Corner Office

The First Rule of Brainstorming: Suspend Disbelief

By ADAM BRYANT

Published: January 19, 2013

 

This interview with Kon Leong, co-founder, president and chief executive of ZL Technologies, an e-mail and file archiving company, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.

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Earl Wilson/The New York Times

Kon Leong is co-founder, president and chief executive of ZL Technologies, an e-mail and file archiving company based in San Jose, Calif.

Corner Office

Every Sunday, Adam Bryant talks with top executives about the challenges of leading and managing. In his new book, "The Corner Office" (Times Books), he analyzes the broader lessons that emerge from his interviews with more than 70 leaders.

Q. Tell me about some important leadership lessons you’ve learned.

A. One of my early jobs was selling computer hardware. What I learned about selling was probably more valuable than my M.B.A. I had seen selling as a process just about logic. Then I realized that has nothing to do with it.

      

Q. What was the insight?

A. You have to present your story in their context, not yours. They don’t really care if you’re standing on top of a robot and quoting equations. If they’re in the deep part of the forest, you’ve got to talk the language of the deep forest. Salesmanship is more like a language unto itself. There is no right or wrong. It’s what you make of it, and what’s black can be gray, and what’s gray can be white. It depends on your framework. The challenge is to share the same framework so that you’re seeing the same page in the same way.

      

Q. How do you hire? If you were interviewing me for a job, what would you ask me?

A. I would want to know your goals for the job. Is it money? Learning? Fulfillment? What is it? I would try to figure out if our environment suits your goals. I would not try to sell you to get you to take the job. I also will ask, “How curious are you?”

      

Q. I imagine that most people simply say, “Very.”

A. But then I’d ask, “Outside the headlines, what were some of the most interesting things you’ve noted in the last couple of weeks, and tell me why, and what did you do about it?” That would reflect what you think is interesting, and that tells me a fair bit. If you can cite many disparate topics, that’s a step in the right direction. The point is, we’re trying to find the right fit. In a fast-changing environment, you need to learn more and more and more. There’s so much to learn, and you can’t be taught all the permutations and combinations of the answers, so you have to learn on your own. And to learn on your own, you need curiosity.

      

Q. What other questions?

A. I’ll ask: How willingly do you accept stuff, and how willing are you to question things? How creative are you in finding your own answers? For example, everyone knows in school that you cannot divide by zero. Why? I try to find if they’ve actually questioned things like that at any time. The point is, we’re usually handicapped by our own borders, and we will not think beyond them. I think there’s one rule of thumb in creativity: when you’re brainstorming, you have to suspend disbelief. That’s a key ingredient. There’s time enough to challenge it and poke holes, but not at the time of generation.

 

I’ll also change the subject to one where they have some expertise. So I’ll ask what their passions are, and then I’ll ask questions. If it’s ornithology, I’ll start talking about the evolution of birds and ask questions like, “How do you think reptiles got feathers?”

       

Q. What else do you look for when hiring?

A. Brains and drive. Those are the basics. Without them, it’s probably going to be a long shot. After we work through that, then it’s curiosity and attitude.

      

Q. How do you get at the question of attitude?

A. Are you willing to learn from your mistakes? Do you do that automatically? Are you willing to set the bar higher? Are you able to deal with failure? Can you bounce back from it?

      

Q. What’s your take on the standard interview question about strengths and weaknesses?

A. I never really ask about weaknesses, because it’s meaningless. I ask more about strengths, but I ask it from a different angle. I’m more interested in the answers from a more personal perspective as opposed to a professional environment. I’ll typically ask: How would you describe yourself in three words outside the work environment? And then: What do you consider your natural strength? What do you do that comes without any effort, that your peers struggle with and can’t even match? What is natural for you? Other skills emanate from that natural core. Someone once answered that question by saying, “People tend to just come and talk to me.” That really intrigued me.

      

Q. What’s your natural strength?

A. I can zoom in, zoom out.

      

Q. What’s it like to work for you day to day?

A. Certain aspects of my management style are extremely frustrating. There are many, many questions posed to me, many decisions asked of me. I try not to make them. I respond with more questions, because I want them to find the answer. It can be very frustrating to my employees, but I’m trying to get others to scale up and learn. They understand and accept my approach, but many still feel frustrated because they just want the answer.

