Gordy created a unique culture which deemphasized cronyism and encouraged open and honest debate regarding the subjective quality of the company’s creative output. During the 1960’s, Motown’s artistic success was unprecedented. From 1960 through 1971, Motown released 111 singles which entered Billboard’s top-ten ranking, of which 28 rose all the way to #1.

Startups consistently identify more ideas and opportunities than they have the time or resources to pursue, such as potential partnerships, new products, entering emerging markets, etc. Motown’s disciplined quality control techniques can be mimicked by startups to objectively evaluate which initiatives should be pursued in the near-term, which should be considered in the future and which should be dismissed entirely.

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Idea Cronyism

The ability to objectively critique ones creative output is vital to an entrepreneur. Idea cronyism occurs when decisions are based upon the personalities, social status and other non-objective criteria associated with the idea’s champion(s). For instance, when a venture capital partner votes for a follow-on investment in exchange for the future support of one of her investments, idea cronyism is at work.

In the early 1960s, conventional wisdom in the music industry did not lend itself to a systematic manner of evaluating creative content. Record companies evaluated songs based upon a variety of informal means, such as the Old Gray Whistle Test. In addition, an artist’s stature dictated the extent to which promotional resources were applied to particular songs. In this subjective environment, established artists were able to exert disproportionate influence, irrespective of the underlying quality or marketability of their latest songs. 

Motown’s methodology for assessing its songs was simple and effective. Gordy’s inspiration for Motown’s unique quality control process was the Lincoln-Mercury assembly line, where he worked prior to becoming an entertainment entrepreneur. The process started with Mr. Gordy and a non-partisan Assistant deciding which songs would be evaluated. This is analogous to a startup CEO selecting which ideas will be considered by a larger group for implementation. Someone must define the universe of ideas to be reviewed at the outset of the process, otherwise the task is impossibly inefficient.

Motown’s system was not just efficient, but it also allowed the company to avoid the cronyism that can infect organizations as they mature. Every Friday, Motown personnel convened to review the songs chosen by Mr. Gordy from those recorded during the prior week. Each song was played before a disparate group of listeners, each of whom had a yea or nay vote. A simple majority ruled, with Berry Gordy breaking any ties or close votes.

To emulate Motown’s methodology, instill the following characteristics into your adVenture’s opportunity evaluation process:

• Menu – CEO defines the list of ideas and the opportunities to be evaluated

• Blunt & No Reprisals – Encourage participants to be straightforward and honest, without concern for hurting a peer’s feelings. Everyone should understand that critiques are divorced from the person(s) supporting the idea. In his book Motown: Music, Money, Sex, and Power, Gerald Posner notes that Gordy established a culture in which, “…frank expression became not just a right, but rather a duty.”

• Majority – Give each participant one vote per idea, irrespective of their title or status. Ideas with the most votes proceed to the next stage of evaluation. Do not allow participants to vote on their own idea.

• Veto – CEO retains the right to override the majority. However, to avoid undermining the democratic process, such vetoes should be rare. It should generally be deployed only when the vote is close.

• Snooze and Lose – Late participants are not allowed to vote. This ensures that all lobbying and discussions are performed in a single forum, thereby increasing the efficiency and transparency of the process.

• Balanced Constituency – As detailed in Be The Beatles, balance is of utmost importance at a startup. You can inject objectivity into an inherently subjective process by exposing ideas to a cross-section of your organization. For instance, engineers will typically evaluate ideas differently than people engaged in sales, who in turn will consider ideas from a different vantage point from those responsible for product development and marketing.

Motown’s system worked because each song was evaluated on its merits and with consideration as to the impact each single could make on the company as a whole, without consideration to the contribution a particular song might have on an artist’s career. In the startup world, ideas should be evaluated in a similarly systematic and non-emotional manner. One way to evaluate and contrast the impact of your ideas against one another is to plot them on the matrix shown below.

As discussed in Beware The Consultant, an entrepreneur’s most precious assets are her Time and Money. The Impact Matrix attempts to assess the relative priority of an idea, based upon the following criteria.

Speed – How quickly will the ideas manifest themselves and begin to impact the adVenture.

Impact – The degree to which the ideas further the adVenture’s objectives. For instance, how much money will the proposed idea save the company or how much revenue will the proposed opportunity generate?

Risk of Defocus – To what extent is the idea aligned with the adVenture’s overall vision. The less strategically congruent a particular idea is, the greater the chance that its implementation will impede the company’s ability to achieve its broad, strategic goals.

Resources Required – At most high-tech startups, the resources will include developers’ time and the opportunity cost associated with alternative uses of the developers’ 12-hour work days. Additionally, many opportunities require financial investments which must be considered in tandem with non-financial resource requirements.

Evaluate each of the following metrics on a scale of 1 – 10. For instance, a particular idea might be scored as follows:

Speed:
8 – relatively fast
Impact:
3 – relatively small
Defocus:
-7 – relatively high risk (zero = a deal with no risk of lost focus)
Resources:
2 – relatively small

Total:
6 – mediocre opportunity

The higher the overall score, the closer it will appear in the upper right corner of the Impact Matrix and the higher it should be in the company’s implementation queue. In the above example, a score of 6 is probably not high enough to merit immediately moving forward, although it might warrant reassessment at a later date.

Once all the opportunities are mapped, they can be visually compared against one-another. An individual idea’s relative position will shift over time, as shown in the matrix below. For instance, from 2001 – 2003, I frequently lobbied for a Mac-compatible version of GoToMyPC. However, at that time, our resources were better applied to exploiting our primary, PC-based market. A Mac-compatible version of GoToMyPC was not released until 2010.

You will probably never execute most of the ideas in the Do Ad Hoc quadrant, but some, like a Mac version of GoToMyPC, may eventually shift to the Do Now quadrant as your adVenture acquires additional resources and markets shift.

Evaluating ideas via such a matrix force discipline on business development deal junkies, commission-driven sales leaders and engineers engaged in product feature creep. The Impact Matrix can be used at a departmental level with each department’s projects eventually rolled up to a more macro, company-wide view.

The Motown Sound Alike

For all of its commercial success, Motown has its share of detractors. One of the most consistent criticisms is the “sameness” of its songs. Motown’s finite stable of musicians, songwriters and singers naturally crafted songs which sounded similar over time. Gordy’s quality control process, which avoided the crony system, also disproportionally rewarded songs which were “middle of road” and relatively “safe”, which made the similarity of Motown’s songs even more pronounced.

By the early 1970s, Motown had become a Big Dumb Company. Its objective methodology had broken down and egos began to inappropriately influence the company’s decision making process. Barry’s Founderitis exacerbated Motown’s idea cronyism by frequently and arbitrarily wielding his veto right.

In particular, Marvin Gaye’s 1971 breakthrough album What’s Going On was initially rejected by Gordy. Marvin was forced to re-record many of the songs and eliminate the loose, party-sound which made the record unique. Fortunately for music fans, Marvin Gaye’s prior commercial success was sufficient to thwart Mr. Gordy’s capricious veto and the initial version of What’s Going On was ultimately released. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine rated What’s Going On #6 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time.

As your organization matures, crony relationships are more likely to develop and ultimately disrupt the idea evaluation process. To avoid the creative demise which befell Motown, your Core Team must maintain a disciplined method of assessing the veracity of the potential opportunities faced by your adVenture. If you do this effectively, you and your team will always know What’s Going On.

______________________
John Greathouse has held a number of senior executive positions with successful startups during the past fifteen years, spearheading transactions which generated more than $350 million of shareholder value, including an IPO and a multi-hundred-million-dollar acquisition.

John is a CPA and holds an M.B.A. from the Wharton School. He is a member of the University of California at Santa Barbara’s Faculty where he teaches several entrepreneurial courses.
______________________

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Copyright © 2007-10 by J. Meredith Publishing. All rights reserved.

If this gentleman was such a pivotal player in the early days of the PC revolution, why is he essentially unknown to most entrepreneurs under forty years old?

The short answer is that he failed to conform to his Stakeholders’ realities. Few mistakes would have such wide-ranging implications in the business world over the next two decades.

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Gary Kildall’s contribution to the evolution of the PC industry is legendary. Some of the additional “firsts” attributed to Kildall include:

• Wrote first PC operating system

• Architected menu driven systems, windows capabilities & preemptive multitasking

• Developed first floppy disk operating system

• Designed CD-ROM filing system and created Universal Software Bus

• Established basis for PC local-area networks

• Pioneered nonlinear playback and search capabilities, commonly used in DVD technology

Due to the number of contributors to the PC’s evolution, some of the above “firsts” could be reasonably argued. Yet, no one disputes Mr. Kildall’s leadership role during the emergent days of the PC industry. So why is he virtually unknown? The glib answer is that he had the misfortune of competing with Bill Gates.

However, there is more to Mr. Kildall’s story than whether or not Microsoft competed fairly against his CP/M PC operating system, which by 1980, was overwhelmingly the market leader. Much has been written about how Microsoft entered the operating system market and a number of ethical lessons can be drawn from the manner in which Microsoft handled its relationship with Intergalactic Digital Research, Mr. Kildall’s company. However, this essay does not focus on Microsoft’s actions. Few young entrepreneurs know about Mr. Kildall’s contributions because of his behavior, not Mr. Gates’.

Reality Conformance

“History is written by the victors” Winston Churchill, 20th century British Statesman

The myth that arose to explain why IBM selected Microsoft’s Operating System over Digital Research’s market leading software is that Mr. Kildall opted for a joy ride in his private plane the day the IBM executives visited his offices. This apocryphal story was repeated so often, many people accepted it as fact.

