Time to Burn That Organizational Chart Companies That Flatten Their Hierarchy are FASTER to Market...and More Creative

Brad's Best Blog Posts 3-14-2013

 
Excerpt from Liquid leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia,
Culture Shock, page 35...

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

One afternoon as I was preparing for a presentation to the K2 board of advisers later in the evening, a vigorous knock pulled me from my thoughts. Our receptionist, Jennifer Rivers, opened the door and asked...

“Do you have time to show some tourists around the office?”

It turned out that a small group of Japanese businessmen wanted to take a tour of our 3,000-square-foot facility. This was back in 1996, and K2’s main offices were at 55 Broad Street in the New York Information Technology Center (NYITC for short)... we were one of fifty new media tech companies but the only one in the building that was publicly traded. So, alas, we attracted the curious.

I had only one hour to spare. As I entered the lobby ten businessmen greeted me, along with the tour guide who served as their interpreter—all from Japan and all very curious about this phenomenon called the “Internet boom.” As we shall see, their curiosity was symbolic (and still is) of a much larger divide—not just between East and West, but between comfortably old methodologies smacking into radically new ways of doing business.

I immediately introduced myself and smiled to the group. The tour guide, a woman named Yumi, explained that they wished to see K2. Of course, I agreed. Knowing a little bit about both Japanese and Chinese culture, I bowed and said it would be my honor. Everyone bowed in unison and smiled.

Questions abounded as I began the tour with a description of the processes at K2: the careful balance among programmers, technology, and designers, and the great care taken to assure that an end user’s experience was seamless and memorable. Our visitors seemed to be mentally contrasting what appeared to be a loose management style with traditional Japanese management. To them, K2’s approach made no sense. Contrasts between East and West are not new, but the dot-com boom made them even more apparent.

Seeing their puzzlement, I attempted to enlighten them.  

“Everyone here is encouraged to bring fresh ideas to the table, and we do our best to support and reward those ideas. Nothing is considered a dumb idea, and without everyone’s input, most projects would be mediocre.”

This answer seemed to amaze them. According to Yumi, this was not how business is done in Japan. There must be hierarchy and structure. Communication was one-way in their organizational chart. Some in the group looked confused, and I imagined their blank looks were saying, “How in the hell do these young Americans get any work done?” Where is the taskmaster? They didn’t understand that mass collaboration was what made our business most effective. It was like trying to get Boomers to understand the business training a teenager was receiving by playing World of Warcraft.

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What I failed to mention at the time, and what perhaps could have satisfied their curiosity, is that we always hired smart people at K2 who weren’t afraid to speak up. We gave people flexible time to get their work finished while balancing out deadlines. In other words, if it took four hours to get eight hours’ worth of work finished, then an employee could work on something else, create a project for the company, or leave early and work from home.

Without knowing it we had created at K2 a results-only work environment (ROWE), where our best employees were rewarded for their results rather than the number of hours worked. In these environments, productivity goes up, workers satisfaction goes up, and turnover virtually disappears.

By contrast, whenever a strict cultural paradigm does not allow for input from lower-level employees, executives miss innovations that could have made their companies instant leaders. In such a world, one must earn the “right” to be listened to and lower-rung employees can’t possibly have an effective contribution. Without permission, no one shares their insights.

In today’s world, self-motivated, peer-to-peer communication speeds up the creation of innovative ideas by giving them the platform to be heard.

This isn’t some new-age management philosophy; this has been field-tested all over the world by the best management and behavioral scientists on Earth. Giving smart people autonomy in an organization and the ability to manage their own time creates groundbreaking output.

In our company, project managers pushed every project through in order to meet deadlines, but they were just as responsible for input as they were for receiving a critique. Not seeing an official commander-in-chief must have seemed strange to these visiting hierarchy junkies, but to our project managers, a traditional top-down approach would have seemed like a cattle drive: “I don’t care how you get there, just get it to market.”

Our managers knew that the best way to build dynamic experiences and products for consumers is to give them not just what they want but what they need, and to do so alongside things that are exciting and add value.

