September 25th 2009

Although I juuuuust got my dream coat from OC mere weeks ago, there’s already a new one (or three) on the radar…

August 24th 2009 Post has 1 notes.

My Diddy and I at the legendary Stone Pony — we spent an awesome day in Asbury Park soaking up rock n’ roll history.

August 20th 2009

Why Few Executives Are Skillful Managers

Just read this great article over on the Harvard Business blog regarding the main pitfalls that managers experience, along with a straightforward plan for becoming a better team leader.

A couple of thoughts:

1) I would argue that time is THE greatest barrier to becoming a great manager. While many would love to interact more with their team, they simply have too many responsibilities that they themselves are accountable for to devote the time.

In larger companies, devoting an entire job description to “Manager” becomes a solution, so long as the responsibilities for that position become only to do cultural check-ins, help the team through obstacles, and be present for discussion. All too often, the role of Manager gets lumped in with sales, resulting in a hierarchy of attention and a pairing of character traits that aren’t necessarily complimentary (focus on maing $ vs. focus on building people). While some would argue that such a focused role is indulgent, I would counter with the fact that Project Managers are some of the most highly sought positions, and they are essentially focused only on workflow. Allowing a role to be dedicated to growing and mentoring great employees sends a great cultural message.

For smaller teams, in which singularly-focused job descriptions are an unattainable luxury, dedicated people-time becomes a great solution to the management issue. Block out an hour per day in which your employees can come to you with escalation issues, and make time each week to speak with each of your employees about cultural nuances, their strengths, and their current projects/struggles. During these times, make sure you are focused on the people in front of you, and them alone.

Any other thoughts on what makes a stellar manager (or how to hop on the path to becoming one)?

August 18th 2009

Yummy. Makes me want to wear espadrilles waaaay into the Winter… [via Refinery29]

August 12th 2009

Hear hear! I want to be Blair when I grow up [via @fashionista_com]

August 11th 2009

Just finished the Netflix Culture pres…

I know that process is a dirty word in nearly all creative companies, mostly due to its rigid connotations. I believe that process can be a great guideline, as opposed to a rule; a tool for roadmapping as opposed to “the way things are done.” It just depends on how strictly the parameters are presented.

While Netflix touches on this point (Slide 61), they don’t think of it as a solution. Instead, they consider hiring High Performance Employees as a cure-all. Yet, in my experience, hiring High Performance Employees means working to onboard super-specialists in each respective field. Even the most organized X is going to want to focus on getting their job done, not on how they can work with others to complete a task (this is especially true in the case of specialists).

A utopian vision of the “Highly Aligned, Loosly Coupled” (Slide 90) team, in which cross-functional groups only discuss strategy and goals is a bit unrealistic. In for nearly every product release, there’s a logical order of operations to be considered: a toy’s prototypes should be finalized before its package is created, likewise, the packaging should be considered before distribution channels are finalized. To ignore this chain only invites real-time revisions, which are ultimately costly and simply inefficient.

The solution here is to create a team that understands that a logical workflow is important, but also believes in keeping this workflow open and adaptable to each release. The toy above is not going to have the same steps to completion that a board game will. Workflow planning needs to be an early and vital part of strategic meetings; the entire project does not need to be laid out from point A, but a general roadmap of how a team is to reach its goals is crucial. Maybe I’m cynical, but I simply don’t believe that a team of superstars, left to their own devices, will act in a team’s best interest. They were hired to act in their role’s best interest.

In the end, simply communicating the fact that you’re building a roadmap, and not an assembly line eases process-fear. Each project should be approached with a fresh set of eyes (and expectations), as opposed to a cut-and-paste overlay of a previous plan. My guess is that general outlines will stick, but project-specific details will always need need to be tailored.

That said, I think there are a couple of amazing cultural gems in here:

1) “It’s about effectiveness, not effort” (Slide 33)

2) For many companies, a standard vacation policy is silly (Slide 66)

3) Employees need context, not control (Slide 81)

August 3rd 2009