This site temporarily on hold.

I apologize for the lack of posts to this site lately. As you may know, I was recently on vacation in France then returned and went to a wedding in San Diego. Next weekend I'll be in Monterey and the following weekend in Las Vegas. Oh and my wife and I are also closing on a condo (which we plan to remodel before moving into) and I'm finishing my MBA applications (for Santa Clara).

Needless to say, things are a little hectic and updating the blog hasn't been my top priority right now. I plan to re-launch it fully by the end of this summer so look for it on a Google search near you.

If you're interested in what's happening in my personal life, check out sp33dfreak.blogspot.com.

The One-Guy Theory

BusinessWeek has an article worth reading about The One-Guy Theory. In short, the theory says that successful businesses have one person who is ultimately responsible and making the decisions. This one person is often the brains or the vision behind everything the company is doing. The article goes on to cite some good examples and there are tons more in the tech industry where I work.

Steve Jobs is probably the most obvious example. Apple doesn't do focus groups or marketing studies not only because they're highly secretive about their products but also because they have so much trust in the product vision of their leader. But putting this much trust in one person can be dangerous and Apple's had their share of fumbles in the past. Remember the Motorola/iTunes partnership phone, the Rockr? Yeah, neither do I (well barely.) What about the Apple Newton? It was an ok PDA but maybe too far ahead of it's time. Even the recent Apple TV is having trouble gaining traction.

But ultimately, one-guy setting the rules is a smart way to go because otherwise you create a bureaucratic nightmare where nobody is responsible or accountable. It's hard to set a clear direction when there are multiple committees trying to decide everything. Think about the successful companies you know. Do they have one person at the top that you can point to as an obvious leader?

This touches on the fundamental media conglomerate problem: There are too many layers. There are too many fiefdoms. There are too many...guys. Guys strolling the corridors, guys clustering around the boardroom, guys slowing things down. (The litany of executives that follows shows they're, still, almost exclusively guys.) This, in a time of great uncertainty and fast-shifting consumer appetites, when sheer speed may determine which companies successfully molt and which simply melt.

BusinessWeek.com "The One-Guy Theory"

Leading people for results

Lifehack.org posted an excellent article that anyone interested in becoming a leader should read, especially prospective MBA types. In addition to being genuine (rule #1) another bit of good advice from the article is:

Never get on the power trip. Never think that your position makes you more important. Your position and role is to serve everyone else. You provide direction and you provide assistance in getting the job done.

You can’t do your employee’s jobs for them, but as the go-to person you can make sure that the daily operations are actually contributing to big picture goals. If you’re a Pointy-Haired Boss, you’re not the go-to person. You’re kept out of the loop, employees deceive you rather than discuss with you, and a lack of company cohesion means more problems and more time involved in attaining those big picture goals.

This is contrary to what we typically think of as leadership, but it's true that the higher you get the more you serve the needs of the people working for you. They are the ones grinding through the work and it's your job to help them do that. Sometimes approaching things backwards makes the most sense.

For example, during my annual review I used to always start by listing my strengths and then brainstorming examples from the year to back them up. It made the whole process difficult and painful. Then I figured out that doing it backwards was easier. Simply make a list (or keep an ongoing one) of everything you've done during the year. Then, for each item, write down what skills that item required. Suddenly you've got a good list of your strengths and supporting examples of them.

Sometimes things feel "backwards" like the quote above about being a good leader, but approaching them in this way can be helpful.

How to lead people for results - Lifehack.org

Some general resume tips

My brother-in-law is about to graduate from UCLA and is embarking on his first serious job search so Danielle and I have been trying to give him some helpful resume advice. Personally, I love job hunting and interviewing. While I normally wouldn't consider this Poor Man's MBA type of material, I think it's a useful reminder. I'll try to bullet point these and keep them short. This is a compilation of advice from myself and others and is in no particular order. I've got other general job hunting tips so email me if you're interested but here I'll stick to the resume stuff.

Use a "Master" resume - Create one resume that has way more information that you need on it. Include all your accomplishments no matter how small. It's ok if it's longer than one-page because you're never actually going to submit it. Use this resume to pull information from when crafting custom, one-off resumes for each job you're applying for.