In order to create such dynamic experiences for a user, the people building the website have the freedom to create one-of-a-kind experiences. Utilitarian doesn’t work in Internet development.

I took our tour through the programming department, then into accounting where Seth Bressman our CFO was overseeing payroll, then into the producer’s area. Everything at K2 had a tinge of corporate and creative rolled into one: cubicles but fully exposed HVAC and ductwork to give it an industrial air yet retain that loft feeling. The last stop on the tour was our design department, a five-sided, uneven room with a black Formica wraparound counter with multiple workstations, all Macintosh with twenty-three-inch screens. The only light sources were from the monitors and any light from the sixth-floor terrace outside. The design department was state of the art and the coolest part of our offices, so it was the best place to end our tour.

I opened up the floor to Q&A. A very polished businessman wearing corporate casual, with a camera strapped around his neck and a pair of thick glasses, asked a question.

Yumi turned to translate.

“What is your initial market cap?”
“It’s $26 million and growing,” I responded.
There was a slight delay as Yumi would reinterpret my words into Japanese.
I was careful not to use slang or American colloquialisms.
“You appear to be in hyper-growth. Is that true?”
“Yes,” I replied. “As a matter of fact we are getting ready to consolidate our other three divisions under one congruous, 13,000-square-foot office across the street at 30 Broad.” We were actually two months away from moving our workforce of sixty full-time employees. I wondered how these businessmen from the Land of the Rising Sun could see what we were going through when American investors couldn’t. Perhaps they were looking for different things.

Pulling the Lid off the Past

The older Japanese businessmen didn’t seem to understand that the greatest innovations in technology and the freshest ideas can come from anyone—young or old—especially when the environment is right. Products that have excited consumers do so because the company that created them built something passionately and creatively to solve a problem or excite the customer. From dishwashing liquid to sports cars to computers, the leaders are always the most creative and the ones that incite an emotional response from their customer. You may not be aware of this, but just about everything you have ever purchased in your life was due to the fact that it was the most creative, coolest thing in your world and it made life better. Period. We don’t buy things; we buy experiences. What we think this product or that will give us, whether it’s cleaner clothes, faster Internet access, or the most luxurious car our dollar can buy.

Without consistent creativity, there is no innovation.
So why do so many companies ignore creativity as a line item?

Part of the reason creativity appears to be absent in most companies is that most executives don’t really understand it—or how to manage it. The old saying “If it isn’t measurable, it isn’t manageable” has been flipped. It doesn’t look like a real business environment when it appears that people are having fun. And ROWE works only for companies where more complex, conceptual, creative output is their business. Traditional management and reward paradigms work well in companies where there is a narrow band of focus—a simple set of rules, goals, and tasks to follow and a reward for top performers.

But in companies where complex, out-of-the-box thinking is needed to stay consistently in the innovative sweet spot, managers would do well to adopt a results-only environment. With no clearly set work hours, the emphasis is on results—not time at a cubicle. Measuring individual output becomes the standard for measurement in a ROWE-run company. No one cares when you decide to work or where, as long as it comes in on deadline and is impeccable. Not surprisingly these environments have the highest employee satisfaction and the lowest turnover.

But results-only environments are not the best environments for everyone, especially those environments where an actual amount of work is measurable—for example, how many pieces did you assemble during an eight-hour shift? Or how many welds did you accomplish? Certain jobs and departments—accounting, baking, and construction come to mind—just cannot be run openly like this. But we can make these environments better places to work by giving employees the incentive to come forward with money-saving and money-making ideas—ideas that won’t interfere with productivity.

Results-only collaborative environments can actually be destructive to people who lack the discipline to self-manage their time or those who are incapable of taking responsibility for their work. People like this should stay in environments where management is hanging over their shoulder, where all they have to do is follow rules and finish a task. For people like this, working alone and taking responsibility for their own time management is not something they can ever get used to. It is too loose for their work ethic. They need (and want) to be managed.

To have consistent breakthroughs, intense creativity, and innovation, however, letting people manage their own time and output is the key to success."

Don't you think it's time we managed people better? Thank you for reading...



