Losers Say They’ll Do Their Best. Winners Go Home and…

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At Monday evening’s 24 gathering, as the ping-pong smack talk between local angel investor David Cohen and me began, Brad Feld took me aside, looked me firm in the eye and said, "I want you to beat him, you understand?"

"I’ll do my best, sir," I said to The Man.

"Losers say they’ll do their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen," Brad could have responded (he didn’t), the immortal words from Nicholas Cage in The Rock.

Tuesday morning David showed up at my condo with a water bottle, sports pants, and a tennis tournament t-shirt. I was dressed in baggy shorts and a tight-fitting t-shirt (all my t-shirts seem too tight — guess I’m wearing hand-me-downs from my brothers). We both went into the bathroom and produced urine samples, the standard practice in competitive table tennis. Overdramatization aside, we played five very competitive matches, sweat streaming down my face by the fourth game.

I would have rather not shared who won 3 out of the 5 games, but I guess it’s common knowledge: When I showed up to a Mobius VC company board meeting today, Brad noted, "I hear you lost in ping-pong." I mumbled something incoherent, the guilt like toothpaste out of a tube — once it’s out, it’s out — and Brad repeated, "I hear you lost in ping-pong." I could muster only the most embarrassing of smiles, and pulled out my BlackBerry and typed a quick note: "Kick David Cohen’s ass."

As if an exhausting but nonetheless exhilarating morning of ping-pong wasn’t enough, at noontime Dave Jilk and I hiked Mt. Sanitas in Boulder. It was a beautiful day and intense hike. Dave doesn’t screw around — we charged right up, braving steep inclines and rocks and ice. We reached the summit in about 30 minutes which I’m told is an impressive feat. Thanks Dave for leading me on a fun climb!

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Herzberg: True Motivators vs. Hygiene Factors

Posted inPhilosophy6 Comments on Herzberg: True Motivators vs. Hygiene Factors

A friend mentioned Herzberg’s theory of motivation to me today. Herzberg says there are two kinds of motivational concerns: true motivators and hygiene factors:

Herzberg  (1959) constructed a two-dimensional paradigm of factors affecting people’s attitudes about work. He concluded that such factors as company policy, supervision, interpersonal relations, working conditions, and salary are hygiene factors rather than motivators. According to the theory, the absence of hygiene factors can create job dissatisfaction, but their presence does not motivate or  create satisfaction.

The key idea here is that dissatisfaction and satisfaction can exist on different scales.

This theory can be extended beyond workplace content. For example, when a venture capitalist is considering an investment, s/he must be assured that the hygiene factors are taken care of — the founders’ resumes are truthful, references give thumbs up, the company is incorporated and able to receive investment, and so forth. If these factors don’t check out, it definitely precludes investment. If these factors do check out, it doesn’t mean the investment is prudent; just possible.

Whether you’re an employer trying to motivate employees, or an investor doing due diligence, it seems important to figure out whether you’re focusing on a hygiene factor or a true driver.

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Changing Your Mind in the Executive Suite

Posted inBusiness5 Comments on Changing Your Mind in the Executive Suite

I’ve posted before about why it’s a shame our obsession with "consistency" prevents people from changing their mind. The John Kerry flip-flop saga illuminated this obsession.

Daniel Gross has a piece on Slate about U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney and how his corporate success taught him that changing your views based on the market you’re playing in is common business practice — but it’s not necessarily smart politics:

…Such hypocrisy, which turns off voters, is something like a job requirement for CEOs. In the executive suite, abandoning deeply held attitudes and reversing positions are job requirements. How often have you seen a CEO proclaim that a struggling unit is not for sale, only to put it on the block a few months later? A CEO will praise a product to the skies one day and then cancel it the next. He’ll boast, sincerely, that his company is No. 1 in the industry and then, when he quits the next day to run a rival, claim that the new firm is tops. CEOs take their cues from Mike Damone of Fast Times at Ridgemont High: "Act like wherever you are, that’s the place to be."

These business flips are fine, because in the corporate world, people don’t confuse advocacy of a company’s strategy or products and services with personal honor or integrity. Nobody expects Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott to wear suits made at Wal-Mart, or Sears Chairman Eddie Lampert to furnish his homes with appliances from Sears, or for the gazillionaires behind Triarc to eat lunch at Arby’s.

Good CEOs don’t simply stake out public positions and stick to them for 20 years. They devise new business strategies and business plans to cope with changing market conditions. Energy-company executives who are suddenly eager to do something about global warming aren’t seen as hypocrites, they’re seen as shrewd operators. If the world changes, you don’t simply do and say the same thing. You bring in Bain & Company, commission a study, announce a restructuring, start manufacturing in China.

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Leaving Your Own Brand of Breadcrumbs in the Forest

Posted inRandom4 Comments on Leaving Your Own Brand of Breadcrumbs in the Forest

In Lauren Slater’s introduction to The Best American Essays of 2006 she writes lucidly about the art of the essay. Here’s my favorite thought:

Essay writing is not about facts, although the essay may contain facts. Essay writing is about transcribing the often convoluted process of thought, leaving your own brand of breadcrumbs in the forest so that those who want to can find their way to your door.

Yum. Or how about this, in response to the uproar over her book Opening Skinner’s Box (which I read last year and enjoyed):

Being the object of such predation over an extended period of time has led me to think a lot about the critical role of kindness in writing and in life. It has led me to see that I…have in the past written pieces with too much tooth, something the press generally rewards. I no longer write this way. I cannot abide ill will in my own work, and I dislike it when I see it in the work of others. I now believe that good writing, and good living, must have a core of gentleness.

Good living must have a core of gentleness. I like it.

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To Sharpen a Vague Phrase, To Make Pithier an Old Maxim

Posted inRandom5 Comments on To Sharpen a Vague Phrase, To Make Pithier an Old Maxim

What a skill: to boil down something to its essence, or to sharpen a vague phrase, or to add punch to an otherwise dry paragraph. Ben Franklin had a knack for this, as Walter Isaacson notes in his Franklin biography:

Franklin’s talent was inventing a few new maxims and polishing up a lot of older ones to make them pithier. For example, the old English proverb “Fresh fish and new-come guests smell, but that they are three days old” Franklin made: “Fish and visitors stink in three days.” Likewise, “A muffled cat is no good mouser” became “The cat in gloves catches no mice.” He took the old saying “Many strokes fell great oaks” and gave it a sharper moral edge: “Little strokes fell great oaks.” He also sharpened “Three may keep a secret if two of them are away” into “Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.” And the Scottish saying that “a listening damsel and a speaking castle shall never end with honor” was turned into “Neither a fortress nor a maidenhead will hold out long after they begin to parley.”

I absolutely love little maxims or proverbs. What are your favorites? Do you have a sharper variation on a common truism?

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