In reality, Gary Kildall was present when IBM came knocking during July of 1980. Author Harold Evans in his seminal work, They Made America, draws from Mr. Kidall’s unpublished biography three reasons why Digital Research did not establish a partnership with IBM, which are paraphrased below:

• No large company had previously been successful in the PC market

• Kildall did not want IBM employees stationed in his offices

• Kildall did not want to betray Digital Research’s original equipment manufacturing (OEM) partners

Mr. Kildall claims that his loyalty to his OEM distribution partners was the primary source of his reluctance to partner with IBM. However, his actions indicate that the cultural clash between the two companies was the real reason a deal was never consummated.

Instead of utilizing Digital Research’s stable, industry leading operating system, IBM licensed Microsoft’s software. What IBM did not realize was that Microsoft’s code was hastily written by a single programmer who relied upon Digital Research’s CP/M architecture. The original name of the software Microsoft licensed to IBM was Quick and Dirty Operating System (QDOS), which Gates artfully renamed it MSDOS. As Harold Evans points out, “By adopting Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS), IBM and Microsoft forced users to endure years of crashes with incalculable economic cost in lost data and lost opportunities.”

Flower Power

Kildall, a former college professor, was proud of Digital Research’s academic culture. Beer and pizza were served on Friday afternoons and anyone who dressed in a suit was easily identified as a visitor. In many ways, the culture Kildall established was a precursor to the egalitarian, laid-back environments made more famous by Apple, Yahoo and Google before they became Big Dumb Companies. Such cultures place seeking the truth above blind allegiance to hierarchy or rank.

In addition to his sanctimonious view of his corporate culture, Mr. Kildall was also a victim of his company’s success. At the time IBM sought out Digital Research’s operating system, it was widely understood that nearly every PC was running an operating system that was either directly or indirectly based upon Digital Research’s CP/M’s code. Widely understood, as Harold Evans points out, by nearly everyone except IBM.

IBM’s staid culture and utter lack of understanding of the PC market caused Kildall to underestimate the value of the potential partnership. He felt they needed him more than he needed them. In this regard, Mr. Kildall’s lacked self-awareness. Small companies cannot afford to be self-unaware.

Kildall should have realized that the IBM executives viewed him and his team as naïve, slightly arrogant hippies. By adopting an attitude based on Humble Pride, Digital Research could have taken advantage of IBM’s ignorance. In 1980, IBM was the prototypical Big Dumb Company (BDC). They knew what they wanted but had no idea how to achieve their goals. Rather than seizing this extraordinary opportunity to infiltrate IBM and educate them as to CP/M’s benefits, Digital Research considered IBM’s lack of knowledge of the PC market as further evidence that IBM’s PC would fail and thus the partnership was not worthy of its time or attention. Educating BDCs is an opportunity to be embraced, not a challenge to be avoided. When a BDC lacks information, a small company can add tremendous value to the relationship and thus exercise significant influence over the terms of the partnership.

Mr. Kildall was comfortable scorning IBM because he felt that the PC market would be different and the rules established in the “old world” of the mainframe and minicomputer industries were not applicable. He was wrong. (see the upcoming It Ain’t Gonna Be Different)

Raising Money And Selling Robots

Computer Motion, a medical robotics startup which we took public in 1997 and was later sold to Intuitive Surgical, developed a collegial corporate culture in its early days, similar to Digital Research. In the early 1990’s, when few companies introduced the radical concept of “casual Friday”, we routinely worked in shorts, T-shirts and flip-flops. However, whenever we hosted visitors, the company’s executives dressed in attire consistent with that of our guests. If the visitors were Bay Area venture capitalists, Dockers and a collared shirt were in order. If they were Hospital Administrators from the Midwest, we would don the full monty (i.e., a coat, tie and socks).

In this way, we conformed to our guests’ version of reality. We did not ask them to accept our Santa Barbara, casual startup view of the world. Attire may seem like a small point, especially since dress codes subsequently became universally relaxed by the late 1990’s (even at Midwest hospitals!). However, conforming to our guests’ realities did not stop with our clothing. We also placed ourselves in our potential Stakeholders’ shoes when crafting the nature and scope of our relationships and we never assumed that our Stakeholders needed us more than we needed them.

Gates And The Department Store Tie

During the flight to meet IBM for the first time at their Boca Raton headquarters, Bill Gates realized that he had not packed a tie. Rather than saunter into IBM’s offices wearing West Coast casual attire, Bill went directly from the airport to a department store, where he purchased a tie. He understood the importance of conforming to the reality of his Stakeholders, especially those who had the ability to place his adVenture on an entirely new growth trajectory.

There is no need to assume that your individuality will be lost in a never ending quest to conform to the reality of others. Such conformance is a temporal phenomenon. As your adVenture succeeds, you can be less concerned with conforming to others’ reality and start creating a reality of your own. However, on your road to success, do not repeat Mr. Killdal’s mistake and assume that modest success during the early days of an emerging industry gives you license to reject your Stakeholders’ perception of reality. When it comes to Stakeholders, their perception is your reality.

______________________
John Greathouse has held a number of senior executive positions with successful startups during the past fifteen years, spearheading transactions which generated more than $350 million of shareholder value, including an IPO and a multi-hundred-million-dollar acquisition.

John is a CPA and holds an M.B.A. from the Wharton School. He is a member of the University of California at Santa Barbara’s Faculty where he teaches several entrepreneurial courses.
______________________

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Copyright © 2007-10 by J. Meredith Publishing. All rights reserved.

After years of denying the phantom quote, Durocher eventually embraced it, using it as the title of his 1975 autobiography. However, as he mellowed with age, Durocher attempted to rewrite his place in history by claiming that he was not implying that nice guys could not win. Rather, he argued that being “nice” and “winning” simply have no correlation.

Most historians do not subscribe to Mr. Durocher’s revisionist history. The hot-tempered, foul-mouthed, heavy-drinking ballplayer earned the nickname “The Lip” because of his caustic tongue. He is not politely pointing out a soup stain on the umpire’s tie in the above photo. Leo “The Lip” was anything but “nice.” 

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Unlike “The Lip,” Barrie Bergman is a humble, self-made man who realized early in life that being nice provides a significant business advantage. Barrie, along with his lifelong wife and business partner Arlene, realized that they could attract A+ Players, have more fun and create more wealth by establishing a culture of trust and celebration. If you doubt that you can “do well by doing good,” check out Time Wounds All Heels.

Barrie’s story epitomizes the American Dream. When he was a child, Barrie’s father was forced to declare bankruptcy. The only asset that his father retained was a small warehouse from which he sold 45-rpm records that had previously been played in jukeboxes.

From that single used record store, Barrie and Arlene grew Record Bar into the second-largest record chain in the U.S., with over 200 locations. The Bergmans sold the chain to a European conglomerate in the pre-iPod days of the 1990s for approximately $100 million, proving that timing really is everything in life, comedy and business.

A cynic might claim that the Bergmans’ success had more to do with luck than the fact that they created a healthy culture in which people were able to thrive personally and professionally. That cynic would be wrong. After taking a multi-year victory lap, Barrie and Arlene purchased Bare Escentuals out of bankruptcy. They eventually turned the failing, four-store cosmetics chain into a global, public company, which generated sales in excess of $550 million in 2008.

Rather than steal all the thunder of Barrie’s book by providing too many specifics, I have opted to list some of the chapter titles below. As you can see from this list, the book is pleasingly humorous and irreverent.

We’ll Get Rich A Few Days Later: Adhering to ethics

Greed Is NOT Good: Screwing people over for the love of money

License To Kill: Fighting the urge to do whatever it takes

Don’t Defecate Where You Live: Creating a fun place to work

357 Magnum-Style Management: Managing by intimidation

Firing Someone Is Never Easy: Procrastinating only makes it harder

Don’t Give It All At The Office: Having a life outside the workplace

Boy Was I Dumb And Boy Did I Get Smart: How I almost bankrupted the company

As noted in Why Most Business Books Suck, I am usually frustrated by books written by successful business executives. Such egocentric business tomes are usually dreadfully boorish and self-serving. Not so with Barrie’s book. Barrie avoids this common pitfall by his willingness to laugh at himself and freely admit his mistakes. In this regard, he displays the Humble Pride common to so many successful serial entrepreneurs.

In addition to sharing his business wisdom, Barrie also treats the reader to some of his behind-the-scenes interactions with a number of celebrities. Barrie freely admits that he remained star-struck throughout his career, despite the fact that he met nearly every major musical artist from the mid-1960s through the late 1980s. Spoiler Alert: George Harrison was the nicest of all the rock-n-rollers.    

If you are looking for an anecdotal business book, filled with straightforward and enlightening observations, Nice Guys Finish First may be for you. However, before you pick up the book, I want to forewarn you, using Barrie’s own words from the book’s Prologue: “I expect that what I have to say will piss off some people. If it doesn’t, I’ll be disappointed.”

If Leo Durocher had read Barrie’s book, he may have gotten pissed, but at least he could have avoided spending the final decades of his life attempting to rehabilitate his reputation.

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Copyright © 2007-9 by J. Meredith Publishing. All rights reserved.

Lord Byron’s bold challenge, combined with a supportive environment and the significant talent of the participants, resulted in two of Western literature’s most enduring gothic horror creatures.

Understanding how you can emulate the cooperative, yet competitive atmosphere created by Lord Bryon will help you foster a team of A+ Players.

If you haven’t seen Uncle Saul talk about
The Three C’s of Wealth Creation
you can still watch it now!