Brad SzolloseBridging The Generational Divide: Multigenerational management expert, award-winning author, business consultant and keynote speaker


PS: If you are interested in one of our white papers entitled... 

What Every Business Needs
to Know About Millennials:

Understanding How Technology Transforms Corporate Culture, Generational Behavior, and Impacts Management, Interaction and Expectations 

Email us with your name, title and email address.
Your information is confidential.

Ask me how I can help your company evolve into the 21st Century.

Brad Szollose is a much sought-after generational expert, management consultant and keynote speaker who helps smart companies understand just how much technology has transformed corporate culture and behavior… and how that impacts management interaction, expectations and sales in The Digital Age.



But this is not based on management theory: With a 30 year career as an entrepreneur he knows firsthand what it’s like to grow a company from a simple idea in a coffee shop to an internationally recognized brand.


Brad is a former C-Level Internet Executive who went from entrepreneur to IPO in 3 yrs—co-founding K2 Design, the very first Dot Com Agency to go public on NASDAQ. His company experienced 425% hyper-growth for 5 straight years, expanded from 2 business partners to 4 with 60+ employees and offices worldwide. At its height, K2 was valuated at over $26 million. 

His results only management model (ROWE) was applied to the first wave of young Generation Y workers producing great results—winning K2 the Arthur Andersen NY Enterprise Award for Best Practices in Fostering Innovation.

Brad Szollose is also the *award-winning author of Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia which explores the subject of new leadership styles – mainly how to get the tech-savvy Generation Y and analog driven Baby Boomers working together. ISBN-13: 978-1608320554

Known for his humorous and thought-provoking presentations, Szollose received the highest testimonial of his career from a C-Level audience member: "I just had my mind blown." Brad’s keynotes and workshops are highly interactive, heart-warming, humorous, and filled with high-content information that challenge assumptions and help leaders and managers create a better work environment for innovation to thrive.


Liquid Leadership has been called "THE guidebook for the 21st Century" and has won the 2011 Axiom Business Book Award silver medal for leadership, The Indie Business Book runner up silver medal as well as becoming a #1 Best-Selling Business Book on Amazon for Organizational Learning. Published in the United States by Greenleaf Book Group, in India by Prolibris and in South Korea by UI Books/Iljinsa Publishing.

Mr. Szollose also writes a monthly column on business and marketing techniques that reach Generation Y for A Captured Mind newsletter and is part of The Mind Capture Group faculty.

Today, Brad helps businesses close the Digital Divide by understanding it as a Cultural Divide – created by the new tech-savvy worker...and customer. 



* 2011 Axiom Business Book silver medal winner in the leadership

* #1 Amazon Best-Selling Author

"I just had my mind blown..." - A.S., Vistage, New York

Liquid Leadership by Brad Szollose is available at all major bookstores and for Kindle, Nook, iPad and Sony ereaders. Internationally published in India and S. Korea.

Truth: The Most Important Environment for Leadership to Work Revisited: It's the Hardest Thing to Do...

On page 9 of Liquid Leadership I point out the Credo of a Liquid Leader. Most importantly, my 2nd law stands out the most for leadership to be affective.

"...Leadership should cultivate an Environment Where It Is Free and Safe to Tell the Truth.

Ever work for a company that micromanages everything to death? In these environments a paper trail becomes more important than getting the work done. Our current enthusiasm for technology has created even more potential for micromanagement, via massive amounts of emails and documentation and endless meetings to sort through it all. Yet when this temptation is given in to, the result isn’t better communication or higher productivity, but the opposite. Management becomes the last to know what is actually happening.

Conversely, in companies that have moved to flatten their hierarchies and create environments where it is safer to point out the truth, you begin to notice that each person takes their role seriously. When responsibility is shifted to the individual—when people are given the freedom and power to manage their time and solve problems—the result is that no one wants to let down even a single member of their team.

An organization like this runs more smoothly and with more trust. The best and the brightest naturally gravitate toward the chance to work with one another. They know courage will be rewarded, not penalized, and innovation will see the light of day. Such environments operate like entrepreneurial start-ups, with each individual engaged in the success of the company. People are encouraged to challenge one another. They operate with confidence and a sense of personal ambition because they have skin in the game.

