Book Short: Vulnerability Applied to Leadership Getting Naked: A Business Fable About Shedding The Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty (book, Kindle), is Patrick Lencion’s latest fable-on-the-go book, and it’s as good a read as all of his books (see list of the ones I’ve read and reviewed at the end of the post). The book talks about the power of vulnerability as a character trait for those who provide service to clients in that they are rewarded with levels of client loyalty and intimacy. Besides cringing as I remembered my own personal experience as an overpaid and underqualified 21 year old analyst at how ridiculous some aspects of the management consulting industry are…the book really made me think. The challenge to…
Category
Leadership
Book Short: Calm in a Crisis, Explained
Book Short: Calm in a Crisis, Explained Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, by Laurence Gonzales, is not a business book. Even though the author says a few times “this can be applied to business, too,” the application is left 100% up to the reader. But that’s my only criticism of the book, and it’s not a big one at that. Deep Survival is an unexpected and somewhat odd way to think about how to lead an organization, but it’s very powerful, and incredibly well written. The author essentially has made a career, or at least a hobby, of studying major accidents and delineating the qualities that separate those who survive from those who don’t. Most of his…
What a View, Part III
What a View, Part III We are in the middle of our not-quite-annual senior team 360 review process this week at Return Path. It’s particularly grueling for me and Angela, our SVP of People, to sit in, facilitate, and participate in 15 of them in such a short period of time, but boy is it worth it! I’ve written about this process before — here are two of the main posts (overall process, process for my review in particular, and a later year’s update on a process change and unintended consequences of that process change). I’ve also posted my development plans publicly, which I’ll do next month when I finalize it. This year, I’ve noticed two consistent themes in my…
The UnEmployee
The UnEmployee We have a few people who I think of an UnEmployees. They are people who we have almost hired over the years (sometimes more than once), but never have, people who are in our industry and are friends of Return Path. Sometimes they are clients or partners, sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes they have a token stock option grant as advisors, sometimes they don’t. In any case, these people have played an incredibly valuable role in our company’s development over the years. They are extra “eyes and ears” for us that have often served up valuable information before any of our regular employees heard things. They have made powerful connections for us with other companies in the industry. They…
Why I Love My Board
Why I Love My Board, Part II I’ve written a few things about my Board of Directors over the years, some of which I note below. Part I of this series isn’t particularly useful, though there’s an entertaining link in it to a video of Fred that’s worth looking at if you know or follow him. Today, we are happy to announce that we are adding a new independent director, Scott Petry, the founder of Postini and now a senior email product leader at Google (read the official press release [here]). Scott’s a fantastic addition to our already strong Board, and the process of recruiting and adding him has made me reflect a bit on my Board and its strengths…
Book Short: Sequel Not Worth It
Book Short: Sequel Not Worth It Mastering the 7 Essentials of High Growth Companies, by David Thomson, was a poor sequel to the solid Blueprint to a Billion [review] [buy]– and not worth reading if you’ve read the original. It was very short for its price and contained mildly interesting examples of “blueprint companies” that augmented the original book but didn’t uncover any new material or add any thinking to the mix. Basically, it was like another couple chapters that should have been part of Blueprint. It is not a bad buy in lieu of the original if you haven’t read either one yet, as Blueprint is a bit longer than necessary, but otherwise, you can skip this one. On…
Why CEOs Shouldn’t Mess with Engineers
Why CEOs Shouldn’t Mess with Engineers I went to the Vasa Royal Warship Museum in Stockholm the other day, which was amazing – it had a breathtakingly massive 17th century wooden warship, which had been submerged for over 300 years, nearly intact as its centerpiece. It’s worth a visit if you’re ever there. The sad story of its sinking seems to have several potential causes, but one is noteworthy both in terms of engineering and leadership. The ship set sail in 1628 as the pride of the Swedish navy during a war with Poland. It was the pride of King Gustavus Adolphus II, who took a keen personal interest in it. But the ship sank literally minutes after setting sail….
What Does a CEO Do, Anyway?
What Does a CEO Do, Anyway? Fred has a great post up last week in his MBA Mondays series caled “What a CEO Does.” His three things (worth reading his whole post anyway) are set vision/strategy and communicate broadly, recruit/hire/retain top talent, and make sure there’s enough cash in the bank. It’s great advice. These three are core job responsibilities of any CEO, probably of any company, any size. I’d like to build on that premise by adding two other dimensions to the list. Fred was kind enough to offer me a “guest blogger” spot, so this post also appears today on his blog as well. First, three corollaries – one for each of the three responsibilities Fred outlines. Setting…
Style, or Substance?
Style, or Substance? I had an interesting conversation the other day with a friend who sits on a couple of Boards, as do I (besides Return Path’s). We ended up in a conversation about some challenges one of his Boards is having with their CEO, and the question to some extent boiled down to this: a Board is responsible for hiring/firing the CEO and for being the guardians of shareholder value, but what does a Board do when it doesn’t like the CEO’s style? There are lots of different kinds of CEOs and corporate cultures. Some are command-and-control, others are more open, flat, and transparent. I like to think I and Return Path are the latter, and of course my…
The Value (and Limitations) of Benchmarking
The Value (and Limitations) of Benchmarking I think I am starting to drive my team nuts a little bit. I have suggested, prodded, and executed a ton of external benchmarking projects this year, all of which have different leaders inside Return Path doing both systematic and ad hoc phone calls and meetings with peer companies and aspirational peer companies to understand how we compare to them in terms of specific metrics, practices, and structures. It’s some combination of the former management consultant in me rearing its head, and me just trying to make sure that we stay ahead of the curve as we rapidly scale our business this year. Why go through an exercise like this? One answer is that…
Book Short: Multiplying Your Team’s Productivity
Book Short: Multiplying Your Team’s Productivity No matter how frustrated a kids’ soccer coach gets, he never, ever runs onto the field in the middle of a game to step in and play. It’s not just against the rules, it isn’t his or her role. Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown (book, Kindle) takes this concept and drives it home. The book was a great read, one of the better business books I’ve read in a long time. I read a preview of it via an article in a recent Harvard Business Review (walled garden alert – you can only get the first page of the article without buying it), then my…