Profit and Leadership

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Going “All In” to Navigate Uncertainty

Timothy J. Mayopoulos Influencer

President and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae

Over the course of my twenty-five year career in the financial services industry, I’ve learned that the path to progress often entails navigating uncertainty. Countless variables contribute to day-to-day uncertainty for management, employees and outside stakeholders—from business changes to personnel transitions to economic instability. When facing such challenges, leaders must proactively and transparently steer their organizations toward progress.

I joined Fannie Mae in 2009 when the company was in crisis, as was the entire U.S. housing finance system. When I assumed the role of CEO in 2012, I focused on forging an “all in” mentality that would unite staff through a common purpose. By connecting the value of our individual and collective contributions to the organization’s overarching mission, we could create a North Star to guide us in a positive direction.

As I continue to lead Fannie Mae through a period of transformation, maintaining an “all in” mentality remains one of my top priorities. Here are three cornerstone elements for adopting this approach:

1. Define Your Organization’s Purpose
During times of business uncertainty, leaders must clarify and reinforce an organization’s purpose to employees. Everyone should realize the long-term mission and understand how they contribute to it. As an example, I always remind my colleagues that we are working to ensure that people have access to affordable housing as well as options that enable them to stay in their homes. Defining organizational purpose may seem obvious, but consistent reinforcement can support crisper execution and improved morale at all employee levels. Everyone should know that they are contributing to the organization’s success.

2. Measure and Highlight Success
When an organization is navigating uncertainty, it is the most important time to measure and highlight the results generated by employees. Help them visualize how their individual contributions are making an impact. This not only supports morale, but also provides a subtle reminder that everyone is accountable for results.

At Fannie Mae, I want my colleagues to see how their collaborative mindset is tangibly supporting our mission. We regularly provide internal updates on the goals we’ve established together. We also share external Progress reports and resources so outside stakeholders can track our progress.

3. Communicate Transparently
I’ve found that transparent communication is the lifeblood of a successful organization, particularly while coping with uncertainty or operating in a transformative period. Leaders need to communicate frequently and openly with employees about strategy, expectations, goals and any challenges that they are anticipating. The key is to earn the unified support that a leader undoubtedly needs during uncertain times. If leaders want commitment and loyalty, they need to establish a relationship with employees through an open dialogue. This can be facilitated through town halls, blog posts, video updates and everyday interactions.

Our “all in” mentality at Fannie Mae is forging a pivotal and significant change across the organization. The positive steps we’ve taken in recent years are simultaneously positioning us to support America’s housing recovery and help create a more sustainable housing finance system for tomorrow. My colleagues and I are proud of the strides we’ve made as a team.

I look forward to sharing more business perspectives and updates on our progress in future posts.

Posted by:

Timothy J. Mayopoulos

What Are Your Core Values?

By Bruce Van Horn

“It is more important to know who you are than where you are going, for where you are going will change as the world around you changes.” - James C. Collins

If you have not yet read Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by James C. Collins, you need to stop what you are doing right now, order it, block off next weekend, and read it from cover to cover!

In this timeless business book, Collins, demonstrates how great companies became great because their leaders were more concerned with the "Why" than they were the "How" or the "What." The founders of great companies often decided what their core values, the non-negotiables, would be even before they decided what products or services to create.

You see, truly great companies are, at their core, a reflection of the truly great men and women who lead them.

Share this: Truly great companies understand the difference between what should never change and what should be open for change, between what is genuinely sacred and what is not.” Collins explores this concept in great detail with real examples from real companies, but that is not my concern here.

I'm not concerned with your company right now—I’m concerned with you. I'm not here to ask about your corporate core values, I am asking about your personal core values. You see, truly great companies are, at their core, a reflection of the truly great men and women who lead them.

So I would like to rewrite Mr. Collins' phrase to read: “Truly great leaders understand the difference between what should never change and what is open for change...” What are your core values? What are your non-negotiables?