Cater your resume to the job - You should be using some of the same words and terminology on your resume that are listed in the job description. Sometimes this is as simple as rephrasing things you've already got. Don't assume that a recruiter will connect the dots and see that meeting your sales results led to hitting revenue targets. If the job description mentioned revenue targets, explicitly spell out how you reached yours in a previous job.

Write a good cover letter - The "Best of Craigslist" has some good advice on not screwing this part up. And remember to write a cover letter for every job.

Emphasize accomplishments, not duties - Instead of just listing what your responsibilities at previous jobs were, highlight your accomplishments in those roles. Monster.com posted a good article on Avoiding the Top 10 Resume Mistakes.

Use action verbs - It sounds pretty simple and using action phrases can be your ticket to a job interview.

Make sure it's only 1 page - Unless you are a published researcher or a member of congress, your resume should never exceed a page. Recruiters are busy people and won't read more than that. Remember, your resume is your ticket to an interview. It's like a little sales brochure about yourself. Use it to get them interested so that they follow up with you for more information.

Use numbers - Include numbers in your resume wherever possible. This gives it quantitative information and emphasizes accomplishments instead of duties. For example, saying "Improved productivity by 2 FTEs" (full time employees) is better than "Increased efficiency of my team."

I'm sure there are other tips I'm missing, but if you start with these your odds are already better than the competition. A lot of people spend a bunch of time on formating and layout but in today's database-driven world it's likely to be scanned into a text-only format anyway. So just make sure it looks ok, isn't too cluttered, and doesn't use more than two different fonts.

Becoming unplugged

Sorry for the lack of blog posting lately. While my goal is to post something once a week, I'd really like to do it a lot more.

I've been fairly unplugged from the world this week (except at work of course) since I'm spending most of my free time studying for the Haas Berkeley MBA statistics waiver exam. It's tough, because despite majoring in engineering, I somehow managed to make it through college without ever taking a statistics course. So I'm basically learning this stuff from scratch. I picked up four books at the Burlingame library and dug in. It's not easy, but if I pass the waiver exam it means that I don't need to take a statistics course at a junior college prior to starting the Haas MBA. That is, of course, assuming I'm accepted to the Berkeley MBA program in the first place. (Funny how I'm taking the test before I even know.)

Don't underestimate your ability to learn things on your own. In fact, that's sort of the premise of ThePoorMansMBA.com -- you can learn a lot about business without going to school.

Stressed at work? Try this...

ZenHabits posted on of the best lists of suggestions about reducing work-related stress in a long time. For example:

Do less. Those of you who know me by now saw this one coming. It’s very difficult to have a relaxed workday if you have too much going on. Instead, learn to reduce what you do, but choose the most impactful tasks and projects — the ones that will mean the most over the long term. I choose three important things to achieve each day, as I’ve said before. Those are the three things I can do today that will have the most impact in my life.

Check out ZenHabit's 17 Unbeatable ways to create a peaceful, relaxed workday.

I'd also add one more to the list -- Get one of your MITs (Most Important Tasks) done first thing in the morning before you even check your email. When you sit down at your desk just look at your MITs from the night before and start hammering away on one.

I find if I don’t do this, I get so caught up in the things that pop-up during the day that I end up tackling my MITs at 4pm and it's already too late to make progress. Then I start the next day already behind.

Set your priorities yourself, don’t let others set them for you.

Making people want to help you

A lot of times, getting things done involves coordination between multiple people. One of the key rules for successfully getting things done, and for leadership in general, is learning to make people want to help you. This can be vital to any task but especially ones where you're working with people who you don't directly supervise.

Although this concept has handy applications in the workplace, the event that prompted me to think about influencing people had nothing to do with work. My brother-in-law called Dell because the battery on his new laptop wasn't holding a charge. After a bunch of run-around on the phone, they told him that batteries weren't covered under the warranty and that he'd need to pay for a new one. But rather than admit defeat, he took charge of the situation and tried a new tactic -- trying to make the customer service rep want to help him. Here are some helpful steps for doing this in any situation:

1. Butter them up - Give the person a compliment, tell them what a good job they did on a similar task and how you really appreciate their expertise.


2. Explain what you're trying to do - Often, just by explaining what the end goal is, you can get someone on your side. If they see that they'll play a crucial role in this accomplishment they're likely to help.