This approach may fly in the face of every business manual you have ever read, but those manuals are out of date. We are not in easy times. Consider that betting on one direction or a single type of technology can send a company into bankruptcy overnight. All the more reason to put aside your ego, to listen, and to encourage the sharing of knowledge in every area of an organization’s operations. Environments such as these do not centralize creativity; they make it a systemic part of what drives their entire organization.

It is your job as a leader to support the development and creation of big ideas, integrating them into your company’s mix of products..."

The truth has become fuzzy these days as people are more interested in the almighty dollar instead of doing great things. We know fluoride is not safe to put in our water and drink on a daily basis. We know our food supply is filled with carcinogenic chemicals. We know our politicians are...well you get my drift.

But when drug company whistle-blower Cheryl Eckard tried to fix problems at a GlaxoSmithKline pharmaceutical factory in Puerto Rico she was fired.

The 60 Minutes story is here:

Bad Medicine: The Glaxo Case 
January 2, 2011 7:00 PM

Yet when Cheryl brought well documented problems to her boss, she was dismissed, told that it would be taken care of and eventually, when she pressed harder, fired. Admitting the truth can destroy entire companies and bring about unwanted changes. Yet the truth is where progress begins.

It is hard to tell the truth when doing so could bring
a wave of lawsuits

Just look at the dental industry. IF they admit that Fluoride and mercury cause certain diseases, the entire industry could be brought to their knees. But, with that said, how hard is it to act like a human being?

Some believe that Cheryl Eckard did what she did for the money - (she was awarded $96 million from a $750 million suit against GSK)...really? Did she know she would be a multimillionaire when she discovered drug mix-ups and unsanitary conditions at Glaxo's plant? It was her job to oversee quality control and if she had not followed through she would have been fired. But what is unforgivable is the reaction of the executives; they simply tried to make it seem as if conditions weren't that bad.

Shame does not seem to exist in some boardrooms

Want to make changes in your organization? How about your life or your community? Start by facing the truth...not your opinion. Like maybe my wife is right – I don't look good in that sweat suit anymore, (not that that has ever happened to me. LOL).

What is important to you? Paper trails, micromanagement, telling people what to do? Truth telling is not pretty...but it is transformational.

And thank you for stopping by,

Brad Szollose
Bridging Generational Chaos: Multigenerational management expert, award-winning author, business consultant and keynote speaker


“The Beekeeper and The Watchmaker” story can be found in Navigating The Growth Curve by James Fischer. Want to learn how to manage like a beekeeper? Check out James Fischer’s Growth Curve Institute.

Brad Szollose is a much sought-after generational expert, management consultant and keynote speaker who helps smart companies understand just how much technology has transformed corporate culture and behavior… and how that impacts management interaction, expectations and sales in The Digital Age.



But this is not based on management theory: With a 30 year career as an entrepreneur he knows firsthand what it’s like to grow a company from a simple idea in a coffee shop to an internationally recognized brand.


Brad is a former C-Level Internet Executive who went from entrepreneur to IPO in 3 yrs—co-founding K2 Design, the very first Dot Com Agency to go public on NASDAQ. His company experienced 425% hyper-growth for 5 straight years, expanded from 2 business partners to 4 with 60+ employees and offices worldwide. At its height, K2 was valuated at over $26 million. 

His results only management model (ROWE) was applied to the first wave of young Generation Y workers producing great results—winning K2 the Arthur Andersen NY Enterprise Award for Best Practices in Fostering Innovation.

Brad Szollose is also the *award-winning author of Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia which explores the subject of new leadership styles – mainly how to get the tech-savvy Generation Y and analogue driven Baby Boomers working together. ISBN-13: 978-1608320554

Known for his humorous and thought-provoking presentations, Szollose received the highest testimonial of his career from a C-Level audience member: "I just had my mind blown." Brad’s keynotes and workshops are highly interactive, heart-warming, humorous, and filled with high-content information that challenge assumptions and help leaders and managers create a better work environment for innovation to thrive.


