The Mormon Way

I just finished Jeff Benedict's The Mormon way of doing business. I picked the book up because of some reviews coming out because of the Romney Campaign. Based on the online reviews, the book incited two responses - this it the best book ever because it shows good Mormons succeeding by being good Mormons, or this book sucks because it isn't a business how to book.

The Mormon way is not a business book in the sense of how to do business. It is not a religious book in the sense of how to live successfully. It is an interesting piece of investigative journalism. The basic premise sounds like the plot of an epic novel: five relatively high-powered businessmen and their wives living parallel lives in the same congregation, the New Canaan Ward. They work in New York City and Boston, and travel the world. They lead their organizations through the attacks on the World Trade Center while keeping family first. The and their organizations persevere and thrive.

We have ten extremely driven competitive individuals who also had a no compromise attitude when it came toward family life and religious devotion. The no compromise attitude tended to moderate destructive business practices. The competitive drive can be a very ugly side to North American Mormon culture - I've lived in locations where Mormon church basketball had a reputation for being the roughest and meanest in town - too much trying to win, not enough trying to play well.

I really doubt The Mormon way is representative of how Mormons do business, or don't do business. I remember my mission president's wife sharing that her grandfather who was not Mormon, wouldn't do business with a Mormon who was not in good standing with the Church. He had been cheated too many times - he didn't feel they were trustworthy. In my professional life, I've encountered Mormons apparently in good standing, I would not do business with. I suspect there are people from other religious faiths may have a similar approach to balancing family and business.

The Mormon way offers no insight into small business owners. There are plenty of Mormon entrepreneurs, if only because more than half the population of Utah is Mormon. We have no idea how Mormons balance family life when working for themselves. We don't know if they share the same traits as the ten people in the book, or if they've found other solutions or made different choices.

The Mormon way is worth reading. It is a good piece of investigative reporting and it describes an interesting group of people brought together at a very interesting time.

The Mormon way of doing business : leadership and success through faith and family, Jeff Benedict, New York : Warner Business Books, 2007.

You are what you measure

Weight is a wonderfully loaded measure. It is very concrete - concrete generally weighs between 110 and 150 pounds per square foot.

Weight is something most people have direct experience with. We know from a very early age what heavy and light are. It is our window into gravity and mass, our connection to the earth, our reminder that we are earthbound even if we can temporarily leap into space.

Body weight is considered a proxy for health. In the west, we've come to associate it as a measure of health, but it is really only an indicator of health: weight doesn't tell you a lot of important things. For example, generally losing weight is considered a good thing, but that would ignore causes. Anorexia, amputation, and starvation could all be causes of weight loss. None of these are associated with good health.

Weight gain is associated with ill-health, but is considered an indicator of proper growth and care for small children. There are deep concerns when a small child isn't gaining enough weight. And concerned for future eating disorders if the child is gaining too much. Weight gain is expected for pregnant women, with an expectation that it would only be healthy to lose weight should the woman be severely obese and be closely monitored to ensure proper nutrition for the woman and the baby.

Ideal weight is generally given as a range and needs additional measurements like height and age. A healthy weight range for a 6 foot tall, 50 year old male, is different than the healthy weight range for a 4 ft 6 in tall eighty year old woman.

Weight might be viewed as a success measure for a change in diet or increased exercise, but generally the results will not be seen immediately, or may not be seen at all. For example rapid weight loss is often associated with dehydration, not health. And there are benefits to a good diet and adequate exercise that go beyond weight loss, like more energy, better mental health, and potentially longer life.

So before you get on that scale think about what you are measuring and why. Think about the context for the measurement. Think about what you are trying to accomplish. Think about what your long term goals are. And remember there is more to health than weight. And weight is just a number.

Taking Shortcuts

Shortcuts can cause a lot of problems. William and I had a small conflict. We disagreed on whether or not he should be able to use a shortcut for reading music.

His teacher and I are trying to teach William to read music. This is extremely hard because William has a great ear, if he hears something he can play it. So getting him to read music is a challenge - it's hard and he doesn't see a need for it yet. We've been trying a three pronged approach -

1. He has flash cards that have all the notes that can be played on a violin in first position. When we flip the cards he needs to recall two pieces of information - the name of the note and how to play it on the violin. 
2. He has been going through rhythm excesses calling out the rhythm of written notes. 
3. He has been playing easy fiddle pieces by reading the sheet music. The fiddle tunes are interesting and offer some variety to the classical pieces he is playing.

