Firing

Saw this on Chris Dixon's Blog...

Firing

Firing is awful. You can try to avoid it, but even the most selective founders make serious mistakes. Here are a few things I’ve observed about firing:

1) The good people bounce up, the bad ones bounce down. I was told this by my boss once when he was firing one of my friends. At the time, I thought this just made him feel better about himself. Over time, I’ve seen the wisdom in what he said. Some people who get fired react by fixing their weaknesses. Others spiral down.

2) Do it early. If you think you’re going to fire someone over the next six months, you probably will. Don’t wait too long. Too many founders do. It’s better for management and employees if it happens fast.

3) It’s awful. You’re in control of a situation that will meaningfully hurt someone. It’s an awful place to be. The fired person will go home and tell his/her family about how terrible it was. It was your fault. Perhaps your mismanagement caused it. Who knows. You’ll question it, and perhaps you are right to do so.

4) The other choice is firing everyone. You’re the founder of the company. If you run out of money, you’re forced to fire everyone. If you don’t fire the bad employees, you risk everyone else’s jobs. It’s an impossible situation.

5) The feeling is more likely to be mutual than you think. Most of the time, the person getting fired was already about to quit. The antipathy you feel is likely reciprocated. It’s surprising how often this happens and management doesn’t see it coming.

It would be great if startups were all about growth, hiring, and success. But the reality is that founding a company is a brutal job and lots of the pain gets passed down to employees. Creative destruction sounds nice in textbooks, but in the real world it means telling friends to go home, stop getting paid, and find new jobs.

The 3 Aspects of Fixing Support Calls

It's very easy in a busy support environment to just be happy that the call queues are manageable, and you're working within the target SLAs. That's the job right ? Not really - it's only the first step of three...

• Resolve the technical problem and complete documentation
• Ensure the customer believes the problem is resolved
• What is their level of satisfaction ?
• Do they have other issues that need looking into ?
• Research the cause of the problem, and fix the process, to prevent it happening again

The last is particularly important. Firefighting is defined as time wasted working on effects instead of causes, and it's only if you try and work backwards to prevent future calls can you say you're doing a proper support job.

How to run an Exhibition Stand

I've run more exhibition stands than I can remember: here's what I've learned...

DON'T

• waste money advertising the show or your presence at it: why spend your hard-earned marketing dollars inviting people to see competition ?
  
  
• waste money on branded pens, stress dolphins and all the other crap that only ends up i) in a waste bin outside or ii) in their kids' bedrooms
  
  
• do demos on the stand: by definition they're a waste of time to a time-waster, and would you ever dream of doing a demo to a properly qualified prospect in a train station concourse ? No.

DO:

• Make your presence strong, memorable, but above all your message must be SIMPLE and CRYSTAL CLEAR , just single words or phrases about what you do - they must be so big that they can easily be read from 20 metres away. Don't blow up your datasheets into posters. To bring your message to life, have pictures of customers, the company name readable from 10 metres away, and with short, punchy quotes (10 words max.) readable from 5 metres away. I once saw a great stand backdrop which was a parade of life size pictures of all the employees at the show, their name (2 words), job role (2 words), and what they do for customers (10 words) all cleary legible from the corridor. Very effective, and massively motivating for the staff, too, because...
  
  
• ...the most important thing is not to have the best, most expensive stand at the show, but to have THE MOST MOTIVATED, SMART PEOPLE WORKING THERE. Treat it like a military operation: no cosy huddles, staff chatting in defensive groups, blocking the stand from view. Identify and train two types of people...
  
  
• Greeters: friendly, attractive, likeable people. Have them stand in the corridors, in front of the other stands around, blocking the opposition, and your stand has clear sightlines from all angles. Greeters engage with everyone who walks by, asking engaging, chatty questions like "Hello...so, why have you come to this show ?". Their job is to pre-qualify, moving the tyre kickers along to waste everyone else's time, and guiding real suspects to the Meeters. Greeters have a big incentive scheme for the day and the whole show: spend the money you didn't spend on branded Rubix cubes on a prize weekend for two at a country hotel for the person who i) met with the most people ii) produced the highest number of well qualified suspects.
  
  
• Meeters don't work the corridors, the stay to one side of the stand, only talking to those the Greeters have pre-qualified, picking up the part completed clipboard form from the Greeter and completing it seamlessly. Meeters are those who can talk intelligently about what you do, but they MUST NOT get into 20 minute selling conversations: their job is to further qualify, and if this one's a prospect, make them feel special, and arrange a followup meeting, demo, whatever.

GENERAL:

Aim to have at least 3 or 4 times as many Greeters as Meeters - but some of the best shows I've run are where we've had Meeters at all: the Greeters were well prepared, and handled the whole conversation. This is only an exhibition, isn't it ? You're looking for qualified leads, aren't you ? Proper sales activity comes later.

Then make sure after the show you take everyone out, drink the local bar dry, hand out the best performer awards, and stop over in a local hotel: if you can avoid it, don't let them stop over the night before (curry and beer are nice but the worst show fuel). Shows run well are very, very hard work and need to be rewarded - but only afterwards.

