“With a small unit, like a startup, there’s no margin for error. If someone lets the team down, you’re all going to pay the price.”

Thanks to Jason for the opportunity to hang out and share my perspectives on a subject that is near and dear to my heart.

It was great fun, and hopefully some folks will find some value in my ramblings. I will admit, having now done nearly 40 podcasts for StartupLounge.com, it felt very different being on the other side of the microphone – good fun, though …

:)

You can listen to the podcast here on their site, or locally using the embedded flash player below.

Cheers.

I’d like to note and comment on the passing of Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, the first President of the Russian Federation, and a key architect in the destruction of Communism and the ending of the Cold War.

Mr. Yeltsin was as responsible or more than Mikhail Gorbachev for the dismantling of the Soviet Union. In 1991, it was Yeltsin who, as the President of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, gathered the leadership of the Ukrainian S.S.R. and the Byelorussian S.S.R. and formally dissolved the Soviet Union from within. Gorbachev only resigned about three weeks later when he no longer had a country to preside over.

Why is this relevant to an entrepreneurship blog? On a personal note, the social and political change that Yeltsin initiated enabled me to get my start in entrepreneurship, providing technical assistance and capital to entrepreneurs in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Those are memories I will carry forever. If I happen to know anything about entrepreneurship, if I got any inspiration, it was my spending 6 years in that region, trying to help rebuild the economy one business at a time. Any advice I provide to help a client or just an entrepreneur in need today stems from my experiences there.

If you think it’s hard to raise seed capital in Atlanta, try it in Minsk.

On a broader note, the social change that Boris Yeltsin ushered in has enabled the following:

500 million people in Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia can now start and own their own businesses. Entrepreneurship was a crime only 20 years ago under anti-”speculation” laws. The entire economy was run centrally. (Imagine the production of your favorite consumer product being managed by an unfirable government functionary).

Millions of people from the region have emmigrated to the Western countries and Israel where they have established businesses of their own – often in fields completely unrelated to their original fields of expertise. Plug: If you’re interested in Russian food, I love the New Odessa on Clairmont Road.

Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are all prime technology outsourcing destinations, providing some of the best programming and scientific talent on the planet.

Local and foreign-backed venture firms continue to expand operations in the region.

Russia is actually an attractive tourist destination.

Even the Russian “oligarchs” are entrepreneurs. They played by rules that were different from ours and even their fellow countrymen, but they invested capital and acquired assets (often at great physical risk) and have demonstrated the powerful potential of the Russian economy (much of it lost to diffusion by the chaotic environment.)

Finally, the end of the Cold War that Yeltsin enabled by first destroying the Soviet Union and then embracing friendly relations with the West, enabled us to move money away from defense spending and into the private sector. That extra cash was a big factor in enabling the dot-com revolution (and bubble, but Boris Yeltsin didn’t tell us to invest billions in vaporware companies using eyeballs as a valuation metric).

Boris Yeltsin was a very flawed leader in many ways. The movement to democracy and rule of law in Russia is a work that has been suspended, partially because he didn’t fully understand the very institutions he was championing. The corruption Yeltsin vowed to defeat was simply shifted from Communist bureaucrats to other Communist bureaucrats. His economic policies were much less ineffective than they might have been because he didn’t stick with any one policy long enough. He drank too much and didn’t eat enough cabbage and cucumbers.

But he stood on a tank and waved a flag that he could have been shot for waving in August of 1991. He helped make the world a much safer place, and Russia is now better off economically for the reforms he launched, and the impact of those reforms are felt here in ways subtle and obvious. And they fundamentally changed my life and made me a better person, entrepreneur, and friend.

Spasibo Boris Nikolaevich i vsevo nailuchsevo.

– mike

I will admit this up front – this post is going to ramble a bit.

At one point in my career, I was guilty of this as well. I was poking around some old boxes here in my office the other day, and I came across some of old interview notes I made on several candidates. Here are some examples of questions that I used to ask of senior level C/UNIX programmers in a job interview:

What does the use of the raise() system call accomplish?