Most students of business have heard the business cliché that entrepreneurs should “hire A Players because A Players hire other A Players, while B Players hire C Players.” However, rather than simply focusing on hiring “A Players,” entrepreneurs should identify and recruit individuals who can play an “A” game, while simultaneously fostering enhanced results in others. Such “A+ Players” are proficient individual contributors while simultaneously raising the collective output of their adVenture teammates.

Sports are fertile ground for A+ Players, where they are often referred to as “team players” because their presence enhances their team’s overall performance. Such individuals readily sacrifice their individual results for the team’s collective good. In basketball, soccer, hockey and volleyball, such players pass the ball to an open teammate, rather than taking a difficult shot.

Sports are also rife with A- Players. Such talented individuals generate impressive personal accomplishments but often diminish the team’s overall ability to win. Reggie Jackson is a classic example of an A- professional baseball player. Upon being traded to the New York Yankees, he infamously said, "This team, it all flows from me. I’m the straw that stirs the drink.” Although the Yankees won the World Series the first two years after Jackson joined the team, his career in New York was inconsistent and tumultuous. He was often the catalyst of dissension on a team described by Time magazine as, “High-powered and high-salaried, they are as disputatious, selfish, and disdainful of each other as they are talented – a galaxy of stars, singularly burning with a hard, cold light.” Winning in life, business and sports, is determined by more than the score at the end of the game. A team comprising A- Players may have more points at the end of the game than their opponents, but they are seldom “winners.”

As noted in (Non)Sense Of Entitlement, successful entrepreneurs need talent, tenacity and a Humble Pride temperament to succeed. A- Players generally rely solely on their talents. A high-priced team comprised of A- Players who are unable to augment the performance of their teammates will often lose against a moderately talented, highly motivated team that includes a few key A+ players.

For instance, when Free Agency rules became the norm in professional sports during the early 1970s, some pundits decried the end of athletics, as they prophesized that large-market teams would purchase the most talented players and thus make it impossible for smaller market teams to compete. Although large cities do have a decided advantage and salary caps have been put in place in many sports to limit an owner’s ability to “purchase” a winning team, a number of teams with far smaller payrolls have successfully won championships during the past thirty years in all major professional sports. Such teams always have at least one A+ Player who unselfishly subsumes the pursuit of their own personal gain to contribute to the team’s betterment.

Rising Talent Lifts All Players

A proficient tennis player has a difficult time performing at the top of his or her game when faced with a mediocre opponent. The same is true within an adVenture, where the quality of competition often dictates the overall level of the team’s performance. A healthy dose of cooperative competition, or coopertition, among your adVenture’s team members will encourage everyone to push the limits of their individual potential.

We Can Work It Out

The songwriting partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney is a classic example of “coopertition.” While both members of the Beatles, John and Paul largely wrote their songs individually, although they shared song-writing credits. Irrespective of who actually wrote a particular song, each artist received equal credit. Such shared credit reduces the potential ill will that can arise when rivalries are encouraged within a team.

As John Lennon noted after the band’s breakup, “…there was a little competition between Paul and I as to who got the A-side – who got the hits.” When this vital combination of competition and cooperation was missing after the band’s demise, neither songwriter’s output was consistent or as widely acclaimed.

Competitive, Collaborative Inklings

Another example of healthy competition is that between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. They initially met each Monday morning to drink beer (this is not a typo – these guys were professors, so they could get away with drinking in the morning…) and critique each other’s literary work. Over time, other writers joined Lewis and Tolkien and the group eventually came to be known as the Inklings.

At each weekly meeting, a member would read a recent work to the group, who would offer a harsh critique if they felt the author was falling short of his potential. According to Diana Glyer in her book The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community, “…as they met throughout the 1930s and 40s, extraordinary things began to happen. They generated enormous creative energy. They forged strong personal connections. And together, they helped bring to light some of the greatest literary works of this past century.”

Lewis was the Inkling’s ostensible leader. His primary role was to encourage the supportive environment which promoted a healthy level of coopertition. If anyone’s criticism became too pointed, he modulated the critique, often using his wry humor. Balancing the competitive and collaborative aspects of such an environment is the key to maximizing the A+ Players’ effectiveness.

Setting The Stage

In addition to being supportive yet competitive, the most significant environmental factors that must be present in order for A+ Players to impact an organization include:

Managed Tension – As noted in The Tribe, the Tribal Leader or CEO’s primary job is to maintain harmony within the group. However, such harmony should not come at the expense of eliminating coopertition. Properly managed, rivalries among talented teammates can enhance the group’s overall performance. Poorly managed, such tension can turn a team into a disparate group of dissenting individuals.

Take, for instance, the typical all-star bands that often play an encore together at the conclusion of large benefit shows. Although the individual members are vastly talented, the “music” they create is generally horrific. There are only so many successive five-minute guitar solos that the average music lover can endure.

Shared Credit – As in the case of Lennon & McCartney, the potential destructive impact of internal rivalries can be modulated by emphasizing group recognition over individual acknowledgments.

Shared Goals – As noted in Turn Of The Screw, performance-based compensation should ideally be based on a combination of individual and company-wide goals. For instance, a salesperson’s compensation might be based on their individual sales performance, as well as the company’s overall profitability. The collective goal will encourage the salesperson to avoid discounts and minimize expenses, both of which would negatively impact the company’s overall profits. Such shared goals help bind the team together and encourage cooperation, thus offsetting the natural friction caused by internal competition.

Cross-functional Teams – As described in Dirty Team Building, teams comprising members from an organization’s various functional departments, such as accounting, engineering, marketing, sales, etc., will help deter an “us versus them” mentality which could otherwise arise from coopertition.

Ego Checking – Jamal Hamdani, the Founder of Moseley Associates, a wireless infrastructure company, once took a large sign with “ME” printed on it, turned it backwards and upside down, to spell “WE”. He hung the sign in a prominent location to remind his employees of the importance of subverting one’s personal goals for the collective good.

Record Producer Quincy Jones also understood the importance of ego management to a team’s overall performance. When recording the 1985 famine relief song “We Are The World,” Quincy assembled a significant number of the most successful musical acts of the day. In order to ensure that the collective good would be served, he taped a simple, handwritten sign to the studio entrance which read, “Check your ego at the door.” This simple message helped focus the team on their collective goal of raising money for Ethiopia and quell potential personality conflicts.

Even within this ostensibly egalitarian environment, the recording session was not without constructive conflict. At one point, Stevie Wonder adamantly suggested that Swahili lyrics be added to the song, until it was pointed out to him that Ethiopians do not speak Swahili. In addition, several members of the group insisted that the nonsense line “Sha-lim sha-lingay" be changed to something meaningful. After a spirited debate, the group eventually agreed upon the phrase "One world, our children."

Later in the session, some of the rock singers complained about the inclusion of “uncool” pop stars in the session and threatened to walk out if the pop stars were not asked to leave. At this critical juncture, Bruce Springsteen played the role of an A+ Player by declaring, “I don’t care who is here to record this track, I’m here to help save lives.” The rockers were suitably shamed and kept subsequent egocentric thoughts to themselves. The song went on to become a number-one hit in 15 countries.

Honest, Constructive Critiques – In order to bring out the best in a team, A+ Players must provide honest feedback that is often painful to hear. Such feedback is only effective if it is given with the intent of enhancing the team’s overall performance. The team leader(s) must maintain this precarious balance between constructive and destructive critiques, much as C.S. Lewis was able to do within the Inklings.

Celebrate Collaboration – Significant acts of collaboration should be heralded and publicly rewarded. Your team should be willing to “feed” each other, as the individuals in the Long Spoon parable described in Do They Believe?

Monster Mash

What monsters arose from the coopertition encouraged by Lord Byron? Lord Ruthen was the primary character in The Vampyre, a thinly veiled caricature of Lord Byron written by his personal physician John Polidori. Lord Ruthen was literature’s first characterization of a vampire, published over 80 years before Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The other infamous monster to arise from Lord Byron’s contest, Frankenstein, was created by Mary Godwin (later Shelley), an 18-year-old with no prior literary experience.

By bringing together talented individuals and encouraging a cooperative yet competitive environment, Lord Byron was able to turn a dark and stormy night into an entertaining evening, which subsequently had a profound impact Western literature. You can have a similar impact on your adVenture by encouraging coopertition among your A+ Players, which, if properly managed, will enhance your entire team’s performance.

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Copyright © 2007-9 by J. Meredith Publishing.
All rights reserved.

Just as Karch is a rarity, so are entrepreneurs who are equally facile at startups and Big Dumb Companies (BDCs). Many of these gifted few are household names, partly because the represent such a rare breed: Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs and Jerry Yang. All of these Founders managed their startups from launch to BDC success. With the exception of Gates, each of these Founders took a victory lap hiatus before returning to their BDC as CEO.

Given the relatively small number of people who are proficient contributors at both startups and BDCs, it is worthwhile to explore the different skills required to succeed in each venue. To add a unique perspective to this exploration and hopefully gain new insights, we will examine these different skill sets through the prism of volleyball.

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Beach Volleyball

Beach volleyball is highly analogous to startups. Many of the attributes of beach volleyball and indoor volleyball can be directly applied to the world of entrepreneurship, as  illustrated in the following list.

Although similar in many respects, significant differences exist between beach and indoor volleyball

Re-read the above table, replacing Beach Volleyball with “Startup” and Indoor Volleyball with “Big Dumb Company.” Many of the attributes that distinguish these two sports are applicable to the business world. For the reasons describe below, startups are akin to beach volleyball, while BDCs are analogous to the less creative, more structured game of indoor volleyball. Still not convinced? Read on.

