Building A Human Network | Dave Kranzler

Let's talk a little bit about humans. Again, if you are going to manage, you have to work with humans. And the good thing is I like most humans I have met. But really management is about people. So with that, we are going to start and talk a bit about culture. Every organization has a culture. What is a culture? It is just sort of the norms of how people communicate, what they are like, what it It feels like in the hallways, and you can decide what culture your organization has, or it will happen without you deciding. Every organization has a culture, so it's up to you as the leader to make it the culture you want. Beanbag chairs is one form of culture. Stand-up desks is another. Closed-door offices is a third. cubicles is a fourth. Even the physical structure determines a little bit about what things are like. You're leaders. You're responsible to set a culture up that represents your values. So let's look at a few examples. Again, these are kind of old, but I'd rather call them classic. HP, one of the original Silicon Valley startups, has a very pronounced culture. It's called the HP Way. It really starts with Respect for the individual and everything around that. I worked at 3Com for a long time, which patterned itself after HP, and it had a certain feel in the hallways. It was a very pleasant place to work, but I am going to show you a couple of other examples that are a little bit different. You may think this is odd, that every place is like this. They are really not. This is a very distinct culture, and HP has promoted this and really has a reputation of really being like this because this is what they value. Another place, Cypress, dead opposite. I worked there too. TJ Rogers, when he built— started writing down the Cypress values, specifically said, I do not want to have respect for the individual at the top of my value chain. I want no excuses. It's a different culture, much different place to work. Both of them successful, different, and they reflect their founders. I have a question. I really like these, and at Cypress we spend a lot of time thinking about them. But whereas in the past at HP we talk about customer loyalty, profit, teamwork, innovation, first thing on the Cypress value list, winning. It's just a different way to think about it. Neither one is right or wrong. It just reflected different values. We hire only the best. We are smart, tough, and work hard. We deplore politicians. We do what's right. We make our numbers. We make the world's best semiconductors. These are the values, and it's the way Cypress really operates. It has a very different feel. You get to choose. If you don't choose, your team will choose for you. So choose what you want to be. Speaking of what you want to be, who knew that the US Army had a set of values? Anybody? Did you know in that set of values was respect? A little counterintuitive, huh? But no, this is what they teach in U.S. Field Army Officer Manual. So the Army has a set of values and a culture that it wants to promote. And think about it. Selfless service, personal courage, loyalty. These are very important things to the Army. Again, if they don't write them down, they don't talk about them, they don't reinforce them, they don't decide what they want to be, the organization will decide for you. So better you take control of it. A quick note about hiring and firing. So Jack Welch, if you ever want the classic book on management, read his first book. He is really a legend. On hiring, he always talks about the 4 E's and a P. How do you choose people? You can look for people who are really good Java coders. You can look for people with all the right subject matter knowledge. This was kind of, what are the people like? And to be a manager— my boss worked at GE for 30 years— to be a manager, you've got to exemplify these values. Edge is the tough one. We've all met people who are energetic, who are inspiring, who are good to be with. If they can't make tough decisions, they don't belong as a leader. So when you're hiring people for leadership positions, this is a set of things that you can look for that will assure you that they know how to make tough decisions and good decisions, and at the same time will be people that other people like to work with. All right, who knows who Bill Parcells is? There we go. How many Super Bowls has he won? Probably 3, maybe? How many teams did he turn around? Probably— OK, it started with the Giants. So Bill Parcells is a football coach. The Giants in 1980, I think— I'm dating myself— were like 5-11. And he took over in '81, I believe. And I think they were maybe 6-10 that year, but they went on to win 3 Super Bowls. He turned around the New England Patriots. He turned around the Jets— excuse me, yeah, he turned around the Jets and he turned around the Cowboys. So he's been my hero as far as how to turn around an underperforming team. He wrote a short Harvard Business Review article. You can read it. I'll give you the link. It's the best business article I've ever read. Thank you. It's got nothing to do with business. It's about football. But he talks about the key things you have to think about in order to get people to follow your agenda. And he made very simple advice about whom you don't want on your team. And he would sit down one-on-one with everybody and he would explain to them, I am here to win a Super Bowl. If you want to win a Super Bowl, you are with me. If you don't, Go somewhere else. No emotion, very frank. And he would realize a few people maybe were an obstacle to his success. And then, you know, it's never nice, it's never pleasant for anybody, not even you, but you got to move obstacles out. So that's probably the best way to think about firing that I've ever heard. Is if someone is just— if you're trying to go left and that person is trying to go right, It's not going to be a good situation for either of you. And in almost all cases, both people will realize it's for the best. You will have this experience at some point. Take it and move on and use it as a learning opportunity. If you get a chance to read that article, it's about 3 pages long. It's excellent. Okay. So back to our metaphor of the first 90 days. Again, you've either started in a new role, or your company has grown to the point where it feels like a new role, or you've just decided that you're gonna go through and reeducate yourself on how things are working and take a fresh start. Quick wins. Quick wins. Very critical that once you've gone through and done your assessment, you've set up your strategy, You've defined what initiatives you want to undertake. You've got to do something. And the things that you do will be watched very carefully by the people you work for, by people who work for you and the people you work for. So you need to make some moves that will establish you as a leader. And these are all good things to be. I mean, this is very decisive but not judicious, forced, focused but flexible. All difficult to thread those needles. The key thing is, it really boils down to, take action. Don't just move around. Take action. If you are going to change the composition of a team, make certain you have a purpose. Don't do it just for the sake of changing. If you are going to remove somebody or bring somebody in, do it because it is the right thing to do, not because you just want to make a statement. So from my experience, a couple of things I knew I had to do in my last role to be able to make a change quickly and establish myself and also get the right things done. Forming task forces, putting processes in place, fixing some critical products and solving some customer problems. You have a whole bunch of stakeholders you need to satisfy. You need to satisfy all of them and you need to satisfy quickly. And you can't do really big things, so you pick small wins. And this worked out quite well. I mean, we solved some critical customer problems, got a program underway, We implemented that process that everyone was asking for, had to make some people changes. Again, goes back to who can you build around and who is going to be an obstacle. Some products take a little longer to fix than others, but once you start building some quick wins, it becomes a virtuous cycle. I have seen and I have done this, made this mistake. You start somewhere and you pick a very ambitious objective, and unless your people have a lot of patience with you, You get on the wrong track real fast. Always be thinking about quick wins, things that— go back to your MBOs, things that you can accomplish now that build, that are good for the company, good for the people around you, but also build your credibility. That's why we talk about strategy and tactics, long-term and short-term.