July 10, 2007

Take Risks

Getting that first degree, starting a career, making money, an apartment or house, a car, some toys, settling down, getting established, being grown up. Finally settling on your path in life. Graduation thoughts, particularly for engineers and technologists. You’re young, life is long, take risks. You will work a long time, you will average about four years or less per company, you will move around.

Try a small company, look for an interesting industry, find a great team of people. Get out of your comfort zone. Work hard, you’re used to it. Travel and see some amazing things.

In 5 to 15 years you’ll likely have a spouse, kids, a mortgage, and commitments. Then you’ll be risk-averse. Don’t be risk-averse now.

June 31 , 2007

Strategy

Coming out of engineering school, and again six years later graduating from business school, I was very intrigued by marketing and business development. I was ready to help set the strategy for the company, work with senior management to look at the options available in the market and how better to run the company. I used words like “big picture”, “strategy”, “strategic options”, “corporate strategy and direction” and other high level subjects I thought I could draw into profound focus with my newly minted degree to transform the target company by providing help to what must surely be a daily management function across all levels of a business

I was misinformed. Only the top few senior managers get paid to develop strategy and come up with options for corporate direction. Big companies may want a minion or two to gather data and perform directed research – mostly high level assistant work performed by five year corporate veterans. Small companies, and big ones too, come to think of it, mostly want people who can get the day to day operational things done.

Strategy is about what you decide to do, which means it is really about what you decide not to do. This is always determined by a small group of senior people in any business and then communicated like mad to the rest of the organization to get everyone moving in the same general direction. Changing strategic direction in a functioning operation is like changing the direction of a stampeding herd of buffalo – you better have a lot of cowboys making a lot of noise and furiously working to move that herd in just one new direction. The herd doesn’t take kindly to that kind of exercise more than once in a great while, say, every year. Try it too often and the herd gets exhausted, splits up, or just ignores the noise and goes back to eating the same grass.

So don’t go talking strategy for that first big job. Don’t expound on business development and the big picture. Be concrete and specific in what you can do and what value you can personally bring to an operational job. Don’t talk strategy, talk about results you can make happen and problems you can solve. Do that consistently well and along with having the fun of a successful career you to will set corporate strategy.

June 15 , 2007

Big Company or Small Company?

Depends. No, not the adult diapers worn by people my age. The decision depends on your goals for your career and will most likely change and develop over time. Are you a specialist, an “engineer’s engineer”, the kind of technologist that wants to work on things that can fall down and hurt people? Or are you a more general problem solver who wants to lead a team of technologists but leave the specialty work to the experts? Maybe that just isn’t clear yet and controlled experiments are in order.

Big companies, particularly ones with good reputations as well run industry leaders, are excellent training grounds. Think of them as paid post graduate work. Job assignments typically last about two years; enough time to understand the role, learn the skills, achieve results. There is variety in roles, people, geography, functions. If something is not ideal – coworkers, boss, task list, geography – big organizations usually can offer options and just asking sometimes can precipitate a change. These can be great organizations to learn best practices – writing a proposal, preparing a presentation, working in a cross functional team, learning human resource practices, observing good management, understanding effective communication methods, and all the other aspects of working in organizations that will be a benefit for the rest of your career.

There are tradeoffs to working in a big company. Observing senior management in action not something generally available in entry level jobs. It can take years, sometimes as much as 20 years, to get an up close and personal view of what managers do to lead a company. The pyramid gets small at the top quickly and leadership roles can be scarce. Security used to be a plus with a big organization, but mergers, buy outs, acquisitions, and combinations of companies of all sizes, including some of the biggest, has devalued that advantage.

Small companies, particularly companies of around 100 people or less, are usually very different. Faster moving, generally more unstructured and prone to change they are often a Petri dish of corporate experience. Senior management is usually very visible, both good and bad aspects. If the company is growing, opportunities to move into responsible positions and gain experience are quick and challenging. Advancement can be rapid; the hardest people to find are the independent leaders who can take on a challenge, with little direction, and make something happen. These people are in demand and usually highly valued and rewarded.

But small organizations can have dramatically less flexibility when the situation is not going well. The same combinations of less than great coworkers, boss, job fit can mean looking for a new job in a new company, not just a new assignment. Downturns in business can be catastrophic.

For what it’s worth, I would choose small, but choose wisely. Pick a fast growing industry. Look for great talent and a motivated team. Jump in and take a chance right out of school – the risk is easy to afford; much tougher later with families, mortgages, more complex responsibilities. Or choose the big organization, learn and grow, then go small. Either way, enjoy the ride.