Objective – What is the primary objective in beach volleyball? Your first response might be, “To get the ball over the net and score.” Good answer. However, at its most elemental level, the objective of beach volleyball is to keep the ball from hitting the sand.

Once you have ensured that the ball is kept in play, you have an opportunity to score. The same is true at a startup. Your most elemental objective is survival. You must be willing to do anything to stay in the game in order to have a chance to “score.” In beach volleyball, this translates into players diving in the sand, running into each other and essentially doing anything necessary to avoid letting the ball hit the sand.

As noted in Founderitis, the attributes of Founders and other early members of a startup are ideally suited to covering the sand and ensuring that the ball stays in play. Such entrepreneurs are comfortable playing a variety of roles, just as beach volleyball players are capable of serving, setting, blocking and spiking.

Strategy – The strategy of beach volleyball is fairly simple. A handful of plays are called by the setter, based on the positioning and skills of the opposing team. However, such plays are not elaborate and often serve as the basis for improvisation, once the ball is served. The same is true at many startups, in which the initial strategy is straightforward and subject to change based on market conditions.

Positions – Just like a startup, some degree of role differentiation exists in beach volleyball. One player is typically a setter and the other a spiker. However, both players must excel at all aspects of the game in order to consistently win. As such, the positions are relatively fluid, as each player carries out the team’s primary objective, keeping the ball in play.

In gym volleyball, the six players on each team must navigate a slightly larger court (three feet wider and seven feet longer). This requires a higher degree of coordination and communication. If one player consistently plays out of their position, they will disrupt their team’s ability to succeed, just like a rogue “entrepreneurial” employee at a BDC.

Bench – There are no substitutes in beach volleyball. Both players must play the duration of the match. Thus, they must make mental and physical sacrifices, including playing hurt, tired and sick. This requires the same sort of resolve typically found at successful startups, at which employees work through holidays, weekends, illnesses and various social commitments.

Like the CEO of a BDC, indoor volleyball coaches can rest their players and strategically replace a player during a match. For instance, in a close match, a coach may decide to substitute a weak server for a stronger one. This level of specialization is not a luxury that beach volleyball or startups share.

Visibility – There is nowhere to hide on the sand. If you make a big play, everyone sees it. If you bungle an easy set, it is equally evident. In indoor volleyball, you can rely on your teammates to backfill for you if you are having an off day. In addition, if your performance is suffering, you can sit out all or a portion of a match.

Unlike a BDC, you cannot “phone it in” at a startup. You must come to work everyday ready and able to contribute. Along with heightened visibility, you have the opportunity to make a huge impact on your organization, no matter your title or seniority.

Results – On the beach, there is no confusion between activity and results. No points are given for “trying really hard” or “running aimlessly about the sand.” Just like a startup that must break even to remain viable, a beach volleyball team must score in order to win. Entrepreneurs seldom mistake activity for results because a lack of results often leads to a lack of survival.

Sometimes the clarity between results and activities are blurred in gym volleyball and at a BDC. Even though an indoor volleyball team must also score to win, the line between activity and results is less clear than with their beach counterparts. As it is more difficult to properly gauge each individual’s relative impact in a large organization, BDC employees often prefer to perform more-visible activities, rather than focusing on attaining specific results. This is evident in the number of committees within large organizations that hold interminable meetings, which lead to recommendations that seldom have a meaningful impact on their organization.

Karch was able to seamlessly move between the indoor and beach volleyball worlds because he understood both games intimately and he had the discipline to adjust his game without compromising his effectiveness. Most of us can modify our behavior for short periods of time to accommodate external circumstances. However, few people are able to completely and consistently adjust their behavior over an extended time frame. This is why entrepreneurs are typically not successful at a BDC in the long run. Some of the attributes commonly associated with entrepreneurs are further explored in Are You An Entrepreneur? and Inventors vs. Innovators.

Jobs, Dell and Yang all struggled with the challenges associated with leading a BDC. Each of these talented executives met with varying levels of success, after departing their startups, gaining maturity and perspective and then returning to resume the helm.

Bill Gates also struggled with his company’s growth. However, like Karch, he was able to modify his game to maximize his ability to contribute as his role evolved and the rules of the game changed.

Whether on the sand or a hardwood court, be sure you place yourself in the situation that best fits your skills, personality and proclivities, as it is unlikely you will be as gifted as Karch Kiraly or Bill Gates and excel both in the gym and on the sand.

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Copyright © 2007-9 by J. Meredith Publishing. All rights reserved.

Once there was a startup that grew to the point that the newly hired employees began making decisions that troubled some of the long-time employees. Distressed, the tenured employees approached the CEO and expressed their concern that the company’s culture was being damaged by the newer employees.

The CEO was initially at a loss. The new employees were well-educated, hard-working and dedicated to the adVenture’s success. However, the CEO agreed that some of their actions were inconsistent with the company’s values, desires and purpose. The CEO was confused, as conveying the Company’s cultural tenets had never been an issue that he had to proactively address. In the past, everyone just knew the company’s Corporate Creed.

Understanding how the CEO solved this dilemma may benefit your startup.

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The CEO was well aware of the shortcomings of most Mission Statements, which often are little more than corporate wallpaper. He did not want to waste time crafting empty platitudes that would be understood by few and acted upon by no one.

Instead, he methodically devised ten Core Values based on the new employees’ actions that troubled him and his long-term employees. He was motivated to focus on these troubling actions as a basis for deriving his Core Values after reading Verne Harnish’s book, Mastering The Rockefeller Habits.

The Core Values have been so effective in maintaining the company’s culture, the CEO believes they represent a significant competitive advantage. He agreed that I could publish the values with the proviso that I not cite him or his company. The CEO believes this list of Core Values is one of the key reasons that his adVenture has maintained below-industry employee turnover rates for well over a decade. As such, he does not want to alert his competitors to what he believes is a real competitive advantage.

The Core Values

1. Always Invest, Never Spend

Be frugal but not cheap

2. Proactive Mentality

Follow up, anticipate, prevent

3. Seek “Quad” Wins

Ideally, the Client, Company, Team, and Individual should all benefit

4. It’s Everybody’s Problem

Take ownership, be accountable, offer assistance

5. Mistakes Are Opportunities

Learn from new mistakes, avoid repeating old ones

6. Never Give Up But Be Reasonable

See a commitment, resolution, project, or idea to its completion

7. What SHOULD I do? vs. What CAN I do?

Never take advantage of a situation, just because you can

8. Enhance Everything

Make continuous improvements to Client, Company, Team, Individual

9. Team Above Self

The Team’s objectives supersede those of the Individual

10. No Solution, No Whining

Whining allowed only if followed by a thoughtful solution

It is refreshing to discover a set of real-world Core Values that have been effectively internalized by a thriving organization. The values have become part of the organization’s fabric. There is no need to plaster the walls, coffee mugs or paperweights with your Core Values when they reside inside the hearts and minds of your employees.

Focusing on the “bad behavior” exhibited by the newer employees resulted in a set of values that were highly relevant to the CEO’s company. Over the past several years, the Company’s Core Values have become so ingrained in the company’s culture that employees regularly cite specific values as the basis for their decisions. For instance, when someone proposes a suboptimal solution, a common response is “that is not a Quad Win.” If an employee complains about an issue without proposing an alternative course of action, the team’s response is “No solution, no whining.”

The Core Values represent who the company is. Once it was clear that the Core Values had been internalized by his organization, the CEO created five Keys to Success to define how the company would achieve its objectives.

In order to make the Keys to Success more memorable, the CEO created the mnemonic “IP-Triple C,” which has become the term by which most employees refer to the Keys to Success.

Keys To Success

Integrity

Passion

Commitment

Competence

Conscientiousness

These factors are essentially self-explanatory, with the possible exception of Competence. In this context, it refers to the employees’ individual and the company’s overall talents, which tend to be consistent over an employee’s career. In contrast, interests generally change over an employee’s lifetime. Talent is the fourth component, along with values, desires and purpose, which form the foundation of a company’s Corporate Creed.

In order to help his employees discover their aptitudes, the CEO encourages them to take the Johnson O’Connor Aptitude Test. Once an employee’s aptitudes are understood, the organization attempts to assign each employee responsibilities that are best suited for their individual talents.

The CEO notes that there is no “magic” in the number of Keys, stating, “It is not five factors because that is a nice, round number. It could have been one, seven or eleven. It just turned out that I identified five success factors that are aligned with our culture.” The CEO holds all employees, vendors and other Stakeholders associated with his adVenture to this definition of how the company pursues success.

The combination of the Core Values and the Keys To Success has resulted in a thriving organization that, despite competing in a vigorous market, has managed to consistently generate profits that substantially surpass industry norms. The Values and Keys clearly communicate the “rules of the game” and provide guidance to employees when they encounter potential ethical or moral dilemmas.

One of the reasons the CEO was able to successfully reinforce and clarify his company’s corporate culture was that the words he chose to communicate who the company was and how it would conduct itself were directly aligned with the company’s Corporate Creed. Without such alignment, his Core Values and Keys to Success would have made decorative paperweights and coffee mugs and nothing more.

These lists will be ineffectual if they are mindlessly applied to your adVenture. However, they can serve as a catalyst to assist you in devising relevant core values and keys to success that are aligned with your company’s Creed. Such alignment will serve to unify your employees around common values and desires and a shared purpose, in the same fashion as the company featured in this true story.

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Copyright © 2008 by J. Meredith Publishing. All rights reserved.