I had lunch a few weeks ago with the owner of small but rapidly growing company. He contacted me, based on a referral, to talk about Executive/Life coaching. As we talked, he said a single sentence which made it clear to me that I was not the right person to coach him, or rather, he was not the right client for me. In describing his desire for success, he said “I'll do whatever it takes; everything is for sale!” The sad thing is, he really meant it. He was also shocked when I said I would not work with him because our values were not in alignment.

If your desire for success is so strong you are willing to do whatever it takes, then you will be willing to go in any direction to get it. If your desire for money is so strong you can say “everything is for sale,” then you will quickly run out of anything of value to offer. You may achieve some level of success for a time, but there is a strong likelihood your pursuit of the next great thing will lead you right off a cliff! “If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.” A cliché, I know, but it is true!

I am not going to tell you what your personal core values should be, but I am saying you need to have them and you need to stand firmly enough for them that everyone around you knows what they are.

Share this: Your life will be more fulfilling when you surround yourself with people who hold similar values. Your leadership teams will work with more unity if comprised of people of similar values. Collins teaches that you cannot train people to adopt your values—you need to hire people who already hold your values. The problem is you cannot hire people with your values if you do not know what your values are!

Take some time to really think this through. What are your core values? Write them down. Ask your closest friends and colleagues what they think your core values are, to see if they agree with you. Examine your life, words, and actions. Are you living, speaking, acting and leading in alignment with your values?

Where you go and what you do may need to change with time and circumstance, but who you are, at the core, should never be open for negotiation!

4 Ways to Keep the Team Happy

In the Bay Area, you can bet it can be pretty tough to retain employees. In fact, a report by Payscale said that Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, Google, and Amazon had the worst employee retention rates, and Google's average pay was the best. I guess it's not just about top-notch free food, free yoga, and Google airplanes.

What we've found at my email marketing company, VerticalResponse, is that people have to like what they do and like whom they work with. They need to trust that the people they work with are doing the right thing for the company. They also like to be acknowledged for their part in moving the company forward. Seems reasonable, doesn't it?

Don't Pretend
I've found that when we are totally honest with people, they respect it whether they agree or disagree with something we're doing. We don't pretend to be something we're not. We don't put on suits when we meet with people; we don't clean up the office when people visit. We are who we are, and that's part of our culture. Our employees cherish this.

Transparency Is Key
When I started VerticalResponse, it was easy to be transparent--there were only five of us in the office. But as we went through growing pains and lost people for not letting them in on company strategy and vision, we realized it's crucial to take the time and let people know what's going on. Now, I take copious notes in our weekly management meetings and send an email out to everyone in the company about where we are, what's happening (both good and bad), and what, if anything, we need to do to recover. I also just started putting an incentive into the email in which the first person who reads the entire thing and answers a question about the content gets a gift card. Readership has increased, to say the least.

Give Them Space
You can't please everyone, can you? In our office, we live in cubeland (albeit with low walls), where some people love their own space and some hate it. For those that love it, we conform to openness and invest in giving them space so they can create. For those that want to stand in their cubes, we do the same. We also invest in open areas so that those who are feeling stifled can slip away with their headphones to a beanbag chair in the corner. Letting people work how they want within some constraints can be really beneficial.

Invest in Their Growth
Getting people to the next level is a goal that every manager may have, but you can't get hung up on it. You do your best and hope that if you invest in their growth (mentoring, a seminar, a class), people will stay and continue to contribute. If they leave too early, think of it this way: You just paid a bit early for them to not be part of your organization, because do you really want someone on the team that doesn't want to be there anyway?

The reality is, in order to attract and retain talented employees, you need to offer the things people need, such as good insurance coverage, free food, treats, and fun. But I firmly believe if you don't look at the foundation of how you treat your people as creative human beings that have a ton to contribute to your business, all the perks in the world won't keep them around for long anyway.

Top 100 Inspirational Quotes

Kevin Kruse

Inspirational quotes and motivational quotes have the power to get us through a bad week, and can even give us the courage to pursue our life’s dreams. In my book, 4 Keys to Happiness and Fulfillment at Work, I share surprising research into the true triggers of workplace motivation. So in the spirit of self motivation, here are 100 inspirational quotes.

