Mentelligence

What's Wrong With Our Republic

2011-12-23T22:39:00.002-05:00

I love our Republic. I love letting people start companies and hire other people and make money commensurate with the value they create for society. I believe people should be able to keep that money and do with it as they please.

I also think we should help people in need. All the time. In the best way possible - even if that means letting them fail and watching them fail, and waiting to help them until they want help.

But our 200+ year old political system is broken. Serving the country's interest should be a BURDEN not an aspiration for those who crave power. I hate Democrats. I hate Republicans. I hate anyone who drinks the poisonous Kool-Aid of either party. They're both extreme positions and the best thing they can do is make the other look worse than them. No virtue is found in those who spend 24 months in Congress blaming everyone else for the failures of the Republic.

Read Atlas Shrugged. Or at least watch the movie. I'm not a Democrat or a Republican. I'm a Capitalist. Of each, according to their ability. I'm not a Socialist. Which is To each, according to their need. And I can be a Capitalist with a heart - I love to give away my money to those who deserve help and support. What I don't like is giving my money to people who abuse the ability to tax me, then give my money to people who don't deserve it but expect it.

I miss my kids, and that's okay

2010-05-18T21:37:00.000-04:00

For the past week my wife and I have been traveling in Australia. We try to take a vacation together every spring. For now, these vacations are without our two sons, who are 3 and 2 years old. Today marks the longest either of us have been apart from our sons.

A big part of me feels guilty for leaving our boys for trips like this. But these trips are exceedingly important to keep our marriage healthy, and to be good parents to our boys. Nicole and I have reconnected again and are having a great time exploring a new country together. We've climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge, toured through Sydney, held lizards and pet kangaroo at the Taronga Zoo, enjoyed a dinner in a restaurant right beside the Sydney Opera House, saw the 12 Apostles along the Great Ocean Road, and did some serious shopping in the Victoria Marketplace. Most importantly, Nicole has been able to reconnect with her sister Chris who lives in Melbourne.

Getting our boys here would have been difficult. It's a 4-1/2 hour flight to Los Angeles from Atlanta - which would have been hard enough on the boys. Then comes the 15-hour flight from LAX to Sydney. I wouldn't want to put my boys - or the other passengers - through that unless it was absolutely necessary.

The alternative would have been to not go. We could have done a family vacation. But truth be told, family vacations with toddlers aren't really vacations for anyone.

When two people fall in love and have children, it's natural for the couple to turn all of their attention towards the kids for years at a time. Eventually they forget why they were in love in the first place. Last year Nicole and I took a cruise around the Caribbean for 5 days. We reconnected then, and made a promise to each other to take a trip once a year - alone - in order to stay connected.

So while it may seem selfish to leave the kiddies with Grandma (who's doing a wonderful job watching over them) and bolt to the other side of the planet, it's actually in their best interests. Parents who love each other and stay connected make for the best parents of all.

The Price of Freedom

2010-04-12T19:35:00.002-04:00

So I've officially been the General Manager of Coolfire Solutions for about one week. It's been one of the most exciting times of my life. Between me and the other four people that make up the newly created company, we get to choose everything.

We get to decide what the culture will be in the company.

We get to choose what software we'll use for collaboration and communication.

We even get to pick out our logo and branding image.

That's the fun part of starting a company. Unfortunately, the price of that freedom from the corporate bondage we all seek to escape at some point in our life is a bit heftier than one might assume.

I'll be working a lot over the next few years. A lot. I'll be traveling a lot, and when I'm not traveling, I'll be thinking about all the things that general managers think about. I'll make mistakes and stress over them. I'll have to deal with issues I won't want to deal with. And I'll always wonder if we're leaving money on the table or doing what's best for the owners.

The price of freedom, as someone once said, is eternal vigilance. So with my freedom from the TPS reports and senseless restrictions imposed by my former multi-billion-dollar employers comes the 'always just a bit hungry' feeling that many entrepreneurs crave.

But I've got to tell you...at least at this point, the price has definitely been worth it.

Never, Ever Lie.

2010-04-02T18:38:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago in my leadership class at Georgia State, we conducted another class exercise. So far on these class exercises I’m 0-3. But as I said before, we do some of our best growing when we fail.

In this particular exercise, the professor sent half the class into the lobby, and then told those of us left in the classroom that we had 10 minutes to come up with a plan to get those people back into the classroom.

She then left the classroom – presumably to give instructions to the people in the lobby.

We strategized on how to best get those folks back into the classroom. The prevailing strategy was to convince them that it would be in their best interests to come back in because of something we couldn’t tell them. We would each target a specific individual with whom we had built a strong relationship, and basically wear them down until we could dupe them into coming back into the classroom.

It was my job to bring my friend Rosalie – the only other student from my Alpharetta cohort (this particular class is taught at another Georgia State campus in Buckhead) – back into the classroom.

I brought her a drink and sat down next to her. I spent about 5 minutes convincing her that there was a really good reason that I couldn’t tell her about to come back into the classroom.

All I could focus on was getting her in to that room. I was focused on winning.

Once the entire class was back together, the teacher asked us to explain the instructions we were given – which was to get the other folks back into the classroom.

She then asked the other group to explain what their instructions were. Rosalie informed all of us that their instructions were to only come back to the classroom if they believed we were being honest.

Zing. This, my friends, is what we call a lifetime learning moment.

I had intentionally lied to Rosalie. Not explicitly, per se, but I wasn’t truthful with her. And I had convinced her that I was telling the truth.

I was devastated. I hadn’t felt that ashamed about myself in a long time. I was absolutely focused on winning, and sold out my integrity to win.

When we’re presented with a business situation where we’re asked to lie, usually we respond by taking the high road, or finding a way out of the situation. But because this was only a class exercise, I didn’t focus on any of that. I focused on winning. And I probably damaged a great friendship in doing so.