The group’s leader, Chris, played by Yul Brynner, surveys his defeated men, trying to assess his team’s morale. With no preamble, James Coburn’s character, Honest Britt, jumps from his horse and straps on his gun belt while saying, “Nobody throws me my own guns and says, ‘Run.’ Nobody.”

Honest makes it clear that he is going back to town, with or without the rest of the group. Several of the other riders dismount and silently strap on their gun belts as well, indicating their intention to join Honest.

However, Harry, the Magnificent Seven gunslinger with the most overtly mercenary intentions, derides the group for their willingness to ride to their deaths. He attempts to enlist the support of his friend, Lee, by trying to convince him to abandon the team’s objective.

Harry (angrily): “You’re crazy, all of you.”

Chris (calmly): “Ride on Harry, it’s alright.”

Harry: “Come on Lee.”

Chris to Lee: “You don’t owe anything to anybody.”

Lee (after a long pause): “Except to myself.”

Harry then rides off alone. The remaining riders turn their mounts toward town, despite the risks they face.

Back Story

In the preceding scene, the Magnificent Seven were run out of town by the bandito Calvera, played by Eli Wallach. Calvera has the hired guns outnumbered three to one. However, he is willing to release the captured gringo mercenaries because he assumes that they are as shameless and selfish as him. He does not realize that they have something he does not – Humble Pride.

We are shown Honest’s blend of humility and pride when he shoots a fleeing bandito off of his horse from a great distance. His compatriot says in awe, “That was the most amazing shot I have ever seen.” To which Honest honestly replies, “I was aiming for his horse.” You can be proud and humble at the same time. Honest.

Play For Pride

Startups need pride. You cannot expect to earn the respect of potential Stakeholders and Donors without communicating a humble pride in your team, products and the ultimate prospects of your adVenture. Your team should be prideful, not arrogantly proud.

Pride has two basic meanings, although in most Western Cultures, the most common meaning carries a negative connotation. The dark side of pride is often described as “arrogant or disdainful conduct or treatment of others; haughtiness resulting in an excessively conceited opinion of oneself.” We are told as children that “pride comes before a fall.”

The positive definitions of pride include, “a sense of one’s own proper dignity or value; self-respect and the pleasure or satisfaction taken in an achievement, possession, or association with others.” This is the sort of pride you should foster in your culture. You can be immensely proud and humble at the same time. Humble Pride does not entail demanding recognition or harboring conceit for oneself. In contrast, it is pride tempered with a heavy dose of humility and a sense of honor.

In most modern cultures, “honor” is considered an old-fashioned word. However, it remains highly relevant for startups. Recruit people for your adVenture who view winning and losing a matter of personal honor.

Let Harry Go

Every organization, no matter how carefully it vets its employees, will be infiltrated by folks like Harry. These fair-weather workers are productive contributors when the team is winning. However, they flinch at the first major bump in the road and are apt to seek greener pastures when the adVenture’s future is less than certain. Not content to depart on their own, they often first attempt to stir up dissent among their coworkers as a means of validating their own misgivings.

Chris was wise to allow Harry to leave with his honor intact. If someone wants to bail on your adVenture, let them go with a smile on your face and a sincere “Best wishes” on your lips. Do not demonize “Wantrepreneurs” like Harry, as it could undermine your credibility with your remaining employees, especially Harry’s close compatriots. By allowing “Harrys” to leave your adVenture without rancor or ill will, you will reinforce your organization’s Humble Pride.

If your “Harry” is intimidated or otherwise encouraged to remain at your adVenture, his fears and lack of security in his own abilities will act as a cancer in your organization. He will quietly subvert your company’s mission and most importantly, if allowed to remain unchecked, they will eventually erode your company’s Humble Pride.

Blame Game – Success Through Failure

Employees with Humble Pride internalize their failures and setbacks. Such people are not satisfied by externalizing their defeats. They realize that failure is absolute and that the exercise of assigning fault is time ill spent. Instead, Humble and Proud employees attempt to determine went wrong in order to avoid a similar outcome in the future. For instance, if a sale is lost to a competitor, Humble and Proud employees examine what they did wrong in the sales process, rather than deriding the lost customer or alleging that a competitor beat them by nefarious means. Humble Pride employees do not externalize failures by blaming others.

As noted in Competitive Sleuthing, it is important to gather the relevant facts regarding your company’s failures. This process often involves going outside of your organization and listening to unpleasant feedback. When doing this, it is important to internalize the feedback and realize that if your company fails in some way, the most important issue is to identify and rectify the source of the failure, rather than to search for someone or something to pin the blame on. Organizations that do not have the appropriate level of Humble Pride will be ineffective in evaluating the root cause of failures.

Big Dumb Companies (BDC’s) frequently play the Blame Game. The types of people attracted to BDC’s often prefer sharing the blame to focusing on addressing the underlying issues which resulted in the problem. Effective Startups do not have time to affix blame; rather, they focus their limited resources on fixing the problems at hand.

Honest Lee

Employees like Lee, who “owe something to themselves,” and Honest, whose overriding desire to win will not allow anyone to tell him to “run,” are ideal startup employees. Such employees will not shrink from each startup crisis because they measure their personal success by the adVenture’s ultimate success. In his book, The Map of Innovation, DoubleClick Founder Kevin O’Connor notes that he always strives to hire winners because, “Winners fight until the end…they keep going until they find a solution…” Winners like Honest and Lee take pride in winning and they simply do not accept losing, as it is a matter of honor.

Honest exemplifies other characteristics that are well suited to an entrepreneurial environment, including:

• Contemplative – Honest has very few lines in the entire movie, yet he still plays a key role in the team’s success. When he does speak, his teammates listen. As noted in Listen, it is often most impactful to choose your words wisely, rather than to opine upon every issue encountered by the adVenture.

• Confident – Honest never displays fear, anxiety or stress. Even when his life hangs in the balance, his facial expressions remain stoic. An unemotional demeanor can be helpful in reassuring the rest of the team in times of stress. Honest understands that “Sometimes it is best to keep your gun in its holster.” Just as airline passengers look to flight attendants to assess whether or not they should be worried about the latest round of turbulence, Honest serves as the team’s reassuring bellwether.

• Respected – Despite his lack of social graces, Honest is highly respected by all members of the team, peers, subordinates and superiors alike. Although he is quiet, he is not unfriendly. Honest does not shy away from being a team member; he is not a loner, just a quiet participant.

• Dependable – Honest is like a luxury car. He can go 100,000 miles between check-ups. He is also highly loyal and never questions the Core Team’s authority, even when he has doubts about the company’s direction. Because of this, you must be careful to assess any divergence between Honest’s values and those of the company, as he is apt to depart from the team before he will challenge such a divergence.

• Autonomous – Honest needs little tactical direction and zero emotional stroking. However, the very strength by which they hold their values can cause such employees to act unilaterally. This is characterized in Honest’s desire to return to town, irrespective of the rest of the team’s decision. As Lex Sisney, Co-Founder and former CEO and Chairman of Commission Junction points out in his book Ready for Enlightenment? Values are “a way of being.” They are not for sale and they cannot be taken away from you. You might be able to take Honest’s guns away from him, but you can never take away his humility and pride.

It is important to recognize such characteristics, as employees like Honest are not apt to give stellar interview performances. Their dispassionate nature and natural confidence can easily be misread as aloofness, arrogance or even a lack of intelligence.

Humble Origins

J.W., my paternal grandfather, had three goals in life: to own a radio, to own a bicycle, and for his son to earn a college degree. He scored on all three counts, and then some.

Humble goals, without a doubt. However, for a man orphaned in central Texas during the early 1900s, who spent much of his youth picking cotton, such aspirations seemed lofty to the Frontier Grandparents who raised him.

At the depth of the Depression, J.W. landed a job at a gas station in Eastland, Texas. Despite the bleak surroundings and his bleaker future, one can clearly see the pride with which J.W. wore his gas station uniform.

The name of the gas station where my grandfather worked? Humble.

If you hire Humble and Proud employees like J.W., Honest and Lee, you will never have to worry about a competitor, customer, disgruntled employee, acquirer or supplier telling your adVenture to “run.”

Never.

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Copyright © 2007-2009 by J. Meredith Publishing. All rights reserved.

]]> http://www.infochachkie.com/humble/feed/ 2 http://www.infochachkie.com/maxbrand/ http://www.infochachkie.com/maxbrand/#comments Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:39:38 +0000 John Greathouse http://www.infochachkie.com/?p=126 Frederick Schiller Faust is a nobody. His face evokes no recognition; his name conjures no associations, nor do eighteen of his nineteen pseudonyms. However, one of his aliases elicits widespread recognition.

Nearly 65 years after Frederick’s death on the front lines during World War II, his celebrated penname remains an enduring brand that invokes a spirit of adventure and escape.

Frederick and his publishers fostered his renowned nom de plume into a vibrant and meaningful brand. Many of the maxims utilized to create that lasting brand can be applied to your startup.

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The word “brand” is derived from the Old English word baernan, which means “to burn.” For thousands of years, ranchers have branded their livestock to indelibly mark them and thereby communicate to the world their ownership. A marketing brand serves a similar purpose. It declares to the world the underlying ownership (and associated responsibility) to deliver on the brand’s promised value proposition.

Although skilled rustlers can readily modify livestock brands, entrepreneurs need to tread lightly when it comes to modifying commercial brands. In the case of the rustlers, pernicious brand alteration can result in an unwelcome necktie party. For entrepreneurs, the consequences of such re-branding can be a similarly dismal fate, unless the process is conducted with the following Brand Maxims in mind.