3. Describe the alternatives - This is a little bit of a cheap-shot but effective. Explain another hypothetical outcome that the person may not like (but don't be negative about it.) In the case of the Dell battery, Adam explained that he could make a big fuss on the phone, get all upset with the support rep, yell at her, ask to speak to her manager, and continue to be uncooperative. Or...they could just skip all that and she could ask her manager to make an exception to the policy. She keeps her sanity and avoids a negative customer experience and he gets the result of requesting an exception without needing to be a jerk about it.


4. Thank them publicly - If someone helps you, don't take all the credit. Give proper thanks to those who helped and do it in a public setting where others will see their contribution. It's best if you can thank them in front of their manager or other senior members of the staff.
   

My brother-in-law did end up getting his laptop battery replaced thanks to his gift for making people want to help him. And don't forget, another unspoken rule for implementing this concept is to be nice. Nobody wants to help a jerk.

The Pareto Principle - 80% of results come from 20% of the work

People talk about the Pareto principle in all sorts of contexts like work, money, or stress. And although it works across lots of topics, I'm going to spend 2008 focusing it on my work. (Sort of a New Year's resolution goal for myself.)

For reference, the Pareto principle says that 80% of effects come from 20% of causes. Applying this to work, that means that 80% of the results come from 20% of the work you do right? Maybe...but does that mean that you don't have to do all the other work too? It could if you know how to pick the right 20% to focus on. This is obviously the hard part.

Everyone in the workforce knows how hard it is to maintain a healthy balance between work and personal life. Projects get pushed on you unexpectedly, meetings consume your time, and emails destroy your productivity. But if you just pick the right ones, you could still get nearly the same results without wasting time on the less important stuff. I'm not saying people should blow off everything else, but just prioritize things aggressively based on the impact of the results.

Here are some things to ask yourself when deciding what to do. Remember, it's all about the results.

• What's the purpose or agenda for this meeting? Will decisions be made or is it purely sharing information? What's the result?


• Do I need to attend the meeting? Am I presenting at the meeting?


• What other results could I achieve if I don't attend this meeting?


• Will this help me/my department/the company in a measurable way?


• Will anyone care if this doesn't get done?


• What will this change? How big of an impact will it have?


• Is someone counting on me for this deliverable or information?


• What are the consequences of this not getting done?


• Who will notice these results?


• Is there an easier way to get the same results?

So stopping killing yourself trying to do it all and just pick the most important stuff. Spend the rest of the time enjoying your life.

Killing Bureaucracy at Work

Last week while sitting in one of many meetings, the presenter started talking about "restructuring" this meeting for 2008. This is normally a 1 hour, weekly, cross-functional meeting where people from various teams share status updates. It already sounds boring and bureaucratic right? Well it's going to get even worse this year. The meeting is breaking into 7 sub-teams plus a "steering committee." Each of these teams will no doubt have their own meetings.

So we just went from consuming 10 hours of a week (1 hour times 10 meeting attendees) to monopolizing more of people's time that they could otherwise spend being productive.

As this was announced, I hope nobody saw me roll my eyes and scribble in my notes, "This is bureaucracy at it's finest." But why is bureaucracy so bad and what can we do about it?

Jack Welch happened to cover that topic in the December 24th, 2007 issue of BusinessWeek.

"It sucks the life out of a business. It turns normal people, granted a smidgen of authority, into rule-bound technocrats and twists candid conversation about real issues into jargon...

Make people uncomfortable about scheduling formal presentations, especially if they involve slides in a darkened room. That practice is a total bureaucracy enabler. It makes idea transfer to one-way and ceremonial! What you want instead is an organization where ideas flow freely up, down, and sideways, along halls, in elevators."

So the next time you're thinking of giving a PowerPoint presentation, do everyone a favor and ask yourself "Why?" Instead, focus your efforts on more informal, frequent, and open sharing of ideas.

Full article - BusinessWeek.com - Death to Bureaucracy

Will Blogs Give an Accurate Picture of Society?

An article at Lifehack.org titled, "How to use your blog to make 2008 your best year ever"got me thinking about the usefulness of blogs on a personal level. The post sums up a lot of the reasons I enjoy blogging but thinking about the future I wonder how blogs will be representative of society.