The 10 interview questions you shouldn't ask

If you're interviewing, beware....according to the Which ? CV and Interview Handbook, you can't ask:

1. How old are you (unless you're interviewing for police or armed forces) ?
2. Are you married ?
3. Are you gay ?
4. Are you planning to start a family soon ?
5. What are your childcare arrangements ?
6. Are you a member of a trade union ?
7. What political party do you support ?
8. What is your religion ?
9. Where were you born ?
10. Do you have any disabilities that could affect you doing the job ?

...you have been warned !

The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives

Sydney Finkelstein researched why 50 former high-flying companies failed, and defined the Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives (SUEs) . . .

Habit # 1: SUEs see themselves and their companies as dominating their environment
SUEs vastly overestimate their influence over events and vastly underestimate the role of chance and circumstance in their success. They believe that everyone else in the company is there to execute the SUE’s personal vision for the company.
Warning Sign for #1: A lack of respect

Habit #2: SUEs see no boundary between their personal interests and their corporation’s interests
SUEs use their companies as private empires, and act as if they are king of their own country, free to spend any amount they choose on themselves.
Warning Sign for #2: A question of character

Habit #3: SUEs think they have all the answers
All executives have to develop rapid decision making skills, handle many crises simultaneously, and quickly size up situations that have stumped everyone else for days. But SUEs only listen to their own words, shut out other points of view and are closed to learning anything new at all.
Warning Sign for #3: A leader without followers.

Habit #4: SUEs ruthlessly eliminate anyone who isn’t completely behind them
By eliminating all dissenting and contrasting viewpoints, SUEs cut themselves off from reality. And with only yes-men left, who’s there to warn them that the world’s not as they would like it to be ? Or come up with a new and different approach ?
Warning Sign for #4: Executive departures

Habit #5: SUEs are consummate spokespersons, obsessed with the company image
Beware high-profile executives, constantly in the public eye, with little time for operational details.
Warning Sign of #5: Blatant attention-seeking

Habit #6: SUEs underestimate obstacles
SUEs are afraid of appearing fallible, so they avoid admitting mistakes at all costs. They’ll especially avoid accepting that the obstacles they casually waved aside are more troublesome than anticipated.
Warning Sign of #6: Excessive hype

Habit #7: SUEs stubbornly rely on what worked for them in the past
Many SUEs owe their careers to a “defining moment”: the one thing they’re known for and what gets them all their subsequent jobs. This, combined with some or all of Habits 1-6, means they have only one point of reference, and don’t consider the wider range of options needed to address new circumstances.
Warning Sign of #7: Constantly referring to what worked in the past

Finkelstein’s bottom line: If you exhibit several of these traits, now is the time to stamp them out. If your boss or several senior executives at your company show them, start looking for a new job.

Three simple negotiation rules

I have a shelf full of books on negotiation, all promising to change my life. But sometimes you find a simple rule set that really helps.

Recently I came across Larry Brilliant’s 3 rules of How to Negotiate. Google him if you’ve never heard of him, but they’re dead simple, and dead right:

A) Have more points to discuss than the other side.
In wanting a conclusion, it’s only too easy to run out of big things to talk about, and then the other side can start pressuring you for a close. If you’ve lots of points important to you, you always have another reason to call, more concessions to offer (make them small !), and stay centre stage right to the end.

B) Have a mathematical formula.
Invent a calculation that justifies your desired outcome. It will of course be high: not too scary, but definitely ballsy. Of course it will be challenged, and you can discuss the assumptions, the multipliers, the variables, and any qualifying factors. But your initial, calculated (and hopefully daringly high) start point anchors a value in peoples' minds, and stops them replacing your value with theirs.

C) Have alternative outcomes.
If you don’t have walk away options, you will lose out. If you're selling a business, have other financing or exit options. If you're selling products and services, work as hard as you can to build a full pipeline.

Handling interruptions

To keep costs down, I asked our receptionists one time if they could answer customer queries and complete simple documentation. I was taken aback when they said "No, definitely not". They were adamant that the constant interruptions from phone calls and visitors would result in errors, and they weren't prepared to do a bad job for me. They said: "If you don't believe us, do it yourself."

So I did, and sat on reception. And they were right: it was impossible to concentrate, and in 4 hours I completed one task only, when normally I'd have flown through dozens. It reminded me of my early days programming: if you lost your thread of thought, it took ages to get it back, and sometimes you'd lost a good idea for ever.

A recent article in Forbes magazine brought this all flooding back, as it described how you could measure interruptions. The quoted studies showed each time flow state is disrupted it takes fifteen minutes to get back into it, and that programmers who work in the top quartile of proper (ie uninterrupted) work environments are several times more productive than those who don’t.

To measure the Flow State Percentage, you need to ask workers to track for a few days how many hours each day are they in flow, divided by the number of total hours they’re at the office. And then brainstorm ways the team can move this number up. For example: a sign at each person’s desk that says “Please don't interrupt me, I’m in flow.” Or maybe you have periods where one person fields all calls. Or agree that for half a day, everyone turns off Outlook.

The modern disease of low attention spans is only made worse by smartphones picking up email. So why not just turn it off, and pick up email every 3-4 hours ? You'll feel less pressure, and suddenly you'll have more time to get things done.

Go on, just try it. Turn off your email, I dare you...