I hope that Rosalie will in time forgive me. More importantly, I hope that I can regain her trust, because I value her as a friend and cohort mate.

Of all the lessons I’ve learned in this MBA program, that one was the most painful, and the most costly. And the most important.

Never, ever lie.

Note: These entries and the rest of my blog can be found at http://mentelligence.blogspot.com

Safety in Numbers

2010-03-26T15:05:00.001-04:00

For years I’ve found myself sensing trends before they happen. I’ve come up with ideas that aren’t adopted by the mainstream for several years. On more than one occasion I’ve suggested something, only to have it shot down as nonsensical by someone, and then hear that same person evangelizing the idea as if it were his own six months later.

This time I came up with an idea with some of my friends and decided to see it through. For the first six months, other than my friends and colleagues who saw the same potential I did, I was generally told it was a bad idea that would never work.

If it weren’t for those close friends and colleagues (you know who you are) I probably would have walked away from this idea as well.

I found safety in numbers.

I saw a video on YouTube of a guy dancing all by himself on the side of a hill at what I guess to be Oktoberfest in Germany, or something like that. The voiceover explains how when the leader is all by himself, he’s not a leader – he’s an individual. But the second person that joins him makes him a leader by assuming the ‘first follower’ role. Pretty soon a hundred or more people are joining in and an instant rave is created.

If you are constantly finding yourself out of alignment with your coworkers and management team, chances are you are in the wrong culture. This cuts both ways – you could be the risk-averse person who believes a return to core fundamentals is more appropriate than the high-risk ventures you’re finding yourself surrounded by. In my case, I’ve grown up in a risk-averse industry with a history of being reactionary and protocol-driven. I wasn’t a visionary – I was a loud-mouth kid with off-the-wall ideas about how to erode margins more quickly.

The key to cultivating your strengths is to share your ideas with people who think like you. As I said in an earlier blog, you have to protect your ideas from those who would seek to destroy anything outside the norms defined by the current and the past.

I am very fortunate for having met so many visionaries who believe in a common goal with me. I encourage all of you to seek like-minded folks who believe just as much as you do in a brighter future.

And if you can’t find anyone, send me an email with your idea. I’ll be your first follower.

Note: These entries and the rest of my blog can be found at http://mentelligence.blogspot.com

Time Out

2010-03-11T11:44:00.001-05:00

Have you ever wanted to just get away from everything for 3 days and go sequester yourself in a cabin in the mountains to really think about where you are in life? Well, I did that this week.

It wasn’t a very popular idea. My wife has been luke-warm about it. Most likely because she needs a 3-day vacation from the kids more than I need personal reflection time. My mother-in-law won’t even look at me. I guess in her eyes what I’m doing this week is selfish and indicative of me not wanting to have anything to do with my family.

But I did it anyway. And it has changed my life for the better.

The pessimist in me considers this my ‘half-time’ break in life. At 34, based on my family medical history, I’m pretty much halfway done with life. The optimist in me hopes this is more of a break between the first and second periods (as in a 3-period hockey game). Either way, this retreat was all about resetting my priorities and getting the next six months of my life organized.

I spent the first day taking a look at my priorities. I realized that my priorities are exactly reverse of what they should be. I’ve reorganized my priorities to better reflect what kind of person I want to be. My priorities now, and hopefully for the next 34 years, are:

Spend time with God
Put my family first
Follow the golden rule
Take care of myself
Choose to have a good attitude
Have a passion to learn and lead
Give back more than I take

The second day I spent nearly 18 hours building my business plan and analyzing what I plan to do for our new company to get us going as quickly, efficiently, and productively as possible. It’s one thing to jetset around the country talking about what an awesome idea we have. It’s another to build a targeted call plan, plan trips to save time and money, and tie those customer interactions into a greater strategic plan aligned with our goals for the company itself.

The third day is all about building the bridge between where I am today and where I want to be in my life. As I said, I realize now that my priorities were really out of whack with what I wrote above. So I’m making some personal goals for myself to help keep me focused on these seven priorities (or rules of life). For example, now that I’ll be working from home, I plan to give my wife some free time every day between 1-4PM. Imagine 3 hours of personal free time as a stay-at-home-mom. I know she needs it, and as long as I’m home I can give it to her – if I agree that my family always comes first (before work, school, and me).

I don’t expect to get an opportunity like this again for a very, very long time, so I’m making the most of it. I know that I’ll have paid a premium to have this time alone (especially in the eyes of my mother-in-law) but the positive effect it will have on my family, friends, and soon-to-be coworkers is incalculable, and definitely worth the premium.

Note: These entries and the rest of my blog can be found at http://mentelligence.blogspot.com

The First Billion is the Hardest

2010-02-27T09:40:00.002-05:00

I’m reading a great book called $1,000 and an Idea by Sam Wyly. Sam is a self-made billionaire. His parents lost most everything they had when Sam was a child in the Great Depression. He grew up in a wooden cabin with no electricity on a soy farm in rural Louisiana. He worked very hard at doing the right things and doing things right, and never gave up on an idea he had involving computers back in the late 50’s and early 60’s.

He was a multi-millionaire by the age of 30, and worth more than $1.1B as of 2006. He is #356 on the Forbes Fortune 400 – the list of the 400 most wealthy Americans.

So what separates a billionaire from the rest of us? How did he get to become so incredibly wealthy? In my humble opinion, Sam is no different than the millions of other entrepreneurial men and women who are out there looking for opportunities. I honestly believe a lot of his success has more to do with luck and timing than skill.

