Thursday, 16/June/2010
Becoming an Effective Leader Part I
For the past 8 years, I've known I wanted to run my own business and set my own schedule. Within those 8 years, I've failed (i.e. I didn't reach my intended goal) 3 times, and I'm now on my fourth try. In between those attempts, I've worked for many companies and have had a great deal of experience with middle and senior management.
If you're anything like me, you're immediately curious as to how they reached their position. After all, an idealistic person like me believes that things are entirely based on merit. But I've broken down those assumptions and assumed maybe there's some sort of "leader attitude" that I'm not aware of that lets these guys manage a company or a department better than I can manage a company that just builds websites.
So I spent a lot of time observing to see how they "get business done," since whenever they're inevitably rewarded for someone else's work, the entire company will receive an e-mail thanking them for their hard work and leadership skills that led them to accomplish something they don't even have the skillset to do.
The first thing I checked was their communication via e-mail. This is the most common interaction outside of obligatory, boring, meaningless, water-cooler banter about things that are about as fun as falling down 3 flights of stairs head first. After all, someone who has worked their way out of the proletariat of workplace hierarchy must be 10x more professional than a simpleton like me who just sits behind a stupid Mac writing HTML all day.
After that, I watched their interaction with subordinates—how they treat them, how they get them to accomplish certain tasks, monetary rewards, work environment, and what their demands and deadlines are. I found some amazing results when I referring to my notes from my observations, and I've found out the actions required to get to this point.
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Use...ellipses...gratuitously
Nothing says "I shouldn't be using a computer" better than using...ellipses...after...every...single...word...you...type. Of course, I'm being conservative in the number of ellipses. I usually see an e-mail with ellipses more in the lines of this:
see what you can do........let's get this done.......thx
Noticed the relaxed capitalization, use of shorthand, and huge ellipsis gaps between clauses. Normal people might consider this an inordinate amount of periods (or a completely unnecessary comment, but we'll get into that later), but this is why we're the drones, because this sort of writing either drives us crazy or breaks us down until we can start typing just like this.
When you think about it, this is a very clever approach, because it weeds out the good and the bad. The good are people who can perpetuate this horrible bastardization of English grammar, spelling, and punctuation. The bad will just quit, because they're crybabies anyway and all they ever did was built up most of your company or department's infrastructure and/or product line, and they're dispensable anyway.
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Write short, concise, but utterly pointless e-mails
I have to confess—when I e-mail someone to ask them a question, I don't give a reply back unless I can make a valid contribution to the discussion. Unless someone is thanking me for something, I'll usually wait until I get a result whether good or bad to reply to an e-mail. If I'm relying on someone to do something for me, then I'm under the default impression that people will do that task if it's in their job description if they like keeping a job.
If they're overloaded, I'll try other options or prioritize for them if that's possible. But either way, once they get the ball rolling, I stop talking because clearly they know what they need to do. But a leader doesn't need to be patient. Let's say I asked someone to do something, and they told me they needed a document before completing it and didn't know who has ownership of that document. A leader should typically know who that is, but it's no fun to tell them who it is, so instead send this e-mail:
Let's execute......thanks
This is basically a variation of the last e-mail, but it basically serves this purpose: to reiterate something that people are already doing—working.
This is a great way to pressure people into being just as unstable as you are, because it does a number on stress levels when you're so forcefully impatient that you go crazy over getting this change done. Your people will also be more eager to satisfy you so you can leave them alone, and you'll be pleased knowing you got an e-mail address changed on your company's website without telling anyone what the e-mail address should be changed to.
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Use the same buzzwords and stupid business jargon
If you went to an anonymous board where someone negatively reviews your company, you want to make it obvious in your response who you are no matter how anonymous it's designed to be. Words typically used are "open environment," "transparent," "results-driven," "turnkey," "zany," and so on. These are meaningless words that are about as realistic as centrifugal force. Ignore the criticisms and instead brag about things you keep saying you're adding to your company, which is usually nothing important and usually takes way too long to get it. Agencies are especially guilty of using these words to compensate for basically being cheap. So allow me to define what these words mean to an executive so you can learn how to use them:
- open environment
- Translation: My work environment is like a call center with one big floor and all the drones sitting in impersonal and generic desks. The work environment is this way because I inherently distrust my employees (and it's cheaper and easy to get away with because so many other companies do it), and this allows me to monitor them. But, I'll claim this set up is to encourage creativity and productivity, even though most morons don't realize that developers especially don't want/need all those distractions and have usually set up ways to minimize distraction and increase productivity. As an entrepreneur, I don't need to be told why cubicles are a good idea if I want a growing workforce/labor. But as an honest entrepreneur, I also don't need to lie about why it is the way it is.
- transparent
- Translation: I'll host meetings where I'll be semi-honest about what's going on. I'll tell you the truth, but just not the whole truth. In reality, this is more translucent than transparent, but translucent just doesn't have that ring to it.
- results-driven
- Translation: We're what every business aims to be: profitable. In some weird way, employees like to hear this word because it validates their work, or more specifically, it validates coming home late and not having as much leisure time. They're part of something great: another boring and generic web design.
- turnkey
- Translation: None. This word can't be translated into a real-world definition.
- zany
- Translation: We have a broken foosball table, Wii, or some $300 diversion and employees who like to do things like bowl, tell jokes, and come up with pointless "fun" things to do in the office. So basically, "zany" means "human being."
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Make the unrealistic realistic
Underpay your employees, but demand the most you can. The average person thinks you're awesome and not arrogant and ridiculous because they don't know any better. To them, you're getting things done and you don't hold punches. To your employees, this is slave labor. But nobody cares about what they think—after all, they didn't come up with this revolutionary idea that has existed for 20 years, they just built it and made it reality.
Should people start to do what they're getting paid for and not go above and beyond (another stupid term for something that hardly gets rewarded or appreciated), you'll remind them how easily replaceable they are, since there are thousands/3 people who are begging for this position. If that doesn't work (and it won't), let them know you aren't paying yourself much either, and you swear you don't know how the BMW ended up in your parking space.
Unfortunately, I noticed that there are many more strategies that I just couldn't fit into one page, so I'll have to continue this with another article. So while this didn't teach you everything you needed to know, this ought to give you a good headstart into leadership.
For a good reference on how to be a leader, please refer to this page: