How to Become Indispensable: Pour Your Soul Into Whatever You Do By Andrey Gidaspov

Use what talents you possess, the woods will be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.” Henry van Dyke
Times are tough. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs in 2015. And it’s not just the oil and gas sector – HP, Microsoft, Caterpillar, Radioshack, JP Morgan have sent thousands people home. Last month analysts reported that this year IBM may lay off a record number in its workforce.

We all know there’s no permanency in the job market. There aren’t decades-long careers with large multi-national companies anymore. Career paths have become much more fluid.

“It’s a giant transformation that happened just in the last five or 10 years,”says Seth Godin, a bestselling author of Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?“As we have an economy that used to make money by leveraging a factory, a system, a process, to an economy where the people who win are the ones who do stuff we didn’t expect and we didn’t ask for.”

What can help us to stay relevant? What skills can keep us afloat? How do we become indispensable?
“My super power is not being one thing, but many things,” says Annie Conn, Experience Designer at ThoughtWorks, in her insightful post My Path to a Fluid Career. “I am an example of the new fluid careerist. What’s a fluid career? It’s a way through life that leverages a collection of experiences, expertise, roles/titles and spans multiple industries. Fluid careerists navigate ambiguity and are nimble. We’re restlessly driven by curiosity, have a passionate need for excellence and aspire to self-awareness.”

What Annie says makes perfect sense to me – I know this from my own experience. When I graduated with a major in Chinese language and history back in 1993, I thought that I’d be working in a China-focused international organization. Yet, my career took a completely non-linear path. I have worked in five countries in the hospitality business, government consulting, technology business development, non-profit program management and finally, non-profit fundraising.

What I’ve learned from all these life experiences is that to succeed today, you need to be flexible, continuously hone your skills, and discover new opportunities through creative thinking and entrepreneurial drive. Most of all, you should be prepared to embrace uncertainty, adapt to unusual circumstances and apply your skillset to the particular career in which you find yourself at any given time. Be a catalyst of new creative ideas and try to stay positive, because your success is in your attitude.
Quoting Godin, to be successful, you will need to become a “linchpin,” someone who can “invent, lead (regardless of title), connect others, make things happen, and create order out of chaos.” Linchpins are the people who can work with “no rule book,” people who are happy to always make their best effort to transform even mundane tasks into something remarkable.

It all comes down to simple truth – pour your soul into whatever you do. Represent your nonprofit, start-up or business in such a way that the whole world knows that you own it.
KINGSMITH.

If You’re Not Traveling, You’re Limiting Your Full Potential By Sam Shank.

After founding three travel startups, it’s probably pretty obvious that I love to travel. I get a lot of energy from experiencing new places. The brain releases endorphins when it’s in a new environment — seeing new things, hearing new sounds, smelling new foods. These endorphins have a powerful effect on my happiness and creativity.
Growing up in a small city in Virginia, I didn’t travel much. In fact, I didn’t catch the travel bug until I was 22. But once I did, I quickly became obsessed with visiting new places, plotting all the trips I’d taken on a map, and researching all the future ones I wanted to take.
When I was ready to start a business, I looked for 1) big markets, 2) a business that didn’t require a lot of capital and 3) areas that combined my passions and abilities. The travel industry was a natural fit — it’s the largest category of e-commerce, I could start a web business for less than $100k, and it combined my passion for travel and my background in the web. (Note: while I was an English major, I am pretty tech-minded and taught myself what I needed to write all the front-end code for my first company, TravelPost. Necessity is the mother of invention.) The irony was that in my first two travel businesses, I actually didn’t get to travel all that much. It was all about building a product, honing SEO, and doing sales via the phone — so while I was helping other people get out there and experience the world, I was usually at my desk, which felt confining and limiting.
With my next business, I resolved to travel more often — and starting HotelTonight made it much easier to do so, even when I didn’t have a ton of time to get away or to plan. One of the reasons I wanted to build HT was because the idea of being more spontaneous, and encouraging that spontaneity in others, was really attractive to me (whether that’s booking the hotel for your business trip once you land or deciding at the last minute to go away for the weekend). Part of the rush of travel is all the new things you experience, and spontaneously deciding where you’re going to stay doubles down on that rush. So I made travel (often spontaneous, sometimes planned) a priority in this job and in my life.
I have a personal goal to visit two new countries and five new places (a city, a national park, etc.) every year. It’s fun to check things off and daydream about where to go next. I’m really inspired by being around the HT team — someone’s always off on an amazing adventure (Patagonia, Iceland and Mexico City are all high on my list after hearing the team talk them up). In fact, because I believe that travel is so important in stoking creativity and boosting happiness, HotelTonight has an unlimited vacation policy and we give the team hotel credits several times a year. These credits expire at the end of every quarter to encourage people to really use them — to frequently go to new places and experience new things and to come back excited and refreshed (I’ll write more on this in a future post).
I also love showing my sons the importance of travel — that people live differently in different parts of the world, and that endorphin release you get from seeing something totally beyond your everyday world. I hope to instill in them a passion for travel while they’re still young.
The magic number for me is a trip about every 6-8 weeks, whether that’s a business trip, a family beach vacation, or a spontaneous getaway with my wife. When I travel too frequently, it can be hard on my family and the HT team, but any less and I start getting antsy. It was important for me to find a balance, so that travel is something I look forward to and get energy from, rather than something that adds stress or is just another thing on my to-do list. I’d challenge you to make travel a priority, and find what works for you — what leaves you energized and inspired and ready to crush goals when you get back.
KINGSMITH.