The great thing about Capitalism (and why free market economics work when social and progressive programs don’t) is that it rewards hard work and perseverance. Sam had an idea to create a computer network back in the 1950s. He was thinking of how to build and market the Internet nearly 40 years before it was first referred to as the World Wide Web. Sam created a company with no more than $1,000 in collateral, and grew it into a multi-billion dollar international conglomerate. He started other companies and even helped break up the AT&T and Bell monopolies.

All of us have entrepreneurial ideas. Anyone who takes classes on weekends and evenings, or reads business books, or follows blogs on the Web, or has ever thought “this could be easier if…” has come up with at least one idea that could make money in either a big company, a startup, or just as a part-time hobby.

The biggest difference between us and Sam, at the end of the day, is that Sam went ahead and took a chance.

T. Boone Pickens, a multi-billionaire who made most of his money in Texas oil, wrote a book called The First Billion is the Hardest. If I gave you $100, you could probably turn it into $200 pretty easily by working hard and using the $100 to live on for a week, while making $200 doing odd jobs. If I gave you $1,000,000, you could potentially turn it into $2,000,000 by investing it wisely in good businesses. If I gave you $1,000,000,000, you’d probably just freak out. But what is the difference between $100 and $1B? Not much really, if you follow the template you created over and over. That’s what Boone did.

Now that I’m just a few weeks from starting up our new company at CoolFire, I’ve realized that there really isn’t much difference between us and the self-made billionaires. I think 3 or 4 decisions in their lives separate them from being worth $1M and $1B. Sam made his money by being a great innovator and a good guesser of what’s next. I identify with that and hope my skills, and a lot of luck, will put me in a similar position someday.

So what is the takeaway from this blog? In America (at least before it is further socialized anyway), anyone with $1,000 and an idea can become a self-made billionaire. It turns out the difference between us and them isn’t as great as one might think.

If you have an idea, you can find $1,000 somewhere. And then you, too, can be a billionaire.

Note: These entries and the rest of my blog can be found at http://mentelligence.blogspot.com

Risk

2010-02-19T19:48:00.005-05:00

I've been waiting to write this blog entry for a long time.

I quit my day job to chase my dream.

This week, I resigned from my very stable, very comfortable job at a major defense contractor. I had a perfectly good job and an accelerated career path at a Fortune 70 company. I had a good bit of autonomy, and my job consisted of being a networker, socializer, and generally just someone customers could come to with ideas, problems, or needs.

Starting in April, I will be starting a new company with CoolFire in St. Louis, MO. Our company will focus on adapting high-tech commercial equipment (such as iPhones, iPads, and other whiz-bang electronics) into ruggedized and efficient equipment to be used by the US Department of Defense. We'll also be doing all sorts of other stuff as well with the DoD.

I'm scared out of my mind.

Who quits a perfectly good job in a recession? Who walks away from a 15 year career in a niche field like Satellite Communications? Especially to start a new company without any idea of what our biggest product will be in 12 months?

Well, I did. And as scared as I am, I am certain at my very core that I'm doing the right thing.

I'm taking a risk, but a very calculated one. Risk, as we have all come to learn over the past few years, is something that can't ever be escaped. Even those of us with the most secure jobs were rattled by the downturn that took out so many of our neighbors, friends, and co-workers.

I'm walking away from a guaranteed paycheck. But I'm creating a new opportunity for me to do things I never could do in a corporate role. I am leaving behind the safety and security that comes with my previous role, but replacing that with unrestrained and wide-open potential to do great things.

The analogy I like to use is this: My career up until this point has been a very successful ground game. I have been getting a few yards each play, consistently hitting first downs, and just moving the ball down the field slowly and steadily. This opportunity is a shot down the field. Yeah - I could miss. Or, I could score a touchdown.

There's another kind of risk that's really driven me to this decision. The risk of being insignificant. My parents passed away in their early 50's. None of my grandparents made it out of their 70's. I've already got high cholesterol and elevated liver enzymes. My point is that life really is shorter than we realize when we're nose to the grindstone at work.

How many of us dream about leaving our daily grind to go do something that we love to do? How many of us talk about changing the world? How many of us actually do something about it? I have talked with so many friends for so many years about doing something like this, yet it never got past semi-serious conversation. When this opportunity came along, I knew that if I didn't take it, I'd have to stop talking about taking a chance someday. In my eyes, I would have lost the right to dream big.

What I've learned so far in this process is that the first step is the hardest. My wife's favorite saying is "A journey of 1,000 miles starts with a single step". I took that step this week. There's no going back now.

To those of you who dream of similar goals in their lives, I'll say this. Ask yourself why you wouldn't take that fist step and chase your dream. If your answer is fear, then you need to check your courage meter. All of us have reasons why we can't just quit our job - and I'm not advocating that. There are ways to start chasing your dream while paying the bills. Read Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk, or better yet - watch his keynote speech where he explains how to chase your dream the right way.

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." - Ambrose Redmoon

Yes. I'm taking a risk. But it's a calculated one. I have a greater chance of failure than I did before I made this decision. I also have a chance to change the world for the better. And by taking this risk, I have mitigated an even greater risk - insignificance. But most importantly, I will be able to stand tall and answer with a knowing smile when my sons ask me if they should take a chance at something in life. You can't teach how to understand risk if you don't understand it yourself.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

- Rudyard Kipling

Failing Forward

2010-02-12T11:47:00.003-05:00

I’ve certainly failed a lot lately.

On Saturday, during our Leadership & Organizational Behavior class, the class was presented with a challenge. Stack as many wooden blocks on top of one another as possible. Simple. The team who stacks the most blocks wins. The trick? The person placing the block is blindfolded and has to use his/her non-dominant hand. Another person gives verbal instructions. Each team member rotates positions as each block is placed.