What is the difference between the dup() and dup2() system calls?

Given only a shared memory key and shared memory flags, how can you attach to a shared memory segment if you do not know the size?

How (specifically) can you install an ANSI-compliant, unreliable signal handler?

I’m surprised that (A) anyone passed my interviews (surprisingly, a few folks did), and (B) that I had the ridiculously narrow view that all “good programmers” memorized every little niggling detail of every system call and library function available to them. I should point out that the ones who did actually ace those old interviews usually turned out to be very strange workmates. Think about that for a second, and we’ll move on.

While a certain amount of detailed questioning is useful, it really isn’t an all-encompassing way of measuring a person’s potential value to your organization. Sometimes, the best answer of them all is simply knowing where to turn to find out more. This is one of the first things they teach you in the consulting world. When placed in a new client situation, it isn’t important to know the perfect answer on day one. Instead, the focus is on understanding what the problem is, inventorying the assets that you have available to you, and then filling in the gaps on-the-fly. I am reminded of one of the unofficial mantras of the U.S. Marine Corps: “Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome”.

Now for some jobs, being able to readily and completely recite the answers to life, the universe, and everything (a la Douglas Adams) is probably a handy skill to have. Say, for instance, a nuclear physicist. However, I am not a nuclear physicist, and I doubt you are either. So, read on.

One of my original mentors, Russ Miller of The Knowledge Tree, used to quip:

To be a good computer programmer, you simply need to know three things: One, what the data looks like. Two, how you can access the data. And three, what to do with the data once you get it.

Reduce it to the simplest form, and research the things you already know. The rest will generally work itself out. Russ Miller’s simple little rules have always served me well.

Instead of asking those granular questions I listed above at the beginning of this article, I should have been asking questions that focused on their accomplishments, work ethic, and programming philosophies. I should have focused on discovering their aptitude, and not every facet of their skillset. Thankfully, I learned this lesson a while ago, and now have a much more “balanced” approach to conducting technical interviews.

Sure, I want to know whether or not this person can “walk the walk” from a technical standpoint. However, I am equally interested in cultural fit, critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, communication style, and passion/commitment levels. In fact, if the truth be known, I would rather have someone with more of the soft skills, and raw aptitude. I can teach you library calls and syntax. I can’t begin to teach you how to communicate effectively, or how to find the path of least resistance. But I digress.

Back when I was a technical instructor I used to constantly reinforce the utility value of the single most important UNIX command/tool available: The man command. For those of you not familiar with UNIX (or Linux, BSD, et al), the “man” command allows you to access the online “manual” pages. Think of it as the UNIX equivalent of the F1 key in Windows. You can find out just about anything related to the operating system, tools, libraries, etc. with one single command. Nice. And if you don’t know what you are looking for, but you know what you are trying to achieve, the “man” command allows you to search based on keywords as well.

Instead of asking a UNIX programmer to recite all of the possible arguments to the ioctl() system call, I simply ask them to tell me what the single most important UNIX command is. If they say anything other than “man”, I start to question their ability to improvise, adapt, and overcome, as it were.

By the way, the above is a great tip for you junior UNIX techies out there. If you are ever asked a UNIX-related question that you are not sure of, just respond that you would look up the answer using “man.” Nine times out of ten you’ll get a pass.

You don’t know the answer to everything. No one does. The good news is, you don’t need to know the answer to everything. You simply need to know where to go to find the answer. Do you know where to go to find the answers you seek?

Cheers.

When I started my company (Incursio, Inc.) in 2000 or so, I did so at potentially the worst conceivable time. The economy was beginning to go into a steep nosedive, tech companies were folding up like lawn chairs, and investors were beginning to shy away from tech-based startup companies. Given the market conditions, many of you might think that my big mistake was actually in starting the company to begin with!