About two weeks ago, I noticed a problem with the latest fiddle piece William was working on - he was getting the notes right, but the rhythm was wrong. I pointed it out to him referring to the music, I thought he was reading. We counted the music. He kept making the same mistake. I diagnosed the problem as concentrating on getting the right note and ignoring the time value. It took a lesson to actually find out the problem - William was taking a short cut.

On the pages of the fiddle book we're using there is encoded in letters and number the finger an string that needs to be played for each note. Of course there is no rhythm encoded in the coding. William was using the encode letters and number as a short cut to play the right notes. I covered the letters and numbers. William couldn't play. He was frustrated and insisted reading the actual sheet music was too hard. I over reacted and started an unnecessary lecture. And we took some time away from each other to cool off.

Here is what I learned:

• Make sure you have the right diagnosis - counting the rhythm didn't solve the problem, because I had the wrong diagnosis - the problem was not that he was struggling with the notes on the staff line - he was ignoring them all together.
• Be careful with the shortcuts you offer - you may be undermining your long term goals.
• Make sure you communicate intermediate and long term goals - William was focused on the short term goal of playing a single piece of music. His teacher and I are focused on the intermediate goal of giving William the skills to learn music in three different ways - by having some teach it to him; by hearing it and working it out himself; and by reading sheet music. He could be successful with only one of the three, but we would really like him to be able to do all three. And my long term goal is for William to learn that hard things become easy with practice, and hard things are often worthwhile and enjoyable things.
• Remember your long term goals and don't over react. 
• Admit when you are wrong and make corrective adjustments

White space time - Fallout

White space time is on of the most powerful ways to foster innovation in an organization. This post mortem with Tim Cain - the lead developer on the the computer role playing game Fallout, is a prime example for why white space - letting people choose what to work on, fosters great work and innovation.

If you are a gamer, or a serious computer geek, listen to all 58 minutes. If not listen to the first 10 minutes and the last 5 minutes where Tim Cain describes how the team worked - he was a team of one and had to get after hours volunteers, and how he felt about the team - they were great to work with.

Teaching William

My son is easily distracted. School is starting next week. This could be a challenge. Or may be not. The downside is if there is a television on anywhere in his vicinity, he will turn into a mindless zombie. But he also will pick up a book, magazine, or graphic novel and be equally engrossed. Legos have the same effect. Amazingly creative ideas come spilling out when he is playing.

So here is my observation from the summer - if we want my son to learn and to love learning, drop a pile of engrossing books on his desk relevant to the subjects he needs to learn, and leave him alone. He will be more engrossed and learn far more than he would if we tried to teach him.

Risk Adverse

In the movie (and book) Moneyball, Billy Beane is faced with the task of replacing an all star with a limited budget. His recruiting staff is looking for  ways to assess players (workers) and have a list of requirements. The requirements they are coming up with are absurd and don't deal with the reality that the team doesn't have the money needed to hire an all star. Billy Beane tried with limited success to use different requirements to replace one all star with other players using on base percentage (OPB) to evaluate potential candidates.

Think of it this way, your team needs a 40/40 man who can compere for the batting title. This is someone with the speed and power of Barry Bonds on steroids, and with the finesse and patience of Ichiro Suzuki or Derek Jeter. And you want him to take the minimum salary and be a proven performer. In reality if such a player exists, he's going to be expensive, or cheating, or be unknown. Or  you are going to need to use Billy Beane's strategy and hire three players, all of who will be a bit more than the minimum salary but less than your all star.

In a way the player I've described is like the job ads my Father used to make fun of -

Entry level engineer. Mechanical or Structural. Must have ten years experience with ISO9001. A proven leader. Be able to lead projects. Background reviewing architectural drawings and CAD preferred. Management experience preferred.

Of course there are no entry level engineers with 10 years experience. I have heard recruiters have taken to calling these kinds of jobs - unicorns or purple squirrels - things that don't exist. Apparently the issue is some employers don't know what they want or are looking for "perfect" instead of "good enough". Businessmen don't like to take risks, and taking anything less that perfect is a risk. It's also a risk to leave a position unfilled and work undone. People don't get fired until something critical breaks. Or as the saying goes no one ever got fired for buying IBM. No one gets fired for not hiring a good enough candidate, but plenty get fired for hiring people that aren't good enough. So the message is clear, if you want to keep your job, play it safe.