Mentelligence, never a team to shy away from a big challenge, went for the gusto. We were going to stack 27 blocks. We got to 25 and it all came crashing down. Another team settled for 26 and won. They took a more conservative approach and won. We tried to stretch the limits of what’s possible and failed.

Last night, during my other Leadership class (yes, two leadership classes in one semester), our professor presented us with a negotiation challenge. Three companies, A, B, C, each needed to negotiate a coalition with another company in order to stay alive. The company that was left out ceased to exist. There are only two outcomes from this challenge: two teams will win and one will lose, or all three teams will lose. There were three rounds of negotiation. In each round A met privately with B, then A met privately with C, then B met privately with C. I was on B.

My team came up with a strategy to team with C since we were the last ones to meet in the last round. We figured if we locked up C early on, we could coast through to the end, and in the last round make sure we were still on the same page – not having to worry about A convincing one of us to change our minds. We met with A and basically played around with them in our first meeting. We left the room while A and B met. We came back and laid our plan out for C. But C had already struck a deal with A. We thought our advantage was that we went last. Instead, we wasted our advantage in going first.

I’ve had some other failures lately as well. Some are very personal, some professional, some minor and some major. For the most part, I’ve felt very ashamed and disheartened about some of these failures. I know they are my fault and a direct result of actions I took knowing full well what I was doing. I can’t and won’t pin the blame for my actions on circumstances, situations, or external events – my mistakes are my own.

But last night got me thinking about failure a little differently. I know I failed. I’m not a good negotiator – I knew that going in to the game. I’m too direct and overpowering in my presentation. I don’t hide emotion well. So it was easy to pin my failure on a weakness and move on.

But my weak negotiation skills are not why I failed.

Thinking about the failure in an objective way and listening to the feedback from the teams and external observers, I learned that I failed in the strategy, not just the execution. I’ve always considered strategy a strong suit, so this isn’t something I wanted to hear.

That’s when it occurred to me. Failing during these two experiences was the best thing that could have happened to me.

When we win, we are left with a sense of self-confidence and reassurance that what we are doing is good and right. When we fail, however, one of two things can happen. We can feel bad about ourselves and believe we have found a limitation. Or, we can analyze why the failure occurred, and change ourselves for the better.

John Maxwell wrote in his famous book Failing Forward that “the difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure”. He teaches that we learn little from success and a lot from failure – if we are willing to look at our failure in the right light (objectively and candidly).

I’ve grown a lot this month, because I failed a lot this month. I intend to keep right on failing, and hopefully learn from my failures. So, you’ll understand when I wish you all the failure in the world.

Note: These entries and the rest of my blog can be found at http://mentelligence.blogspot.com

Hunters and Farmers

2010-02-03T17:30:00.003-05:00

I just finished reading a blog post by Seth Godin about how humanity diverged about 10,000 years ago. Half of us became farmers - sweating the details, focusing on the nuances of grains, soils, harvest yields, etc. Half of us remained hunters - spending countless hours half-absently noticing everything and spending a few moments each day in frenzied attack.

I loved this particular blog post from Seth. It demonstrates how different so many of us are from one another at the very core of our personalities. Schools are designed to teach farmers, while hunters struggle to pay attention. Tradeshows are designed to attract hunters, but booths are typically staffed with farmers. And the worst dichotomy in the business world? Venture capital requires a hunter to get the funding but a farmer to meticulously grow the business.

As leaders, our primary responsibility is to align the interests of a group of individuals towards one goal. It's easy for a hunter-leader to assume all of his supporters are motivated the same way he is - through shiny flashy things and the challenge and thrill of the conquest. Concurrently, it's easy for a farmer-leader to assume her supporters are motivated by the massive analysis and examination she has put into the effort.

The truth is each individual within a team needs to be motivated differently. Understanding how to motivate each individual in a large group is hard, but worth the effort.

I once met John C. Maxwell at 12 Stone Church in Atlanta. I've read so many of his books and listened to countless audiotapes (dating myself) and now I'm a member of his monthly CD club. While John's ability to discuss leadership is undeniably amazing, I was even more impressed by the way he would change his demeanor whenever the next person in line waiting for his autograph would approach him. Outspoken younger people seemed to make John light up with exuberance and energy. Quieter, less direct individuals pulled out an almost fatherly demeanor in John. Mature, seasoned individuals saw John transform into a professional looking like he was about to close a multi-million dollar deal. It was surreal.

I've learned the difference between hunters and farmers. Ironically I'm a hunter married to a farmer - which makes for an incredibly complimentary, and sometimes ...uh, dynamic...relationship. I've learned how to teach farmers to be more like hunters, and I've learned to help hunters dial back their energy around farmers.

What I have yet to learn is how to lead hunters and farmers equally well in a mixed group. That's what I'm working on now. I guess you could say I'm hunting for the solution, or I'm planting the seeds for a successful future in leadership.

Time to Reformat the Tax Code?

2010-02-02T09:25:00.002-05:00

I just finished filling out my taxes. Just like our Secretary of Treasure Tim Geithner, I used TurboTax. Honestly I don't know how else anyone who is not a tax specialist could do their taxes other than using a guided software program or a tax specialist. As I finished up and realized that I was getting a nice refund, I couldn't help but think about what a waste the whole system really is.

The analogy I came up with for the tax system is an old desktop PC. Imagine a PC that you've had since maybe 2002 or 2003. Your non-tech-saavy spouse or loved one uses it to browse the internet - all three or four web pages they visit once every few weeks. They download silly little weather bugs (apps that run in the corner of the screen that show the weather for your location and chew up amazing amounts of processor and memory resources). They log in to their AOL account. And over time, the computer just kinda slows down and the wait time between pressing power and getting to a web page becomes more and more intolerable.

In the case of an old PC, sometimes the best thing you can do is to reformat the hard drive and start all over. Sure you may lose your weather bug and some of your saved pages, but oh my it's like a brand new machine!