Five years later, after selling the business, and after a million lessons-learned, I emerged from the ride brought on by my decision to plod forward. I realized that I had done surprisingly well, all things considered. But as I reflected back upon my journey, I realized that among the many mistakes that I made, one stood out among them all. This one, single action (or inaction, in this case), was nearly my downfall, and I hadn’t really realized it until afterwards. I failed myself in an almost unimaginable way.

I wish that the mistake I made were tangible. I wish I could blame someone … my head of sales failed to close enough deals, or perhaps my development team was too slow in bringing innovations to market. Unfortunately, life is rarely that simple. The mistake that I made was personal, which made it an even more painful realization to bear.

What was this mistake of which I speak? I failed to ask people for help. Yes, that’s right, Virginia. Instead of asking my professional network to help me be successful, I became fearful of the economy, and withdrew my resources and internalized my entire company. Granted, it got a little better as time went by, but early on, when things were the roughest, I unwittingly took the hard road. When I needed funding for our various ventures, I opened my own wallet. When we needed new servers for the data center, I built them myself. When code needed to be developed in a hurry, I pulled an all nighter. When we had to pitch to a key client, I was on a plane.

Everything we did right, we did right because I leveraged myself beyond belief, and worked 25 hours a day (a lot of people don’t realize this, but there are ways to squeeze an extra hour out of the work day). Passion goes a long way, folks.

But everything we did wrong, we did so because I failed to reach out to those people around me who were in a position to help me. I probably did more wrong than right, but in the end, I was lucky. But it could have taken a terrible turn at a moment’s notice. I often wonder what my own opportunity cost was by not asking others for help. How many other wonderful things could my company have done had I just had the courage to tap on others for assistance? I’ll never know.

But I do know this: I will never let it happen again.

I have always held the belief that you don’t discipline an employee for making a mistake. I only take action when I realize that they are not learning from their mistakes. I have learned from mine.

Cheers.

Lead image originally posted on Judy’s Book.

Five minute jobbing was apparently the brainchild of Andy Sack, CEO of Judy’s Book, which is a site aiming to combine the value of social networking and directory services, into a new form of Yellow Book. It really is a neat site – you should take a look if you haven’t seen it.

Sack wanted to come up with a creative way of recruiting IT talent in the Seattle area, and suggested that by using the same techniques as speed dating (something I had fortunately never heard of until now), hiring companies could quickly filter through a large number of candidates in a very short period of time. So he teamed up with a few other companies and came up with the concept of having these “5 minute jobbing” events.

I must confess that any time there is mention of a potential new efficiency, I am all ears. Especially when it comes to something like recruiting, which can be a time sink in certain instances. While I applaud their efforts to come up with a new twist on things, I think there are some fundamental problems with this hiring approach.

First and foremost, I simply don’t feel like you can truly get to know someone in five minutes. For some people, perhaps they feel that five minutes is enough time. As I opined in my discussion of the circle theory, I feel that each team member is a critical link to the integrity of the group as a whole. As such, I would spend quite a bit more time digging into a person’s skillset, background, and personality, among other things. Getting to know them better should be the first task at hand when hiring someone. There is only so much you can learn about a person in five minutes. Since when has it become advantageous to know less about a candidate prior to making a hiring decision?

If the idea behind the events were to spend five initial minutes with a candidate, and determine whether or not you wanted to bring them into the office for a second interview, then I would be all for it. However, I don’t see any mention of this on the 5minutejobbing.com web site. All I see is the tagline “Get a job in 5 minutes”, so I am left to assume that tendered job offers are the objective of the event.

I would be very interested to see some mid-to-long-term statistics on the track records of people hired through this “speed hiring” process. If you hire someone in this way, and after a few months, they don’t work, then what have you really gained? If anything, you’ve lost time and money. This is not to speak of the opportunity costs with lost project time, slipping dates, re-recruiting costs, and bringing a new person up to speed on the project environment (again).

