singular choice

Mike Maples is the guy who brought in “pivoting” as an idea.
He is extremely successful as investor and great to listen for any entrepreneur.

I am starting STARTUP FOUNDER MUST SEE series where I will post all speeches, presentations or interviews that are CRUCIAL for those entrepreneur.

Enjoy the 1st post.

Why Not To Do a Startup - Dave McClure from Seattle20 on Vimeo.

And the slides of course are quite useful.

Let me ask you a question, is there 

Strange enough, most of the companies have such situations. And the reason is the illusion many CEO-s have, that there is always have to be a Bad Cop to stimulate results. This is traditional army management scheme.

So, is putting a CTO, CFO or someone else into such role, is just an attempt to make things better, or it is a symptom?

I think the second answer is true, and here is why. 
 

If your company employees are expected to do mechanical work only, no thinking required, this might work for you (it works for McDonald’s). But if your employees are supposed to think during work, the old army trick is disastrous. Putting someone from management pool to take the role of the Bad Cop, is just like officially obligating that person to use brute force against your own people. Certainly, this is the wrong way to solve problems, and speaks about management being short sided and having a tendency of tyranny. Applying brute force can be effective in short-term, but will turn as catastrophe in mid term. There might be systematic problem with the work attitude in the company, and brute force will make it just worse.

I’ve seen some companies where CEO himself takes the role of Bad Cop, and that is the worst that can happen. Everyone in the company looks the direction CEO is looking. That’s the power of management. If there are some problems with results, CEO is needed for guiding the lost ship out of stormy waters. If CEO is trying to  improve things by bruteforcing his own team, the team will be reacting the same way, causing the ship to hit the bottom…