Category Archives: Leadership

Deal Flow and Chaotic Innovation

Posted on by

Investors look at leading indicators like the VIX (volatility index) or silicon sales for increases in CE sales. For me two things I look at are the quality of deal flow, right now it is high, and how chaotic innovation is. Deal flow for investors is at impressive levels. The team sand the maturity of the product and team is better than I have ever seen. Yes you can say that is due to lack of funding but the optimist in me sees the world pushing toward a new platform.

More importantly and for Product managers and strategists is the other thing I see, Chaotic Innovation. Innovation is the buzz with new ideas making it to some form of Proof of Concept. More and more of this is non-linear. There are times for controlled chaos (Not an oxymoron) that can yield drastic idea generation and chaotic innovation.

Yes I am a proponent of Innovation as a process, but when a team understands innovation and has learned to capture and sort innovation in to products and features that the market respects there is an additionally gift. That is the gift of being able to establish an innovation container at a moment’s notice, this is what is reflected in productive “Apollo 13” moments.

When and industry or a company is about to hit the hockey stick section of the growth curve moving into just ship mode there is often a moment. Call it the chaos before the storm. Often the early adopters have been working with your product and the feedback is piling up, but which is the trigger feature? When has it hit the value point and ease of operability that anyone can realize the value?

The pieces begin to fall in place and there is a rush to automate and secure for the just ship mode. This was evident last week in our PCAMP Smackdown. The timer was the driver for rapid test, complete, and pray for results. Features jumped in or were yanked, Marketing concepts grabbed out of the air!

Even in these “games” behavior of a team mirrors day to day life. No one had their neck rung or lost their life’s saving, Customers didn’t even call their lawyers, we all just had fun. Fun and Chaos drive incredible ideas, Work on experimenting with Chaos and innovation under pressure it will literally pay dividends.

Many companies are in a Chaos moment time to Innovate!

Leader vs. Manager

Posted on by

It has been said a million times and yet so many still do not get it! It is beyond me as this just seems natural,but alas…  Are your actions and your plans that of leaders or managers?

Every square is a rectangle but every rectangle is not a square. Leader is a term that used to equate with manager but in today’s matrix based management structures the term leader requires skills and other attributes that are refinements of the traditional manager title. We used to hear staff refer to someone as manager as in “Let me talk to my manager”, Lets save that for entry level roles going forward.

The world we now work in is horizontal “management structures” are fluid. The skill required for the contemporary workplace is a skill of leadership. Leadership respects other leaders and their particular style or approach. Being open to back and forth coaching, others path and knowing your own chosen style for the situation are base skillsets.

This requires study constantly over your life including friendships and family life. Leaders chose teams and people to work with in truly trusted relationships, managers have narrow artificial interactions with others and are always at their core asking what can I do with what this resource has to offer. To a leader people are heart and soul, skills and needs, they seek to develop the person and move them up.

Control is a managers word, partnering is a leaders word. Managers discuss others with others, Leaders discuss the person with the person. Leaders interface with customers, Managers sell.

 

Metcalf’s law and the politics of everything leadership…

Posted on by

Metcalf’s law defines the value received from productive additions to the internet. It also defines the drain of no-productive elements. When you act you are a productive node when you protest or refuse to participate you are a non-productive node.

On tax day there was an IRS report on only 88 million workers paid into the system our of I believe 156 million US workers.

Are you productive or an energy sync to your team, company, community? We have all seen this in action and it looks like top down control or container building. Today the world is more horizontal in nature and this is rarely more on display then the business world. In some research recently I came across a stat that stood me straight up. There are only 18k companies in the US with 500 or greater employees. So, that leaves millions with less.

We are all individual contributors!

As leader/worker communication and trust help your team hold those productive node roles. Long rest Command and control! Cross functional team lead is an early developed skill of the product manager who rarely has direct report accountability but has always lived in a matrix driven structure. Product teams work in a container more than a reporting line.

In this learned leadership path is part of the reason so many PMs find their way to the start-up and leadership roles. The entrepreneur is self-directed and action based at their core. They are followed because they create containers within groups.

Teams is a word that I would like to lose as it comes from sports and if the market competition is the target of the event, great. If internal groups are the target, not so great. Seems minor but take it from someone who has learned the hard way pushing the fulcrum to far in command and to far back to abdicating leadership, Lead from the center of the pack, ensure all your nodes are positive on your network, remove the Hackers and 404s!

Running your own race…

Posted on by

When I began training for my first marathon I got some incredible advice, “Run Your Own Race”. You see it is easy to track the pack and pace yourself to them, It is easy to let the starting line tap you energy with a too fast start. It is easy to give up when the pack is all ahead.

In cycling there are leaders and pelotons’ and sprinters and climbers and many more roles, occasionally an early leaders has what it takes to jump out early and still cross the finish line ahead of everyone but more often their role jumping out early has other strategic goals.

Each member of your team has a role and they should understand their role respecting others. This goes out to any service provider or partner. Understand your role, Sprinter? Climber? Lead? Cycling is a great metaphor so watch it.

A great line I have always liked. Looking at the top successful people and companies, do not be envious because you get there by being the best were you are.