On an overcast and rainy Sunday morning, after reading about Stanford’s amazing win on ESPN.com, some interesting things from the paper over a couple of cups of coffee:
But my first smile of the day came from seeing JR Martinez on the cover of People magazine. While most of you know JR from Dancing with the Stars, he is also a graduate of the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities program…a program that I am proudly associated with...pick up that magazine and try not to smile when you read about this amazing young man. Here is a link to a story on the People magazine piece from JR’s home town Dalton Daily Citizen. Congratulations JR!
From the NY Times…while it’s much easier said than done, In a Big Company, Make Everyone an Entrepreneur. The article, a recurring weekly feature by Adam Bryant, is an interview with Lynn Blodgett. president and chief executive of ACS, an I.T. services subsidiary of Xerox.
From the article:
A. One of the ways that we do it is we drive the P.& L. as deep into the organization as we can. We have a P.& L. at a customer level, that’s mandatory. We have to be able to see how we’re doing with that customer. A lot of companies can’t do that. In our business we drive the P.& L. down to the people who are actually doing the work. So if we can make a P.& L. for a $10 million business, we’ll give that guy the P.& L. and he’ll have profit accountability, revenue accountability and customer satisfaction accountability. And as they grow, they make more money. That results in a higher performance, in my opinion.
So you give people control, hold them accountable, give them control of their resources, and then monitor what they do. And if you do that, you’re going to tap into, in our business, the highest level of drive — entrepreneurial drive. I want ACS to look like a whole bunch of sole proprietorships. Because that way, people are thinking to themselves, “If this was my money, if I was doing this, would I really spend it? Do I have to buy that computer right now or can I get by with my one that’s two years old?”
Q. What else is important to your leadership style?
A. Another is that nobody is above being moved, being touched, being influenced by a small gesture. I’ve experienced it myself. Somebody might call me or send me an e-mail to say, “Hey, I got that bonus and I just want you to know that really means a lot to me.” We have 85,000 employees, and I don’t get 85,000 e-mails. So when I get one it means a lot.
So it’s the little things. Like writing a note that says, “You did a great job,” or: “I’m sorry I got after you. You’re a super performer, and I lost my patience with you, and that’s my error, and forgive me for doing that.” We also set up phone calls when we win a deal, and we’ll get the team together and say: “Hey, tell me about that. What was the hardest thing? How did it come together?”
From the same article on hiring:
How do you hire? What questions do you ask?
A. The very first question is always “Tell me about yourself.” And not the résumé — I don’t want the résumé. Just tell me about yourself. What do you like? What do you enjoy doing? Because I think you can tell a lot from very open-ended questions.
Then I will say, “If you had the perfect job, what would you do?” And then I always ask: “Why do you want to come here? What is it about us?” Then, finally, “What do you think you could do to help us?” In the positions that I’m looking for, when you ask people what they can to do help, you often get some great answers and insights.
Q. What are the qualities you’re looking for?
A. People who are honest. That’s the No. 1 thing. I don’t have a test for that. I think that’s one where you have to go with your gut for a lot of it. And this is my prejudice because I didn’t go to college, but their intellect, their ability to think, is more important to me than any degrees they might have. And are they loyal? Will they take risks? Do they have integrity? Frankly, the technical aspects of it are way, way down on the list.
And in the Opinion section, What Tax Dollars Can’t Buy, Did you Hear the One About the Bankers and Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work give somewhat different perspectives on the current economic discussion.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
From Dugout Phones to Netflix
I’ve been enjoying reading newspapers and magazines on my iPad, and in the last couple of days there were more than a few articles that caught my eye.
First, especially after the problems last night in the World Series with the dugout telephones, I went back and re-read the NY Times story in the Sunday paper on the use of that old relic of an instrument of communication in the dugout Ironically, Tony LaRussa was the cover photo for the story. From the article:
While landlines in homes collect dust and serve increasingly decorative functions, the attitude among baseball clubs is a familiar one in a sport tied tightly to old-fashioned ways: why change what works?
“The same old phones, the same old process,” said Derek Lilliquist, the bullpen coach of the St. Louis Cardinals. “I guess they’ve been that way forever.”
In today’s Wall Street Journal, there were a couple of articles about entrepreneurs that caught my eye; one dealing with China and the restaurant industry and the other dealing with entrepreneurial bankers.
A Secret Recipe in China details the story of an entrepreneur in the restaurant industry who did what some of the major chains couldn’t do…succeed in China. From the article:
Shanghai's hygiene bureau objected when Scott Minoie tried to build an open kitchen in his first Element Fresh restaurant nearly a decade ago, saying it would be unsightly: "too foreign."
