Tag: Enron

Start-ups vs instutional memories

Vincent Cerf is a case in point.

He is perhaps the oldest employee at young Google. Before that, a lifer at MCI.

But you need someone who has been there, done that. Who could connect the dots (or see them at all).

Start-ups got money and the juice.

Most of, start-ups got the goods and the guts to make it happen.

Then when things fly, ROI positive and dividends paid out, things get complicated and dull.

Start-up phase is giving ways to institutionalizing process.

This is where precedent comes into play. Where expertise and wisdom are in demand.

The White House employs a few Senior Advisors for this very function.

Lately, news has a ring of the familiar: Saturday Evening Post gone, then Saturday Post Office closed.

Instagram is taking over where it used to be My Space. Dell has outlived its just-in-time idea.

And HP is HP (could have become another Lenovo).

At least we recognize the telecom bubble (Enron and AOL). So this time, someone like Vincent is needed to give wise counsel.

To see ahead of the curve. To go through the check list of that which quacks like a duck.

We need a healthy dose of self-disruption. A life unexamined is not worth living. The same with companies, and start-ups.

In the absence of wise counsel, institutions perish.

What  you don’t need is a historian (who will do a post-mortem). What you do need is someone from the inside who was from the outside, and whose comments you might not like, but desperately needed. Someone with some institutional memories to serve up a healthy dose of “you might want to take a look at this”, ” I wouldn’t do it if I were you”. They might be that embodiment and personification of the impersonal beast we call institution. In each system, we need a living and breathing wise one to serve as a speed bump. Or that they can work from the future backward, to pre-mortem a project and visualize certain death to save it.

Vantage point

The cut-aways (filmed after the interviewed subject had left), the backstage steady cam sneak peeks, the studio bird-eye-view shot showing anchors walk away from the set while credits roll and music fade out….

We are a society privileged with multiple vantage points , given us the illusion of omnipresence. When film and television cameras were fighting for dominance, little did they know that the disruptive element came much later. Now we got I-pad camera ,

traffic camera, security camera, webcam and robotic camera that assists in prostate surgery.

When TV producers mention the word “camera”, they meant the studio camera that stands still, with white balance and lighting all set (the mark). CNN started with night-vision coverage of the first Iraq war, thus setting the stage for the likes of jitter images, but live nonetheless.

From today’s vantage point we can look back (like TIME and Life) to images of the past, personal and collective. Those of us who can relate to still shots in Black and White remember where we were when JFK or J.L. got shot.

Our life is a narrative with karma as an underlining theme.  Like a slide show, it proceeds from left to right, alpha to omega, in a continuous loop.

No “pause” button.

Someone says aptly that we are what we repeatedly do. Habits die-hard.

To change, one needs to practice a new skill no less than 10,000 hours.

(almost 8 hours a day, for 3.4 years weekends included).

The alternative is much easier: just take the path of least resistance.

In “All the devils are here” (about Sub-prime debacle) by the same author who penned “The smartest guy in the room” (about Enron), we learn about unchecked institutional behavior cascaded and led up to recent financial tsunami.

We know now, from our vantage point, that we need multiple check points,  speed-bums and SEC of SEC.

The present is oftentimes better understood from future vantage point. Hence, the importance of visualization.

Of imagining, of inventing and reinventing. We got the mirror, we got the camera. Now we just need an honest look at ourselves via those lenses and view points. See if we can handle the truth. Technology is one thing. Honesty and courage is quite another.

Winning is contagious!

If you need to be motivated as I do, watch the Winter Olympics.

You will share peak emotions, peak performance and peak mountain spots of Vancouver.

Everybody loves a winner, and the winner loves to savor and share that moment .

We empathize with their struggle, their trial and triumph. In a word, we self-project.

Their hopes, fears and dreams become ours.

Think of that Newsweek cover photo of the US women soccer player who took off her shirt on the green (Olympic 96?). Spontaneous and sweet victory.

Or at SB44, when the Saints number 22 intercepted that football (he pointed the finger at the end zone, where he was sure he would be in seconds).

No point of stopping someone on a winning trajectory.

Down in Brazil and New Orleans, the parades rage on.

Good to be alive. But it’s better to win.

Unless you were into anti-hero theme, winning has been popular in literature, film and throughout history.

Sadly, to win, you need to learn from the mistakes of others. That’s where training films and failed-business case studies come into play.

Remember that uncle in your secret family history? It’s better to whisper and leave the past in the dungeon. We all involve in mental editing, of data scrubbing to reinvent ourselves, just like the bean counters of Worldcom and Enron, to show positive P/E. There is nothing wrong with self-reinvention. But we need solid “wins” to show.

At the Olympics, sometimes, winning comes after years of training and practice. Even loss of life. But so contagious is winning . “I’ll have some of that” (Rob Reiner‘s mom said that famous line in “when Harry met Sally“.)