I’ve been thinking about how to create a culture/atmosphere that enables and fosters a strong work ethic.

To set the stage – I think at the core we want outstanding performance, internal drive and an attitude of “I can do it”.  We should refrain against pushing “office face time” as our number one issue – it will only lead to less productive and unhappy people sitting in front of their computers for longer hours.

How do we achieve it?

The biggest job lies with management and one word – communication

Having consistent, open communication and feedback between a manager and his direct reports should provide all the ammunition to create the culture we really want.  Communication in the following ways – updates from the manager on the state of the company, the current and future successes, the current and future issues and how that person has the ability to impact these events, why what we are doing matters. We are creating an incredible thing – we don’t do a good enough job getting that message to our employees.  Further details on how the employee should structure their workload in order to help the company achieve these results and real, consistent feedback on the impact (positive and negative) that their work is having.  A Manager’s first and foremost responsibility is managing his direct reports and this task should take up the majority of his day.  A manager shouldn’t act like or perform the duties of a sole contributor- ever.

The second biggest job – communication

All members of the senior staff and other department managers should make it a point to communicate with individuals throughout the organization (who are not direct reports) of the successes and challenges the company is facing as well as how they feel the individual can and is impacting the company (this is 365 feedback and is as important as supervisory feedback).

The third biggest job is …. communication

Having a backbone of a formal goal setting mechanism (a la quarterly SMARTgoals) will help add structure and direction and a rated performance mechanism for all employees.  Tying these quarterly goals to bonuses and changing payouts from an annual to a quarterly basis will help driver performance and give a third clear pathway for employee feedback.  Negative feedback and termination should never come as a surprise to an employee – if it does – it is ultimately a poor reflection of the Managers ability to manage (not to mention a legal minefield).

Let’s face it, not everyone sees a job as their number one priority in their life, most people see it as a means to an end.  You’ve heard the saying, no one ever puts “I wish I spent more time at work” on their gravestone.  For the most part any attempt to think we can change this and force people will only create a more toxic environment.  We can create an atmosphere where people truly care about the success of the company and that, more than anything, will achieve what we want to achieve – the three steps outlined above will surely get us there.

I’ve been able to dig up a few interesting and exciting Start-up related links this week.

The first was from a Tweet by Mitch Kapor (@mitchkapor) – follow him if you’re not.  This is an online course on how to develop / start your own web related venture.  They’ve corralled a number of articles and videos by the likes of Eric Ries (@ericries) and Steve Blank.  Startup 3.0: How to Build a Better Web Startup.

The company, SocratED, that is hosting the course is on to a great idea by allowing people to create courses to share with others.  I wish they had a little more information about the company listed on their site.

Next, is a link to DocStoc and it’s newly opened document store.  I like the idea that I can cheaply purchase legal documents for my company and can post and sell my own documents.

The Wall Street Journal has a nice artcile Alexandra Levit (@alevit) on how to take advantage of social media tools for your business.  They point to OneForty as a place to pick tools for Twitter.

Transideation has a nice Legal checklist for your Startup, Basic Legal Checklist for Startups.

Finally, OnStartups.com’s (and Hubspot’s) Dharmesh Shah (@dharmesh) has a great list of hot software startup ideas – get moving!

In honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday today – here is a fitting entrepreneurial quote:

“You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself

any direction you choose.” – Oh! The Places You’ll Go

Anyone who knows more than one successful Start-Up founder knows there are a few skills that, almost without exception, they share.  Contagious enthusiasm, motivation and drive, and natural presentation skills are all necessary skills needed to succeed.

Have you ever seen a Start-Up founder present his vision?  Whether to a potential investor, advisor or job candidate?  It can be amazing and inspiring, a mark of a truly successful Entrepreneur.  How do you get good at presenting info?  I’ve pulled together a few ideas and links to help get you started.

Great Visuals

The best thing your slides can do for you is stay out of the way and emphasize your talking points.  More than anything – poor quality and content of your slides will leave the be remembered that way; high quality slides will cause people to remember your talk.

I’m a huge fan of Edward Tufte and of both his books and seminars.  If you haven’t read him before, you owe it to yourself to purchase his Essay, The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint on his site.  I’ve been to his seminars twice and have all his books, my favorite part of his talk is when he describes the Overhead Projector Striptease.  Where your professor would put a blank piece of paper over his “slide” to keep his bored audience from reading ahead.

At the very least, visit his site and explore the message boards – they are fascinating.

Presentation Design

Just because you can add a screeching tire sound effect to your slides in Powerpoint doesn’t mean you should.  Ditto for using a bright yellow background.  There are some basic design do’s and don’ts.  Garr Reynolds, the author of Presentation Zen (the book and blog), is a great source for high quality design tips.

Pulling it all Together

TED is one of my favorite things on the internet, amazingly smart people giving amazingly effective presentations.  They’re mission statement is “Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world”.  Chris Anderson, TED’s CEO, has given us a gift by allowing us to view all of these presentations.  He recently blogged about what he thinks it takes to present like a TEDster.

What’s Chris’ biggest piece of advice?  Preparation is key, Maintain clarity in your presentation and bring something of yourself (your unique style) to your talk.

What’s the worst thing you can do? Have a presentation full of bullet point slides and read from them verbatim.

You will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do… Explore. Dream. Discover. -Mark Twain

For a while I’ve been reading Steve Blank’s fantastic Start-Up blog and yesterday he announced a new book consisting of the past year’s posts, collated by subject.  You can find his new book, Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost, at Amazon.

I wanted to touch on two of his excellent posts about Start-Up culture, partly because my current company has faced both of these issues lately and come through it OK.

In the first, The Curse of a New Building, Steve talks about the inherent company culture change in moving from a crowded, run down, first office to a new palatial corporate estate.

The second is the excellently titled, The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free.  Aside from the title fitting into my Tolkien obsession (I’ve decided to re-watch all three movies, once for each additional commentary track in conjunction with reading the books), this brings up a real turning point for most start-ups and shows that all companies can be penny-wise and pound-foolish.

Recently I stumbled across a blog post by Derek Sivers who gave a talk about this video and the relevant leadership lessons to be learned, here and above.

What really struck me was the absolute necessity to watch this video and see it through the eyes of a passionate start-up pioneer.  Take a look at the second link and let me know what you think.

Read the post here: Does Every Startup Need a Steve Jobs

and check out the excellent follow up with commentary from Apple Alumni David Shen and Kristee Rosendhal here:

Update on the Steve Jobs Post from an Apple Alum

Negotiating a Better Series A Deal