The Number One Reason Why Your Great Idea Fails By Betty Liu.

It's still early in 2016 and THIS YEAR is the year you will launch that awesome, fantastic, amazing idea.

Your Mom loves it. Your friends love it. It's going to be the next billion-dollar company.
But here's the reason why it will almost always never work.
The reality is that ideas are a dime a dozen. There are 300 million-plus people in this country, 600 million-plus professionals around the world and more than seven billion people on this planet. The chances that you've come up with the singular idea that's going to change the world are, well, one in a billion.
Most ideas don't fail because they're bad ideas. Some very successful companies have grown out of bad ideas. Kevin Ryan, a well-known visionary entrepreneur who's built several successful companies, including BusinessInsider, Gilt Groupe, andDoubleClick, says Google started off as a "terrible idea."
"It was just a search engine. There already were seven," he said in the latest episode of my podcast, Radiate. (Listen here on iTunes or here on SoundCloud for the entire episode).
So how did Google turn a terrible idea into a company now worth over half a trillion dollars?
Execution.
"Search engines at the time worked pretty well, but Google's worked better. And so over time you switched over, and it became a very successful," he said. Ten percent of the time their search results were "fundamentally better. Ninety percent didn't change, but 10 percent did. And that was enough."
This is why entrepreneurs say never be afraid to tell people your ideas. In fact, some advise you to tell the entire world your idea in the hopes that enough people will beat it down. If the idea still holds after all the abuse, then you've got yourself a winner.
Knowing that execution is far more important than a great concept means any entrepreneur worth his or her salt has to spend far more time on things like building the right team. Having a great deck for your idea is good but having proof of your idea is even more impressive.
So remember this: Having a great idea is just 10 percent of your journey as an entrepreneur. Actually making it come to life--and done well--is what separates the Googles from the Mosaics.
KINGSMITH.

Painful Job Search? Here's a Better Way to Get Hired By Liz Ryan.