Liquid Leadership has been called "THE guidebook for the 21st Century" and has won the 2011 Axiom Business Book Award silver medal for leadership, The Indie Business Book runner up silver medal as well as becoming a #1 Best-Selling Business Book on Amazon for Organizational Learning. Published in the United States by Greenleaf Book Group, in India by Prolibris and in South Korea by UI Books/Iljinsa Publishing.

Mr. Szollose also writes a monthly column on business and marketing techniques that reach Generation Y for A Captured Mind newsletter and is part of The Mind Capture Group faculty.

Today, Brad helps businesses close the Digital Divide by understanding it as a Cultural Divide – created by the new tech-savvy worker...and customer. 



* 2011 Axiom Business Book silver medal winner in the leadership

* #1 Amazon Best-Selling Author

"I just had my mind blown..." - A.S., Vistage, New York

Liquid Leadership by Brad Szollose is available at all major bookstores and for Kindle, Nook, iPad and Sony ereaders. Internationally published in India and S. Korea.

Time to Burn That Organizational Chart Companies That Flatten Their Hierarchy are FASTER to Market...and More Creative

Excerpt from Liquid leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia,
Culture Shock, page 35...

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

One afternoon as I was preparing for a presentation to the K2 board of advisers later in the evening, a vigorous knock pulled me from my thoughts. Our receptionist, Jennifer Rivers, opened the door and asked...

“Do you have time to show some tourists around the office?”

It turned out that a small group of Japanese businessmen wanted to take a tour of our 3,000-square-foot facility. This was back in 1996, and K2’s main offices were at 55 Broad Street in the New York Information Technology Center (NYITC for short)... we were one of fifty new media tech companies but the only one in the building that was publicly traded. So, alas, we attracted the curious.

I had only one hour to spare. As I entered the lobby ten businessmen greeted me, along with the tour guide who served as their interpreter—all from Japan and all very curious about this phenomenon called the “Internet boom.” As we shall see, their curiosity was symbolic (and still is) of a much larger divide—not just between East and West, but between comfortably old methodologies smacking into radically new ways of doing business.

I immediately introduced myself and smiled to the group. The tour guide, a woman named Yumi, explained that they wished to see K2. Of course, I agreed. Knowing a little bit about both Japanese and Chinese culture, I bowed and said it would be my honor. Everyone bowed in unison and smiled.

Questions abounded as I began the tour with a description of the processes at K2: the careful balance among programmers, technology, and designers, and the great care taken to assure that an end user’s experience was seamless and memorable. Our visitors seemed to be mentally contrasting what appeared to be a loose management style with traditional Japanese management. To them, K2’s approach made no sense. Contrasts between East and West are not new, but the dot-com boom made them even more apparent.

Seeing their puzzlement, I attempted to enlighten them.  

“Everyone here is encouraged to bring fresh ideas to the table, and we do our best to support and reward those ideas. Nothing is considered a dumb idea, and without everyone’s input, most projects would be mediocre.”

This answer seemed to amaze them. According to Yumi, this was not how business is done in Japan. There must be hierarchy and structure. Communication was one-way in their organizational chart. Some in the group looked confused, and I imagined their blank looks were saying, “How in the hell do these young Americans get any work done?” Where is the taskmaster? They didn’t understand that mass collaboration was what made our business most effective. It was like trying to get Boomers to understand the business training a teenager was receiving by playing World of Warcraft.

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What I failed to mention at the time, and what perhaps could have satisfied their curiosity, is that we always hired smart people at K2 who weren’t afraid to speak up. We gave people flexible time to get their work finished while balancing out deadlines. In other words, if it took four hours to get eight hours’ worth of work finished, then an employee could work on something else, create a project for the company, or leave early and work from home.

Without knowing it we had created at K2 a results-only work environment (ROWE), where our best employees were rewarded for their results rather than the number of hours worked. In these environments, productivity goes up, workers satisfaction goes up, and turnover virtually disappears.