Do you doubt that Frederick’s famous Max Brand pseudonym is a “max brand?” More than eighty of his stories have inspired films, three have resulted in television series and one was the genesis for a Broadway show. The distinctive lettering is a widely recognized registered trademark. Much like a corporate logo, Max Brand is represented in a consistent font and design, as shown at right.

Even non-consumers of American Western literature readily identify the Max Brand with the Western genre. A smaller segment of readers may also identify the brand with the soap opera character Dr. Kildare, another popular Max Brand creation. Yes, a brand can envelope multiple products sold to disparate users, as long as proper care is taken to manage the specific messaging to the various markets and there is an overarching promise with which everyone can identify. In the case of Max Brand, the bond which holds the brand together is the promise of an entertaining, straightforward, action-oriented story.

Frederick’s heirs understand the power and importance of the brand they are stewarding. Just as buyers of detergent can quickly select their preferred brand based upon its readily identifiable packaging, the Max Brand allows book buyers to quickly identify Frederick’s books and differentiate them from the multitude of competitive literary offerings available online, in bookstores and in other retail outlets. Brands evoke feelings, emotion, understanding, empathy, desire and satisfaction in an instantaneous, Gestalt manner and Max Brand is no exception.

The power of Branding Maxims is cleverly articulated by Guy Gabriele, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Idea Engineering, in his “Little Red Book” series. With Guy’s permission, I have taken the liberty of applying his maxims to the Max Brand. To avoid besmirching Guy’s intellect with my humble ideas, all of his thoughts are shown in italics. If you follow these Branding Maxims, you will significantly increase your chances of creating a max brand.

Maxim #1 – It’s About the Promise, Stupid

Those of us that work with brands should constantly remind ourselves that a brand exists because it has made a promise to the consumer and delivered on that promise. What promise is your brand making? How well has it delivered? – Guy Gabriele

Max Brand promises the reader a light, rapid-paced escape into a literary world in which the plots are straightforward and the characters are clearly delineated as good or evil. Ironically, many of the conventions which cause Frederick’s contemporary scholarly critics to dismiss his prose are the very reasons readers relish his works.

For instance, in his article “Frederick Faust’s Abrupt Endings,” Duane Spurlock notes:

“Frederick Faust’s stories frequently seem to defy the traditional plot arc, in which a denouement — or falling action that wraps up loose ends — follows the climax. More than one reader has commented with a grumble about the abrupt endings of Faust’s stories. With the body of his tale told, the author seems to have no interest in providing a typical sense of closure to his readers. Like a rocket that has expended all its fuel and then falls to Earth, a Faust story speeds pell-mell to its climax, and then stops.”

Spurlock poses a reasonable literary criticism. However, what Spurlock may not have appreciated is that most of Frederick’s readers were less interested in “denouement” than they were in the stories’ conflicts and climaxes. Disregarding his critics, Frederick focused on his brand’s promise, which he upheld book after book.

Maxim #2 – What You Say It Means Doesn’t Mean Anything

What you believe your brand represents means nothing in reality. What the brand means to your customer means everything. Whatever they say it means, that’s what your brand means. Find out what they think.

Remember: it’s all in their heads. – Guy Gabriele

Frederick’s primary reason for utilizing pseudonyms was his desire to preserve his given name for his literary love, poetry. For the most part, he was embarrassed by his pulp fiction works and felt they were unworthy of the “Faust” name. He masked his identity because he did not want “Faust” to be sullied by the pulp prose that he wrote to pay the bills. This conflict is similar to that experienced by Jim Morrison of the US. rock group The Doors, in which he denounced his lucrative “rock star” status in favor of a languishing career as a poet.

The same dissonance is seen with entrepreneurs who strive to enter a market they feel is “worthy” of their incredible talents, but find themselves selling a mass-produced product to an undiscerning audience. At one of my adVentures, we were forced to modify our business model in order to address the realities of the market. During one heated debate, a senior executive stormed out, declaring, “I didn’t join an <expletive> CRM company!” He was frustrated, as Customer Relationship Management software sold to large enterprises was not as sexy as the company’s prior, individual user focus. However, there are times when entrepreneurs must offend their own sensibilities and subsume their egos for the best interest of their adVenture.

In his mind, “Faust” represented a high-quality brand of literary and poetic excellence. However, in the minds of most readers, the Faust brand was non-existent. For those few who were familiar with it, most felt the Faust brand represented self-conscious, second-rate poetry. Ironically, many years following his death, Kirkus Reviews declared, “Max Brand is the Shakespeare of the Western range.”

Aside from Faust’s primary reason for eschewing the Faust brand, he seems to have unconcerned with the possible confusion with the protagonist of the classic German myth Faust, in which a man sells his soul to the devil in exchange for worldly success. Given Frederick’s success at a field he held in low regard, the irony of his name and that of the myth was not likely lost on him. If there is a potential area of confusion with respect to a brand you are emotionally attached to, you must overrule your personal desire and utilize an alternative brand in order to avoid potential brand confusion.

Maxim #3 – Gap, Gap, Everywhere A Gap

There is always a gap between what you intend your brand to be and what the consumer believes it is. Find that gap and take steps to close it. – Guy Gabriele

As the gap in Frederick’s Max Brand increased, he did nothing to close it. In fact, the more widely his pulp fiction was accepted, the more he derided it and frequently noted that he only wrote prose, “to pay the bills.” Entrepreneurs must realize that, at some point in their adVentures, especially in the early stages, they must follow the flow of funds and not attempt to swim upstream. You already have so much working against you when launching an adVenture, you cannot fight against the motivation of those who are willing to pull out their wallets and exchange their hard-earned money for your brand’s value proposition. Close the gap. Frederick succeeded despite his antipathy toward his brand. It is improbable you will be so lucky.

Maxim #4 – Frankly, They Don’t Give A Damn!

Consumers don’t want to hear about your company Mission and Vision. Those things are about you. They care about their experience with your product and your company. Their experiences create the brand. – Guy Gabriele

Pulp fiction readers did not care about Frederick’s mission to become a vaunted poet. Even if they had been aware, they would not have been concerned with the dissonance his pulp fiction success and poetic failure caused him. This personal drama was irrelevant to them, just as the internal dramas at your startup are of no consideration to consumers whose only care is their experience with your brand.

Maxim #5 – Consistency Is Not Simply Replication

Remaining consistent to a brand’s visual and verbal guidelines helps breed familiarity, but familiarity can breed contempt. Simple repetition and thoughtless replication fail to take into account the place where the brand lives: in your customers’ minds. To live a full and productive life a brand must be allowed to grow, evolve and reshape itself. Consistent relevancy is your goal. That’s why brands are “managed.” – Guy Gabriele

Frederick’s literary gifts allowed him to craft compelling and fresh stories. Despite the fact that he wrote over 500 novel-length books, he maintained a relatively consistent quality while simultaneously taking the Max Brand in new directions, as the markets he served evolved. For instance, in 1940, Frederick introduced Dr. Kildare under the Max Brand. This stretched the brand’s promise and could have potentially resulted in expanding the brand gap, as noted under Maxim #3. Fortunately for Frederick, by using a non-Western font, such potential brand confusion was minimized. Stephen King is another author whose brand has spanned several genres, while minimizing brand confusion.

In contrast, consider the branding confusion illustrated by the Saturday Night Live parody product New Shimmer.

Wife: New Shimmer is a floor wax!

Husband: No, new Shimmer is a dessert topping!

Wife: It’s a floor wax!

Husband: It’s a dessert topping!

Wife: It’s a floor wax, I’m telling you!

Husband: It’s a dessert topping, you cow!

Spokesman: Hey, hey, hey, calm down, you two. New Shimmer is both a floor wax and a dessert topping!

Spokesman: (after the Husband has tasted New Shimmer and the Wife has mopped her kitchen with it) New Shimmer, for the greatest shine you ever tasted!

Entrepreneurs should avoid creating a “New Shimmer” product that attempts to deliver on wholly divergent promises, as the market is likely to not believe any of your branding assertions.

Although Frederick’s brand confusion was minimized, the Max Brand might have been well served if the highly successful Dr. Kildare works had been penned under a different brand name. If done properly, such brand extension can benefit the new brand without distorting the meaning of the established brand, much in the same way Mercedes has successfully leveraged its reputation for safety and engineering excellence via its Smart brand. Although the two brands leverage each other, Mercedes realizes that the Smart cars’ value-pricing could cause brand confusion with its high-end autos if it allows the two brands to become too closely aligned. With a bit of clever thought, it is probable that the Dr. Kildare stories could have leveraged the Max Brand while establishing a new brand targeted to female readers.

Maxim #6 – Sometimes The Baby Does Have To Be Thrown Out

Before you re-brand, re-think. A brand refresh is often considered to be the least painful way to fix a failing brand. Do a relevancy check. Are the basic underpinnings of the brand still meaningful? If so, then a refresh may be in order. If not, you need to have the courage to throw out everything and start over. – Guy Gabriele

During Frederick’s lifetime, there was no need to refresh the Max Brand. However, in the years Following his death, his heirs have gone through a series of such refreshments. Just as Aunt Jemima shed her racially insensitive headscarf, Max Brand book covers have been given a new, updated look to appeal to modern readers’ evolving desire for realism.

As you can see from these paperbacks spanning nearly 80 years, rather than a comic book illustration, the modern cover depicts a photo of the book’s protagonist. The distinctive Western lettering is significantly larger than the book’s title, further evidence that modern readers are seeking out the Max Brand, as opposed to the specific content of any particular book. This is reflective of the Max Brand’s ability to consistently fulfill its promises for the past eight decades.

