most, or even all, municipalities.

I think that my understanding of Product Management is evolving to one that values close relationships.  Good Product Managers care about understanding what business partners and customers are concerned about and want to help them improve their businesses and their lives.  Maybe its even empathy for people’s needs that makes great Product Managers.  Defining product is more art than science.  It takes a great deal of effort, attention, and research.  The best Product Managers make it their business to know their customer’s business, competition, and their customers’ customers.

This has been a tough year for everyone.  The real estate market collapsed, the consumer credit bubble popped, commercial credit is mostly unavailable, and most of us know someone who has been laid off.  My personal situation has been an attempt to really finalize an organizational turn around to align with the company’s direction and to closely examine budgets to create various “what if” plans that will allow the organization and the company to weather current market tides.  It has been a flurry of activity and a constant barrage of changing situations.   In difficult times, like these, it is easy to become distracted from important goals and merely react to situations.  I’ve taken a few weeks off and realized that this reflection is paramount to the ability to lead.  My new year’s resolution will be to find ways to ensure that I keep goals firmly in mind with every decision and that I manage my time in relation to my primary goals.

Faithful readers of this blog will have noticed that for the last 6 months there have been fewer entries than in the past.  This is because I have not given myself the opportunity to reflect on what is important and taken advantage of blogging to put things into perspective.  My goal for blogging was to formally think through situations that I’ve encountered and to try to get feedback from folks in the business world.  I’ve written about the importance of journalling and blogging, but not as ends unto themselves.  They are vehicles to force oneself to slow down and critically examine various topics.  This allows for more sober decisions.

I am going to also try another vehicle to maintain focus on business goals.  I am writing out formal short, medium, and long term business goals and reviewing them every work morning.  In such confusing economic times, laser focus is going to be what allows for stability and growth.  When troubling decisions arise, I will review these goals and ask myself, “which goal will this decision move forward?”.

This coming New Year should be approached gingerly.  What are you going to accomplish in your business?  How are you going to ensure profitability?  How are you going to discover new areas of growth?  What exactly are you going to do to grow your skills.  This is a good time and a good year to focus on these questions.  Real success often comes in the wake of difficult times.  Plant the seeds for yourself now.

It’s November of 2008 and we are facing the most concerning economic downturn in recent memory.  Sure, the mid ’90’s had some challenges but nothing like the economic slowdown that we’re seeing today.  People react in funny ways to market challenges.  They either take the ostrich approach and try to perform “business as usual” or they push very hard to “show their value”.  Fortunately, there are enough people that take a measured approach to evaluate the current situation and try to “guide the ship” to economic safe harbors.  That reasoned approach must including helping the “ostriches” and the newly self appointed superstars understand that business approaches must adapt appropriately to the current market situations.

Ostriches are an interesting breed. When faced with threats they bury their heads in the sand because clearly their atavistic programming is to believe that what we don’t see won’t hurt us.  This will kill a company during an economic slowdown.  Somehow you have to help these change averse people understand that there is a reasonable amount of urgency required but caution must be taken to avoid panic.  Help them evaluate the existing investments and expenses and try to understand what the market will need in both the medium and the long term.  Identify what the new marketplace will require and change your approach accordingly.  At the same time, try to help them focus on marginally beneficial expenses and help to control the operational expenses.  A friend of mine at a technical hardware vendor was working with his marketing team and was surprised that they were relying on their existing 18 month roadmap to deliver new features that would change the way their customer’s delivered their products.  As a long term strategy this is fine but when customers are trying to control their op/ex that roadmap needed to adapt to reducing the cost of ownership for their customers to meet the medium turn needs and expand their market share.  Business as usual won’t work in trying times.

What really started to make me think of people’s reaction to difficult markets was the fact that my commute to and from work has lengthened by about 15 minutes each way because of traffic (my commute is already 45 minutes  to an hour).  I’m guessing that many denizens of the Silicon Valley are starting to believe that working at home doesn’t give them enough “visibility” at work and that its time to be “seen”.  I have to really wonder why it wasn’t important to have visible value in the good times too?  None the less, our freeways and parking lots are fuller and there is more personal interaction in the office.

A friend of mine at an internet marketing firm was telling me that since spring, when the economic slowdown started really showing its teeth, the behaviors have become worse.  Flashy presentations are delivered to quiet respectful audiences but later in the day whisper’s in the cubes and offices express doubt about the plan and the people who delivered the ideas.  Little open conflict is occurring in his company but few projects get traction to actually deliver the promises.  The zero sum game has begun.  If one person wins, the perception is that someone has to lose.  This poor behavior is making his company a difficult and unpleasant place to work.

There are a couple of things that leaders must do in difficult markets.  They have to help the company understand the changes in the economic climate and how they must react to the market shifts through planning.  They also have to ensure that the level of urgency does not devolve into fear.  Without the appropriate plans to address the new market the company’s financial situation will quickly create fear.  That fear will create unproductive and contentious, negatively competitive, behaviors that will accelerate the companies poor performance.  Things have to change, we need to understand that, but we’re all in this boat together and can accomplish a great deal as long as we all pull on our oars at the same time.

After goals are crisply defined for an organizational transformation there are some crucial elements of a group that have to be evaluated. A leader has to look at the existing team and assess the gaps between the articulated goals and what is being delivered today. This analysis should include potential system and process requirements as well as organizational structure changes needed perform new roles and create new deliverables. Once this picture is created then an assessment can be made about the competencies required for achieving goals in the new model. It is important to include as many members of the team as possible in the gap analyses and future needs analysis. People in the organization must be committed to mapping out their own future. This exercise helps to break the likely inertia in the organization and ease some of the staff over the disruption that the change will cause them. If the organization is in bad shape, bringing them together can also “drain the swamp” by sharing fears and concerns about the change but also set expectations very clearly for those that might be resistant.

Before a larger team is brought together to do the gap analysis the leadership team should put together the messaging and a skeleton model to propose to the larger team. This will allow them to help craft the message and to understand what customers and/or stakeholders are asking and will provide creative approaches that you might not think about. They will also gain a level of ownership in the new direction and be able to inspire their teams to embrace the changes.

When I started my current role there were different ideas about the organization’s goals. Once I established the expectations of our stakeholders and customers the management team worked hard to put together a succinct summary of those expectations. The people within the organization weren’t clear on the perceptions outside of the group but sensed that there was something wrong. We scheduled an offsite 30 days after I took the role and had people come from all over the world to work on our vision. But, before we did that we did a “get to know the new leader session”. I opened it up with an autobiography so that they would understand my background, both professionally and personally, and then shared what I had learned the interviews I’d done with our stakeholders throughout the company. The team then got together in sub groups and brainstormed what they wanted to know about me personally, about my perceptions of the group, about my thoughts about our direction, and whatever else that they wanted to know. The questions that they asked were insightful, well thought out, and expressed the uncertainty that was going through the group but most importantly it was very honest. There was some shock expressed when I explained the negative perceptions of the group from other organizations. There were concerns over whether I would stay for the long haul as we sort things out. In the end it was an honest discussion. What was most important was that I answered every question directly and honestly, even some of the tough ones that made me uncomfortable. I had to earn their trust with nothing more than openness and integrity. They would have known if I was B.S.ing them.

The first session set the stage for the important work of putting together a plan to achieve our goals. Those goals were defined by the interviews with the stakeholders and the team’s job was to identify how to achieve them. I made it clear that we needed their help to message our strategic mission and to define how we achieve it. The team separated out into subgroups again and brainstormed on different aspects of the organizational change. One group worked on a high-level mission statement that crisply described what we were supposed to do from the summaries that the management team put together and several other teams defined how we would accomplish the mission. At first blush, this sounds like we needed to define the mission before the other teams could work on the deliverables but we had enough of the groundwork completed by the management team that we could comfortably work on both.