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. –Napoleon Hill
Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. –Albert Einstein
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. –Robert Frost
I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse. –Florence Nightingale
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. –Wayne Gretzky
I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. –Michael Jordan
The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. –Amelia Earhart
Every strike brings me closer to the next home run. –Babe Ruth
Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement. –W. Clement Stone
The past is a ghost, the future a dream. All we ever have is now. –Bill Cosby
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. –John Lennon
We become what we think about. –Earl Nightingale
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover. –Mark Twain
Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. –Charles Swindoll
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. –Alice Walker
The mind is everything. What you think you become. –Buddha
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. –Chinese Proverb
An unexamined life is not worth living. –Socrates
Eighty percent of success is showing up. –Woody Allen
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. –Steve Jobs
Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is. –Vince Lombardi
I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. –Stephen Covey
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. –Pablo Picasso
You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. –Christopher Columbus
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. –Maya Angelou
Either you run the day, or the day runs you. –Jim Rohn
Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. –Henry Ford
The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. –Mark Twain
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The best revenge is massive success. –Frank Sinatra
People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily. –Zig Ziglar
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. –Anais Nin
If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced. –Vincent Van Gogh
There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. –Aristotle
Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. –Jesus
The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. –Ralph Waldo Emerson
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. –Henry David Thoreau
When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me. –Erma Bombeck
Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him. –Booker T. Washington
Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart. – Ancient Indian Proverb
Believe you can and you’re halfway there. –Theodore Roosevelt
Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear. –George Addair
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. –Plato
Teach thy tongue to say, “I do not know,” and thous shalt progress. –Maimonides
Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. –Arthur Ashe
When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life. –John Lennon
Fall seven times and stand up eight. –Japanese Proverb
When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us. –Helen Keller
Everything has beauty, but not everyone can see. –Confucius
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. –Anne Frank
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. –Lao Tzu
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. –Maya Angelou
Happiness is not something readymade. It comes from your own actions. –Dalai Lama
If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on. –Sheryl Sandberg
First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end. –Aristotle
If the wind will not serve, take to the oars. –Latin Proverb
You can’t fall if you don’t climb. But there’s no joy in living your whole life on the ground. –Unknown
We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained. –Marie Curie
Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. –Les Brown
Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. –Joshua J. Marine
If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. –Booker T. Washington
I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. –Leonardo da Vinci
Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless. –Jamie Paolinetti
You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing, no one to blame. –Erica Jong
What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do. –Bob Dylan
I didn’t fail the test. I just found 100 ways to do it wrong. –Benjamin Franklin
In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. –Bill Cosby
A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. – Albert Einstein
The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it. –Chinese Proverb
There are no traffic jams along the extra mile. –Roger Staubach
It is never too late to be what you might have been. –George Eliot
You become what you believe. –Oprah Winfrey
I would rather die of passion than of boredom. –Vincent van Gogh
A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty. –Unknown
It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings. –Ann Landers
If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money. –Abigail Van Buren
Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs. –Farrah Gray
The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself–the invisible battles inside all of us–that’s where it’s at. –Jesse Owens
Education costs money. But then so does ignorance. –Sir Claus Moser
I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear. –Rosa Parks
It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. –Confucius
If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough. –Oprah Winfrey
Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. –Dalai Lama
You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. –Maya Angelou
Dream big and dare to fail. –Norman Vaughan
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. –Martin Luther King Jr.
Do what you can, where you are, with what you have. –Teddy Roosevelt
If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. –Tony Robbins
Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning. –Gloria Steinem
It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live. –Mae Jemison
You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try. –Beverly Sills
Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. –Eleanor Roosevelt
Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be. –Grandma Moses
The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. –Ayn Rand
When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it. –Henry Ford
It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. –Abraham Lincoln
Change your thoughts and you change your world. –Norman Vincent Peale
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. –Benjamin Franklin
Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, “I’m possible!” –Audrey Hepburn
The only way to do great work is to love what you do. –Steve Jobs
If you can dream it, you can achieve it. –Zig Ziglar

How I Founded a Top Marketing Technology Startup in Less Than 6 Months

Tiffany Pham,

Alex Gold is the co-founder of Buzzstarter, a marketing technology company in San Francisco working with the world’s largest brands like Dove, Axe, Degree, Clear, Danone Activa, and Aeropostale to drive higher return on investment for their ad campaigns.