Another problem is the fact that people tend to work in 3-5 year job cycles now. Granted, technology has made them more productive than employees in previous generations, but when you hire someone today, as a hiring manager, you automatically assume that they will not be there for the long haul. Given this, it is important that you hire people who will at least stay through the cycle, and hopefully beyond. Thus, another reason for getting to know them better.

Giving someone only five minutes (or even 15) in a job interview is quite frankly an insult to their intelligence. If I am going to commit a substantial portion of my life to working for a particular firm, I expect to be treated with some dignity and respect. I do not want to be made to feel as if I am walking into a cattle car or a fast food line. “Hi there, John. I know you are a very qualified candidate, but we are only going to give you five minutes.”

The 5minutejobbing.com web site describes the event as “fun and low stress.” Quite frankly, if I told a candidate that they had five minutes to convince me to hire them, there is simply no way that the candidate is going to “have fun” or feel “low stressed” about it. They are going to be nervous as hell, and most likely are going to flub something or another during the interview – this is human nature. Interviews are nerve-racking enough as it is for candidates – we don’t need to start putting egg timers over their heads.

I will say, however, think this approach could have merit in situations where you are hiring subcontractors. I am careful here not to use the word “consultants” – IT consultants and IT subcontractors are two entirely different animals, although for some reason, some people like to use them synonomously. If I am looking to do some staff augmentation, and I need a junior database analyst to come in for a few months, then I suppose this approach may have some merit, although I wouldn’t use it personally.

There is also still a glut of IT workers floating around in the larger marketplace. Irrespective of the size of the hiring company, finding able-bodied IT staffers is quite easy.

The companies that are listed as sponsors of the current “five minute jobbing” events in Seattle are all what I would call small or upstart companies (one is the up-and-coming real estate valuation play at zillow.com). I can’t see larger, more established companies using this sort of approach. The time savings is simply not worth the potential aforementioned opportunity cost.

Having worked in several startups, I would also argue that each new startup hire is exponentially more important to the lifespan of the organization. As such, I wouldn’t use this approach in a startup mode either. Truth be told, I’d probably spend even more time scrutinizing them. As I’ve said before, I’d rather spend $1,000 hiring the right person, then $10,000 fixing their mistakes.

For more info on this concept, here are some informative links:

• 5minutejobbing.com
• Judy’s Book
• Andy Sack’s Blog
• http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/venture/archives/100745.asp

Cheers.

Essentially, I liken the team to a circle. The circle is continuous, strong, and unbroken at any point. Everything inside the circle (the team members) is protected by the circle itself (the whole of the group). Each time we add a new team member, the circle expands. The circle, like a chain, is only as strong as its weakest link.

I extend the opportunity to all of our team members to interview each and every candidate that makes my second cut (my personal interview with them). This peer-level interview is done in a group, usually in a conference room. The candidate sits at the head of the table, and the most senior member of the current team present in the room serves as the moderator. I am not present. Team members all have a copy of the person’s resume, and are free to ask them questions. The candidate is warned ahead of time that anything goes – there is nothing sacred in this interview – anything and everything on their resume (and in our job description) is fair game.

The team has their marching orders ahead of time: don’t violate the integrity of this circle - do whatever due diligence you feel is appropriate, because if the integrity of this circle is broken, you have no one to blame but yourselves. If you wake up three months from now, and realize that the person working next to you is a hack, then we have all failed as a group. As such, during the interview, the team is free to ask the candidate anything they wish. The candidate is fully briefed on this interview ahead of time, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise to them.

I recall this one fellow who made some rather lofty claims on his resume. Specifically, he claimed a number of certifications and practical experience with Java/J2EE at the senior developer level. His paperwork and initial HR screen went well, so we brought him in for an interview. He seemed like a congenial enough fellow, and certainly talked the talk in his interview with me. However, once he entered the group interview, his “paper castle” imploded about as fast as it was constructed. When one of our senior developers handed him a whiteboard marker and asked him to solve even a simple J2EE logic problem or architecture issue, he was unable to do so. Hiring him would have clearly been a mistake.

