Hire Exceptional Human Beings that Expect the Unexpected
In a recent Venture Beat article, Salman Khan of The Khan Academy, in an event at the Commonwealth Club of Silicon Valley, interviewed Jonathan Rosenberg, former Senior Vice President of Products at Google and Eric Schmidt, the reigning Executive Chairman of Google regarding the uniqueness of Google’s culture and management style that made them the success they are today and how they continue to fuel that success into the future. Google has always been a “trend setter” sort of speak and many companies seem to think they wrote the book on building and scaling a startup. If that’s the case then why do I see so many startups include “MBA Preferred” in their executive job descriptions?
Google’s chairman and head of hiring, Laszlo Bock says that Google values the skills and experiences that candidates get in college, but a degree doesn’t tell them much about talent or “grit”. He was quoted in a New York Times article last year as saying “When you look at people who don’t go to school and make their way in the world, those are exceptional human beings. And we should do everything we can to find those people”. In the interview, Jonathan Rosenberg recalled a conversation he had with one of the Cofounders of Google, Larry Page in the early days of his tenure at Google. The conversation went something like this when Jonathan presented his first Product Marketing plan to Larry … Larry asked, “When have you ever produced a plan like this where the engineers stuck features in that weren’t in your plan?” Larry answered, “Well, never”. Then Larry proceeded, “When did the engineers ever finish a project faster than what’s in your — what do you call it — a Gantt chart?” Jonathan replied, “Well, never”. Then Larry with his verbose response said “Then your plans are stupid. Please stop doing them, go spend time with the engineers and learn how they work”.
Gantt charts can be used to show current schedule status using percent-complete shadings and vertical timelines, they also can be used to track shifts or tasks (i.e. a product development roadmap). Gantt charts are commonly taught at the Harvard Business Schools of the world. Nothing against the Gantt chart as they’ve been used effectively in many applications over my career. The catch here is the thinking behind it. Jonathan thought that “The way you do project management is the MBA comes in and writes the plan”. The MBA, the person with all the answers. Rosenberg had been hired early on in Google’s history to help transform the company from a scrappy startup to a mature multinational. However, cofounder Larry Page schooled him in the Google approach to business and product: Design things for unexpected results.
Design things for unexpected results is a brilliant mantra, you can also take it into the context of management… Manage things for the unexpected results. Most academics teach theory and abstract or generalizing thinking. Everything in academia is based on broad analysis and seldom on practical real-world circumstances. Not that’s its bad, it’s just not practical, especially in a dynamic environment like a startup. I say this from experience. When I was a year and a half into building the North American operations for a UK headquartered startup the CEO hired a straight laced, button down MBA type as the EVP for EMEA to be my counterpart. The CEO even told me “this guy will give you a run for your money so you better stay on your toes”. That didn’t bother me in the least as I had complete confidence in my capabilities and real-world experiences. I took it on as more of a challenge than an insult. Just some background, I built our NA organization from nothing, zero, zilch, nada… this VP had a head start with being at corporate, having an existing sales/marketing/support/and operations teams, admins and engineers all in the same location. After nine months, the CEO had to make a change, guess who was let go? The MBA, why? Because he lacked critical thinking. In most instances, when something unexpected came up he panicked because he wasn’t prepared for that scenario. He also spent too much time analyzing things to paralysis.
Let me just say one thing, I am all for education, the more the better. However, I don’t take kindly to academics or those who waive their degree around like a Green Bay Packer’s fan wears a cheese head hat at football game (yes, you who boast, I mean post “MBA” in your LinkedIn professional headline). Some of us who are not degreed or don’t have an MBA are in some cases looked down upon by those elitists who think their piece of paper is worth more than our “GRIT” as Laszlo Bock put it. I never stopped learning when I had to leave college to help with the family business due to an illness in the family.
To this day I am a student and will always consider myself one. I just never had the time or the inclination to return to school to further my education. A degree is truly great, however, if you’re going to boast, boast about your experiences, skillset, successes, and most of all your ability to get the job done better than imagined! And hiring managers, look at the person and the track record and not so much the degree. Especially if you’re looking for someone to lead with 10 + years of experience. In the end MBA or NO MBA, it all comes down to what Laszlo Bock said earlier in this blog… “
When you look at people who don’t go to school and make their way in the world, those are exceptional human beings. And we should do everything we can to find those people”. WE ARE EXCEPTIONAL HUMMAN BEINGS!