      

Q. What is your advice for students who are graduating from college?

A. I tell all of them two things, and that goes for both undergrads and M.B.A.’s. First, experiment. If you’re 22 years old as an undergrad or if you’re 27 just out of your M.B.A., in both cases you’ve got a clean slate. You can go in any direction. So experiment. That can also mean taking a lower salary in order to experiment.

This is all in hindsight, of course, because I didn’t do it. I went to Wall Street after getting my M.B.A. If you experiment in different jobs and functions in those two or three years out of school, you will have a much better shot at finding your sweet spot. And the sweet spot is the intersection between what you’re really good at and what you love to do. If you can find that intersection, you are set. A lot of people would kill for that because, at 65, they’re retiring and never found it.

 

So don’t put so much emphasis on initial compensation. Don’t listen to all the harping from the family. Try to find your sweet spot and, once you find it, invest in that. You don’t want to get degrees just to do work you don’t really like. If you’re miserable, even if you make a lot of money, that’s still 40 years of your life.

Cloud computing users are losing data, Symantic finds...

Cloud computing is a ticket to losing data for two in five companies, a new study finds. "It's really kind of astounding," said Dave Elliott, a cloud marketing manager at storage and security company Symantec.

The company polled more than 3,200 organizations to gauge hidden costs of the cloud and ways to mitigate problems. "Forty-three percent of respondents have lost data in the cloud and have had to recover from backups," Elliott said. And the recovery process has failed at least once for most.

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Internet cloud and cloud computing these days means most any services obtained over the Internet or obtained from potentially remote data centers, instead of the old-fashioned kind of on-premises computing where you knew exactly what machine your data were on.
The issues Symantec's cloud study pinpointed are arising as more companies gravitate to using the cloud for cost savings and arguably easier computing. The survey results suggest that more than 90% of companies and other organizations are at least discussing cloud computing, vs. 75% a year ago.

Problems encountered in cloud computing run a gamut.
"It's not just that your cloud service provider had a fire or a rack fell over and they destroyed your data," Elliott said. "That's a part of the problem and the other is management. Can you go to your cloud service provider and find it?

Say someone deletes it or moves it to the wrong folder and there's terrible search functionality." Symantec's study identified several hidden costs of moving to cloud use. One is the risk of rogue cloud use in a company, where staffers are using services without the information technology department in the loop.

"A classic example IT has seen now for years is cloud file sharing — somebody wants to move a very large file and signs up for a public cloud file sharing service," Elliott said. It could be anything like Dropbox, Box, YouSendIt or other popular services. Or even in the IT department, he says, somebody might spin up an instance of Amazon's (AMZN) EC2 to get a server up and running.

"The survey showed this is a significant issue — 77% saw it in the last 12 months, and many don't think it's going to get better," Elliott said. Of those who saw a rogue deployment, Symantec's survey notes that 40% said they suffered exposure of confidential information in some way.

The other issues identified by Symantec are faulty cloud backup — that's the one tied to the data loss statistic — inefficient use of the amount of cloud storage purchased, not toeing the line with corporate regulatory compliance requirements and issues with data in transit.

How can you improve your business presentations?

By Beverly Flaxington on January 15th, 2013 |                    

It may have been a few years since you graduated from B-school. Since then, you’ve done dozens, maybe hundreds, of formal and informal presentations to employees, investors, managers, clients, and others. Now ask yourself, “How effective am I really? Do my presentations motivate others to action? Are they inspiring?”

If it’s been a while since someone congratulated you for a stupendous presentation, perhaps you could use a mini refresher in presentation pointers. It never hurts to revisit some fundamentals. Here are six of them:

1. Identify the “why” of the presentation. Many presentations aren’t appropriate for the timing or for the material. And often, one is asked to present to someone but really isn’t sure of why or what the desired outcome should be. Why now? What’s the significance of this timing? Why this audience? What does the listener hope to know, and why? Why are you presenting this information at this time? Outline what you hope to accomplish before you begin.
2. Identify the “who.” Connect with your audience. What do you know about this audience? What matters to them? What do they hope to get out of this? What do they know, and not know? It’s a common mistake for the presenter to work hard on the message but then fail to modify it for this audience. In a one-on-one presentation, you can ask the listener to answer some questions first, such as, “What’s most important to you?” You may also say something like, “Before we start, there are six key items I’ve been asked to focus on in this presentation. Has anything changed, or do you have anything to add?”
3. Chunk the information. Many of us are guilty of trying to pack information and data into one continuous flow. Instead, look at your information and ask yourself, “What are the themes?” Organize the information into a handful of topics. Then categorize the information under each heading. When you present, your audience will be better able to take in the details after you give them an overview of the segments — as in, “I have three key points.” Open and close each section so the listener knows which information they’re hearing.
4. Make it matter; provide context. How can you bring your information around to address the needs of this audience at this time? Why does this matter to them? Don’t leave it up to chance that the listener will understand why this information matters. Keep asking yourself, “So what?” Why does this concern your audience, why does it help them, why might they need to know it? Make it clear. If you can’t give context and clarify the meaning of what you’re presenting, then that information shouldn’t be there.
5. Match behavioral style. Particularly in one-on-one meetings and in small groups, a presenter needs to listen and watch for others’ preferred style before he or she engages. Style is our tone of voice, our pace, the words we use and our body language. What’s the communication style of your audience? How can you shift your approach to make the person or audience feel most comfortable? Excellent presenters use different tones, styles and communication in response to different audiences.
6. Bring closure. Circle your audience back around to what you started out with as the objective. What did you want to happen — sharing of information, need for a decision on some data, the “close” of a sales process? This is where you ensure that the listeners received what they need. Before you leave the presentation, reconfirm the desired outcome: “As a result of this presentation, I wanted you to understand three things” — then list them. “Next step, I’ve asked each member of this audience to …” Vote? Give me a business card? Buy my product? Be sure when you end the interaction, whether one on one or in a group, that you’ve confirmed what you hope will happen next.

5 strategies for engineering a refreshing business perspective in 2013

                        

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Baron Christopher Hanson

The election is over. The holidays are over. It’s back to the business of working and living and learning in the new year. Last year was a tragic year, a stormy year, and an uncertain year politically and fiscally. To forge ahead positively, here are five strategies toward re-engineering a fresh 2013 business outlook:

Attend advanced industry summits.
Each year, the best of the best from elite professional, cultural, academic or industry communities gather to listen to, learn from and speak openly with each other. What makes advanced summits of all kinds so refreshing is the intellectual firepower of the speakers and the engagement with other attendees socially or privately during these intimate events.

The key is to identify where and when the most crucial, high-powered and relevant industry summits are being held this year. Decide, and just go. Cavorting with a concentrated roster of the best in your field challenges you and will overwhelm you with fresh 2013 perspectives.

The takeaway here is to proactively gather among the best in your industry. This will accelerate your relationships, knowledge and competitiveness. You might even become a summit speaker yourself one day.

Reinforce your cash register.
To be clear, the term “cash register” means any space, counter, equipment, staff, system, queue or online portal whereby your business transacts with paying customers. Some cash registers are quick, efficient and high tech; others are comfortable, luxurious or exciting. Still others are dull, slow or unattractive.

Whether law firms, restaurants, tech startups, art galleries, nonprofits or manufacturing facilities, each have their own methods of “cash registering” their place of business. In the consulting world, cash-register security is a busy practice area.
Beyond credit and collections after the sale, evidence of predatory or manipulative customers before the sale is beginning to overshadow the ongoing problem of dishonest employees or partners. Not only must your cash-register strategy exude a spry, inviting and expert customer experience, your transaction procedures must also protect your business from any malfeasance, theft or loss.

In most turnaround or growth-strategy cases, evidence leads us to recommend a brief forensic accounting and review-of-contracts engagement –– to improve all transactional language, cash-low security and risk-aversion policies. It is stunning how many small businesses in the $500,000 to $5 million space operate without any of these security measures in place.

The takeaway here is that by examining “cash register” procedures carefully, business owners can gain a fresh perspective as to whether they are actually making money or being beaten up economically by specific types of anti-customers.

Ask your entire company to read a strategic book together.
What I learned most after 16 years as a rugby player is that the team who communicates, mobilizes and executes in the same directions as a cohesive unit for 80 minutes will win. This feat is both physically demanding and rare.
After 21 years of consulting experience, recommending that an entire company –– usually from three to 300 employees –– read the same book from cover to cover in 30 days has been one of the most effective methods for initially turning a company around, increasing baseline revenue and mobilizing everyone in the same direction.