Most candidates don’t have a problem with this sort of interview. Granted, a few of them have walked away, refusing to subject themselves to such a rigorous interview. However, just as many have relished the opportunity, and jumped in head first. But I should point out, my number one objective here is not to coddle the candidate, but to build an efficient, mobile, and agile team that is grounded in trust.

After the group interview, we hold a team AAR (After Action Review) to discuss the candidate’s standing. Any member on the team can voice their concerns, from the most junior level software developer to the most senior level sales type. Then, together, we come to a consensus on whether or not we wish to widen our circle, and introduce this person as a new link. We discuss the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, and determine whether they will be a good technical, as well as cultural fit. There doesn’t have to be a unanimous decision to hire a person or not – after all, that is why I get paid the little bucks to make command decisions – however, it serves as a forum where everyone can participate, and be heard.

The key to this process working properly is to solidify what it is that you are hiring (the hiring profile), and ensure that all team members have a thorough understanding of what that entails. You wouldn’t want to apply “senior-level” standards to an “entry-level” position, and so forth.

The theory here is that by empowering the team to play their role in protecting the circle, we will reduce the number of ineffective hires (which has a direct dollar savings in terms of opportunity cost), as well as make the need for justifying new proposed job openings more pronounced. This process not only works, but serves as a powerful filter, not to mention a powerful team-building exercise. Candidates that pass this group interview are accepted as a member of our “family” from day one, and no one questions them. They are most always ready to hit the ground running, which means a better ROI against that hire for the company.

I will state quite candidly that this technique is not for everyone. I have been in organizations where this technique would not work if attempted. Company culture, team makeup, and tenure of staff play a large role in the success of this and other group interviewing techniques. Your mileage may vary. However, all things being equal, I’d rather spend $1,000 making sure I hire the right person, than $10,000 fixing their mistakes.

Cheers.

From what I gather, she is the store manager, and he is a recent college graduate. I expected that as a recent college grad, I would find him to be weak in the interviewing arena. Having interviewed hundreds of fresh college graduates over the years, I have learned to hire primarily based on performance potential, and not solely on their experience or interviewing prowess. In a very surprising development, it turned out that the interviewer was the one who needed help! Her performance was so egregious that I completely forgot about the young greenhorn in the interviewee’s chair.

Here are my notes – taken chronologically:

• She spent roughly 50% of the time telling him about the company
• She spent roughly 25% of the time complaining about Corporate
• She spent roughly 20% of the time telling him stories about current or former employees
• She spent roughly 5% of the time actually allowing him (the interviewee) to speak

The following are some of her prize-winning comments (along with my commentary), as captured quickly by me on my laptop (I swear I’m not making these up):

1. “I am very sarcastic; some people think I’m a b*tch.”

2. “I’m also a very hard boss.”

3. “When I’m not #1, I get very upset.”

4. “I don’t care how you get to your sales goals, as long as you get there.”

5. “I don’t have any direct management experience, but I am ahead of my peers (fast tracker) because I was hired to be a manager without any experience.”

6. “My boss, the regional manager can be a ‘flaming a**’ sometimes, and can be very demanding, but he is a good guy, so don’t be nervous when you interview with him.” Oh yeah, that’s going to help him relax! Sheesh!

7. Now she is telling him stories of her firing someone, and she seems to be quite exuberant over it. Her youth is showing. Her lack of experience is also quite obvious, even without her stating it. Perhaps one day, when she gets canned for something, she will be a bit more respectful when dealing with this subject.

8. Now she is telling him that she ended up getting about $1,500 worth of “freebies” from the store over the past year (games, accessories, etc). I don’t even want to know.

9. Now she is complaining about how corporate HQ sets high sales expectations for the store over the holidays and how she can’t stand them.

