Columbia Business School posted an article on Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, about his experience as an entrepreneur. The decision to hand over the reins was a tough one because, you guessed it, he had to relegate control. But it worked. “You need to know when to get out of the way and stop talking.” Craig said.
For every company, reaching that inflection point where things start to fall through the cracks is a true test of long-term viability. The exact metrics are different for every company, but the ability to anticipate these issues, add professional management to negotiate them and put ego aside in the pursuit of supporting the right outcome determines success or failure.
Not surprisingly, first-time founders fail more often than serial entrepreneurs at navigating these growth pains. Serial entrepreneurs more often have the self awareness to step aside or recruit executives with complementary strengths to support scale. Also, serial entrepreneurs more often go out and attract advisers who help hold them accountable to making these changes.
The Columbia Business School’s professor of management Rita McGrath posted last week on board strategy. Namely, she talks about how innovation is key on any board and a stale or unproductive board can significantly hinder an organization.
David Nadler suggested that one key thing boards need is input into strategic decisions when there are still choices to be made, rather than simply being asked to vet decisions that management has already come to a conclusion about. We need, he suggests, to get away from a “review and concurrence” process and instead adopt one in which a board can make meaningful choices. The second key issue that boards need to be engaged on has to do with the question of risk — often the most significant risks don’t show up in the spreadsheets and presentations shown to the boards. What is needed, instead, are candid conversations about what happens if the unexpected happens or if the strategy goes wrong.
Rita argued in such environments, she also proposed that boards can completely kill effective innovations by insisting on the wrong metrics — such as worrying about the rate of failure. She has long said that the rate doesn’t matter if the costs are low. Imposing those requirements will guarantee risk aversion among the staff.
Brian Lenhart at the Columbia Business School recently posted about Driving Results with Social Media. Brian argues that we need to understand what Social Media is all about and defines it as a constantly flowing communications channel. He gives the following tips to stay ahead of it:
1) Launch, Track, Learn, Evolve, Rebuild
Don’t skimp on reporting. Everything in the online space is trackable — so track it. Launch initiatives quickly and then use the information and results that are gathered to learn and continue to evolve your platforms. Some of my greatest insights and strategic program adjustments have come by really diving into the numbers.
2) Leadership Support and Empowerment
The success of social media programs can be influenced by the degree of leadership support and decentralized decision-making inherent in the process. To me, leadership support means two things: 1) empowering employees and 2) encouraging new ideas by involving social media gurus.
3) Form Progressive Partnerships
At its heart, social media is about people and relationships. You can say this applies for anything in marketing, but I believe it is especially true for social media.
Catherine New at Columbia Business School recently posted some sagely CEO leadership advice, know thyself!
“It is important to know thyself. Acquiring self-consciousness is the most exquisite transformation that you make in your 30s and 40s,” said Shumeet Banerji, the CEO of Booz & Company. “Learn what you are good and bad at. Especially what you are bad at.” He also suggested that good leaders think in six to eight month campaigns. “Taken together, they are a course of action,” he said.
Shumeet followed that statement with 10 career development tips:
1. Pay attention to human capital and who you are as a human being; consider how you think about and construct problems.
2. Get and feed a network. If you only get in touch with people when you need something, it doesn’t work. Be helpful to others as well, even if it’s difficult to take the time and effort.
3. Find mentors. No one is good enough to sort out his problems on his own. Good mentors are the ones who have influenced you and paid attention to you. They not only advocate for you, but they are critical of you as well.
4. Seek diverse experiences and stretch yourself into areas where you are not naturally comfortable. Diverse experience builds character.
5. Be curious about the world and its issues; despite the pain of the financial crisis, it has been an accelerated learning curve.
6. Be interested or else you can’t be interesting. Nothing is worse than a dull dinner companion — you can be interested in anything.
7. Form an educated and distinctive point of view. It helps you make sense of abstraction. Have a worldview to see what forces are at play.
8. Read. At the minimum read a daily financial paper and a dozen good books a year.
9. Look after yourself. Careers are an endurance game and work happens to you more than any other activity.
10. Make time for people you love and who love you. It’s too early to let these people become a subsidiary early in your career. The thing about time is that it is very unforgiving.
Columbia Business School professor Marieke Van der Lans gave an update on the Public Offering page yesterday.
Her recent client Qaulitas of Life offers community-based financial education workshops for low income earners. It was her job to pull together a plan to engage and retain volunteers who facilitate the workshops.
With a framework and guidelines complete, it all came together. In the end, it led to six types of recommendations: raising awareness; identifying and recruiting volunteers; welcoming new volunteers; organizing and allocating tasks to volunteers; measuring and rewarding volunteers, and communicating effectively with volunteers.
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