If your job search isn't going anywhere, you're getting a signal from Mother Nature that it's time to try something new. I hear from people every day who say "I've applied to 114 jobs through online applications and I've only had two interviews" or "I've sent out 86 resumes without a nibble."
Of course, the hiring system at nearly every medium-sized and large employer is broken. That is clear. Still, you can't put your career on hold waiting for employers to fix their broken recruiting processes.
That will take years, and I say that because even the forward-looking, talent-aware employers who work with us on renovating their old-school recruiting processes usually plan on a two-year schedule for their projects. The bigger the organization, the longer it takes to change things.
So where does that leave you? You need a job now! You can't wait for the awful Black Hole automated job-application systems to disappear.
You can't wait for the keyword-searching algorithms and online application forms to go the way of the dodo bird. You need to start working!
You can crawl through the wreckage of the busted recruiting process to get your next job, and here's the best part. When you step outside the standard process defined by employers and use a different approach to get your next job, you won't feel so sheeplike and docile anymore, because you won't be sheeplike or docile.
You won't crawl on your knees in hopes of getting an interview. You'll walk right in the front door!
You'll show up on a hiring manager's radar screen like the vibrant, talented person you are -- like an equal. You are an equal party to your hiring manager in the employment equation, but in the traditional job-search process few job-seekers feel that way.
That's because the traditional process rests on the notion that employers are godlike and job-seekers are nothing. The old-school recruiting mindset is just one of the reasons my teammates and I launched the Human Workplace movement to reinvent work for people in 2012.
Here's how you will get a job without completing online application forms and without approaching your job search with the mental frame "I have to please these people, and grovel and beg however they want me to, because that's what it takes to get a job." False!
First, you have to shift your mindset. Here are three old-fashioned ideas about job-seeking that you will replace with new ideas appropriate for the new-millennium talent marketplace we are operating in now.
Old Idea:

Employers have all the power, so job-seekers have to do what they're told.

New Idea:
Obviously, employers don't have all the power. If they didn't have problems, they wouldn't run job ads. When your kid stuffs his sock down the tub drain at home and you have to call the plumber to come out, who has the power -- you or the plumber?
When you call the plumber, you are not going to ask the plumber "Tell me about a time when you got a kid's sock out of a tub drain." The plumber would hang up the phone if you did. When you know what kind of Business Pain you solve, you gain power in the hiring equation.
Old Idea:

I can only consider full-time jobs with benefits.

New Idea:
Putting the limitation "I can only look at full-time jobs with benefits" on yourself is dangerous. The world is changing. You are a consultant whether you get a paycheck every two weeks or whether you invoice your clients, so why not step into your consulting persona and unlock the value inside you? I want you to get a consulting business card right away and to start introducing yourself, and thinking about yourself, as a consultant.
Old Idea:

I have to follow the rules that employers specify in their job ads.

New Idea:
Who made you responsible for reading job ads? The only people who could conceivably be held responsible for knowing the rules listed in job ads (like the rule "Don't contact our managers directly") would be people who have read the job ads -- and why would anyone think you have the time or inclination to do that?
You don't have to read job ads, nor note, acknowledge or follow any rules included in them.
Now you are a free-range chicken! Here's how you'll get your next job:
Choose a Direction
Decide what you want to do next, not because you can do those things (you can do a lot of things!) but because the work is meaningful to you, will pay you enough to live on and will make use of your talents. You have to like your work. It's hard enough to job-hunt without also having the thought "Even if I get this job, I'll hate it" hanging over you.
Brand Yourself for the Jobs You Want
Many people brand themselves too broadly. The least compelling brand in the world is the brand "I can do all sorts of things!" Decide what you want to do and brand yourself for the jobs you've targeted -- not every job in the world.
Make a List of Target Employers
As you think about your next job, ask yourself "What kind of Business Pain do I solve better than most people?" Maybe it's not-closing-enough-deals pain, or 'Why are we spending so much money on excess inventory?' pain. Think about the organizations near you who might run into that kind of Business Pain, and make a list of them on a spreadsheet. These are your Target Employers.
Find your Hiring Manager in Each Organization
The person you care about in each of your target employers is not the HR manager, but your own department manager. That person has pain -- whether he or she has posted a job ad or not. It's worth reaching out to him or her to ask "How are things? Have you by chance run into this particular kind of Business Pain, as many managers in your situation have done before?"
Send Each of your Target Hiring Managers a Pain Letter with your Human-Voiced Resume
What is a Pain Letter? It's a letter that you'll research and write and send to your hiring manager in each of your target employers. You'll send your Pain Letter in an envelope stapled with one staple to your Human-Voiced Resume.
The two documents will arrive on your hiring manager's desk where he or she may be nudged out of his or her usual overbooked haze into awareness that somebody (you!) outside the company is paying attention and has an understanding of what the poor stressed-out manager is going through.
Pain Letters are effective because they come at your hiring manager in a different way. Your resume is not one of forty in a stack. It's just you, talking to your hiring manager directly as he or she sits at the desk or stands in the doorway thinking "Geez, I should meet this person."
On average, twenty-five percent of Pain Letters hit pay dirt and result in an interview or a phone conversation. That's a lot better than the Black Hole results. You have to step out of a traditional mindset and process to get a job using a Pain Letter.
Have you reached the frustration point where you can take a step out of the known and into the exciting unknown? That is the question for you to consider!