Like an old computer, I believe now is the time to reformat the tax system.

Think about it. Here we are standing at the cusp of the future of communications. We can literally digitize everything. A person born in 2010, who lives to be 90 (and will see the year 2100) should never have to worry about finding a hard-copy paper record of anything. Birth certificates, social security cards (someday these will be worthless too), medical records, criminal records, education records, financial records, everything will be digital for this generation.

And then there's the US tax system. The IRS, which cost the US taxpayers $12.6 Billion in 2009, collected $2.345 Trillion (with a T) in taxes in 2009. That $2.345T is about a third of a Trillion dollars (or $350B) less than the IRS thinks it should be collecting. So, they are hiring more enforcers to audit returns and enforce stricter compliance with tax code. I can't find the numbers, but I can take a SWAG at how big the tax industry surrounding tax compliance is.

An idea has been floating around for years to do away with the cumbersome income, payroll, gift and estate tax system and replace it with a single sales tax. Like VAT (value added tax) in Europe. It's called the Fair Tax.

I'm not going to digress into an argument about whether the Fair Tax is the best idea for America, but one thing about the Fair Tax that strikes me is its simplicity. The tax code for the Fair Tax is 133 pages. The 2009 United States Tax Code is 16,845 pages. Who can read 16,845 pages?? Even War and Peace is only 1300 pages long.

Seems to me the US Tax system has a ton of weather bugs loaded in its operating system. Whether we opt for a Fair Tax, or just start all over with income taxes, I'll bet the entirety of our nation will enjoy how simple and effective paying their Government can be. I'll leave the analogy involving using AOL and what our Government does with said tax funds for another blog.

Why should a single piece of paper involving our taxes be generated? Banks create 1098s and 1099s and mail them individually to people's home of record. The IRS now encourages e-filing, but in the case of an audit you have to send everything to the IRS on paper. Imagine if the entire tax system was electronic. Imagine if we each had a universal government account in which all of our financial information was conveniently (and, of course, securely) stored. The government would be required to calculate the lowest possible tax burden for each individual. No more lost documentation, forgotten deductions, or schedules to calculate. And no more paying TurboTax to do your taxes for you.

OR...Imagine if you just paid a tax on what you bought at the place you bought it. Everything would be more expensive, but you would take home every penny your employer paid you. You would be taxed fairly on what you consume. All of a sudden we'd be a nation of savers. People who buy boats and expensive cars get taxed higher than people who buy groceries at Wal-Mart and drive 15-year-old Hondas. And illegal immigrants would be incentivized to legalize because they wouldn't be paid 'under the table' anymore - everything they buy would just cost a ton more unless they qualified for a fair tax credit. Which, by the way, they could only get as a legal alien.

I could have written this blog about the health care system. Or the National Defense system. Or just about any other government program. I'm proud of our 234-year-old Republic, but I think parts of its operating system need to be reformatted.

A Scary Judge of Talent

2010-01-28T15:19:00.003-05:00

I've learned a new way to express how I see the world. I can't sing well, but I sure know a good note when I hear it.

In other words, I may not be able to do something as well as others, but I have a gift for finding talent where others can't or won't.

Back in 2004 I asked my company's recruiter to find me a young person willing to do some grunt work on an installation project I had in North Carolina. I was the project manager and had no interest in carrying 300-lb. equipment boxes around all day. The recruiter gave me two resumes. One was for a nice-enough guy who fit the description. Another was for an ex-soldier who had left the military and was currently on probation for a DUI - meaning he couldn't even drive to the job site.

After finding out about the DUI, the recruiter came to my office and told me he wanted to take back the second resume and only wanted me to contact the first guy. I decided to talk to the second applicant myself. After a 15 minute phone conversation, I knew I would eventually wind up working for this kid someday. I hired him on the spot.

I don't really know what it was. Just something about his confidence and energy level that hit me right. I can't explain it at all even all these years later.

But I was right. I hired this kid to hump crates and heavy equipment around for a few weeks. After 3 months on the job, he was conducting some of the most technically difficult work in my field of satellite communications - he was conducting amplifier chain alignments and DSCS Certification testing procedures on a highly complex teleport system.

When we finished the job, I begged my company to hire him as a technician. He barely fit the parameters for the job, and still couldn't drive himself anywhere other than to and from the office. They hired him on my name alone, and left it up to me to make him fit in.

Three months later I was selected to lead a product development team to create the next greatest thing in SATCOM. We had six weeks to build a tri-band VSAT that weighed less than 100 lbs. This normally would take 9-12 months. I chose Dave to be my right hand man. He and I worked tirelessly around the clock along with two others to get this thing ready for demonstration to our customer. We did the best we could. Had we had another extra week or two, we could have pulled it off, but I was personally impressed with what we did, and all the more so impressed with Dave's ability to keep cool under pressure and live up to the challenge.

Immediately following that project, we were sent to build the largest tactical SATCOM system ever built. This was a $2.2M terminal that packed up into transit cases. It was as complex as it was big, and needed to be finished in less than four months. Anyone else would have said no way, but Dave and I reveled in the challenge and went after it.

We built our team and sequestered ourselves in a conference room in the hotel next to our manufacturing facility for two weeks to design the system. We then reached out to everyone in our extensive network - suppliers, competitors, customers, etc. - to help us do the impossible. We worked for four months - never once putting in less than an 80-hour work week. More often our weeks were 100-hours plus.

The whole time Dave was my right-hand man. He was always working as hard - if not harder - than me. He led when I wasn't there, he followed when I was, he thought outside of the box when needed, and conformed when the team needed cohesion.