Maxim #7 – Viral Marketing Could Make You Sick

A viral initiative should be embarked upon with great caution. The high risk (losing control of your brand expression) may be too great a price for the reward (Millions saw me on YouTube! –Whoo hoo). – Guy Gabriele

Frederick’s version of viral marketing was the discarded magazines left behind on countless buses, trains and subways. A new reader would pick up a used magazine, read an entertaining story and later seek out the Max Brand when subsequently purchasing a pulp magazine. In such instances, the Max Brand was delivered to the end-user intact, without the risk of it being co-opted or otherwise commingled with third-party content. Unfortunately, things are not so simple in today’s digital era. As such, focus your valuable resources on viral marketing that can be controlled and monetized.

The CEO of Morpheus Software created a video that was nominated for a 2007 YouTube Video Award. His “Kitty Said What?” video, created using his company’s photo-morphing software, was viewed approximately 4.5 million times. Although it was fun and exciting to be associated with a popular YouTube video, the resulting revenue was modest, approximately one penny for each time the video was viewed. This may seem like a lot of money to a kid who makes a video of himself fighting with a lightsaber, but it is chump change to any viable business. At the depths of the Great Depression, Frederick was paid four cents per word, which is probably more than you are likely to make from uncontrolled viral marketing.

At the remote access software company in which I was a founding executive, we fostered the viral nature of our solution, without relying on it to significantly drive sales. One of our features allowed a user to invite someone else to view their desktop. When we launched the product in 2001, this was a novel and interesting feature that piqued users’ interest. To help satisfy users’ curiosity and gain wider market exposure, we presented a webpage at the end of each screen-sharing session that invited the guest user to learn more about screen sharing by clicking on a link. As such, we did not heavily rely on viral traffic to drive demand. However, we effectively tapped into a naturally viral aspect of our users’ experience in a manner that could be controlled, tracked and monetized.

Maxim #8 – Pennywise Is Unwise

Examine the brand investment. Brands need the proper support and funding. If you haven’t invested in a Brand Audit recently, strongly consider it.

The economy, marketplace and your customers have changed. Your Brand expressions need to be audited on an annual basis. – Guy Gabriele

Frederick would have been well-served by a brand audit. His rampant use of pseudonyms and the broad variety of genres covered by the Max Brand risked confounding and potentially alienating his readers. However, as his overriding objective was to generate as much near-term revenue as possible, Frederick was not concerned with the Max Brand’s longevity. Entrepreneurs cannot afford to take such a short-term, pennywise approach to managing their brands.

Maxim #9 – You Are Not Nike Or Apple Or Target

Remarkable marketers each one, but even if you have budgets as large as theirs, don’t do as they do – learn from what they do, and then make it your own. – Guy Gabriele

Frederick and his publishers realized that the Max Brand was not Dickens, Twain or Poe. Rather than attempting to sell expensive hardback books, they stuck to what worked – short stories published in inexpensive pulp magazines.

In the years following Frederick’s death, as his writing gained favor with critics and he began to be recognized as an important voice in American literature, his writings were published in hardback form and many of his short stories were included in scholarly anthologies. This evolution is akin to a startup that must work its way up-market to its eventual goal. As the marketplace becomes familiar with your brand and you continually deliver on your promises, it may be possible for you to broadly compete with the largest companies in your space. However, in the early days, you my have to initially focus on less glamorous, conscribed market niches, as a means of economically building your brand.

Maxim #10 – What Is Your Brand Manifesto?

“It’s all in your head.” And in your heart.

That’s where brands live. A brand is not a logo, a package, an identity system, tagline, color palette or marketing campaign. These are merely cues we give our customers to help them know us, understand us, and, yes, like us. Every brand expression is meant to help our customers shape a persona for our company, product or idea. A persona, like a brand, is not a “thing.”

A brand is created in the instantaneous assessment the customer makes upon encountering a cue. They know you in their minds and in their hearts.

“I like this.” “That’s cool.” “They suck.” “I need that.”

We all change our minds and change our feelings. That’s why we stress that branding is a process that results in a brand. And the process has to be actively managed. Win their hearts; the money will follow. – Guy Gabriele

Frederick’s heirs likely utilize some form of a Brand Manifesto to manage the Max Brand. Even if they have not formally defined a Brand Manifesto, they clearly have a very solid and clear understanding of the Max Brand, as evidenced by the fact that they have taken a studious and deliberate approach to maintaining the Max Brand’s relevance in today’s global literary market.

A Great Brand Manifesto? iThink Apple

Apple’s Brand Manifesto has been relatively consistent – cool technology for discriminating users. Marketer Marc Gobe, author of Emotional Branding describes Apple’s brand using words such as, “imagination, design and innovation.” Charles Pillar, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times depicts Apple’s brand as invoking “…a sense of belonging to an elite club by portraying the Mac as embodying the values of righteous outsiderism and rebellion against injustice.” Idea Engineering’s Guy Gabriele believes Apple’s brand taps into our collective desire for, “creative diversity” and our disdain of “anonymity and conformity.”

In some instances, staying true to the elite nature of their brand has hurt Apple, such as its decision in the late 1980’s to not license its Operating System. However, one can argue that the iPod and iPhone would not have seen the light of day if the company’s Brand Manifesto had morphed to “delivering products for the largest and least discriminating markets possible”. Would a computer maker logically enter the phone and music distribution businesses? No. However, Apple’s Brand Manifesto does not define the company as a computer maker. Apple makes cool stuff for cool people. Period.

Max Your Brand

Despite Frederick’s disdain for his Max Brand, it endures as a vibrant and relevant source of entertaining literature. If you follow these Branding Maxims, you may be able to craft a max brand for your adVenture – then again, you can always contact the nice folks at Idea Engineering.

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Copyright © 2008 by J. Meredith Publishing. All rights reserved.

Given the manner in which history has depicted Nixon and his Administration, truer words were never spoken.

Not only was the phrase apt in Lennon’s case, it is also highly applicable to today’s business world. In the pre-Internet age, it was easier to successfully execute a business model based on screwing everyone once. This has never been a particularly efficient business model, but it certainly was more plausible before the Internet allowed users to effortlessly share their insights and experiences on a global level.

Honesty Matters – Honest

Survey after survey confirms that honesty is one of the most common traits of successful business leaders. In his book, The Entrepreneur’s Manual, Richard White notes that a survey of venture capitalists reveals that honesty is the single most important characteristic for a successful serial entrepreneur to possess. In their book, The Leadership Challenge, James Kouzes and Barry Posner cite three surveys, each of which lists honesty as the most admired trait among successful leaders. This characteristic was valued over other important attributes including competency, visionary skills and charisma.

This makes sense. Successful serial entrepreneurs know that each relationship they develop is a potential goldmine. As noted in Your Personal Pitch, in order to be successful, entrepreneurs must enlist the help of numerous Donors – individuals who are in a position to give their adVenture a helping hand. Most employees, investors, customers and suppliers prefer to work with people and organizations which they trust. Thus, as noted in Corporate Creed, dishonesty is a major handicap for an entrepreneur, just as honesty and integrity are significant assets.

Sales to existing customers traditionally account for the majority of a startup’s revenue, ranging from forty to sixty percent of annual sales, depending on the dynamics of your specific industry. Given the cost of acquiring a customer, more than just good manners motivate an entrepreneur to play nice and ensure that their customers remain happy. In most instances, it is far less expensive to maintain an existing customer relationship than it is to establish a new one. One of the most economical methods for acquiring and maintaining customers is to treat them honestly and respectfully.

In order to be successful at multiple ventures and earn the title “successful serial entrepreneur,” you cannot leave a trail of broken relationships and angry stakeholders in your wake. Dishonesty can lead to near-term success, but it almost never results in a successful life-long career. Dishonesty is truly a handicap to success, as it becomes more and more difficult to succeed as more and more people realize that you do not live by your word. Eventually, you are relegated to working with other unethical businesspeople who share your “no honor among thieves” mentality. Your reputation for ethics and honesty will proceed you – the better your reputation, the wider the pool of potential stakeholders from which you can choose to work. Once your career is over and you have passed on, your reputation will become your legacy.

Three Things About You

Question: How much of his money did Andrew Carnegie leave when he died?

Answer: All of it. Even Mr. Carnegie, with all of his lavish possessions, did not have a U-Haul trailer following his hearse to the cemetery. In addition to his material wealth, Mr. Carnegie also left behind his legacy as a brutally tough businessperson who did not hesitate to bend the rules in his favor. Despite his highly public philanthropic activities, many of which continue to benefit society to this day, the manner in which he operated his businesses and competed with his rivals leaves a legacy of deceit and corruption. There is a reason Andrew and several of his contemporaries were labeled “Robber Barons.”

As discussed in Are You An Entrepreneur?, startups can become all-consuming. At times, this is unavoidable and not unexpected. In such an environment, it is tempting to compromise your principles in order to meet a short-term objective. Maintaining a proper perspective and balance between your personal and professional lives is one way to mitigate the risk of making unethical decisions in the heat of battle. Another way to avoid rationalizing unscrupulous behavior in the name of survival is to establish a strong Corporate Creed. Your company’s creed is the foundation upon which your corporate culture is built. It defines acceptable ethical boundaries and acts as a guidepost for you and your employees when the ethical lines begin to blur and short-term goals become all-consuming.

As Kawasaki notes at the end of his book, The Art of the Start, it is important to maintain a healthy perspective on the things in life that really matter, even as you throw your heart and soul into growing your business. To reflect on your priorities, Kawasaki suggests, “It is the end of your life. Write down the three things you want people to remember about you.”

