Table of Contents
I find this book so useful and a must-read for each business professional. Titled as ‘101 Crucial Lessons They Don’t Teach You in Business School’ by Chris Haroun. Here is the excerpt in the form of the best business management practices.
Praise in Public and Criticize in Private
Most managers don’t offer enough positive feedback to employees and most managers take the wrong approach when criticizing employees. If the feedback system doesn’t follow properly, it severely affects the relationship between a manager and his or her subordinates.
There is a CEO named Godfrey Sullivan of a very successful Silicon Valley company called Splunk. One of the many reasons the company has seen torrid growth over the past few years is because of the superb management style of Mr. Sullivan. His genius is that he always praises his employees in public and when he needs to offer constructive criticism he does this in private and one on one. This has led to the creation of one of the best corporate cultures in the history of the software sector.
Be Unemotional in Business
The most successful portfolio managers on Wall Street and the most successful C-level executives and politicians are relatively unemotional. It is very rare for a president or prime minister to ever show public forms of being too emotional.
In business, it is found that successful executives oddly enough never get too happy when things go well and they are never too unhappy when things go poorly. This is especially true of successful money managers. Successful business executives make decisions with a clear mind and don’t let their emotions get the best of them. Observe your feelings; do not become them.
Bet on the Jockey, not on Horse
Ideas are commodities but the execution is not. Business executives and money managers often make the mistake of focusing too much attention on evaluating a business model and not enough time to ensure that the best managers are running the business. Basically, execution is the king. A moderate idea creates fortune in the business when executed in a focused manner.
This is especially true in the money management or venture capital sector where the most important success factor in any investment is making sure that you have the right management team in place.
Past performance is indicative of future performance if you have the right CEO and right management team. Yes, that was a very controversial statement but if you bet on a management team that has been extraordinarily successful in the past, then your chance of success betting on this management team in the future is materially higher than betting against a B or C management team. Always bet on the jockey and not on the horse.
Hire Slowly and Fire Quickly
Take as much time as you can figuring out who to hire. Obviously, make sure they are qualified. Make sure that they fit in with your corporate culture. Make sure that they are team players. And make sure that each of your employees that will work with the person you are hiring meets with them at least 3 times and in different settings (i.e., your office, then a coffee shop, and then a restaurant).
It’s important that you don’t ask for references as this process is ridiculous. Who in the world would give references for people that will say bad stuff about them anyway! Rather, find your own references, which includes companies the candidate has worked at before or contacts that you have in common with the candidate in LinkedIn, etc.
You need to fire quickly. If you let a disgruntled employee stick around for too long then, then he or she will destroy your corporate culture; a small leak can sink a great ship.
The best way to let somebody go is to sit down with them and start by giving them a genuine compliment on their accomplishments. Then tell them that they are being let go in 2 sentences or less and the reason(s) why. Then pause to see what their reaction is. Less is more. You don’t need to sound apologetic at all. The first time you let someone go is always the hardest but it gets a lot easier (unfortunately). If necessary, have a security guard be present if the employee seems incredibly erratic, which is rare. Quite often you will be helping this person out in the long run.
A colleague of the writer once told him that “you’re not a real person until you have been fired!” It has happened to me before despite the fact that I made the firm a lot of money. Unfortunately, resentment from your boss can be an issue if you do your job too well! If that’s the case, start your own company. When it happened to me I gave him a hug and remained incredibly professional as I knew that he would be a reference for my next gig. Remember to always be unemotional about business and be long-term greedy. It was actually the best thing that ever happened to me in business as it forced me to focus on my passion and not work.
Touch Hand Only Once
Learn to deal with issues quickly and only once. In the old days before email, we would receive paper memos on our desk. The best practice then was to deal with a memo immediately and only let it touch your hand once before placing it in your physical outbox on your desk. The same should be said for emails, messages, texts, etc.
The second you see them, deal with them immediately. If the task will take more than a few minutes then flag them and follow up with them later in the day. I know that this process sounds overly simplistic, but you can save a lot of time by not procrastinating and dealing will all minor tasks as they arrive. Keep saying to yourself: “I do it now. I do it now. I do it now!
“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.”- Jack Welch
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