Today, Dave is my direct competitor at another company. He and I are bidding on several projects against one another. But our relationship is not contentious. It is one of mutual respect. I have good ideas and he has good ideas. I can lead and he can lead. We're equals now.

I don't doubt that he will move up in his career and quite possibly wind up ahead of me at some point.

And I knew all of this would happen - in that first 15 minute phone call back in 2004.

So like I said. I may not be the best in my field, but I'm a scary judge of talent. And what I've learned about leadership over the past 5 years is that recognizing talent - especially the talent you need but cannot provide yourself - is a key ingredient to being a successful leader.

A Company of One

2010-01-22T21:31:00.003-05:00

There are few things that I hate more than the US Army's failed attempt at some awkward marketing campaign involving being "An Army of One".

Back in the late 90's, the US Army marketed themselves as an opportunity for early Gen Yers to "be an army of one" - which I assume meant they could be individuals in a greater collective.

Bullshit.

The whole point of the US Army - and any army for that matter - is to be part of a collective that stands for something greater than oneself. The things I remember and cherish most about my six years in military service involve camaraderie, service to others, sharing, and giving. While I had a successful career as an individual, I took away a pride and joy in my sense of belonging and being a part of something greater than anything I could have accomplished on my own. I made lifelong friends that I would even today lay my life down to protect.

Lately we are seeing a massive shift in allegiance that our US workforce feels. It used to be that individuals would take jobs with a great company and work for said company for 30-40 years. Not any more. It seems anymore that in order to move up a position or two one must move between companies. The alternative involves waiting for someone above you to either die or move on.

Workers have finally realized after all of these generations that it's up to themselves to manage their own careers. Since I left the military in 1999, I've worked for four companies. I enjoyed my time at all four, and feel blessed for not only the depth but also the breadth of experience gained while working at these companies. I also understand completely that had I stayed at one company all along I would not be where I am today.

Following the advice of a close friend who was a few years ahead of me in his career progression, I understood that in order to grow myself as a professional I would need to take charge of my own destiny. I created my own brand equity that I protected and cultivated even more carefully than that of my current employer. In fact, I was a Company of One.

As someone looking to create value and monetize said value, I am indeed a mercenary within my industry. My allegiance is to my personal brand equity, not to the company for which I work today. This does not mean I'm out for myself and to screw my employers or customers. Just the opposite. In fact, in order to maximize my personal brand equity, I must build a sense of trust and camaraderie with my employers and customers. Otherwise I would be shunned by both groups - which would effectively destroy my ability to create value.

Mercenary may have a negative connotation to it, so perhaps free agent or detached asset would sound less offensive. In the end, I recognize that the way I earn value for me and my family is to create value for my core stakeholders - my customers and employers. I also understand that those relationships will grow, change, and diminish over time. Which means - like a bad stock you've held on to for too long - loyalty to one customer, or one employer, for too long, leads to the destruction of your personal brand equity.

As customers become unprofitable, you leave them in search of profitable ones. Treat your employers the same way. Because, whether you like it or not, they will treat you as such. And therefore you will have become a Company of One.

Luckily, the US Army never followed through with what their Marketing division suggested. Today's US Army is as cohesive and team-oriented as it has ever been in it's 2-century history. The military is a poor model for our commercial job market - and that's a good thing for a lot of reasons.

The Permanent Temporary Workforce

2010-01-18T20:59:00.000-05:00

Over the past 10 years I worked in a field that experienced tremendous growth – specifically in the Atlanta area – thanks to the prevailing economic conditions and the appetite for military technology during the Global War on Terror. That started to change in 2009 when budgeting officers shifted their focus from procurement of new equipment to the preservation of existing equipment. Those of us charged with selling new equipment were suddenly dealing with massive overcapacity in our production ranks.

In other words, my sector faced a massive layoff.

Several very good friends of mine – all of whom are hard workers who do quality work – counted me among their network as someone who could help make rain in a different way than usual (I’m a business developer). They all tapped me to help them find work at my company. I did what I could. I set up meetings, forwarded resumes, made introductions, hosted lunches, developed opportunities that led to the hiring of more friends, recommended friends to other companies and industries, and even helped one friend get a job at my direct competitor where he will compete as a business developer against me.

In every case though, my friends who did find work found it as temporary contractors. Some are still in these roles, and some have moved on or have been let go. It seems the new norm in my industry is to hire and train a core of employees, adopt a zero-growth policy, and hire/fire contract support as necessary during surge stages.

I read an article in the 1/18/10 BusinessWeek magazine talking about this very phenomenon. It seems as if this may be the norm for the entire American workforce going forward for at least the foreseeable future.

At first this struck me as bad news. But after thinking about this, I realized it was actually not bad news at all. To me, employment is an artificial state. We’re all used to it because it has been the norm for at least a century. Go to school, go to college, get a job with a company, then another, then another. But in true capitalism, the workforce should be a massive field of free agents who are hired and compensated based on their abilities to perform their tasks, then released when no longer needed or not performing to a standard set by the market.

Most Americans don’t like the idea of being a free agent in a job market. Their concerned about paying their bills at the end of the month and wouldn’t want the added uncertainty that comes with such a market-driven environment. But if these Americans were trained to save money starting right after college – before they rack up the monthly bills tied to the cost of our quality of life, they’d have enough of a cushion to fall back on in times of a tough economy. The burden to shoulder their cost of living would be their own – not that of the people who pay income taxes that fund – among many, many other things – our unemployment benefits.

I believe in a meritocracy where those who can are rewarded and those who can’t are rejected or repurposed. While many find this view to be harsh, I find it in line with the harsh reality of nature’s ecosystem. When I’m working on something important for my customers, I’m seeking out the best talent to get the job done as fast and accurately as possible. Not only because it makes the best business sense for my company to do so, but also because their quality of work reflects my personal brand equity in the eyes of my customer.