Hopefully, your friends and acquaintances will remember more than how cool your car was, how big your startups became or what a sharp negotiator you were. If these are the sorts of things people recall about you, then you likely have your priorities in the wrong place. Ideally, your actions will lead to your desired legacy. However, as with any goal, it is imperative that you define your legacy in order to have any chance of attaining it.

As John Lennon realized, time has a way of settling all accounts. Unethical behavior might help you achieve a monthly, quarterly or even an annual goal. However, unscrupulous decisions will ultimately catch up with you in some form or fashion and jeopardize your adVenture’s chances of success – it is just a matter of time. In order to ensure that you are on the right side of history and to provide your startup with the honesty advantage, always do the right thing, no matter who is or is not watching.

The Hollywood screenwriters were close. The words they should have put in Michael Douglas’s mouth are, “Creed is good. Creed is right. Creed works.” The best antidote to greed is a strong Corporate Creed. Your adVenture’s Corporate Creed should be established early and be well understood by all of your employees, as it is the foundation of your corporate culture and ultimately your success.

Hollywood Shuffle

Hollywood often employs a variety of socially acceptable stereotypes, such as the nerd accountant, the dumb blonde and the unscrupulous businessperson who “does anything to win.” The vitriol with which screenwriters depict successful business people is understandable, when you consider that most scripts are written by individuals who have little understanding of business and who feel victimized by the business people with whom they work first-hand, namely studio executives. As such, their depiction of business people as greedy, avaricious and callous is unfortunate but not surprising.

Although such stereotypical depictions can make for entertaining, albeit predictable, movie fodder, such caricatures simply do not reflect reality. Entrepreneurs who are successful over the long-term do not leave a trail of destroyed relationships in their wake. As noted in Time Wounds All Heels, dishonesty is an entrepreneurial handicap.

The Importance of Being Earnest

“Their frail human nature was subjected to a strain greater than it was made for; the fires of greed had been lighted in their hearts and fanned to a white heat that melted every principle and every law.”

– Upton Sinclair in his novel, Oil

As Upton Sinclair aptly notes, greed is a powerful emotion that can “melt away” principles and laws, if they are not wrapped in the protective coating of an effective Corporate Creed. Without a strong grounding in shared values, desires and purpose, it is easy for individual employees to rationalize their actions as being “in the company’s best interest,” even when they are clearly causing harm.

In his insightful book Ready for Enlightenment?, Lex Sisney, Co-founder and former CEO and Chairman of Commission Junction states that a startup’s values, desires and purpose, when combined with its talents, result in the contribution that the organization can make to its members, stakeholders and society as a whole.

Lex points out that incongruence between these factors and an organization’s actions will result in tremendous stress and dissonance which, at a minimum, will distract an organization and potentially even cause its demise. I have borrowed these factors identified by Lex and repurposed them as the primary ingredients of an organization’s Corporate Creed, as shown in the diagram below.

An effective Corporate Creed shapes a startup’s corporate culture. In a company’s early stages, it may manifest itself in the form of a mantra, as described by Guy Kawasaki in Art Of The Start. In most cases, a pithy mantra is adequate for a startup, while formal mission and vision statements are usually overkill.

Bumper Sticker Creed

Big Dumb Companies (BDC’s) often spend months and many thousands of dollars developing mission and vision statements. Once these statements are codified, they are printed on posters, post-its, plaques, mugs, etc. Unfortunately, the BDC’s culture is usually vulcanized by the time such statements are written and thus is impervious to the impact of a slogan slapped on corporate chachkies. Despite the cost and effort, creating florid mission and vision statements is often an empty exercise, carried out to fulfill a corporate mandate, rather than to impact the company’s culture.

Your Corporate Creed is the foundation upon which your Corporate Culture is built. Your culture will then manifest itself in the form of mission and vision statements.

At a startup, it is not effective to simply print your Corporate Creed on a poster and hang it in the copy room. Your Corporate Creed must be understood by all. Understood, not memorized. The internalization of the underlying message of the Corporate Creed is what matters, not rote memorization of empty platitudes.

An effective Corporate Creed should serve a self-monitoring function, which helps employees make routine, ethical decisions. If your Corporate Creed clearly defines the lines between right and wrong, you can avoid the problem encountered by William Hurt in the movie “Broadcast News.” At one point, Holly Hunter castigates Mr. Hurt for faking his reactions during an on-camera interview of a rape victim. “You crossed the line,” she screams. Without pause, he replies, “Well, they keep moving the line.” An effective Corporate Creed clearly points out the unmoving line between right and wrong.

The lack of a unifying creed is exemplified in Bowen McCoy’s Parable of the Sadhu, in which several disparate groups of mountain climbers simultaneously come upon a bedraggled Sadhu while at high altitude in the Himalayas. The Sadhu is in obvious physical distress and it is apparent he would not survive unless he is carried down the mountain a substantial distance and given shelter and food. Each party provides the Sadhu with some assistance, such as clothing, snacks and water. However, none of them climbers abandoned their journey to ensure the Sadhu’s safety.

Years later, McCoy remains haunted by his encounter with the Sadhu. Among the many challenges that he notes led to no one offering the Sadhu sufficient aid to ensure his survival was the individual climbers’ lack of a collective purpose, based upon shared values and beliefs. In effect, their lack of a Corporate Creed caused each of them to make an expeditious and arguably unethical decision to pursue their goal of reaching the summit.

“It is harder to be kind than to be clever.”

–Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO Amazon.com

Jeff knows that consistent kindness can be a challenge, especially in a hectic, stressful startup environment. However, cleverness without kindness is likely to eventually result in unethical decisions that will harm one or more of your stakeholders. The manner in which Enron manipulated electricity pricing may have been clever, but it clearly was not kind. Organizations are not intrinsically evil. Those that turn to the dark side generally come into the world with high ethical standards that incrementally erode over time. A solid Corporate Creed acts as the guardrail that keeps your employees off the slippery slope that leads to the unethical dark side.

Google’s famous Corporate Credo, “Do No Evil” has recently come under fire. Is conspiring with the Chinese government to dictate the Internet content its population can access evil? Do No Evil is a powerful Corporate Credo. However, the criticism it has generated is indicative of the challenges companies face as they attempt to remain true to their Corporate Creeds as they grow and the control of employees’ actions becomes more decentralized. A Corporate Creed that is effective in a 100-person organization may be too idealistic and even ephemeral within a BDC whose culture has matured and is no longer based on the Founder’s values, desires, purpose and talents.

The Creed Seed

The following parable was sent to me by a friend. Although I rewrote it to a fair extent, the basic premise remains unchanged. My research indicates that the original author is unknown, but please apprise me if you know the origin of this story so I can provide proper acknowledgment.

A successful CEO was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over his company. Instead of choosing one of his senior executives or Board members, he deployed an unusual succession plan.

He gathered his young executives and announced, “It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have decided to choose one of you.” The old man ignored their surprised response and continued, “I am going to give each one of you a seed – a very special seed. I want you to plant the seed, water it regularly and return three months from today with the plant you have grown from the seed. I will then judge your results and choose the next CEO.”

Jim, one of the young executives, went home and excitedly described to his wife his role in the unconventional succession plan. That evening, they went to a nursery and purchased a large pot, expensive, high-quality soil and organic fertilizer.

After about two weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their plants, which were beginning to grow. Jim kept checking his seed, but it had not yet germinated. Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by and still nothing sprouted. By now, Jim’s peers often spoke about their thriving plants, but Jim’s seed still showed no signs of life.

Two months went by and Jim’s pot remained lifeless. He did not confide his failure to his colleagues, who continued to boast about the growth of their seeds. Despite his disappointment, Jim continued to diligently water his seed.

Three months finally passed. On the morning of the dreaded inspection, Jim lay in bed and told his wife that he would rather submit his resignation than be subjected to the humiliation of his lifeless pot. Although she shared his frustration and disappointment, she encouraged him to attend the meeting and live up to his obligation to reconvene with the CEO. Jim was sick at the thought of the embarrassment he was about to face, but he knew that his wife was right.

When Jim entered the company’s Board room, he was amazed at the variety of lush and bountiful plants grown by the other junior executives. Apparently, no one else had killed their seed. Jim clutched his lifeless pot to his chest while doing his best to avoid eye contact with his colleagues, some of whom smirked, while others offered looks of sympathy.

When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted the young executives, “My, what great plants, trees, and flowers you have grown.” The CEO spotted Jim through the foliage, holding his empty pot. He pointed and called Jim to join him at the front of the room. Jim was horrified. He thought, “The CEO sees that I’m a failure and plans to make an example of me. I just hope he does not fire me in front of everyone.”

Jim stood before the CEO, who asked him, “What happened to your seed?” Jim explained how he purchased quality soil and fertilizer and meticulously watered his seed during the entire three-month period.

When Jim was finished, the CEO turned to the crowd and announced, “Behold your next Chief Executive Officer.”

Jim could not believe his ears. He could not even grow a seed. How could he be expected to grow and nurture a company?

Then the CEO said, “Three months ago, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. The seeds I gave you had been boiled and thus were incapable of germinating.”

“When you found that your seeds would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Jim was the only person among your ranks with the courage and honesty to bring back the original seed. Therefore, I am appointing him to be our new CEO and each of you must immediately begin seeking employment elsewhere.”

A clear and deliberate Corporate Creed will help you define which seeds to plant in order to achieve your adVenture’s aspirational values, desires, purposes and talents. From these seeds, you will reap your corporate culture.

Plant honesty – reap trust

Plant goodness – reap loyal relationships

Plant humility – reap honor

Plant consideration – reap perspective

Plant persistence – reap success

Creed is good. Creed is right. Creed works.