Questions and Answers

It seems like it would be hard to find my specific hiring manager. How do you do that?
If your target employer has ten or twenty thousand employees and a lot of the managers share the same job title, it can be tough to find your hiring manager, but apart from that situation it's easy. Here are the steps to follow. You can learn the detailed process in the Four-Week Virtual Course Find Your Hiring Manager.
Okay, I'm ready to try something new. What I'm doing now isn't working. How do I start?
Read Liz Ryan's articles on LinkedIn and Forbes to learn more about Pain Letters, your Human-Voiced Resume and the Whole Person Job Search method Liz invented.
If you want to learn how to research employers, find your hiring manager, write Pain Letters and your Human-Voiced Resume and use the Whole Person Job Search methodology, join a Four-Week or 12-Week Virtual Course starting Saturday, February 6th! This month, our course members get an awesome gift!
Everyone who joins a 12-Week Virtual Course (USD $299 and up) in February will receive the Four-Week Virtual Course "Create Your LinkedIn Profile" (a $129 value) for free! You'll also receive our $99 "Look Back, Look Forward" 2016 Planning Guide.
Everyone who joins a Four-Week Virtual Course in February will receive the $99 "Look Back, Look Forward" 2016 Planning Guide for free!
KINGSMITH.

The Best Way to Lead? Intentionally Influence Others By Joseph Grenny

I find it ironic that when I ask leaders—even good ones—what constitutes leadership, I often get vague, disparate, and vapid responses. You’d think this educated and successful population could offer crisp and concrete definitions of their own crucial work. Instead, you hear a dozen tangents of real leadership like energizing, visioning, pathfinding, and modeling.
Fortunately, not all leaders are missing the mark. I recently met a leader who has a concrete expression of leadership on the tip of his tongue. Tim Tassopoulos, Executive Vice President of Operations for Chick-fil-A, says it this way: leadership is intentional influence. I couldn’t agree more.
For 30 years, my colleagues and I have helped leaders increase their capacity for influencing change. But it came as a surprise that prior to helping them learn how to influence, we had to draw their attention to it as their core work.
Tim, on the other hand, understands that success comes down to whether one of his 50,000 front-line associates with a few discretionary minutes decides to lean against a wall or clean tables. Tim’s success or failure as a leader does not come down to whether he is charismatic, visionary, or inspirational but to whether people behave in ways that improve results. Period.
Given that few leaders can even define leadership, it’s no surprise their performance is mediocre at best. We studied the successes and failures of more than 1,000 leaders from 50 global companies to influence strategically critical behavior change in their companies. We were stunned to discover that fewer than one in 20 had any evidence of success in spite of their belief that change was crucial. As we combed through the data, some key insights emerged that helped us understand why so few leaders either grasp or exert influence well:
1. Leaders act as if it’s not their job to address entrenched habits.
Most leaders put a great deal of time into crafting strategy, selecting winning products, and engaging with analysts, shareholders, and major customers. But few realize the success or failure of their grand schemes lies in influencing the behavior of the people who will have to execute on the big ideas—their employees.
By contrast, the most influential leaders—the 5 percent who succeed at changing behavior—spend as much as half of their time thinking about, and actively, influencing the behaviors they know will lead to top performance. The 95 percent who dither and fail tend to delegate what they dismiss as “change management” to others.
2. Leaders lack a theory of influence.
Very few leaders can even answer the question, “How do you change the behavior of a large group of people?” And yet, what they’re ultimately paid to do is align people to execute on decisions. Imagine discovering, just as the anesthesia is taking effect, that your heart surgeon—the one hovering over your chest with a scalpel—is working off a “gut hunch” about how to conduct a bypass. Unless leaders become articulate about a repeatable and effective way to influence behavior—they’ll continue to rack up predictably high failure rates at leading change.
3. Leaders confuse talking with influencing.
Many leaders think influence consists of little more than talking people into doing things. It’s no wonder most influence efforts start with PowerPoint presentations or rallies. But profound, persistent, and overwhelming problems demand more than verbal persuasion. Anyone who’s ever tried to “talk” a smoker into quitting knows there’s a lot more to behavior change than words.
4. Leaders believe in silver bullets.
When leaders actually attempt to influence new behavior, they commonly fall into the trap of thinking deeply ingrained bad habits can be changed with a single technique.
They host star-studded retreats and hand out inspiring posters and think people will line up for change. Still others believe it’s all about incentives and so they tinker with the performance management system or tie new behaviors to executive bonuses. The research shows that when leaders rely on just one simple source of influence (like training or incentives or verbal persuasion) to drive change, they almost always fail.
Over the past 30 years, my colleagues and I have sought out and studied a different kind of leader. We’ve tried to find those who had remarkable abilities to influence change—rapidly, profoundly, and sustainably.
We’ve studied the methods used by one remarkable influencer who, with no formal authority, changed behavior in thousands of U.S. hospitals. We’ve looked first hand at one influencer who saved five million lives from AIDS by influencing behavior change in a country of 60 million. We worked with a CEO who, within 12 months, influenced deeply entrenched habits in employees with an average of 26 years tenure.
What we’ve learned is that when you know what you’re doing, change can happen relatively quickly. And it all starts with gaining greater clarity about what leadership really means, then finding a way of thinking about the fundamental principles of influence.
KINGSMITH.