Classics I’ve assigned include “Blue Ocean Strategy,” “Financial Intelligence,” “The Phoenix Effect,” “Good to Great,” “Lead, Sell, or Get Out of The Way,” and “Analytics at Work,” among many others. Choose own your top four to six titles, and then read one as a company every two to three months. The cohesion, result trajectories and company alignments can be stunning — if marshaled well.
The secret is for leadership to select the precise book and then listen carefully to employees during and after they’ve completed each read. Don’t lecture. Just listen.

Employees who love their company, appreciate their job and care about their career will dive right in. Almost immediately you can see their minds, their work, their passion, and their ideas improving exponentially. Everyone in the company is guaranteed to have something in common to talk about going forward.

We’ve especially applied this “old school book assignment” to creative companies in need of relief from their chaotic, lifestyle-driven, outdated, or rural business model. Uniform communication helps reduce chaos and steer toward operational alignments.
However, those employees (or partners) who make excuses, complain or refuse to read the book typically exude similar attitudes and behaviors on the job. While companies and employees often claim they are on the same page, this old school book assignment strategy proves it — literally.
The takeaways here are:

• Group book reading journeys initiate company alignment.
• A fresh perspective as to who should (and should not) remain “on the bus” going forward will emerge quickly after two to three book assignments.

Capture stunning photography and video footage.
Marketing, PR, and social media success today is driven by distinctive, high-quality photography and video production. For-profit and nonprofit organizations large and small each have paying customers, sponsors, members, or donors to reach.
Expert photography and video is the undisputed kernel of today’s marketing content value and reach, simply because people are not taking the time to read beyond headlines unless visually enticed upfront. Increase one line item in your PR budget — photography and video — then hire the best of the best to record and disperse your brand narrative.

The most successful media, blogs, and magazines have always had absolutely gorgeous photography and compelling video content online, inviting potential customers to read in greater detail after being impressed visually or interactively.
Are your core visual elements stunning and fresh? The good news is that modern innovations in photo and printing quality also allow for more colorful graphics on billboards, commercial vehicles, mass transit and even boats. Innovations in video camera techniques enable company offerings, messages or news to be viewable anytime via handheld, desktop or on social media.

The shocker is that organizations still spend upwards of millions of dollars hiring expert event planners, adventure travel companies, motivational and leadership speakers, or tired advertising agencies — yet they still fail to capture the footage of their true, inspirational and explanatory narrative.
The takeaway here is that compelling footage of your people, your events, your workplace or culture, and how your organization gives back must be captured more frequently and aired more thoughtfully than ever before.

Consider mobility.
Qualified, nice and professional customers who will pay you well are out there. However, they may be more dispersed or more challenging to connect with in today’s economy. Modern mobility enables entrepreneurs to visit new customers, as opposed to waiting for old customers to reappear less often.
To be clear, mobility or executive travel varies in relevance for every business model and budget. In my experience, confident economic exploration into relevant new markets breeds growth. Online file uploads, design proofing and modern shipping technologies allow rural craftspeople and large materials suppliers to transact business from anywhere without a single airline ticket. Other fields require face-to-face interactions.

Quick case study: A modern art gallery was enduring both the economic dip and an abrupt end to their posh storefront lease (sale of building). Once relocated in a larger, more chic space, we re-engineered the company “cash register” and increased inventory quality and valuation.

Our next recommendation was for the gallery owner to embrace a more mobile schedule, including international art dealer events and elite shows. Elevated PR and marketing strategies spurred new client purchases to exceed collector transactions in terms of overall percentage of sales.

Sure there were growing pains, lessons learned, car trouble in Mississippi and all kinds of parking fines. Yet the gallery owner now transacts in New Orleans, D.C., Berlin, Miami, Chicago and other top art markets. Gallery revenues have tripled within seven months and are projected to reach a 580% all-in sales increase within 13 months.
The takeaway here is to determine which cities or regions you might best acquire new customers, expert employees or fresh resources. Akin to attending industry summits, obtaining a more profitable concentration of customers and partners — at new altitudes — is perhaps the freshest perspective to embrace this coming year.

