I read with great interest the New York Times Magazine series on Google’s quest to document how to make great teams is a very good recap of the longer article. Read the longer, magazine piece if you have an hour. Read Mark’s recap below if you want the cliff notes.
http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2016/04/17/the-importance-of-teams/
Oh….and follow Mark Suster on Twitter @msuster
Quick thought which I will be sure to more fully develop (which in turn can develop into a case study, then an obsession, business plan, etc…) with regards to Fintech.
Why so many accounts in so many places? Bank, brokerage, retirement (401k, IRA), kid’s college funds, credit cards, home asset/loan, car asset/loan…..
Could I not have a single account showing me my “wealth” and from that account any payments, loans, fees, income can be debited or credited. And any assets and liabilities updated with some version of truthful mark-to-market values.
It is really cross marginning my financial life. An account like that would be the center of my financial self. Big danger if the account were hacked. But wouldn’t an account like that vastly simplify financial matters?
The recent spate of state legislatures to enact, or attempt to enact discriminatory laws (North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi) has me thinking about each of our differences and how it really effects others in your society. Mississippi voters want to be able to discriminate based on their perception of another person, but what if they are wrong? How do they know if someone is gay if that person does not specifically convey their sexual orientation?
Each of us has differences, and what can make those differences important is if the difference is visible or not, how deeply the difference effects you, and how deeply it can effects others (if visible or known). I have come to think of it as a simple (but important), three axis chart.
X-Axis: Is your difference visible to others? One of my ears is shaped slightly different than my other. This is a minor difference that has been noticed by a minuscule fraction of a percent of people I have interacted with. In fact it has never been mentioned to me, but I can see it in the mirror. But some people’s differences are massively noticeable; an amputee, someone with facial burns, someone who chooses to dress outlandishly (or conservatively), or a gay couple who choose to show their love with public displays of affection. This matters to the individual as it effects how others in society view each of us. And that, in turn, has an effect on how we view ourselves.
Y-Axis: How a difference effects ourself. My slightly and almost imperceptible difference in ear size effects me exactly zero. I can not think of any event in my life that has been effected by the fact that my ears do not perfectly match. But for someone who is gay, or of a certain religious belief, or someone who believes aliens reside on Earth…..their daily actions are effected by their difference. The gay couple may choose not to go to a certain restaurant (or straight people may choose not to go to a certain part of town), the Buddhist may need to take time during the day to pray, and the people who believe aliens walk among us, well, not sure how they are effected but that must effect your day-to-day decision making.
Z-Axis: How other treat you due to any visible difference. Maybe the alien-believer lives in a community in Northern Arizona where everybody believes aliens inhabit Earth. That makes life a lot easier for the believers. But what if the gay couple live in a small beach community in a state that just passed a pro-discrimination law? Do they now avoid certain stores? Will other citizens treat the gay couple differently now? Do they need to uproot their lives and family and move to a different state?
But this raises two important questions….1) How do we know what any person’s difference(s) are unless they purposefully tell others? If I showed you a picture of a conference I attended and stated that two people are gay and one transgender, I bet you could not pick those three out of the 28 people in the picture. So for those who support the pro-discrimination laws, how do you who to discriminate against? And what if you are wrong, are you opening yourself up to civil or legal complaints?
2) Why care what others’ differences are if you can not see them and they do not effect you? You probably do not see the differences in my ears, and even if you looked real close, would that difference effect how you view and treat me? What if I was a Buddhist? What if I had a massive scar on my back (that you can not see unless we are at the beach) because I donated a kidney? And for my fellow conference attendees who are either gay or transgender, if you can not see they are different than you, you could not purposefully discriminate against them, correct?
So what does it matter what one’s differences are so long as the person is not causing harm to you and your society? The pro-discrimination crowd will tell you it is about religious liberty. That their belief of something is so strong, that they can not accept it even in others. That it is not good enough to live by one’s own creed and beliefs, but that one has the right to force one’s own belief on others.
But can that be the case? Is that a valid way to view society? Or do they believe in that only when they are in the majority? Because those who are pro-discrimination and back laws to allow them to discriminate based on their beliefs are likely to change their tune if those they discriminate against were to gain the majority.
To Do Lists are great. But Daily Principles help me jumpstart each morning.
I have almost completed Hubpot Academy’s Inbound Certification (free, valuable, immediately actionable education….thanks, Hubspot!!) and was thinking about the “Convert” part of the process this morning. I read a FinanceFeeds.net article written by a guest editor about automating the conversion process that had for so long been used in traditional financial services.
Old-school conversion in financial services was cold-calling. But who even takes cold calls, let alone gets sold? Am I a complete outlyer in that I have never taken a cold call? I am polite about it and allow the caller to introduce themselves. But knowing cold call patterns, I wait for their first question/opening and politely tell them I am not interested and I wish them best of luck in the future with other prospects. I then ask to be taken off whatever list I am on. (**There have been occasions when the first few seconds of the pitch is either so good or so bad that I ask the caller about their sales training, but have never listened to the pitch or been closed.**)
However the process described in the FinanceFeeds.net article sounds a lot more like what conversion should be:
“Imagine if 14 hours ago, when Mr X was sitting at his computer, truly interested and engaged, the automated trading platform would have guided him through the onboarding process and converted him. Imagine if a few hours later, the system sent him an automated e-mail or an SMS offering him to download the trading app into his phone so he can trade anytime, anywhere.