Are YOU making yourself unhappy at work? By Steve Blakeman.

According to a recent Gallup poll, up to 18% of us are unhappy with our jobs. And given that psychologists know that unhappiness leads to serious health issues, maybe we should do something about it? Particularly when, according to Dr Travis Bradbury, most of the fault lies not with your job but with yourself…

Now, the more cynical amongst you might be thinking that the simple solution to contentedness is all down to one thing. Money. That’s the reason why we work in the first place right? But actually it seems that cash isn’t the key determinant to contentment. Research from the University of Illinois states that people who earn more moolah are only marginally happier than their less fortunate compatriots. And that even includes the uber wealthy who earn more than $10 million per annum.

So what does determine whether you are joyful? Well, another study conducted by the University of California indicates that a complex mix of life circumstances and genetics accounts for about 50% of a person’s happiness. The remaining half? Apparently that is entirely up to you.
Now there is relatively little you can do about life circumstances and absolutely nothing you can do about genetics. But you can change your outlook on life and in a Forbes article by Margie Warrell, she delves into that very subject. She postulates that you have the capacity to change 3 things:

• Change what you do (e.g. if your job makes you miserable then do your best to find another one in a company or industry that you prefer)
• Change how you do it – adopt new habits, ways of doing things and try to pursue a more positive frame of mind
• Change nothing – continue to be a miserable old bugger and continue complaining about how life has dealt you a bad hand

As you might expect neither Margie, Dr B, nor I recommend the final option.
It may not be practical to change ‘what’ you do right now - you can't simply switch companies or (even more problematic) convert to an entirely different career. We all have bills to pay so maybe the more pragmatic option (in the short term at least) is to reorient ‘how’ you do your job in a more positive (maybe even realistic) manner?
Thankfully, Dr Travis offers up some practical ways of doing just that and I have listed (and cheekily renamed) my 7 favourites below:
The Future Fibber – how many times has your annoying inner voice told you that everything is going to be just fine when… ‘I get a promotion’ or when ‘I get a pay rise’ or when ‘my boss gets hit by a bus’ etc. ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Come on are only fooling yourself. None of these things is going to make you happy. Well they might do for a short while but that initial buzz of Bob being flattened by a double decker will quickly dissipate. Then you feel remorse and the dawning realisation that you now have his job to do as well as your own. Anyway the point is that you need to focus on what makes you happy in the 'here and now' not on something that may (or may not) happen in the future.

