Advice to a friend
An old friend called me last night asking for advice. He just start his own software company after working as a manager for a large company for many years. Following is something that I wrote to him.
“There is a difference between a manager and a leader. As the company owner, you must be the leader and not the manager. You can hire managers to work for you but you must provide the leadership. A manager’s job is to manage, to control, and maintain everything according to the leader’s directions. A manager’s job is to organize the work, assign the right people to the necessary tasks, coordinate the results, and ensure the job got done as planned. The main focus of the manager are on efficiency, skills and results.
As company owner and leader, you must have vision and goal for your company. The vision must be something clear and compelling so people will want to work for your company? This is not a simple like I hire you and you have a job. Today workers have choice and they make their choices carefully. Vision should be something in the long term and not something that everybody know. Let’s look at the vision of Steve Jobs when he created Apple Computer forty years ago: “To put a computer in every household in the world”. At that time, the whole world probably have about a thousand mainframe computers and probably ten thousand computer scientists who know how to program. Mr. Jobs think big, think far ahead and that is why so many technical people like his vision, follow his direction and work for Apple and make his vision become a reality.
For a leader to function, you must be able to lead. Leadership is not about forming a company or a business but it is about getting people to follow the direction that you set. Having a vision is about direction but having leadership is about motivation. When he needed a good manager to work for him, Steve Jobs approached John Sculley, the best manager of Pepsi Cola and told him: “How come a talented person like you wasting time in selling sugar water and sweet candies to children when you can work for me and together we can change the world”. The similar message was given when Apple developed McIntosh (Mac) computer. Steve Jobs ordered an advertising showing a young girl throwing a hammer and destroy a big TV screen full of image of people working in factory. The key message: “We are in the information age, not industrial age anymore”. It made people excited, it made people realized about the information age and helped recruit the best, the most talented technical people to work for Apple.
Of course, you can have a great vision and be a great leader, but if your company is going in the wrong direction than you could file for bankruptcy soon. Basically, you could go on the opposite direction of the market. By invest all your money and assets in something the market do not want, is not a good strategy. This is where many companies have failed, they fail because they focus on making money and expansion before they figure out the right direction.
Last year, when I was in China, I was invited to visit several high tech parks. The highway led to the parks was new and modern. The parks had many large buildings and a lot of computer equipments. Their managers told me that they were expecting foreign companies to move in and created a lot of jobs for local people. They believed that the best highways, best infrastructure and best facilities were factors to bring in foreign investments. They did not invest in training programs for their workers. When I visited their universities, they were still teaching from textbooks written ten or fifteen years ago and most students did not speak English. It appeared to me that their leaders did not get the facts right before they made their decision. When I explained about the most important is not buildings, not infrastructures but technology skills, most of them were surprised. I cited the fact that India did not have big technology parks, did not have great infrastructures, the transportation was bad with traffic congestions but they have highly skilled workers who can speak English.
The issue today is with globalization, things change very fast. A good leader must monitor the market, understand the market direction, evaluate the opportunity then make decision based on actual facts rather than a wishful thinking. Today technology is the key driver for economic growth, the only area that constantly grow faster than anything else. Software is the most profitable business. By investing in software, you are doing the right thing but it is important to understand that as the company owner, you are the leader, the innovator, that has a long term perspective. You should look further into the horizon and ask yourself: “What is in it for me, for my company, and for my workers.” You must look at your workers, not to assign them tasks, but to define for them a purpose. You must organize your workers, not to maximize efficiency, but to develop their skills, their talents and inspire results. Please remember that in software and technology areas, these people are “Knowledge workers”. They have the knowledge and skills so you do not “manage them” but “lead them, direct them”, “nurture them” so they can be productive, innovative. That is the only way to make your new company successful.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
