So I was reading an article by Daniel Tenner called “Starting up with a Friend” today which had some great insights on the dos and don’ts of starting up a business with a friend. Reading through the comments I came across a post where the user indicated that whilst the article was relevant to starting a business, it could be relevant to starting a band for example.

The Good Old Days

This cast my mind back to the good old days, circa 2002 when I was playing a lot of music. I was a pretty capable guitarist looking for a band to play in, looking to play shows and generally have some fun. So I hooked up with 3 guys who needed someone and I instantly became a fulltime member of the band. Everything gelled, we hit it off, and started to create some pretty good music.

Pretty soon we were getting to the point of wanting to play shows, build a website, record music, manufacture CDs and T-Shirts – that kinda jib, so I took it upon myself to step in to get the ball rolling. Here was my first mistake, but more on that later.

I soon had a website up and running, organised us to go into a studio I had used before, and started booking some small shows. Pretty soon we started to get noticed, and a CD was needed. Admittedly one of my band mates put us in contact with a guy who could do it all for us, we just needed to give him the assets (music, artwork etc). So I did just that, got the audio masters together, worked with the artist and developed the artwork layout myself. You can see where I’m going with this…

Anyway, cut a long story short, this pretty much continued for the next 3 years until I got to the point where I didn’t want to deal with it anymore – simply because people were not pulling their weight. I’ve seen this so many times in my life where people take the flame and run with it because someone needs to do it, and others stand by and watch – happy to let the person run out of steam. By 2005, I had ran out of steam…

Burn out

Instantly I stopped organising anything, and pretty much from that point onwards – the band spiralled out of control into nothing within 6 months. I did try though, I tried to get the rest of the band to contribute in the same way I was, but it was too late – they just couldn’t get their head around it. Although everyone in the band liked to think they were the “leader” of the band because they started it, they actually were just another sheep, very happy and ignorant.

Apparently, my stepping forward should be applauded, because I took the initiative to make things happen, however whilst that is a great thing to do, it’s actually pointless if you don’t manage the rest of the group into action. What I should have done is stepped forward, and distributed the tasks amongst the guys, let them take a piece of the pie, and take the pressure off of me, but instead I ran with it for years until I could take it no more.

Balance it up

Everyone wants leadership though. I know I want someone above me to give me guidance, support me through the tough times and pick me up when I make a big mistake. The trouble is, people start to sit back and relax too much when that happens… The leader turns into the fallback guy, old reliable who’ll “sort it out in the end”. The leader takes away any pressure for the followers to actually achieve. It’s a really tight balance.

Small teams do need leadership. Startups, a band, any kind of group needs guidance – so someone has to step up. That person though needs to realise that they’ve got to distribute the power early on, don’t set yourself up to be “the one” who gets it all done. Lead your followers into doing, rather than leading them into watching what you’re actually doing.

Go as far as specifying roles – Clarke looks after the money, Sarah is the Developer, and Jim-Bob is the ideas man, and make them work for it. If they can’t fulfil those roles, then they can’t do them, end of story. Don’t let it be you that does a bit of all these things, because you’ll soon be the one doing all of these things. Burn out ensues…

Even in today’s technological age, multinational corporations with thousands of employees still fail to grasp the basics of technology, the internet and how that impacts their business. How can a company, with resources coming out of their ears still not manage to get even the basics right? In today’s article I hope to identify some key factors…

Senior Management don’t get the internet

This is probably the key factor to most companies downfall with regards to technology. Senior management really struggle with what’s happening in Technology, what it means for them, and how they can exploit it. Example, the music industry. Not one, two but pretty much all record companies big and small just did not get the internet. Due to their ignorance, or just plain stupidity they wrote it off as a fad, and worse – a threat to the business they know and love.

This was probably the greatest example of how the mighty can fall in the last 10 years. Record execs, mostly old school fossils still clinging onto their vinyl records could not understand why people would want to listen to music without owning a physical product. They were right – for 20-30% of people that used the internet. For the rest (kids upto mid 30s), they couldn’t care less. They just wanted to listen to good music – they weren’t interested in owning a shiny bit of plastic, they were happy with putting their music on a heavier white piece of plastic called an iPod.