Buzzstarter is a distribution marketplace and exchange that, on one side, connects any type of brand content (such as videos or articles) with hundreds of thousands of users who, on the other side, share the content. He uses data science to optimize the marketplace connections.

Originally from Toronto, Canada, and a lawyer by trade, Mr. Gold’s background is in the entertainment and advertising industries working with Discovery Communications , Vuguru, LLC, and DDB Canada. I sat down with him to discuss his rapidly growing company and the future of communications technology.

After 5.5 months, you’ve had significant traction with some of the world’s most prominent brands? How did you get from 0 to 60 in such a short time, when most entrepreneurs need much longer to build momentum?

Great question. Two reasons: 1) addressing real pain and acute need and 2) maniacal research and planning. Brands are feeling real pain with online marketing right now. There are so many options, and target audiences are not migrating to one or two online destinations. They are splintering to hundreds of thousands. This gives brands, who are used to buying single destination advertising like television a massive headache but also a lot of fear of missing out or FOMO. So Buzzstarter comes in with a value proposition of: 1) a single destination site that will give your brand access to hundreds of thousands of channels; 2) a laser sharp and very open focus on metrics; and 3) increased ROI. People start paying attention. We back that up with an acute understanding of what specific needs are on our platform. We designed it with that in mind.

What were some of the tactics you used to launch Buzzstarter and get it off the ground fast?

We analyzed each step of the process: research, development, operations in a very methodical way. I suggest this to any entrepreneur. This may be in contrast to what you think about most startups, where one prominent entrepreneur described it as “putting on a parachute while falling down.” My Co-Founder Kenzi Wang and I spent months in customer development obtaining information on what our target users (brands and advertisers) wanted. We did not want to build a product on intuition and we shifted the focus numerous times in research. With development, we started two parallels: product engineering, which is typical, but also sales and advisory. Since we knew sales would take some time to get off the ground, we set about creating relationships on an advisory level with potential partners months ahead of time. We are lucky in a way that one of our first customers, Lou Paik, from Danone, has an incredible amount of vision and foresight in the digital space. This gave us a running start. And for operations, we carefully engaged in a trial period with many of our colleagues where they were asked to generate real value before permanent onboarding. We have a great team as a result like our designer Zach Zorbas and our account manager, Melissa Aiello.

You work very closely with large brands. What do large brands gain from working with startups like Buzzstarter as opposed to their traditional established agencies?

Very timely and funny. Well, first, they usually get to have their dollar go further because startups offer better ROI and more efficiency in their offerings. Large brands get the benefit of the startups’ deep knowledge of up-to-the-minute innovation. Startups act as brands’ eyes and ears on the ground and in some instances form external innovation teams. Large brands can employ startups to source new trends and even partners. My brands ask me all the time what new emerging social media sites are out there as I get calls asking what Medium and Secret are (side note: sign up for Secret – it’s awesome). Dave McClure, the Founder of 500 Startups has always said, “Brands have access to customers and distribution, but like many large companies they don’t move fast and aren’t experts in tech innovation. Startups are tech-savvy and can impart and even transfer rapid innovation forward.”

Does BuzzStarter apply to just advertising? Can it apply to content creators like filmmakers or musicians who have a need to distribute their message cost-efficiently and can’t afford to do so through traditional means?

Yes, of course. We’ve never seen Buzzstarter as applied only to advertising. We anticipate a very near future in which our plug-and-play platform assists in optimizing communications for nearly every creator of content: from an advertiser to a filmmaker to a musician to nearly any writer. We are banking on the fact that as the number of means for communicating online increase, the amount of noise is also going to increase. What’s going to matter most is relevance and optimization. Relevant audience targeting and optimization of message.