In many ways, I feel that blogs are a much more accurate description of people, events, thoughts, and attitudes than some other biased source like the news or magazines. With that in mind, I hope the companies running blog services are committed to retaining blog content for a long time.

When historians look back on society 200 or 300 years from now, blogs will paint a very vivid picture of people's attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors in a very raw form. I'd argue this is a more accurate description of our current world than textbooks or news archives could provide. (Of course, news archives are good at chronicling major events.) Look at it from today's perspective, anthropologists get extremely excited when they find old journals or notebooks from ancient people and blogs are just a modern form of that.

Make the Most Out of Luck in Your Career

One of my favorite sites, ZenHabits.net, had a great article about "How to make the most out of luck in your career and life." For those of you that don't believe in luck, take a look and see what you think. Even if things happen by random chance, you still need to be able to recognize these opportunities and act on them.

One of my favorite tips from the article is:

Always keep your options open. Goals are good. But single-minded devotion to a goal can often blind one to other opportunities. It’s also a mistake to cling to a path you hate out of a sense of obligation. If you enter law school and discover you hate it, quit. Don’t endure years of misery because you feel it’s expected of you. “Refuse to serve a life sentence of misery,” the authors write. You have more options than you think. But you may need to open your eyes to see them

Another good tip is keeping yourself open to new things and new ideas. Don't be afraid to say "Yes" to unplanned events. Chances are, you'll experience something new and might get lucky.

How To Make The Most Out Of Luck In Your Career And Life - ZenHabits.net

Why You Should Under-Promise and Over-Deliver

I apologize that I can't find the article anywhere online, but the November 19th, 2007 edition of BusinessWeek includes a story titled, "Mickey's Management Mojo" that I think is fitting for ThePoorMansMBA.com.

Essentially, the article talked about how Disney Land has a habit of under-promising and over-delivering. For example, they might have a sign that says the wait to ride Space Mountain is 45 minutes long. But when customers get on the ride after only 25 minutes, they're really happy. If the sign said 25 minutes and it took 40 would they be happy? What about if it said 25 minutes and it took 25 minutes?

Even though this is "one of the oldest tricks in the book," it's still an effective management technique. This often requires negotiation skills too. Try it at work on some simple action item that someone's given you. If they haven't already given you a due date, or even if they have, ask if you can have more time to work on it. Do this up front though, not the day before it's due because that's simply rude. Usually, they'll be ok with a longer timeframe if you give them enough notice.

But then surprise them by completing the task by the original due date. And if you can, go the extra mile on the task to really impress them. This will leave both of you feeling great about the work accomplished. It may seem somewhat manipulative to under promise and over deliver but having a buffer like this for due dates or the scope of a project can be really handy when you get some other last minute requests.

On the contrary, nobody likes the type of people who over-promise and can't deliver. Even those who are able to over-promise and still deliver set themselves up for problems and stress by spreading themselves too thin. Over-promising and under-delivering is a recipe for frustration, disappointment, and a bad reputation. But by effectively setting expectations you can turn that same amount of work into over-delivery simply by under-promising from the start.

Going back to basics is always a good idea

I'm a big fan of solving tough problems by going back to the basics. It's a tried and true method of getting things done. Some people try to pass themselves off as insanely smart by the way they talk and the complexity of the solutions they come up with. But I remember a saying I learned in engineering school, "Good engineers solve big problems with complex solutions you could never understand. Great engineers apply such simple solutions that you can't believe you didn't figure them out yourself."

This is true and is part of the reason why the subtitle of this blog includes "Focus on Fundamentals." You can't go wrong if you go back to the most basic building blocks of a theory.

A recent article about Google's datacenters also points out the power of relying on fundamental concepts. This time trusting that basic heat transfer theory will break new ground in datacenter design -- which is essentially a big heat transfer problem.

What we did at Google is essentially throw out the book on how to build data centers, and went back to basic heat transfer theory, went back to basic electrical theory, and essentially threw away everything that wasn't strictly necessary in sort of a minimalist design. Essentially the integrated circuit industry concept is step and repeat.

So the next time you think you're in over your head, don't try to wow the boss with a complicated solution. Instead, wow him or her with a simple solution that leaves them wondering why they hadn't come up with it. You'll gain respect and have less chance of screwing up.