The Materialist - this is a remnant of the Boomer and Gen X generations who have always been obsessed with acquiring material possessions. Bigger house, better car, new kitchen, expensive watch etc. There are 2 points to make here. Firstly, there is a mountain of research that proves beyond doubt that chasing possessions is ultimately unrewarding. Actually they can add to your unhappiness because when you finally attain them you get that cold hard realisation that it didn’t make you as happy as you expected and that in turn makes you feel unhappier. Secondly, Millennials (thankfully) have an entirely different outlook. They crave ‘experiences’ instead of ‘things’ - activities and passions that they can share with family and friends, which in turn makes them significantly happier.

The Victim Mentality – “it’s not my fault and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it” – we all know people who operate from the default position that someone up there just doesn’t like them. Dr Bradbury says that the key flaw with standpoint is that it...

“fosters a feeling of helplessness, and people who feel helpless aren’t likely to take action to make things better. While everyone is certainly entitled to feel down every once in a while, it’s important to recognise when you’re letting this affect your outlook on life”

Bad things happen to good people all the time but the reality is that everyone has at least a modicum of control on how they control their lives for the future as long as the individual is at least willing to try and take action.
The Eternal Pessimist - the self-fulfilling prophecy of pessimism. Basically if you expect things to go badly, chances are that they will. Not only that, but people avoid pessimists. Frankly they are just not that much fun to be around are they? I used to work with a colleague whose glass was never even half empty. His always contained the dregs. Even when we won a huge piece of new business and we were cracking open the Veuve Cliquot he was bemoaning the fact that we were going to be hugely busy because we didn’t have enough resource to service the business. Seriously, get a grip. Things are rarely ever as bad as they may seem.
The Constant Complainer- complaining is a closely linked companion to it’s buddy pessimism. Often seen together curmudgeonly discussing how atrocious things are and by doing so simply reaffirming all those negative beliefs. Although talking about what bothers you can be cathartic you need to strike a balance between it being therapeutic and adding more fuel to your unhappy fire.

The Rug Sweeper - when you take responsibility for your actions you will be a far happier soul. Miserable people though are threatened by the mistakes they make and consequently try to bury them away. These ‘skeletons in the closet’ rarely disappear, they lay lurking in the shadows waiting to jump out and scare the living daylights out of you when you least expect it

The Green Eyed Monster - if you find yourself constantly comparing yourself with others, then it’s time to start appreciating what you have and stop coveting. Cutting down on your Facebook time might help a little…

So there you have it, if you are feeling fed up at work give these handy tips a try. And, go on, give us a smile :)
KINGSMITH.

How I realized the incredible impact that great bosses have By Vivek Wadhwa.

I don’t care if you have to take drugs, you have to build it in six months,” said my boss, Khurshed Birdie, when I told him that he was on drugs if he thought my team could create a software development toolset in less than three years. This was in 1986 at Credit Suisse First Boston, one of New York City’s top investment banks. We were rebuilding the company’s trade processing systems to run on a client–server model of computing. This technology is common now, but then it was as futuristic as “Star Wars.”
The result was that my team worked day and night to build a technology that became the foundation of the company’s information systems. It gave Credit Suisse First Boston a competitive edge and led IBM to invest $20 million in a spinoff company that was formed to market the tools we had developed.
I was a lowly computer programmer — analyst when Birdie hired me: a computer geek who didn’t own any three-piece suits, white two-ply cotton shirts, or wing-tipped Oxford shoes — the uniform of investment bankers. Yet I was hired on the spot. I had some far-out ideas about how computer systems could be built — but didn’t believe for a second that I could implement them. My boss did: he believed in me more than I did, and he bet a $100 million project on my vision. He allowed me to expand my team from four to fifty-five people and shielded me from criticism by other teams who had to use my tools to build their systems — and who thought I was crazy. There were a lot of problems along the way, and Birdie allowed me to learn from my mistakes. And then he promoted me to vice president of Information Technology when I achieved success.
Birdie was what Sydney Finkelstein, a Dartmouth business professor, in his new book, Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Manage the Flow of Talent, calls a “superboss.”
As Finkelstein explains, superbosses take chances on unconventional talent. Oracle’s founder, Larry Ellison, hired candidates who had accomplished something genuinely difficult, rather than those with formal qualifications, because he believed they would rise to the technical challenges. Designer Ralph Lauren offered jobs to strangers whom he met while dining in New York City restaurants. Superbosses take raw talent and build self-confidence. They hire for intelligence, creativity, and flexibility — and are not afraid of people who may be smarter than they are.
Under Finkelstein’s definition of superbosses, Birdie would be categorized as a “glorious bastard”: someone who cares only about winning. Deep down, he had a good heart — but was ruthless in setting expectations and driving people to work extremely hard. I’ll never forget him telling me that “Christmas was an optional holiday.” These bosses realize that to get the very best results, they need to drive people to perform beyond what seems reasonable and achievable.
Even though I achieved a lot, I hated working for Birdie, because I had to neglect my family for months on end. This isn’t something I would ever do to my employees. My next boss, Gene Bedell was very different. He left his job as managing director of information technology in order to found Seer Technologies, the start-up that IBM had funded. Bedell convinced me to leave my high-paying investment-banking job to join him in a number-two role, as chief technology officer, at the low-paying, high-risk, startup.
Bedell was what Finkelstein calls a “nurturer”: someone who coaches, inspires, and mentors. These superbosses take pride in bringing others along and care deeply about the success of their protégés; they help people accomplish more than they’d ever thought they could.
Bedell managed by a method he called “outstanding success possibilities.” He challenged his executives to set ultra-ambitious goals and then find unconventional ways to achieve them. Instead of managing to what was achievable and possible, we shot for the impossible. And then did whatever it took to get there — without worrying about failure or looking back. It is amazing what you can achieve when you have a single-minded focus. We took Seer Technologies from zero to $120 million in annual revenue and an IPO in just five years — faster than any other software company of that era, including Microsoft and Oracle.
Superbosses create master–apprentice relationships. They customize their coaching to what each protégé needs and are constant fonts of practical wisdom. Bedell taught me how to sell. A year after the company was formed, he sent me to Tokyo to sell IBM-Japan on an $8.6 million deal to fund the creation of a Japanese version of our product. I didn’t think that a techie like me could do these things; he taught me that selling was an art that could be learned and perfected. I helped our salespeople close more than $200 million in software deals. And that is another skill that superbosses have, building what Finkelstein calls the “cohort effect”: teamwork and competition combined. Lorne Michaels, for example, who created Saturday Night Live, judged writers and performers by how much of their material actually went to air — but they had to do it with the support of their coworkers, the people they were competing with.
A common trait of superbosses is the ability to delegate work and build jobs on the strengths of their subordinates. They trust them to do their jobs and are as supportive as can be. They remain intimately involved in the details of the businesses and build true friendships. Bedell often invited my family to his vacation home near the Outer Banks of North Carolina. He took me to Skip Barber Racing School to learn how to race a Formula Ford, and built a gym in his basement so that his executive team could lift weights together.
You will find the alumni of our project at Credit Suisse First Boston and Seer Technologies in senior leadership roles now, at companies such as IBM, PayPal, American Express, and every one of the top investment banks. Many started their own companies, as I later did. There are literally hundreds of people who built successful careers because of my two superbosses. When I became an academic later in life, I was fortunate to have two superboss deans at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering, Kristina Johnson and Tom Katsouleas, who nurtured me. Superbosses aren’t just in corporations — they can be found everywhere.
Yes, I know that I got lucky in having good bosses; most are jerks who demotivate employees, slow their growth, backstab, and take credit for others’ work. You are usually stuck with whomever you get. But there is nothing that stops you from being a superboss. As you begin to achieve success, start helping others and nurturing your colleagues and subordinates. Show the leadership qualities that you’d like your own boss to have. You will gain as much as the people you help — and build a better company.
KINGSMITH.