David Cummings on Startups

Category: Leadership

  • Steve Jobs and Richard Branson Micromanage Success

    I’m continuing to read the Richard Branson book, Business Stripped Bare, and I’ve come to the conclusion that Steve Jobs and Richard Branson share a similar trait — they care so much about the brand experience that they micromanagement it at the CEO level. This level of passion for the brand is something many large company CEOs could learn from.

    One section in the book, on page 98, has a passage from Richard Branson’s diary talking about him flying on the first Virgin Atlantic flight to Japan:

    Need slippers in Upper Class, not socks. Need Japanese beers…Japanese tea from London, no good. Japanese food from London. Tastes good but must be better presented. Looks like fish and chips. Saucers for Japanese teacups.

    Of course, we’ve all heard how Steve Jobs controls every last detail of the Apple products, all the way down to the packaging. Clearly, great brands like Apple and Virgin share the common trait that their CEOs ensure no detail is missed.

    Have you seen this with other brands? Which ones?

  • Breaking Bread as a Team

    For the first six years at my company we’d recognize birthdays, or a big customer win, by taking the whole office out to lunch to celebrate as a team. After a while, this became such a frequent occurrence that I decided to have catered lunches delivered to our office every Friday, 52 weeks a year. We’ve been doing it for over three years now and it is one of the best things we do. Here are a few reasons why it is so beneficial:

    • We do it on Fridays, giving everyone a chance to end the week on a good note and talk about what’s going on in their lives
    • Breaking bread with team members is a great way to get to know each other on a more personal level, leading to stronger relationships and more trust
    • We encourage team members to bring in their spouses or kids, creating a family atmosphere
    • People love free food and to debate which places are best to order from (we usually rotate between a few different places, and change up those places every quarter)

    I didn’t know how successful it would be when we started, but having “Free Food Fridays” has been great and I highly recommend doing something similar. You won’t regret it.

  • Time for Quarterly Performance Reviews

    Yes, I’ve written about quarterly performance reviews several times in the past but they are so valuable it is important to reiterate them. We like to ask four simple questions, adapted from a Patrick Lencioni book:

    • What did you accomplish?
    • What are you going to accomplish next?
    • How can you improve?
    • How are you following the values (provide anecdotes)?

    Quarterly performance reviews provide a great time to spend an hour with each direct report and manager, recapping the quarter and talking about the future. It really is a valuable time to reinforce company alignment. I recommend quarterly performance reviews.

  • The Power of Silence

    I think one of the most underrated leadership tactics is silence. What I mean by that is the common approach to leading is to constantly offer up ideas, opinions, input, etc. Generally, I’m not recommending removing those practices, but rather to spend more time not talking. Just listening, and the power of silence by leaders, is very impactful.

    Have you ever had an employee come up and ask for advice? Of course you have. The next time that happens, just nod your head and wait, uncomfortably, for them to offer their suggestion and resolution. I bet the resolution will be a good one, and a second benefit is keeping the monkey off your back.

  • Idea Exchanges for Employee Feedback

    One of my favorite things we do each month is honor an internal hero and choose the most pressing hassle/best idea. The hero and hassle of the month is chosen by everyone through directly voting with an idea exchange. For us, we use UserVoice.com and just close the ideas out each month. The winner of the hero of the month and the provider of the most pressing hassle/best idea each get a $100 bill at our monthly all hands meeting. Here are some key benefits:

    • Employee recognition is done in a consistent and company-wide fashion
    • More pressing hassles and good ideas are generated, and documented, using this methodology
    • Departments and team members talk about the recognition and ideas on a daily basis at our morning check-ins
    • Each winner gets a fun lawn ornament (think little sumo wrestler and big foot character) to keep at their desk for the month to highlight that they won

    I’d recommend looking for ways to recognize employees and capture good ideas in a systematic fashion. Idea exchanges provide just the medium for us.

  • Simplifying the Rockefeller Habits One Page Strategic Plan

    We employ many of the strategies from the book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits including the One Page Strategic Plan (OPSP). For this year, and going forward, we decided to simplify and develop our own one page plan, as a hybrid between the Rockefeller Habits approach and the Patrick Lencioni organizational clarity approach. Here are some of the challenges we had with the Rockefeller Habits one:

    • Too much stuff on one page front and back
    • Terminology wasn’t clear (what’s the difference between a key thrust, rock, objective, initiative, and actions)
    • Jargon for our own goal categories (most people didn’t remember that A/R – DSO stood for accounts receivables – days sales outstanding, which translates to how many days, on average, does it take for us to get paid)

    We’re still working on what this simplified document will contain, and when we’ll roll it out, but my guess is that we’ll be ready within the next two weeks.

  • Company Vision with a Core

    Yesterday, the EO program was actually a two part workshop with the first part on developing a vision with a core while the second part was on the X-Factor for entrepreneurs. The main premise behind a vision with a core: sustained corporate growth and excellence need a platform with which to measure all decisions against. Here’s what John DeHart, the presenter of the workshop, had to say were the three parts for a vision:

    • Core purpose – Why we do what we do
    • Core values – How we do what we do
    • Painted picture – Where we are going

    I enjoyed the workshop and would encourage entrepreneurs to read the Jim Collins books Good to Great and Built to Last to get a deeper understanding of the material.

  • Quarterly Performance Reviews

    We normally do our quarterly performance reviews the last two weeks of the quarter but for Q4 we do them the first week of the new year due to the holidays. I’ve talked to other entrepreneurs, with modern, progressive companies, and I find it interesting that they do bi-annual or annual performance reviews. I have a hard enough time remembering what I did 30 or 60 days ago, let alone six or 12 months ago.

    Another important aspect is having open communication for feedback on a regular basis. Some people don’t feel comfortable bringing up more delicate topics and let them fester. Having a consistent, regular time for face-to-face 360 degree feedback provides a mechanism for this type of communication.

    I recommend quarterly performance reviews for all entrepreneurs once they have at least five to 10 employees.

  • How Does Your Company Give Thanks

    With today being Thanksgiving in the United States, it makes sense to talk about giving thanks in your company. Giving thanks, and celebrating, go together and should be part of the company rhythm. Here’s what we do to give thanks and celebrate:

    • Whenever we close a deal with a new customer, we ring our gong at 5pm that same day and everyone claps
    • Every Friday we have a catered lunch for the entire office to spend time together and socialize
    • We use an eCrowds Idea Exchange to nominate a hero of the month, voted on by entire team, and then award the winner a $100 bill at our monthly all hands meeting

    I recommend every company give thanks and celebrate on a regular basis.

  • Bottom-Up Forecast for 2010 Planning

    Three years ago I was at a TAG event listening to one of the more accomplished software CEOs talk about sales. Towards the end of the presentation, he made a statement that has stuck with me to today: build your sales goals for the following year from the bottom up based on your existing sales reps productivity in the current year. If your reps aren’t making quota now, don’t expect them to make quota next year without some serious overhaul. If you need to make a bigger number, don’t have good sales reps in your recruiting pipeline, and have a six month ramp up time before a rep is productive, include that in the model.

    As much as technology companies are driven by cool, ground-breaking products, it really comes down to sales and revenues. My advice for entrepreneurs is to only do bottom-up sales forecasts as part of their planning process.