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Keeping Up Appearances
When Snap went public in March, investors had high hopes that they’d see Facebook like returns on their IPO dollars. That might be a stretch, but the thought was that Snap would be a good addition to a portfolio. Since the IPO, shares have fallen by 28% due investor concerns surrounding slowing user growth and lack of profitability. Class actions lawsuits seeking to protect investors have followed.
In the wake of Uber’s troubles, comparisons between Uber’s former CEO Travis Kalanick and Snap’s CEO Evan Spiegel have been common place. Now that Snap is a publicly held company, Spiegel is more likely to lose his job as a result of poor user growth and low profitability. Both are known to be egotistical, brash, and narcissistic and both have gotten in trouble for their comments.
Monday night Snap threw a party in Cannes at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Ironically, there were no cameras allowed in the event and guests were not allowed to take photos. Additionally, journalists were not allowed into the party either. Sounds like Snap likes being in the camera business, but doesn’t want the cameras in its business. Perhaps they are trying to maintain an illusion of austerity in the face of the numerous class action suits or a contrived sense of exclusivity. Meanwhile stateside, Kalanchick resigned Tuesday as CEO of Uber.
When it comes to maintaining illusions, it isn’t just powerful CEOs, but regular people via their social media accounts. Society has created a web of perceived perfection via filters, influencers and viral videos. The illusion becomes dangerous when people can no longer cope with real life against the juxtaposition of the illusion. If your kids were to look at your pics, would they see you or would they see a contrived version of you?
Commit or Quit
I wrote last night about how a single blog post has completely upended Uber’s rocket like trajectory to the top of the business world. Uber and Lyft provided a much needed alternative to current modes of transportation available in our cities. Uber was a head of the game, but a lack of discipline and an abysmal, abusive corporate culture has derailed their ascent to the top.
When you look at the core values of Uber, at least from what can be pieced together through various media and former employees’ reports, are built around winning and only winning. Some of these are toe stepping, make magic, super pumped, and always be hustling. While these are levels of motivation you’d want to see in your employees on the daily, they’re not the only traits or values that you’re looking for them to uphold. Most companies’ core values reflect their goal of making a profit, but they also reflect their goal of making a profit in concert with integrity, great work environment, and responsibility. The core values serve as a guide for all of their employees to make sure the business is run both within the letter of the law and with the utmost integrity.
The establishment of core values for a corporation is important as it signals to employees, customers, and shareholders who you are and wants important to you as a business. When establishing the core values, it is essential that all levels of the organization commit to living within that value set or else you’re operating within a house of cards much like Uber.
Much like any habit, if you say you’re going to commit to running 25-30 miles a week to achieve a PR at our next race, but you only run 10-15 miles a week your PR will likely not materialize. Likewise, if you as a business commit to core values, but do not adhere to all of them, your business practices will not align with your core values. Moreover, as a leader you’ll have little to no credibility with your folks. The lesson is don’t be half pregnant. Don’t preach one things and live another; commit to your goals, your values and stick to them.
House of Cards
Uber had been a darling of the business world for the past couple of years. When my youngest son and I along with his best friend and his mom found ourselves stranded with a couple of strangers at a seedy motel in Union City, GA at 2:00 am. The hotel shuttle dropped us off assuring us we could use our vouchers there. Upon dropping us of at the hotel, the driver collected his kickback and promptly departed. No sooner had the driver left, when the hotel clerk informed us that they did not accept Southwest’s travel vouchers. As the others in the party argued with the hotel clerk, we sat off in the corner with the kids watching as several pimps and their hoes walked in and out of the hotel. There was no way in hell that we were going to stay out of the hotel, but getting a taxi outside of the city was difficult. A businesswomen from Milwaukee, called us two Ubers and booked us hotel rooms as a hotel closer to the airport. Thank god for her and for Uber.
The past couple of months for Uber, much like that night for us, have been nothing but an unmitigated disaster culminating yesterday with the departure of Uber’s CEO. I was reading an article in the paper the other day about the state of Uber and how one blog post has brought the once might company to its knees. In her blog post, Susan Fowler described her very strange year as an employee of Uber. This blog post recounted a number of issues at the company including explicit sexual harassment, career sabotage and gender discrimination to name a few. This blog post by a former engineer ended up going viral setting off a number of earth shaking events at the company.
The lesson for bloggers is that your words matter and your voices can be heard, so use the platform wisely and judiciously. For corporate leaders, consider how your run your teams and your organizations. If your employees were to write a blog post on your leadership, what would they say? Would they recount stories similar to Susan Fowler’s? Leadership is rarely glamorous and often thankless, but when people are treated with respect and made to feel value their opinions of their leaders and organizations will reflect it. Build an organization on respect, valued employees and principled leadership and you won’t find yourself leading an organization built on a house of cards.
