Don't waste time!

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Startups don't waste time. They typically have one head(CEO) that decides quickly and on the spot. She is not concearned about being right on every decision, making a decission with the given information is more important.

Being a startup  has nothing to do with the size of the company. Twitter is considered a startup, because they are fast. Microsoft is considered to be  corporate, because they are slow. Need more examples? Look at Facebook, they are big and fast.

Interestingly, every single startup or small company that started to implement management models from the big companies changed sigificantly. To the worse.  It doesn't matter if they are implementing ISO standard, project management  or some other methodology that relies on form more than on substance.

The don't waste time rule applies to investors, managers or engineers as well. Good investor will tell you immediatelly what they like or not, good CEOs will be open, clear and decisive, good engineers will solve problems and not explain a list of tasks they did every day.

I think that's one of the reasons why Americans are so much better in startups than Europeans. They don't care about the form and typically, they don't waste time. In the same way, whenever Americans turn to form, they suck at it! Just look at their bureaucratic procedures.

However you put it, it's very clear to me what is a DNA of a successful startup: nobody wastes each other's time. When you see a startup that relies more on form than on substance, or have long endless meetings, or when their leaderships doesn't lead but wants to discuss everything, you know that this is only a small company wanting to be a corporation. It's not a startup anymore!

So for the sake of fun and prosperity: don't waste time!

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Big Ego Leaders

Image by lumaxart via Flickr

Big ego leaders are not the same as strong leaders. They are loud, outspoken, do millon things at the same time, however often the things they do are not linked to their business, but often designed to boost their personal brand. In fact I think that often than not, some big ego leaders are a threat to their business. I'm often surprised how that are praised just  because they are so visible.

Let's think through what big ego leadership brings to the table:
- confidence: That's the positive side of a big ego. Confidence is an essential part of a leadership. All great leaders had it, have it and will have it.
- promotion: Having a big ego forces the leader to be present everywhere and have opinion about everything. I think that's actually bad for the business, though many argue that any promotion is good. Take same visible CEOs of internet startups who have blogs, organise conferences, have opinion about everything. What about their business track records? Usually not so bright. Often they have one thing in common: they got lucky somewhere in the past, usually during the internet boom. Which is good in itself, but doesn't really makes them a good leader.

However there is one criteria that distinguishes good big ego leaders from bad ones. Steve Jobs or Larry Ellison comes to mind. They have a big ego, but the also have substance, they built business, not just self promotional platforms.

Trouble is that in my view quite often startups fall into the big ego trap. Either founders try to mimic the visible people with big egos or, even worse, think about hiring some sort of big ego leaders. Here I get nervous. Big ego means very little in terms of increasing the value of the business. Might be good for short term promotion, but that's about it.

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