This is a great time to switch gears. What inspired your career move from producing creative content to leading a team of engineers and data scientists to drive efficiency in creative content distribution through technology?

One word: the market. Coming from the traditional entertainment side at Discovery and Vuguru, I saw that entertainment distribution windows were starting to narrow with the arrival of Netflix and Amazon. But consumers were (and still are) moving faster than any one platform. They are consuming content not just in one destination but in a multiplicity of applications, sites, and channels that are not limited to the social web or where you can buy exposure. The only way to harness this — to truly harness these new market dynamics — was through data and technology. I saw what Andreas Wigand was doing at Amazon in regards to targeting audiences across different channels and was shocked that no plug-and-play solution existed. If you wanted to target audiences on one blog versus another you needed to make separate deals. On each social network, another separate deal. That’s enough to give anyone a headache. I knew there was a need to create a plug and play solution that allowed any content creator or advertiser the opportunity to distribute across all of these apps and social media outlets that no one else can get into. And now we have the engineering and data science to make it work. So, I partnered with Kenzi Wang, a growth engineer, moved to San Francisco, and started Buzzstarter.

Was the transition from being a creative to being a technologist challenging?

Yes, it was, although I find my creative side to be an immense asset. Initially, it was hard getting my head wrapped around the concept of scalability at inception. Building a technology platform requires that every function and action be scalable to a target market with minimal labor. By contrast, developing a television series or a film is iterative, customized, and often personal. Coming into the tech world, this was a jarring difference for me but as soon as I learned the ropes, I started to jump. In fact, I use my more creative skills every day in iterative product focused problem solving and roadmapping. I have picked that up directly from the story-editing and development process. It allowed us to craft a user focused story faster and launch the company sooner.

Do you have any advice for aspiring entrepreneurs coming from the corporate world?

Yes. This may sound trite, but you have to be an optimist. You also have to be open to a flexible schedule. You may have heard it before, but working in a startup is backbreaking and awful. There are many times you may want to give up. This means you constantly need to be an optimist. You always have to keep your eye on the positive aspects. Sometimes, admittedly, even blind optimism helps. The other thing you need to be open to is a flexible schedule. Coming from the corporate world, you may be used to 9-5 meetings and some weekend work but startup life is everywhere, all the time, including time you may think is off. This may sound obvious, but I have met many a new entrepreneur who came from the corporate world only to attempt to run their startup the same way. Not my advice. Be flexible in your schedule and time. It’s the mental barrier that makes such a difference.

Monday, February 24, 2014

35 Habits of the Most Productive People (Infographic)

Friday, February 21, 2014

Profit & Leadership Most Viewed Posts of 2013

This is the 1 year anniversary of my blog PROFIT AND LEADERSHIP. Due to supporters like you, the blog has been well received.

Thank You!

My motivation for creating P&L was to provide a facility for people who run businesses to access useful leadership tips and improve their individual performance as leaders and the performance of their companies. On the occasion of this first anniversary, I conducted an audit of the blog’s over 500 posts and here are the top 15:

SIX MYTHS ABOUT VENTURE CAPITALISTS

http://profitandleadership.blogspot.ca/2013/05/six-myths-about-venture-capitalists.html

BAD BUSINESS DECISIONS AND FAMOUS QUOTES

http://profitandleadership.blogspot.ca/2013/02/bad-business-decisions-and-famous-quotes.html

NEW INSIGHTS INTO THE CORRELATION BETWEEN CSR AND BRAND STRENGTH

http://profitandleadership.blogspot.ca/2013/07/new-insights-into-correlation-between.html

CASE STUDY: COMPETING IN RETAIL– “DAVID VS GOLIATH”

http://profitandleadership.blogspot.ca/2013/05/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none_8834.html

CASE STUDY - ANCILLARY BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

http://profitandleadership.blogspot.ca/2013/03/case-study-ancillary-business.html

CASE STUDY - ANATOMY OF A TURNAROUND

http://profitandleadership.blogspot.ca/2013/03/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none_12.html

CASE STUDY: ACHIEVE AND MAINTAIN COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE