Since an article I wrote in June of 2009 called “How a foosball table can kill your startup” is still sparking attention and conversation, I think the time is ripe for me to expand on the topic. Yes, I still believe that tchotchke “benefits” do nothing but waste money. Instead, use your resources to attract new, retain your best talent, and improve your team’s happiness.
Here are additional issues for us to consider…
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I was recently overheard a conversation on the T (Boston’s subway) between two coworkers who were scheming on how to take more “sick time” without getting caught, brown-nose their boss to get what they want, and stay under the radar. These two individuals were corporate cockroaches!
I have an allergy to corporate cockroaches that no EpiPen can cure. They are the spoon of crap that ruins a barrel of honey and the rotten apples in a bushel of good ones. Nothing makes me angrier than those who try to game the system – their actions hurt both their team and company.
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Being in operations, I’m usually the right-hand-man for the CEO (and CFO), and have worked with some fantastic ones and a few who should have let someone else pilot the company. Not everyone is cut out to be a CEO and nowhere is this as evident and crucial as in startups. A good CEO can take the company anywhere he/she dreams it to go.
As I search for a head of operations position and talk to employees and founders of startups, one of the key phrase I am listening for is “my CEO [insert the rest of the sentence]”. That is what I want to hear. Yes, many will say “our CEO”, but there is a difference when someone adds emotion to their alliance and proclaims he works for his/her CEO.
Apolinaras is a business operations leader with 12-year track record of helping companies manage growth, build diverse teams, harness technology, and get a lot more profitable. 
In the late 90’s, the Six Sigma quality improvement process swept through the corporate world, led by early and vocal adapters such as Motorola and GE. For those who are not familiar with Six Sigma, it is a process for making significant quality improvements through a rigorous five-step data- and statistical-based approach (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control). The siblings of Six Sigma, such as Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) and Lean Six Sigma, expand its applicability to new product design and manufacturing flow. You can immerse your products from cradle to grave in the Six Sigma process to achieve total quality control nirvana.
While this may be great if you have the resources of a GE, and are involved with markets and products that are more mature and slow to change, I’m here to tell you that Six Sigma is anathema to the nature of the startup.
“Cutting costs” has been the buzz phrase for the last decade or so. In some cases, companies got drunk on cheap money and plentiful investors, and in others the unchecked management flaws of greed and vanity led to company bloat. Whatever the root cause, we seem to be only treating the symptoms of the problem. We first look at our staff for the “fat”, then our business process, then… well by then it is usually too late. Although I have mastered the art of cutting costs, I am very aware of the reality: you can’t cut/lose fat without cutting into muscle.
So instead of treating the symptoms, how do we avoid the root cause of wasteful spending?
Call me old fashioned, but I cringe every time I hear another claim about how we are moving into the age of “careerism” and “just in time staffing”. Why? Because we always hear about this fad right at the tail end of every downturn. It’s like herpes spread by some “experts” who never had to operate a company.
I am yet to see a substitute for a loyal team – during bad and good times. Earned loyalty takes time to build, compared to need-based loyalty, so you must build a strategy to foster earned loyality long before you need to “cash it in”.
What do I mean by earned loyalty vs. need-based loyalty? Many people are staying with their current companies right now because of need-based loyalty – they have mortgages and car notes to pay. But this type of loyalty has no longevity because the company did not earn it. Yes, I said it: earning the loyalty is completely the job of the company and its leadership.
Progress is a #1 motivator for knowledge workers (money is not even in the top 3) and I think it is what helps keep people loyal. Here are some methods that could help build that earned loyalty…
In 2007, I was interviewing with a later stage stealth startup in Boston. During my conversation with one of the co-founders, I asked about her title. Her answer has stuck with me to this day. She said: “if you are in a startup and have a title, you are not doing enough work“! This sentiment resonated with me and made me think about why big titles are so dangerous.
I have worked for several very innovative “flat hierarchy” companies, where titles were irrelevant, that had rapid growth fueled by passionate employees who always went above and beyond to make customers happy. It is no surprise that at one company we had a 95% customer referral rate and the most loyal customers I have seen in my entire career. I also made the mistake of joining several companies that developed org-charts before they fully figured out what their customers wanted. The result was an environment of heavy office politics, innovation-squashing dictatorships, and clients leaving not too long after discovering the dysfunction. No amount of effort could turn these companies around and two out of the three went out of business.
So why are big titles so dangerous?