Billy Beane's thinking could suggest some alternatives to stay in business and keep competitive. Here are some ideas:

1. Remember people can learn. What appear as gaps may be opportunities that can be filled quickly with a little training. Make certain minimum requirements reflect needs and not wants. You may want someone with experience in your industry, or someone who knows your particular brand of software. Both of these can be filled quickly if the individual can learn and if you are willing to teach.
2. Be realistic about costs. You may not be able to offer better than average wages, but you can offer a good work environment, and a good community. You may find if you live in a relatively low cost community and can offer a good work environment, candidates would consider to work for you. What may appear to be a pay cut, can work the other way if the candidate receives something of value. I have seen people take apparent pay cuts for  things like better schools for their children, shorter commute times, or more autonomy in when and how they do their work.
3. Consider hiring more than one person. If you can't find some one with all of your requirements you may be able to find more than one person with some of your requirements. 

Do you have any other ideas that could help hiring managers find better candidates?

More on how companies could be creating a skills gap:

Search for the Perfect Job Candidate an Imperfect Strategy
Why Good People Can't Get Jobs: The Skills Gap and What Companies Can Do About It

Feedback Loops

One of the main challenges to the Theory of Evolution is Spontaneous Generation. Not the largely discredited folk theory that life pops up out of nothing, but the nearly undefinable moment when un-living matter becomes Life. It is that instant when some process becomes self-sustaining, self replicating and separate from its environment. Right now for chemical based life, the best guess hypothesis involves the idea of auto-catalytic loops. Auto-catalytic loops are the bio-chemical equivalents of placing a microphone too close to a speaker. If they don't have some sort of regulation, the process soon spins out of control consuming all the available resources, and dies from starvation. So at some point a collection of interconnected loops might have been separated out of the primordial goo, and could have started self replicating and had enough regulators to respond to external conditions. In essence you want feedback loops that create enough, not too much, or too little of something.

Only recently bio-chemists have been understanding the importance of regulators. Some cancers can be thought of as poorly regulated loops. People have long observed patches of DNA that were considered "junk" that produced small RNA strings, or microRNA. It turns out microRNA can act as a regulator for some processes. And some cancers have a genetic origin in these bits of microRNA, either because the microRNA is not restricting the process enough or the microRNA is over restricting the process.

In some ways this is analogous to the ways we communicate in organizations. If leaders under regulate communications, you may compromise your clients' or employees' privacy, or your organizations security. If leaders over regulate communications, leaders may not get important information and may unintentionally foster a culture of blame. I have observed the following unintentional bad communication policies:

Don't tell me you have a problem unless you have a solution. I remember a quality initiative that wanted to include employees. There were two important caveats. First, employees need to solve the problems and second, any problems that involved the provided software tools were off limits. I'm sure the corporate leaders thought they were sending the following message - we care about your work and want to empower you to make it better and easier. The message many employees received was - we won't invest time or money in you, fix your own problems. The end result was employees lost interest in the quality initiative, and stopped telling their managers about problems.

The Performance Improvement Plan is a tool managers use to salvage an employee who is not performing adequately. It is a way to clearly communicate expectations and required actions. It is a way to reform a "bad" employee into a "good" employee. Typically, when an employee is under a performance improvement plan, they are not permitted to apply for any other jobs in the company. The manager is hoping to communicate - we care about your contribution to our organization and would like to help you continue to make a contribution in your current role, and I'm going to be committed to working with you until that happens. The message the employee may receive is - it's my way or the highway. Generally, employees either leave the organization, or stop communicating honestly with their managers and become compliant yes men.

I've also observed some really good practices that regulated communications.

Periodically attend team meetings. Several years ago, I had a vice-president who would attend product review meetings. He didn't attend every one - there were over 20 departments with 3 teams each, but he attended often enough that everyone in the lab knew who he was. This sent two strong messages - I care about what you are doing and regardless of your positions you can talk to me.

Eating in the common Cafeteria can be another effective way to regulate communications. It makes a leader visible. The same vice-president ate at least two days a week in the lab cafeteria. At least two days a week, the vice-president was sending the message, I'm just like you and you can talk to me.

Get rid of the executive bathroom. My Father has a friend who is a plumber. He's a very down to earth guy who speaks in a very direct manner. This is the advice he gave to mutual acquaintance who was starting a machine shop with two partners. If you want to know what your people are doing, don't have an executive bathroom. The message sent when you don't have an executive bathroom, is I'm no better than you, you can talk to me.

What good practices have you seen? Leave a comment.

More information about microRNA:

High Hopes for a New Kind of Gene, Sylvia Pagán Westphal, Smithsonian Magazine, July 2009