Top CEO trait: Stick-with-it-ness

It's been said before: what a startup needs is a CEO who doesn't give up just because the outlook is bleak.  I've covered this in a previous post about Pandora which was one of those companies that everyone expected to fade away but went public and is still going strong.

This applies to large companies too - what helps a shaky enterprise survive and succeed is a CEO that believes in its potential and digs in for the long haul to nurture its growth.  We know all about Jobs and Apple.  The story of Ariba is less well-known.  I was one of those who was surprised that Ariba was still around when I heard it was to be bought by SAP for $4.3 billion.  Today's article on Ariba story and CEO Robert Calderoni in the Merc News reminded me again why persistence is a virtue in CEOs.

Too many entrepreneurs think if you don't make it big fast you might as well get out ('go big, or go home').  That may be true for some companies/industries, but it is certainly not universal.  For sure it could be difficult to stay with a venture that doesn't produce enough revenue to pay the team, but that's why entrepreneurship is not for everyone, regardless of the prevailing hype.  True entrepreneurs stick with it as long as they can see there's potential in their vision - they bootstrap, moonlight, crowdfund, whatever they can do to keep the fire burning.  (For sure, Ariba didn't have to go ask Granny for funds, but they had the same problem - at a different scale - of staying afloat and re-tooling their business.)

The trait of determination is even more critical for social entrepreneurs.  All change is hard, and effecting social change definitely takes a patience, learning and perseverance.  The people who need to change the way they live, work, eat or learn may not be ready to do so just because you have this wonderful idea to make it all better, even if it costs nothing.  Behavioral change takes time, and may require many failed efforts before hitting a successful model, which means the company needs a CEO who's willing to stick with the vision and do what it takes.

In an earlier post I'd quoted Randy Komisar on entrepreneurs matching up to different breeds of dogs at different stages of a company's evolution.  One important breed got missed there - bulldog!

Fresh thinking

Yes, successful entrepreneurs are expected and encouraged to be dedicated, focused, even consumed by their ventures, 24/7. But they're also expected to be sharp, unfettered and creative thinkers capable of coming up with innovative solutions for the marketplace as well as more mundane issues like punching up your presentation.  Are there things we should/could be doing to keep the creative juices flowing? 

In my view, there's one simple directive to help keep the noggin fresh and peppy: get out.  In all possible ways.  Get out of your office (or your garage).  Get out some evenings to do something other than hanging out with your team in a bar over beer and chips.  Get out of reading the same old, same old, and mix up TechCrunch with the Economist or vice versa.  Get out of your chosen field and meet people in others, and if you're very much in the left brain world, make it a point to get to know folks in the arts.  Mostly, get out of your comfort zone and do something different fairly often.

Which brings up the obvious point, not all entrepreneurs think that they need to be creative - they'll leave it to the design guy or the marketing gal.  There are many entrepreneurs who believe they're done being creative as they came up with their business idea and now they should just focus on execution.  But execution draws on outside the box thinking too.

An example is a possible new market niche for us, an idea that came to me when I was sitting at the Startup Conference in Mountain View a few days ago with a friend who wanted to check it out (I attend one of these occasionally as part of my 'getting out').  Funnily enough, the keynote speaker, Dave McClure, started off by pretty much calling all the entrepreneurs there losers for attending a conference instead of being busy building their companies.  It is a totally valid point on how to use your time, or not.  These events may be worth attending if you're just thinking of starting a company, and want to know what others did (no live-streaming video of yourself - Justin Kan already did that.)  But my expectations are pretty much to hear something different and maybe meet someone I wouldn't have otherwise met - an unusual mental break for a few hours.  Best of all, it worked!

There's another hot new book being pitched to entrepreneurs - Jonah Lehrer's 'Imagine: How Creativity Works'. (Side note: seriously, how does one keep up with all the reading and still accomplish something?  Sure, it's part of keeping your brain fresh but your time is limited.  Realistically, the best one can do is to skim blogs to pick and choose the few books that resonate.)  Anyway, there's a listen-worthy interview with Lehrer on video here.  He provides a well-reasoned approach to creativity, offering some hope that creativity can be cultivated and you can keep it going even as you get older - you don't have to lose it. 

Choose to be more creative.  Shaking up the brain is good, but you need to care enough to want to zumba. 

Finding Balance in Life is Work

Now, here's a topic that affects only the privileged - work-life balance.  Think about it, it is an issue only for those who have the luxury of choice on how much they work or don't.  I'd written about this a while ago (yes, this topic is also frequent fodder for bloggers, writers and researchers) in what I thought was a cleverly titled post 'The work of life' in which I mused about our cave-dwelling forebears whose view of 'life' was more about avoidance of death than finding time for a family dinner.  Fast forwarding about fifty thousand years, today, for most people the world over, a work-day and its duties are clearly defined with little or no flexibility in it (as at Foxconn).

I'm writing about this again as I read a recent HBR post 'Entrepreneurs don't need work-life balance' which made me conclude that we're going about this the wrong way.  Previously I'd written about how to manage being a committed entrepreneur who wishes to meet all personal responsibilities, not just the ones in his/her company.  Now I'd like to step back from minor coping tactics, however useful they may be, to take the long view, a more philosophical one - and not just for entrepreneurs, but any of us who is lucky enough to be able to even to have the option to adjust our work schedules.

Mahatma Gandhi is credited with the quote 'Happiness is when what you think and what you say and what you do are in harmony'.  Less poetically, I believe it is when you are in harmony, or in balance - balance being something you experience, not achieve.  Equanimity is an even better word for it.  And equanimity comes when there's no guilt or stress or regrets - all those unbalancing feelings that come with thinking you should be doing one thing while you're saying/doing another.  As in having promised to be home for dinner but going to a mixer your investor invited you to in the last minute, or going on a long-planned ski weekend with a best friend and fretting about not being onsite for a product release.  These get to be stressful because you're thinking you're doing something for others (and failing in it), when in fact all the choices you make are for yourself.  You enjoy your work, you enjoy family and friends, you want to be physically and emotionally fit and you want it all - without conflict. 

Can it be done?  You bet.  But it takes work to get you and your life in balance.  Plan your life blocking out as much time as you think you'd like/need for all components that are important to you (for sure, if you're an entrepreneur, work's going to take a mega-chunk of it).  When conflicts arise, bring your values to the fore when making your choice.  Again, it should be yours, not anyone else's - after all, you're one of the privileged few that can afford that.  Also add a dash of pragmatism - be where your presence makes the most difference.  If you feel balanced with the result, you know you've made the right choice.  And one more tip, once you've made the choice, forget about the alternative - that way lies the wobbly woe of unbalance.