The truth be told, I’m actually a little bit glad that my friends were able to lean on unemployment benefits. Had I been laid off, I’d be in line right next to them. But in any case, I think we can all start to plan on spending more and more of our professional careers as freelancers, contractors, temps, and companies of one employee. As employers unload more and more of their social responsibilities to their employed base, we’ll need to shoulder more responsibility for our own financial needs.

That’s just fine with me. I’m willing to bet I can handle my own career planning better than anyone in my company’s management chain anyway.

Ignore the Terrorists?

2010-01-07T16:55:00.003-05:00

I'm watching a news conference by President Obama talking about how we are going to change the way we fly - again - in response to the recent bombing attempt on Christmas Day on the Northwest flight from Detroit to Minneapolis. He started talking about changing security precautions at the airports, on the planes, and also changing the way the Intelligence Community shares information.

Personally, I'm a huge fan of #3. When I worked in The Community, I was amazed at how information was so incredibly compartmentalized. I always believed information isn't useful unless it is shared - which is probably why I don't work for The Community any more. Information not shared is just data. Information shared at the right time with the right people becomes knowledge.

As for #1 and #2 though, I'm not so sure this is the right response.

I understand that Governments are supposed to enact new measures to make us all feel better after a major incident. I understand that doing nothing would certainly signal the wrong message to the American people - that we just don't care and are apathetic to their safety.

I also understand that in the eyes of the terrorists who sent this moron off to do his evil bidding on that plane saw a $1 Billion return on their meager investment in said idiot.

It'll cost us hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade the security systems in airports all around the planet to the level President Obama is suggesting. It'll take 5 times as long to get through security - slowing travelers down tremendously - just like it did after 9/11. In such a down economy, that's a lot of extra taxpayer money going into infrastructure that doesn't necessarily make the nation as a whole that much safer than it already is.

Some will argue that if we save just one life or stop one terrorist then the investment is worth it. I disagree. Sometimes, unfortunately, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

More importantly, terrorists will try it again. Or attack another part of our infrastructure such as our food supply or our energy grid. And watch us spend billions of dollars protecting it. They will bankrupt us - just like how we bankrupted the Soviets in the 80's. In the end, we will have chased our own tail for two decades trying to protect ourselves instead of pioneering new sciences and frontiers.

We're all afraid. You never know when someone may just blow themselves up with several unsuspecting people standing nearby. It's terribly unfortunate. But in Guerilla Warfare, the Guerillas win by default if they are still around. As long as we give Al Qaeda good reason to recruit feeble-minded morons and convince them to kill themselves while taking innocent people to their deaths with them - such as a $1B price tag for making reactionary changes - we'll continue to lose the war against them.

At some point, we'll simply need to start ignoring them.

Do what you're passionate about.

2009-12-23T19:07:00.005-05:00

So today is December 23rd. As I walked through my company's office, I realized that the vast majority of people were already on vacation, but a few hard-working souls were diligently tidying up some last-minute projects or attempting to close down their programs before the end of the year. As I floated from office to office, I realized that I just didn't share their same enthusiasm to do a good job this close to Christmas anymore.

And that's when I knew that I had to leave.

It's not fair to my company for me to put a half-hearted effort into my job. And, more importantly, it's not fair to my customers. The truth of the matter is I care. I care SO MUCH, that I can't help but feel raw pain and anger when I see how my company treats my customers and my fellow employees.

I recently saw a keynote speech by Gary Vaynerchuk (www.garyvaynerchuk.com) where he asked everyone in the room who hated what they did for a living to stand up and walk out of the room. Two minutes into that speech I knew I'd be one of those people.

Gary touched on something that really lit a fire in my soul. He said that it's easy to get up at 5AM and work until 1AM if you believe in what you do. Some people aren't wired this way - some people would be glad to go to work for 8 hours and leave work at the office. I'm absolutely wired this way. I have to do something that is important for God and Country as well as for Tom and Family.

Given all of the ways that we can interact with each other in the world (thanks to the Internet and Web 2.0) there's no reason any of us can't focus on what we're passionate about, share that passion with others like us, and monetize that passion.

I'm really passionate about three things: My family (who isn't?), Rum, and Mobile Computing. I figure I could make a little bit of money blogging about my family, but I think I'd rather keep their lives a little bit more private than that (there is no real privacy anymore). Rum is a great topic with a world of opportunity, but I'm not sure I have the patience to wait 2-3 years before my Rum business takes off.

I do believe that writing and learning and teaching about Mobile Computing could be the way for me to go forward. I want to learn as much about mobile computing, and apply it to what I know - sales to the Department of Defense. I know how to sell. Right now I sell Satcom stuff, but I'm just not passionate about that anymore, so it becomes a chore. Selling something I truly believe in - now that's something to wake up for every day.

Which brings me back to the core point of this blog: If you are going to do something, you better be passionate about it. Otherwise, life just isn't all that much fun. And in 2010, we have all of the tools that we need to cultivate our own global audience - facebook, twitter, tumblr, ustream, podcasts, etc. etc. - they're all free. You can create your content based on the topic you love after hours while still working at your day job. Once you start making money doing what you love, leave your crappy day job and spend the rest of your life doing what you are passionate about.

That, my friends, is the American Dream 2.0.

-tom

Who is Better at Capitalism – China or the United States?

2009-04-10T13:18:00.001-04:00

My friend Scott and his family have lived in Lawrenceville for five years, having moved here from Dallas. Recently they decided that they want to move away from Atlanta to be closer to Scott’s wife’s family. They have been looking for houses – especially foreclosure specials and newly constructed homes at bargain prices – on the Internet. Last week they decided on a very pretty 5-bedroom, 4-bath, 3-sides-brick home on the end of a cul-de-sac in a new construction neighborhood. They got a great deal, paying only $350,000 in a neighborhood only 30 miles from the city center. The house was listing at $420,000 just a few months ago.