Baron Christopher Hanson is the principal of RedBaron Strategy, a boutique growth, turnaround management, and revenue acceleration advisory firm based in Charleston, S.C., and Washington, D.C. A Harvard graduate and former rugby player, “The Red Baron” can be reached for client engagements via

Why Kirk beats Spock at Innovation

Why Kirk beats Spock at Innovation

There's a mistake being played out in your organization when it comes to staffing innovation projects. You are likely staffing them with a bunch of "Spocks", people who know a lot about the subject and have deep expertise. While this may look like a dream team, I can assure you that staffing a bunch of Spocks is not helpful and can be harmful. You need at least a few Kirks in the mix to create a balanced team capable of generating interesting innovation.

For those of you born before the TV Show that started it all, James T (for Tiberius) Kirk was the commander of the Enterprise, a spaceship out to "boldly go where no one had gone before". Spock was the chief science officer, a Vulcan who is (supposedly) devoid of human emotion and who makes all decisions based on logic and reason. Kirk and Spock make a great team because they complement each other. Kirk makes decisions based on his emotions, his instinct and his gut. Spock counters with the reasons why Kirk's planned actions are "illogical" or don't fit the data.

Kirk experiments, creates problems with impulsive decision making and usually wins the day by doing something Spock (and Kirk's adversaries) didn't expect him to do. Kirk demands more than his people and his ship should be able or willing to offer. Kirk rejects the rules and tries to apply his own rules to any situation. And yes I know there were other spin-offs and other Star Trek series and movies, but they pale in comparison to the original.

Why this is pertinent to innovation

I suspect if we look long and hard enough, every science fiction tale has insights for innovation. In this case it is evidently true. Kirk and Spock represent the manifestation of the two sides of our brain - the left side, analytical and rational, scientific, and the right side, creative, impulsive. The problem in many organizations is that we overly emphasize the scientific, rational and logical at the expense of imagining new unexpected or unanticipated products or services. The scientific approach seeks to break down the problem into small morsels and solve for each small incremental solution, always keeping in mind what is "logical" reasonable and possible.

Your competitors, at least the competitors you understand and know from your industry, also do this. They seek reasonable, rational, logical solutions and technologies to existing problems. The gap in this thinking is that your unlikely competitors, the new entrants, those with nothing to lose, those who seek to disrupt the market, don't care about logical or rational. They don't care about the existing order - in fact they'll be happy to disrupt it. Their actions on the surface may seem, well, illogical. Why would anyone give away software for free? Who would create a website with a revenue model based on ads? What seemss logical to us is just what seems familiar or reasonable in a given context, not necessarily in all contexts or under all conditions.

The Spocks in your company want to approach innovation as a science. They want to examine all the data, review all the technologies and make the most logical decision possible. Their ideas are likely to be very well defined, very reasonable and often very incremental. The Kirks of your company think differently. They want to understand the problem, want to create unusual solutions that may defy existing logic. They recognize that it may be necessary to suspend disbelief for a while in order to get to the right solution. They work from instinct, from their gut and may not be able to justify their approaches to the Spocks, or worse, to the executives.

Balancing Kirks and Spocks

Given that Kirks find it hard to justify their outlooks and approach, it's rare you'll have a team full of Kirks. In fact, it's often unlikely that you'll have any Kirks on an innovation team at all, because innovation looks risky and uncertain and dangerous. Who better to staff an innovation activity than a bunch of Spocks, who demand data, expect to be able to predict all of the outcomes and are scientifically based? But the world according to Spock (had to do it) doesn't exist. The world is far more unpredictable, capricious, fickle than Spock expects. The world shifts in its expectations and demands, and what was impossible only yesterday is currently completely possible.

What was unthinkable yesterday is now an accepted reality. Five years ago the US was completely dependent on foreign oil, and the amount we imported each year was growing. In the next decade we may become an EXPORTER of oil and natural gas. Things change, and change quickly. Kirks get this, but may get it wrong. Spocks understand it but discount it.

Your innovation teams will have more Spocks than Kirks. That's understandable, but can become a real limiting factor if the whole team is Spocks. You need some Kirks to make the activity more instinctual, more illogical, more messy. Without Kirks your innovations will be practical, safe, predictable and ultimately very incremental.