EMI and others soon started to feel the brunt of internet music piracy, due to the fact there was no real online outlet to buy music digitally. Specifically, when I started at EMI in 2005 their Digital business was pretty minimal, their content protection team however were in full swing. Launching a website on how and why you shouldn’t copy your music off of your CDs, why you shouldn’t share music and why it hurts the artists more than them… They then went onto publishing the URL to this site everywhere, on their CDs mostly. No one listened obviously. This “problem” was bigger than the record companies could handle, and it has been ever since.

Anyway, I digress – but what I am getting at here is the problem at EMI and all the other labels was that no one got it. Alot of the old school execs got information from websites printed off for them by their assistants because they “couldn’t deal with it”. It being a browser and a URL. Happily, most of them have now moved on…

A Good Excuse for Bad Recruitment

As I said, because a lot of the old school execs can’t grasp current technologies, they obviously hire people that are thinking on the same lines as them, and so it flows down to the very bottom. What you end up with, unless they accidentally hire a heretic, is an entire workforce that are completely blinkered. They all concentrate on what they know best, or what they knew best from 10 years ago more accurately, and continue to push the company “strategy” along a path of doom.

The reason why Apple are a successful company for example, or Google, is because they hire super smart people that are “with it”. Luckily this is flowing from the top down, other companies aren’t so lucky. Granted, Apple and Google are technology companies, yet each corporation effectively has their own Technology company internally. What they do differently though is they usually look outwardly for guidance in core competency areas, which 9/10 is expensive and you end up receiving a sub-standard product in return. I seriously think I am in the wrong business – there are plenty of companies out there desperate for basic internet knowledge.

Last week for example, I was at a conference by a consultancy for online research strategy… The key line they were playing everyone in the room, prepare yourself – it’s good – is that you need to embrace with your community of customers… Scarily most of the people in the room were actually perplexed by this and genuinely scared of the risk of talking to their customers via an online forum. This company had these people eating out of their hands… “We can guide you, we can help you setup a forum, and help your business grow”(and charge obscene amounts of money for the privilege btw – you lose).

Surely the people within these companies should be able to grasp these basic fundamentals of the internet by now? I guarantee all of those execs in the room and their companies will be gone in 3 years…

The company leads from the top down

This is so backwards nowdays I am surprised any half decent company still does this… It just doesn’t work in todays technological environment. As I’ve discussed, senior management are pretty much incapable of being cutting edge in most cases, and having a culture of top down management just doesn’t help anyone for the aforementioned reasons.

Seth Godin talks about heretics in his book Tribes, a clear signal to all companies on how they should be managing their leadership internally and externally. This is the only way things will changes within a top down management culture… low level heretics kicking up a storm – or, wait 10-15 years until the true old school folk have finally moved on. Who know’s if the next generation (that are the current generation “with it” bunch) will be capable of being cutting edge. I like to think that I will always be interested in current technology, I won’t get to a point and just stop paying attention. I assume my peers will be the same? Who knows…

The company bans or restricts internet access

This isn’t really a pointer of companies failing, however it definitely shows the company mentality of not understanding the internet, and seeing it as an evil distraction that will reduce throughput of their workforce. It’s such a backwards concept from the start. It demonstrates lack of trust, lack of understanding, and lack of forward thinking.

When starting a new role I always check out the company’s “Internet Usage Policy” as a key indicator of whether this company is half with it. Both my current role and EMI have a good one, basically down to trusting the end user to be sensible – do what you need to do, don’t look at porn and play online gambling using our network etc. Very sensible.

On the other side of the coin, I previously (and very temporarily) worked at a company whereby you absolutely could not have any internet access during your work time at all. Lunchtimes you could goto the “internet cafe” they had setup which was 3 computers for a building of 500 where you could use your lunchtime to browse the net on IE 4 (This was in late 2004, I think IE 6 was out by then?).

Anyway – you get the point – if the company cannot even trust their staff to use the internet sensibly, then they aren’t worth working for – they are going nowhere. There will always be people that abuse this trust, but 9/10 people will embrace it as part of their day job.

Risk Aversion to Open Source or Cheaper Alternatives

This was always a good one… “It’s free/cheap… it must be unsecure, not for the enterprise, and feature limited… It won’t meet our requirements”. Never understood this way of thinking, most execs would rather pay through the nose for something because it’s presumed the safer option. Is it better to run a product in house that is DOA, 3 years+ old, close to being out of support and costing you a bomb? Or to go for the cheaper option – possibly not quite meeting your requirements – yet is a constantly evolving product?

