Thoughts on Great Company Management

the word "sell" is a bad word -- have you ever met a salesman that you trusted

work to become a trusted partner/counselor of your customer’s management, then all good things, including sales, will follow.

target and serve the top 2 to 3 companies in an industry

make your work transformative and high impact

compensate staff based upon performance, not for hours or sales

set a true north around customer impact -- obsess over delivering measurable impact

ask "so what value did we add this month?"

always forward think about what value you can add to a customer's business

with a history of value, you are unlikely to be displaced

cross pollinate team thinking

have something thoughtful to say in every customer meeting -- never go to a meeting without an agenda or unprepared

if you don't make the customer uncomfortable sometimes, you are not pushing the thinking enough

technology is not the vision or the answer, business/technology seamless integration is

make an investment in understanding the challenges your customer is facing and is likely to face in the future

tell your customer something that makes them think differently about her/his business

understand your company's values and share them with the customer

be honest with the customer even to the point of dissent; it’s your duty as a partner

seek out opportunities to help your customers outside of your defined duties -- what about her important upcoming meeting, how can you help her excel

Change Is The Norm

we live in a world not of calmness and stability, but one of chaos and change.  change is not the exception today, it is the norm.

change is precipitated every day by people and events in the news and in our circles of friends.  take the news around Edward Snowden for example.  who would have thought that a CIA analyst could impact the structure of the internet and the business opportunities available to the technology companies of the world -- but he has.

as a result of his releases, the internet is actually being modified or segmented into country controlled units. Britain and Germany among others are building their own internal to country loops that will feed the larger internet when necessary and keep all other locally sourced and destined traffic within the country.  that way then can control the encryption and the snooping by the U.S., China, Russia and others.  in the future you will have to picture the internet in your mind as a series of interconnected rings, much like the symbol of the olympics.

even individual companies are taking these steps by strengthening their intra-company networks, providing electronic and physical isolation from the internet and removing their intellectual capital and r&d machines from networks all together. these types of changes will precipitate down to companies of all sizes and disciplines over the next decade.

the opportunity for technology companies is to excel in secure network building and encryption techniques, as well as leading edge information security.  change your company to capture the opportunities not where the market is today, but where it is going to be tomorrow.

Inflection Points

the trip through life is rough, bruising and offering its fair share of pain as well as joy.  the truth is that we all get scarred by the trials and tribulations of life.  but those of us who are inwardly focused and totally sure that our own opinions are the only correct ones and for sure the only ones that matter receive the most scars, mostly self inflicted.

we all build our individual belief structure as we go through life and that is a good thing because it teaches us not to touch the hot stove tops and to avoid many easily self-inflicted wounds.  however our belief system can also be damaging when it becomes too rigid and is reinforced on a daily basis by our own network of like believers whom we chose to surround ourselves with.  we end up in an ever-tighter spiral of our own beliefs, open to little else, especially critical thinking, which might violate our beliefs.

speaking of beliefs, i believe in inflection points. in life we find a trajectory that pleases us such as the process of climbing a corporate ladder or the process of starting and building our own company.  normally once found we stay on that trajectory for a significant period of time, focused on the goals that appear on the horizon.  this can be good as long as we aren't too tunnel visioned.  no trajectory is perfect and as we all know, anything in our world that is too rigid is eventually broken.

inflection points are events that occur in our lives which cause us to change trajectory, slightly or significantly, based upon the interactions of that event.  inflection points usually involve people, a person that you meet during each significant event (inflection point) of your life.  for example below is an inflection point map of my life to date.

each of these events (shown by the circles) changed the trajectory of my life (for better or worse).  why, because inside each of those events was a person who introduced me to new and different ways of thinking about work, life, relationships, and humanity in general.  the trick was not having these events occur or meeting the people, but being open to new and different thinking and using that thinking to reevaluate my trajectory and belief system.

you can learn from everyone around you, no matter what their rank or circumstances in life. remember a stranger is just a person whose story you do not yet know.  you just have to be mentally open and willing to listen.

want to succeed in business as well as life, just be open to continually obtain new input for your critical thinking, input that comes from these inflection points.