Soft Management

This is a great profile on Tony Hsieh and the Zappos recipe. While I like the idea of a strong culture, I don't like the idea of it becoming my "lifestyle." However, a deep and value-driven culture is critical to success in any organization - yet nearly impossible to quantify. 

I think leaders within an organization should take notice and invest generously in culture, even if it's just in their own humble department or branch. Happy employees do work that impacts. Organizations are catching on and if you don't have culture, you'll see your people leaving for places like Zappos. 

I went on a tour of Zappos while I was in Henderson, NV earlier this year. It was a very remarkable experience. At first, seeing their culture firsthand seemed sort of superficial, I think the media amplifies it to be greater than it really is, but Zappos believes in promoting progression - I believe that people who are learning and growing are happier, and thus do greater work. This is the only way such a terrible business model could not only succeed, but thrive.

I have shared in Gary Vaynerchuk's conviction for a very long time. He breaks it down:

• The battle of marketing is now going to be individual. We are in the dawn of one-on-one marketing.
  
• How ironic: the internet has brought things back to "small town roots" - most people have forgotten about this and what the world was like before the Internet was in our pockets.
• Businesses are not running the marathon, they're running the sprint. So they fail because they are not worried about the lifetime value of the customer and customer retention.
• Businesses are treating social media like a one night stand, trying to close on the first transaction.

If you haven't already noticed, in today's economy you actually have to do the right thing and care about people...I like how Gary said "It's like the force."

No matter how catastrophic the blunder, how you respond determines everything.

A negative and uncaring response (like BP’s reaction to its oil spill) can have a detrimental impact on corporate image, while a positive and caring response (like Apple’s free cases for the iPhone 4 antenna defect) can have long-term favorable effects that build brand loyalty.

Lesson: Screwing up presents an opportunity for you to show how much you really care.

I'm right in the middle of reading Derek Sivers’ book, Anything You Want. It’s an autobiographical tale of starting a little hobby, accidentally growing it into a big business, and then selling it for $22 million.

As I was reading this afternoon, I came across a topic I had been thinking about for a while. I have always wondered about why companies institute and enforce such strict policies. Of course it's because the owner  got burnt one time, but why punish 1000+ customers because of one bad apple?

Derek has taught me that it's extremely important to resist that simplistic, angry, reactionary urge to punish everyone, and to step back to look at the big picture.

In that angry moment, you're only focusing on that one lousy person who did you wrong - your judgment is clouded, you're giving into the darkside -  you start thinking that everyone sucks, and the whole entire world is out to get you. FYI: This is a horrible time to make a new policy.

If you ever find yourself in this spot, think of all the hundreds of customers who did you right. You'll never be able to prevent bad things from occurring, just learn to shrug it off and resist the urge to punish everyone for one person's mistake.

I just read this article by David Ronick (@upstartbootcamp), the point that stood out to me most was when he stated “perfect is the enemy of good enough." I'm somewhat of a perfectionist, I like things neat, organized, on time or early. I often go overboard in the beginning diving into what I'm doing so I have enough time to refine the project, report, product, or whatever I'm doing in a stress free manner well in advance of the deadline. In college I preferred to turn my work in early so I could get  feedback from my professors (once I was accused of plagiarism because my professor didn't believe a student would actually do something like this). 

I finally learned that when I'm almost done...that means it's time to launch. I use to curse myself with constant editing when the product was actually "good enough," I would waste a great deal of time trying to make it perfect. 

I no longer do this because Jason Fried taught me in on page 93 of Rework that once a product does what it needs to do, then it needs to go to market. I used to hold everything up because of a few leftovers, when I should have been shipping the product out the door, and putting off what I didn't need right at that very moment. Jason makes the point, "Build the necessities now, worry about the luxuries later."

I'm reminded of the founders of Crate and Barrel. They didn't wait to build perfect and fancy displays when they opened their first store. No, what they did was turn over the crates and barrels that the merchandise came in and stacked the products on top of them. I love the no-frills Costco credo! Drop the pallet and cut the wrap - that's it. 

While this kind of approach could easily be mistaken for skimping on quality, cutting corners, laziness or procrastination, it's important to understand that the best way to create something great is through iterations.

Some times we get ourselves into trouble with bosses, coworkers, and customers. 

We bring it upon ourselves because our estimates flat out suck. We upset these people because we tell them we'll have the job done, the order processed, the assignment completed, the bid prepared, or the proposal submitted...but we fail to meet their expectations because maybe we should have asked for more time. But we don't! 

We press through and ship it late hoping they'll understand but they usually don't, they become frustrated with us and we might even get labeled as the person that's "always running behind." Worse, our ethos is damaged and we feel like a liar because we didn't do what we said we would do. 

If your intentions are pure and you want to deliver great service to whom ever, but it often seems like you're running behind, then you need to read this attachment. You can avoid this kind of trouble by better communicating the expectations, you can do this by breaking the project down into smaller pieces. It's hard to judge how long a huge project will take, it's easier to estimate how long something small will take. So take a moment, break down the project down into smaller chunks, then do the math. Expect the best outcome, but plan for the worst.