10. I now know what this poor fellow will earn salary-wise if he is hired. That’s always good info to circulate in public. I also learned that if he impresses her boss in the next interview, the boss can possibly sweeten the deal to a slightly higher number. It’s always nice to reveal your negotiation strategy up front. On the plus-side, it turns out I chose the right career path from a financial standpoint.

11. Now she is taking a cell phone call from her husband/boyfriend, and she is “baby talking” with him.

12. He asked “what happened to the guy named Chris that worked there?” She said she fired him and proceeded to tell him why she had to fire him. I’m sure Chris appreciates the public plug and violation of his privacy. Perhaps I should give Chris a referral to a good human resources lawyer.

13. She is openly telling him what the sales quotas are for the store this month. Glad the competition (or E.B. Games corporate counsel) isn’t sitting where I’m sitting enjoying a mornin’ cup.

14. Finally, she told him that if he wants to become an entry level manager, he will be asked to learn how to talk to his employees and deal with situations that come up. I should send her a copy of this blog entry along with a note that says “Practice what you preach!”

As is evident by the store manager’s flagrant violation of most of the generally accepted rules of interviewing, she clearly could stand to improve her skills as an interviewer. It’s too bad I have an appointment in half an hour, otherwise I’d show her this blog entry. We could turn this into a parlor game, though. At which point above you would have walked away as the candidate?

Cheers.

At first, I narrowed it down to people. Those really good teams usually (but not always) had great leadership at the top. Likewise, the lousy teams usually (but not always) had a lack of strong leadership. I was content with that answer for a few minutes, but the question kept nagging me. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Passion.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, passion is an intense emotion which compels some sort of action, or an energetic and unflagging pursuit of an aim or devotion to a cause. Those successful teams were usually lead by someone who was passionate about what they were being asked to do.

The really great attribute about passion is that it is very viral. A little passion goes a long way, and spreads fast. The entire team can feed off of the passionate leader. Likewise, the unpassionate leader, or even teammate for that matter, can be the one who brings the entire ship crashing down with a thud.

I am reminded of this fellow that I served with in the U.S. Army. Great guy, but he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. He couldn’t pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel. Sometimes, the gates were down, and the lights were flashing, but the train just wasn’t coming, if you know what I mean. But he was absolutely passionate about being a soldier and serving his country. If he was on guard duty at 3:00 in the morning, he had a grin on his face. If he was crossing a field in 3 feet of mud, he was probably whistling the 3rd Infantry Division’s fight song. His boots were always polished and his rifle was always clean.

The net effect is that even though this guy was a bit of a goof, he loved what he was doing, and that had an effect on those around him. We’d have gone through the fire for him – and we did. We never wanted to disappoint him. His passion gave our squad a competitive advantage over others, friend or foe.

Passion can be used to empower people, as well as inspire them. It can be used to foster innovation, as well as gain productivity boosts. It can make type B people pay attention to detail, and lower the blood pressure of the type A’s. Passionate people also tend to have more fun, which is never a bad thing.

I am reminded of a quote that was passed to me years ago by a friend: Passion will defeat talent everytime. While this may not be a literal truth, there is an ideal to be found there.

It should behoove every manager, and indeed every leader, to put a laser focus on infusing passion in the workplace. This should encompass every facet of the business, starting with the hiring process. Hire people who are passionate about what they do. And don’t stop there. Once they join your ranks, immerse them in a culture and environment conducive to exploiting those passions for success. Doing so could make the difference between getting that next deal, or losing it to a competitor. It could mean the difference between bringing that project in on time and under budget, or watching it spiral out of control.

For more info on the subject of passion as a competitive tool, I would encourage you to visit the Passion Catalyst site. I’d also recommend making a stop in at the blog of its owner, Curt Rosengren. These are fantastic resources for folks wanting to learn more about passion in the workplace.

Cheers.