Imagine if now that he is registered and has the app, just as he is about to walk into the meeting, the system sends him a push notification advising him of the drop in the price of Gold and directing him directly to the action of the trade in a simple, not-intrusive manner. Is this not a much more effective, less disruptive way of converting and retaining clients?”
Working in a global B2C industry, I have spent time organizing call centers, and I have spent time creating automated sales processes. The automated processes take a lot more mental horsepower, and set up time. But once implemented, they are massively scale-able. Yet most brokerage firms in the retail FX/CFD/Futures industry (Margin Trading Products, or “MTP”) are still spending effort creating and managing call centers. Call centers are simpler to set up but require constant, ongoing efforts and do not scale easily. The constant churn of hiring low-level employees or contractors, training on new products, monitoring calls for compliance issues, etc.
Additionally, the intellectual property created by building and implementing automated sales processes (high multiple income) is far more valuable to shareholders than the income generated by cold-calling (low multiple income).
So out with the old and in with the new. The tools to create an automated conversion process are available. It is up to management of each company to champion a move from yesterday to today (and tomorrow) for the conversion process.
A professional football player form the Baltimore Ravens passed away recently after an early AM motorcycle crash. The letter sent by his coach John Harbaugh to all his teammates is a good read and reminder to be good to oneself and one’s family. A great letter from a leader:
An Open Letter to Our Team
Men,
Right now, this moment is an incredibly difficult time for our Team and our Family. One of our Brothers, Tray Walker, is fighting for his life. I know we are showering him, and covering he and his family, with Prayer and hope.
That was the kind of phone call you never want get as a coach, as a parent, as a brother, as a friend. This shook me and all of us. Like some of you, I haven’t been able to rest since hearing the news late last night.
As I focused about Tray this morning, some thoughts came to mind that I wanted to share. What would I say to my own son, if I had a son, in a situation like this? You guys are that important to me.
This is what I would be saying to you in the team meeting room if we were together today: There is a lot going on out there and you are going to be involved in tough and difficult situations. You are making and will continue to make important choices pretty much every day. That’s okay. That’s our reality. It can even be very good to be put in different circumstances. To make it right, you are going to have to grow up fast. Probably faster than many of your friends and family.
Please remember to…
Lead in your home. Take care of Your Family and Yourself every single day. Think about who you are and where you are going, and what you stand for. Look after one another. Only then can you be your most effective on the job and in every area of your life.
Please consider your actions and choices. There are always consequences. Choose who you allow to advise you. Consider the quality of the council you take. Put yourself in positions to succeed. Turn away from unnecessary and risky behavior. Take care of your physical well-being. Live a healthy lifestyle. Pursue those things that make you better. Rest well. Eat well. Laugh with those who you love and love you. Fulfill your obligations effectively.
Be your own best friend. Do not be an enemy onto yourself. Turn away from trouble and harm. Walk away from foolish behavior. Ignore silly and unwise advice – You’ll know it when you see it.
Get to know those people in your life who manage to walk free from the weight of self-created obstacles. Get close to those who have gone where you want to go, and have accomplished what you want to accomplish. Grow Spiritually. Think about what and who you want to become.
I am asking you to consider what is at stake in your life. Consider what your thoughts, actions and choices mean to those around you. Live your life fully and with purpose. Have fun and share your happiness. Find Your Faith, and allow God to Grow Your Faith.
Let’s look out for one another. Be a great brother and friend. Inquire. Listen. Ask. Investigate. Reach out. Be There. Take a Step. Go For It.
Remember, We are Brothers in Arms. And, again, take care of each other.
NYT’s article has a lot of depth in the follow up:
Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republican Senators are either smart as a fox, or dumb as the hens. The fox is already in the henhouse. The question is, who is the fox and who are the hens.
McConnell and fellow Republicans are grandstanding and violating their job’s duties and sworn oaths by not even allowing a vote on Obama’s proposed SCOTUS appointment. And it is actions like this that cause ordinary Americans to be rightfully disgusted with politics and politicians.
So McConnell & Co. are giving reason for primary voters to push for Donald Trump to be the Republican party’s nominee. If McConnell does not see and understand this, then he is the Hen and Trump is the Fox.
But if McConnell is being double-sneaky and believes that a Republican-dominated Senate can overpower Trump (* & **) , then he is at least thinking like a Fox.
* If Trump can win the general election
** If McConell and friends do not get steamrolled by the cult of personality that is Trump
Speaking of Trump, I would be remiss not to mention the complete disregard of the political rulebook that Trump is using to win. Below is from Trump’s Instagram account yesterday. Not an endorsement for the candidate, but an appreciation of the fact that Trump believes that winners write the history books and he will do whatever it takes to win.
A bit of a diversion from my usual subject matter, but this is one of the best video’s I have ever seen. I have the video tucked away with a bookmark for just this day each year. The characters (“Who all seen the leprechaun, say yeah!” – guy, “Magic Flute from my Irish ancestors” / traffic director – guy, “Crackhead got a hold of the wrong stuff” – lady) the the “amateur sketch”, the fact that a news station in Mobile, Alabama actually put this on air……it is just tremendously funny.
ARHAIK 