The outcome of this offsite was outstanding. Everyone in the organization participated in the crafting of our organization direction and deliverables. After the offsite we took the brainstorming summaries and put together a crisp single line for our mission (avoiding corporate-speak so that anyone could understand it) and one-page descriptions for each role within the team. Now we knew how to explain what the organization’s value was to the company and how we would accomplish it. I believe that this is the most important step in change. You, as a leader, must be able to describe what you do in such clear terms that a typical high school kid can understand it, and then repeat that within the company and to your customers so often that you’re sick of hearing yourself say it. Your people will begin to internalize it if you continue to repeat the message and if it is consistently delivered. When you start hearing people repeat it in the same words that you use then you know you’re successful.

The “drain the swamp” exercise isn’t always necessary during change but if the group has enough ambiguity and fear you need to provide a forum for everyone to express their concerns. If possible, as in my example, have the individual contributors and managers participate in the organizational definition. People feel ownership when they create something and it removes a great deal of resistance. One caution I have is that you have to tell the team exactly what your intention is regarding their work. If you plan to use it as “advice” that you will make a decision on then tell them. If you tell them that they’re making the decision then plan to follow their direction.

Organizational transition, transformation, turn around.  There are many euphemisms to describe the act of changing an organization.  What do they mean?  It is popular for people to describe themselves as “change agents” but they are usually referring to some very clever ideas they’ve implemented in existing organizations to increase value incrementally.  This is evolution, to be sure, but real change happens when an organization’s activities are no longer worth the cost and must change.  There are so many different causes for organizational change.  External competition can commoditize or devalue existing products, economic conditions can become intense enough to demand for reining in costs,  or simply that complacency sets into organizations that have had some success and are “resting on their laurels”.  70% of organizational change efforts fail, says author John Kotter.  There are a few axioms to follow that will create a foundation for leaders to guide real change.  The problem has to be discovered and then crisply articulated, the problem definition must convey a suitable level of urgency, and it must define the organizational end state.  People need to feel they understand where they’re going and why.

One of the greatest difficulties in accomplishing organizational change is that the people have been toiling away in their current roles for some time, sometimes for years. They come to work everyday knowing that their work brings value and they know exactly what needs doing. These tasks brought success in the past. If you’ve been tasked to lead some kind of organizational change you’ll have to define the new direction. Talk to customers, both internal and external, and understand what they will value. You need to bring perspectives from outside of the organization to be able to define real value.

In my last job I created a list of specific questions and interviewed all of my major stakeholders by phrasing the questions in the exact same way each time so that the responses would be easily comparable. I asked: what they thought the organizational charter was today? What should it be? What are the most important deliverables? What are the biggest challenges? What are the biggest shortcomings? and, what are the opportunities for growth? These questions acknowledged that what we did might not be what we should do and opened the dialog for the stakeholders to provide input on what they valued.

Once business requirements are established from outside of the organization, start talking about them with the team. People within the organization will probably not realize that there is a problem so this communication will be crucial. Make sure that it is simple and crisp. If you can’t repeat it from memory its not simple enough. The goal is to create a message that can be repeated by every member of the team at every level. Most won’t believe it yet but make sure it comes from customers that they value and explain where it came from. Be very cautious to avoid clichés. Terms like “paradigm” and “synergy” will become hallway jokes and fodder for people who resist change. Use plain words that are unambiguous and describe real deliverables. If you can’t explain it to a teenager in a way that they understand, you didn’t do it well.

Once your message has been crafted and the customer base is aligned with the changes that need to take place, its time to bring the team in. The individual team members must be invited to help define their future or they will feel out of control. The organization is probably full of very talented and motivated people who need to understand they’re valued and that their input is required for success. If the team helps craft the solution it will be easier to manage performance relating to the defined outputs than if it were just dictated. Next week I’ll put together something on “draining the swamp”, which is letting the team express their feelings about the needed changes and get them to start thinking about how they can realize their full potential.