So what is so special about this story? The city 30 miles from their new home is Beijing, China.

30 years ago it was nearly impossible to even get a visa to visit China. Today, their suburbs look just like America’s. In fact China’s entire middle class doesn’t look much different than America’s. Globalism has changed much about China, and has redrawn the lines of power throughout the world. In fact, China has proved that they are a superpower in the new global economy, intertwining themselves into every part of the supply chains and value chains of every major economy in the world. But they could never dethrone the United States as the ultimate capital society, could they?

For 50 years, the United States and the Soviet Union fought a cold war pitting democracy against socialism. America won that war. So democracy trumps socialism, right? And if that is the case, China will never reach America’s level of market maturity, because America has already proven China’s communist government architecture, mirrored in many ways after the Soviets, is obsolete.

What we saw in 1990 was the end of communism as a viable government architecture for large nation-states. We assumed that freedom (i.e. perestroika) was as important as economics in winning that war. But was it really? How did America really defeat the Soviet empire?
We bankrupted it. We drove the cost of the cold war so high that they had to commit higher and higher percentages of their GDP to defending against our technology advances. The Soviets lost control because they couldn’t afford to bankroll their inefficient governmental structure anymore. Certainly there were several other factors involved, but in the end, the failure of the Soviet Union was caused largely by their failed economy.

What we are seeing today is different. When we compare the United States to China, we are not comparing communism to democracy. We are comparing authoritarian capitalism to democratic capitalism. China is not a communist society any more. Their primary political party bears the name but does not share much more with their Marxist and Leninist cousins.

The Soviet Union represented more than a socialist state – it was an authoritarian socialist state. The United States represented – and still does today – a democratic capitalist state. China has blended elements from both the Soviet model and the American model and has created an authoritarian capitalist state. In true contrast to China, France would be an example of a democratic socialist state.

By successfully decoupling capitalism from democracy, China has raised a key question: Are the Chinese better capitalists than Americans? If so, does that mean that democracy is important in providing an effective marketplace for capitalism to prosper? Consider the differences between the Chinese culture and American culture as things stand today. America guarantees in its charter documents the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Today’s China guarantees life and the pursuit of happiness, but a different version of liberty. Chinese are free to move in and around their country to a certain extent, and can lead relatively normal lives compared to the middle classes in other industrialized nations. Aside from several social restrictions such as the one-child-per-couple rule and a less-than-free media, the major difference between America and China is the inability of the Chinese to elect their government officials.

So, how important is liberty? As Americans, you are all subjected to all sorts of invasions of privacy never envisioned by our founding fathers. How many of you have a cell phone? Do you realize that by walking around with your cell phone turned on the federal government can track your every move? And without confirming or denying any first-hand knowledge I may or may not have, I can cite several published documents and news stories that confirm that the National Security Agency has the ability to monitor almost every bit of information transmitted across the Internet. There are cameras almost everywhere we go that record your movements. In the hands of a benign government these invasions are tolerated as they are meant to protect us from unknown enemies amongst us.

But how does that differ from how China regulates its people’s actions and access to information? As China fully embraces capitalism, they will knowingly cede authority and loosen restrictions. China is easing the transition from socialism to capitalism while maintaining a stricter authoritarian control of the rights of the civilian population in their country. Is that necessarily a bad thing? Imagine if 1.3 billion people, fully 20% of the global population, decided all at the same time that they ‘deserved’ 5 bedroom, 4 bath houses on a cul-de-sac?

China’s GDP has growing at a sustained rate of around 8% for nearly a decade. The global economic slowdown has also affected China – a true sign that they are indeed inextricably interconnected to the global capitalist marketplace. But China still maintains a low currency value and a massive trade surplus. They have been investing in American debt for years, and now hold 12% of American treasuries. In fact, part of Hilary Clinton’s recent visit to the Asian Rim involved convincing the Chinese Government to continue buying American treasuries so we can fund our trillion dollar stimulus plan. They are the debt holders for the country that defined global capitalism in the late 20th century. Do you think they will continue to buy those bonds at the current rate?

The point to all of this is that while it is unfortunate that China still continues to oppress its billion-plus population, but they are an effective capitalist state – more so than the United States. In the next 20 years, we could see a point in time where the Chinese overthrow the United States as the largest economy in the world. We could also see a point in time where Beijing or Shanghai is seen as the financial capital of the world instead of New York or London.

China is also moving their economy in the right direction. They are de-regulating and de-nationalizing several industries and corporations on an almost daily basis. They are teaching the Chinese people to be more self-reliant and showing them how to compete globally in academics, business, trade, and so on. The opposite seems to be true of the United States. We are throwing up protectionist trade barriers, promoting over-inflated wages for union employees, and propping up companies that should be bankrupted and dismantled. We are nationalizing health care, nationalizing banks, nationalizing insurance, and subsidizing failed industries and companies. We are giving handouts to the less well to do and siphoning off more money from the well to do. We have the world’s highest corporate tax rate. We are spending trillions of borrowed dollars on unbalanced budgets. We are moving closer and closer to a socialist state – a democratic socialist state similar to France.

So as we abandon true capitalism in order to blend more socialism into our economic policies, we put China in a position where they could quite possibly surpass the United States as the greatest capitalist society. Imagine what Nixon would think of that.

My first blog

2009-03-07T20:36:00.000-05:00

So this is officially my first blog. Don't worry - this one sucks but that's okay. I'm more interested in understanding how this works right now. So be sure to take a look at blog #2 for some really useful insight.

Wouldn't you want to try out a new bicycle in the driveway before riding it at the local cycle park?

-tom