It’s a tough argument with many pros and cons, yet I guarantee that most execs won’t touch open-source / cheaper options with a barge pole. If it’s expensive to buy and expensive to develop on, it must be a good quality product right? Tell that to all the people that bought Sharepoint 2003, or Remedy… they suck, yet you have to live with them because they’re deemed expensive, therefore equalling good quality.

To Conclude…

So what can we do about all this then? Not a lot to be honest. You could become a bottom feeder heretic, start to spread your devilish words about the “new age” etc and hopefully get a small tribe going and turn some old school heads, but it’s going to be tough work. I think all we need is time, time for a generation to retire, and a switched on generation to take charge. Embrace or die is still relevant, companies still aren’t listening though, but who cares? Let them carry on and dissolve into dust, the rest of us will take over…

Tools to help you learn…

Learning jQuery 1.3	Amazon Kindle 2	jQuery UI 1.6

I was thinking a bit about peoples natural ability to do things and how that figures when it comes to leading a group big or small.

Some will argue that to be a great leader you have to have a natural ability to lead, and if you don’t, then you’re a natural follower. I agree with this to a degree as some natural leadership talent is useful, however I truly believe you can work at becoming a good leader by opening your eyes and listening to those around you.

The people who don’t have the ability to lead or cannot be bothered to make it happen are followers through and through – no point even hoping you’re any kind of leader. You certainly don’t need to make any effort to be a follower that’s for sure!

I’m reading a lot at the moment, and most of the books I’m going through all seem to have the same motto for risk taking…

Risk takers are winners

Hmm, well I kind of agree, you do need to take risks to become successful, to push yourself beyond the safe zone etc etc… But for me, it’s all about taking the right risks. There really is no point in taking risks left right and center because that’s what makes you brilliant. It’s not.

The only problem is, what are the right risks to take? How do you know to take x risk but not y? Difficult one that, and it’s down to you as an individual to figure that one out. As long as you at least aim to take the right risks, your 50% on the way to knowing which ones aren’t so right.

Was watching Pixar’s “A Bug’s Life” today with my daughter and there’s a nice quote in there:

“First rule of leadership – Everything is your fault”

Lovely! Made me think about some of the downsides of taking that next step into leading a group of people. They’ll love you when it’s right, despise you when it’s wrong. I guess that comes with the territory, but I think a lot of people overlook this.

Aim is, don’t get things wrong

Certainly a mistake I’ve come across, don’t assume that because you have been a successful leader in a previous role, that that great leadership will transfer with you.

Sure, your reputation will likely precede you in the first few weeks, but assuming that you now no longer need to make an effort to lead is a huge mistake. Your leadership qualities will soon diminish, people are fickle, have very short-term memories for the good, long-term for the bad.

Don’t slip into the bad – it’s a steep climb back up. The negativity will precede you.

A strange emptyness fills me today… my last day at EMI. I always imagined being there for years (well 10 years anyway) – and I wanted to be there, but the last 6 months have been…. ah I digress.

I still believe EMI will turn out OK at some point – they have brought in some wise minds, its only a matter of time hopefully.

I really feel there still remain some extremely talented people within the company – and I truly hope for the best for them. More importantly, they get recognised as not useless just because they worked for the old guard – painting with the same brush is a bad idea! It leads to situations like this.. over and over…

It’s a good lesson for me when I start my new role – just because things aren’t done the right way, don’t assume all of the people doing it the wrong way aren’t capable of changing it, or don’t want to change it. They may not necessarily have the power to change it, so you need to work with them, and not ignore them. That would be a snipsy bit of good leadership!

Expect the best in people. They may occasionally disappoint you, but persistent pessimism hurts you more. (BeMeaningful)

Goodbye EMI, it’s been good!

So I’ve been reading a few books lately, namely Wikinomics and Tribes by Seth Godin. Both kinda drill their ideas over and over – but the points are well taken.

Tribes really struck me as an innovative way to build your own success – become a leader – at whatever level you are at. The basic premise being, you have an idea/product/vision – whatever that you want take up on… fine – now go build yourself a tribe… a group of people around you who also believe in your idea/product/vision – you have a small tribe. Start to influence people that you want to come over to your tribe, get them involved, get the rest of your tribe to do the same… soon you start to have a growing beast that can influence things at all kind of levels.

Obviously, there is more to this book than my basic rendition above, but you get the idea!

You don’t have to be the CIO to make big change happen, to have an impact, to make a difference. Building on the ideas of Tribes can enable you to make these things happen yourself – so go try it!