But the Boston native persuaded officials to let him press ahead, confident that Chinese consumers, concerned with food safety, would appreciate a Western-style bistro that lets diners see their laffa-bread salads and raspberry smoothies while they're being made.
Now he has a chain of 11 restaurants. Sales are on track to hit $30 million this year, up 40% from last year, according to Element Fresh's managing partner, Frank Rasche. The chain's profit margin hovered between 10% and 15% last year, he says. They plan to open about 40 more outlets in China by 2015.
Go West, Investment Banker, tells the tale of one particular gentleman who went to KeyBank from Bank of America. From the article:
In July, though, the 42-year-old Mr. Fowler left the second-largest U.S. bank by assets, where he was a director covering private equity, and moved to Cleveland. He joined KeyCorp, a regional bank with a loan portfolio a tenth the size of Bank of America's, to do a similar job.
The deals at KeyCorp are smaller—and so is the paycheck—but becoming a big fish in the relatively small pond of regional banking has its advantages. In his new role, he can take on a larger role in the bank, while enjoying the benefits of living in the Midwest.
"It's very entrepreneurial," says Mr. Fowler. At Bank of America, he says he was one among legions of bankers focused on "elephant hunting" for billion-dollar deals that have become increasingly scarce. By contrast, at KeyCorp, "there's a real energy and excitement here," he says.
This week, I also sat in on Professor Brian Sommer’s Managing Organization class. Students did presentations on various companies, and one of them was Netflix. It was particularly interesting to hear about the problems of this company, given the press they’ve been getting lately. Today’s paper followed the problems of this company with a piece, Netflix Shares Sink 35%...never the headline you want to see for your company.
Now, back to my iPad.
First, especially after the problems last night in the World Series with the dugout telephones, I went back and re-read the NY Times story in the Sunday paper on the use of that old relic of an instrument of communication in the dugout Ironically, Tony LaRussa was the cover photo for the story. From the article:
While landlines in homes collect dust and serve increasingly decorative functions, the attitude among baseball clubs is a familiar one in a sport tied tightly to old-fashioned ways: why change what works?
“The same old phones, the same old process,” said Derek Lilliquist, the bullpen coach of the St. Louis Cardinals. “I guess they’ve been that way forever.”
In today’s Wall Street Journal, there were a couple of articles about entrepreneurs that caught my eye; one dealing with China and the restaurant industry and the other dealing with entrepreneurial bankers.
A Secret Recipe in China details the story of an entrepreneur in the restaurant industry who did what some of the major chains couldn’t do…succeed in China. From the article:
Shanghai's hygiene bureau objected when Scott Minoie tried to build an open kitchen in his first Element Fresh restaurant nearly a decade ago, saying it would be unsightly: "too foreign."
But the Boston native persuaded officials to let him press ahead, confident that Chinese consumers, concerned with food safety, would appreciate a Western-style bistro that lets diners see their laffa-bread salads and raspberry smoothies while they're being made.
Now he has a chain of 11 restaurants. Sales are on track to hit $30 million this year, up 40% from last year, according to Element Fresh's managing partner, Frank Rasche. The chain's profit margin hovered between 10% and 15% last year, he says. They plan to open about 40 more outlets in China by 2015.
Go West, Investment Banker, tells the tale of one particular gentleman who went to KeyBank from Bank of America. From the article:
In July, though, the 42-year-old Mr. Fowler left the second-largest U.S. bank by assets, where he was a director covering private equity, and moved to Cleveland. He joined KeyCorp, a regional bank with a loan portfolio a tenth the size of Bank of America's, to do a similar job.
The deals at KeyCorp are smaller—and so is the paycheck—but becoming a big fish in the relatively small pond of regional banking has its advantages. In his new role, he can take on a larger role in the bank, while enjoying the benefits of living in the Midwest.
"It's very entrepreneurial," says Mr. Fowler. At Bank of America, he says he was one among legions of bankers focused on "elephant hunting" for billion-dollar deals that have become increasingly scarce. By contrast, at KeyCorp, "there's a real energy and excitement here," he says.
This week, I also sat in on Professor Brian Sommer’s Managing Organization class. Students did presentations on various companies, and one of them was Netflix. It was particularly interesting to hear about the problems of this company, given the press they’ve been getting lately. Today’s paper followed the problems of this company with a piece, Netflix Shares Sink 35%...never the headline you want to see for your company.
Now, back to my iPad.
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