For further reading on the Uber debacle:
https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/how-a-single-courageous-voice-led-ubers-ceo-to-resign.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/technology/uber-workplace-culture.html
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/22/uber-cto-thuan-pham-susan-fowler-travis-kalanick
Be Authentic
Who we are, how we lead, how we work, how we parent and decisions we make are all based on a frame work of morals and ethics that were ingrained with us from our youth. Sure over the years, our moral and ethical framework evolves, but the shifts are not crisp, nor are they tectonic in nature. Or are they?
I believe in servant leadership and have practiced it in my current role and at my previous company. My leadership style isn’t and wasn’t based upon a company or management philosophy in place, but rather based on how my moral and ethical framework interprets the role of a corporate leader. In other words, it is authentic to who I am and how I operate. My leadership style has never been a tool of expediency.
There are times in our lives, where it will be tempting to give into expediency and pivot from our ethical framework and our leadership style. Giving into the expediency may result in short term gains, but as a leader the voracity of your character will be questioned by your subordinates and those above you. Before you pivot to expedience, ask yourself if the short term gains will outweigh the longer term ramifications. How will your organization perform if they no longer have faith in you or your intentions? Is it worth the risk? I would argue all day every day that it is never worth the risk.
Establishing a Writing Habit
After a decade long break from writing, I picked it up again when I started this blog in late April. Rusty and out of practice, it felt both good and terrifying all at once. Inspired to write by the circumstances of my life, I felt compelled to create this blog. Writing provides me with a creative outlet and a platform to help others. Many people start writing, painting or another creative outlet because they’re inspired by their life’s circumstances, but they don’t continue pursuing their art as their inspiration wanes.
The thing with inspiration is that it is not constant. It is fickle and ever changing. If we rely only on inspiration to drive our craft, than we are likely lose interest as our inspiration wanes. Rather than relying on inspiration, rely on habit. Make your craft a part of your daily routine. This will make it a way of life and not reliant upon the fickle nature of inspiration.
The draw in participating the daily prompt for me was exactly that. It has been to establish writing as an important part of my daily routine. This will help me polish my writing skills and ensure my blog doesn’t become just a flash in the pan.
Imaginary Troubles
If you’re like me, ever since children entered the picture, sleep has been an issue. While you may have been a deep sleeper before, you now wake up at the drop of a pin. God forbid your dogs bark or your partner snores because then you won’t even be able to fall asleep. The problem with this of course is that as you try to sleep and can’t, the mind starts racing. Sadly late at night, the mind never goes to a good place. It goes into your psyche and taps into your anxieties and fears.
Once those ruminations start, they are hard to stop and you find yourself struggling to slow your racing mind. These imaginary obstacles have your heart racing and your brain on overdrive. When you do finally fall asleep, the anxiety may abate temporarily only to resurface the following day. It is an odd facet of human nature that we are inclined to ruminate about a past that we cannot change and a future that we cannot predict. These ruminations can become overwhelming if you allow them.
If you find yourself obsessing over potential issues or obstacles in the future, stop. Just as you cannot change your past, you cannot live by focusing on future problems. To be clear, you can exist, but you cannot live. Your life will pass you by if your time is focused on your past or on your future. Focus on your present, the people you love and that which you can control.
Life will hand you difficult hands, but you are much better equipped to deal with the difficulty than your worries suggest. The struggles you worry about often seem insurmountable, but when faced with actual struggles you will overcome them. Have faith in your strength and in the strength of your relationships, which will help carry you through the difficult times.
A year of loss…
There are times in our lives that we are brought to our knees by the pain of loss and the weight of responsibility. Apparently 2017 has decided to be that time in my life and the lives of those I love. 2017 has been a year of profound loss and its only May 3rd. It began with the loss of a beloved employee, the loss of a friend’s child, the loss of a dear friend, and the loss of a dear friend’s sister. Today life handed us another loss.
When I started at Kaplan eight years ago, having recently been laid off from Progressive, my confidence was shaken. Progressive had been my first and only job after college. The idea of starting all over after seven years was daunting.
My first day at KU, I was met by a charismatic trainer with a Brooklyn accent and more energy than anyone I had ever met. He was Pete. He was passionate about what he did and took pride in training admissions advisors to service our military students. Pete believed in me from day one and for that I will always be grateful. I feel blessed to have had him as my trainer, advocate and an early champion of mine at KU. Sometimes all it takes to restore confidence is having someone believe in you again. I was utterly devastated when I learned that we lost him early this morning. He left us way too early and our hearts are broken. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family especially his beautiful daughter, who was his pride and joy.
Whether unexpected or not, these losses have been tremendously hard to stomach. Losing someone before they hit middle age is cruel, but nothing in life is guaranteed especially our time here on earth. Life is too short to be taken for granted. Life is too short to settle for mediocrity and a life that does not make our soul sing. To be clear, I’m not saying everything should be rainbows and ponies. I am saying that while we are on this earth: we should embrace life’s experiences not possessions, embrace work that leaves us fulfilled not empty and embrace and enrich the relationships that shape our lives.
