Archive for the ‘Management’ Category:
How to Hire an A-Team
In How to Be an Effective CEO, we noted three things that a CEO has to do. One of them is to hire and fire a top management team. One of the simplest rules to understand is:
This is simple to understand but hard to execute.
Integrity
Here is a bit of timeless wisdom from Warren Buffet. He advises that, when hiring, look for brains, energy, and integrity. But if the people you find don’t have integrity, the other two qualities will kill you.
10 Tips for Hiring an A-Team
- Don’t be afraid to hire people who are smarter than you.
That is harder to do than to say. You need a lot of innate confidence to do this. Hiring someone for a technical competency that you lack is easy. Hiring someone who will challenge your thinking on every level and may later go on to build a business much more successful than yours is harder. - Hire athletes.
They have energy, know how to endure pain to get results, and like to win. - Focus hard on building a win/win compensation plan:
A win for the company and a win for the employee. This is also hard to do right. Even good compensation plans get gamed, which is why Buffet’s focus on integrity is so critical. Be generous… but also demanding (see #5). - Take the time you need.
Hiring is your most important job. Take the time to interview a lot of candidates; cast a wide net. Spend a lot of face-to-face time with the candidates on your short list. Do real reference checks, ideally face to face. Meet their family and friends socially. As a side benefit, interviewing a ton of smart people is a great way to learn more about your market. - Be demanding.
Find people who want to achieve ambitious goals, spend time setting metrics, and then hold them accountable to them. - Be honest and transparent.
You cannot expect integrity from others unless you show it yourself. And you can’t fake it, not with members of an A-Team: they will be too smart for B.S. - Listen.
Just as listening is the key to selling, it is also the key to recruiting.
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How to Be an Effective CEO
First-time entrepreneurs are usually also first-time CEOs. When you look at your first business card that says CEO, don’t forget that it is not necessarily telling the truth.You earn the title of CEO through your actions and your results. You still have your training wheels on. Fortunately, there is probably more advice available on how to be an effective CEO than almost any other subject. This chapter gives you a quick guide, but do invest the time to read the classics, particularly:
* “The Effective Executive,” by Peter Drucker,
* “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” by Stephen Covey.
These are timeless classics. Their authors do not attempt to create any modern theory or expound on any particular business or market trend. The books work because they are based on observation. The authors observed effective people to find out what they did right.
The Effective Executive, by Peter Drucker
Drucker’s “Effective Executive” was written in 1966. It is a slim tome and easy to read, even if the language sounds a bit dated. Drucker focuses on how to allocate time, because you can get more of almost any resource except time. His advice to find time for uninterrupted work is particularly relevant to today’s multi-tasking world. He is also very clear about the need to allocate enough time for people. If you need an hour with someone, don’t think you are being efficient by rushing through the meeting in 15 minutes.
CEOs allocate resources. The first resource they need to allocate is their own time.
One popular book today is “Now, Discover Your Strengths,” by Marcus Buckingham. Drucker was a big proponent of accentuating a person’s strengths rather than managing their weaknesses.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” first published in 1989, is a self-help book written by Stephen R. Covey. It has sold over 15 million copies. Drucker observes the following habits in effective people:
Habit 1: Be proactive
Change starts from within. Most people react to external forces. To lead effectively, you have to overcome that natural tendency.
Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind
You cannot lead unless you know where you want to get to.
Habit 3: Put first things first
This is similar to what Drucker recommends. You need to have a very clear view of what is important, so that you know what to spend time on. Note that this often means leaving your comfort zone by acting on tasks that you don’t naturally like or feel competent in performing. Read more…
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Dailymotion Names New CEO, Says Outgoing One Was Interim
Dailymotion announced today that Cedric Tournay has been named its new CEO. Tournay replaces Ian Brotherston, who had only held the post since April. Brotherston will stay on with the company but will move over to become executive vice president of international strategy.
MediaPost reports that Dailymotion always considered Brotherston’s appointment as CEO as an interim one, though that temporary status was not mentioned at the time. We dug up the April 21, 2009, press release announcing Brotherston as CEO, which didn’t say anything about his being interim:
Dailymotion names Ian Brotherston Chief Executive Officer
Paris – April 21st 2009 – Dailymotion’s Board of Directors has announced today that Ian Brotherston has been appointed to the role of Chief Executive Officer of Dailymotion…
“We are delighted to welcome Ian as new CEO. His strong management experience will help shape Dailymotion as we continue our growth and global expansion. Ian’s primary focus will be to lead Dailymotion in its next phase of development,” says Benoist Grossmann, partner at AGF Private Equity.
Brotherston joined Dailymotion from Red Bee Media, the privatized Broadcast Technology Division of the BBC, where he was commercial cirector. A Dailymotion rep told us that the company was originally not going to announce Brotherston’s appointment since it was interim, and much of the initial press was based on leaked and incomplete information. The rep said at the time he was unable to comment on the CEO search. Read more…
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How to Win a Business Plan Competition
These days, business plan competitions yield prizes worth more than ever. The Wharton Business Plan Competition, for example, awards $20,000 in cash and $10,000 in legal services to its top entrant. Harvard Business School’s traditional track competition awards $25,000 in cash and $25,000 in business services to its winner. M.I.T.’s Clean Energy Prize includes $200,000 in cash. And Rice University offers a whopping $225,000 prize to its first-place winner, including $125,000 in equity investment, $20,000 in cash and more than $80,000 in services.
Still, it’s really not about the money, says Cliff Holekamp, a senior lecturer in entrepreneurship at Washington University’s Olin Business School, which hosts multiple competitions, including the recently introduced Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition, a do-good variation with a $150,000 prize pool. “The value of participation,” says Mr. Holekamp, “is not found in funding but in a process that brings you mentorship, support, structure and access to the resources and people that will help perfect your business model.”
As impressive as the cash awards sound, Saad Khan, who has served as a competition judge and is an investor with CMEA Capital in Mountain View, Calif., says the amounts are “fairly small in the context of starting a business.” A better reason to compete, he says, is “to get feedback in real time and to get noticed by alumni who have done well, local VCs and other investors in that community.” Read more…
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