However, to create something interesting, with real value, to disrupt the status quo, you need some Kirks. And while you are reading this and thinking, wait, was Jobs a Kirk or a Spock, I'll offer this: Jobs was probably the rare being who could be both. While he ran Apple like a Spock, he understood the markets like a Kirk. You don't have to be both to be successful, but you need to understand what value each offers, and right now Kirks are undervalued for innovation.

By Jeffrey Phillips

Want that promotion?  Then, practice your job.

As the new year approaches – and with it the inevitable wave of self-improvement plans–we’ve identified 10 strategies for advancing your career in 2013. (Read them all here.)
From recovering from an office blunder to learning why it doesn’t pay to be Mr. (or Ms.) Nice Guy, this ten-point plan offers daily tips on what to do and how to do it.

Mike J. is a venture capitalist who works on Silicon Valley’s famed Sand Hill Road. He’s good at his job–rising from intern to principal in only two years. His secret? An Excel spreadsheet he uses to track how he spends every hour of his workday.

To understand the importance of this spreadsheet, you should first understand the difference between working hard and actually getting better at your job.

Most knowledge workers—a group that, I suspect, includes just about anybody reading these words—don’t differentiate among their activities; any time spent at the office counts as “work.” Mike, by contrast, embraces a conclusion that’s well supported in the field of performance psychology, the discipline that studies how people become great at what they do: Not all work is equal.

Simply put, there’s a difference between doing things you already know how to do and doing things that force you to stretch and improve your skills. Psychology professor K. Anders Ericsson, a leader in this field, explains that a person in a new job usually spends some time training or shadowing someone else to get up to speed, but after that, his or her abilities tend to plateau. Beyond this point, they don’t get much better at their job, though they grow more experienced.

To get better—and win the promotions and opportunities most of us dream about—we must set out to intentionally improve our performance. In studying why some people develop remarkable careers, this is a key unheralded distinction between the average knowledge worker and the stars at most companies: the former work hard while the latter systematically train hard skills. Ericsson called this type of structured activity deliberate practice, and in his decades of research on the topic he’s found it to be the key for expert performance in every field he has studied—from elite scientists to elite jugglers.

This brings us back to Mike. His spreadsheet tracking forces him to spend a certain number of hours each week not just working but instead deliberately improving his skills. In the spreadsheet he shared with me, he spent around 60% of his time pushing himself, performing difficult, and ultimately crucial training tasks such as calling potential investors or polishing due diligence reports.

Here’s how to integrate this strategy into your workday:

Deliberate practice requires clarity. Set a clear goal slightly beyond your current abilities, but not too far beyond, and list specific actions that advance you toward your goal. In Mike’s example, a specific goal might include increasing the rate at which potential investor calls prompt follow-up conversations. The specific actions might include making a certain number of these calls each week (regardless of whether he feels like it) and giving his full focus in each call toward deploying his best pitch.

Deliberate practice requires feedback. Assuming you don’t reach your goal on the first try, you need a source of objective feedback so that you can improve on your next iteration. Without frank, even harsh, feedback, your progress will likely stall. Returning to Mike’s example of investor calls, he could keep careful notes on what differentiated the successful and non-successful interactions, or he could ask a partner at the firm to listen in and then offer thoughts.

Deliberate practice is unpleasant. You have to stretch yourself beyond where you’re currently comfortable—not a pleasant feeling. Most knowledge workers inadvertently end up avoiding deliberate practice-style activities because they retreat to checking email the moment a task gets too difficult. To make deliberate practice work, you must not only tolerate unpleasantness (and stick with the task, regardless of your urge for relieving distraction), but learn to seek it, like a bodybuilder seeks muscle burn. Mike recognized that, if left unchecked, his instinct would be to reply to e-mails all day, so he used his time-tracking spreadsheet to force himself to engage in unpleasant, though ultimately rewarding work. If you don’t have a similar strategy in your schedule, it’s unlikely to happen.

Success in knowledge work requires more than simply showing up early, staying late, and responding quickly to every email. True standouts systematically develop rare and valuable skills. Building these skills requires practice, and it is not something that you gravitate toward naturally. Like Mike, you must take a rigorous approach to improve your workday.

Cal Newport is an assistant professor of computer science at Georgetown University and the author of So Good They Can’t Ignore You.