By contrast, whenever a strict cultural paradigm does not allow for input from lower-level employees, executives miss innovations that could have made their companies instant leaders. In such a world, one must earn the “right” to be listened to and lower-rung employees can’t possibly have an effective contribution. Without permission, no one shares their insights.

In today’s world, self-motivated, peer-to-peer communication speeds up the creation of innovative ideas by giving them the platform to be heard.

This isn’t some new-age management philosophy; this has been field-tested all over the world by the best management and behavioral scientists on Earth. Giving smart people autonomy in an organization and the ability to manage their own time creates groundbreaking output.

In our company, project managers pushed every project through in order to meet deadlines, but they were just as responsible for input as they were for receiving a critique. Not seeing an official commander-in-chief must have seemed strange to these visiting hierarchy junkies, but to our project managers, a traditional top-down approach would have seemed like a cattle drive: “I don’t care how you get there, just get it to market.”

Our managers knew that the best way to build dynamic experiences and products for consumers is to give them not just what they want but what they need, and to do so alongside things that are exciting and add value.

In order to create such dynamic experiences for a user, the people building the website have the freedom to create one-of-a-kind experiences. Utilitarian doesn’t work in Internet development.

I took our tour through the programming department, then into accounting where Seth Bressman our CFO was overseeing payroll, then into the producer’s area. Everything at K2 had a tinge of corporate and creative rolled into one: cubicles but fully exposed HVAC and ductwork to give it an industrial air yet retain that loft feeling. The last stop on the tour was our design department, a five-sided, uneven room with a black Formica wraparound counter with multiple workstations, all Macintosh with twenty-three-inch screens. The only light sources were from the monitors and any light from the sixth-floor terrace outside. The design department was state of the art and the coolest part of our offices, so it was the best place to end our tour.

I opened up the floor to Q&A. A very polished businessman wearing corporate casual, with a camera strapped around his neck and a pair of thick glasses, asked a question.

Yumi turned to translate.

“What is your initial market cap?”
“It’s $26 million and growing,” I responded.
There was a slight delay as Yumi would reinterpret my words into Japanese.
I was careful not to use slang or American colloquialisms.
“You appear to be in hyper-growth. Is that true?”
“Yes,” I replied. “As a matter of fact we are getting ready to consolidate our other three divisions under one congruous, 13,000-square-foot office across the street at 30 Broad.” We were actually two months away from moving our workforce of sixty full-time employees. I wondered how these businessmen from the Land of the Rising Sun could see what we were going through when American investors couldn’t. Perhaps they were looking for different things.

Pulling the Lid off the Past

The older Japanese businessmen didn’t seem to understand that the greatest innovations in technology and the freshest ideas can come from anyone—young or old—especially when the environment is right. Products that have excited consumers do so because the company that created them built something passionately and creatively to solve a problem or excite the customer. From dishwashing liquid to sports cars to computers, the leaders are always the most creative and the ones that incite an emotional response from their customer. You may not be aware of this, but just about everything you have ever purchased in your life was due to the fact that it was the most creative, coolest thing in your world and it made life better. Period. We don’t buy things; we buy experiences. What we think this product or that will give us, whether it’s cleaner clothes, faster Internet access, or the most luxurious car our dollar can buy.

Without consistent creativity, there is no innovation.
So why do so many companies ignore creativity as a line item?

Part of the reason creativity appears to be absent in most companies is that most executives don’t really understand it—or how to manage it. The old saying “If it isn’t measurable, it isn’t manageable” has been flipped. It doesn’t look like a real business environment when it appears that people are having fun. And ROWE works only for companies where more complex, conceptual, creative output is their business. Traditional management and reward paradigms work well in companies where there is a narrow band of focus—a simple set of rules, goals, and tasks to follow and a reward for top performers.

But in companies where complex, out-of-the-box thinking is needed to stay consistently in the innovative sweet spot, managers would do well to adopt a results-only environment. With no clearly set work hours, the emphasis is on results—not time at a cubicle. Measuring individual output becomes the standard for measurement in a ROWE-run company. No one cares when you decide to work or where, as long as it comes in on deadline and is impeccable. Not surprisingly these environments have the highest employee satisfaction and the lowest turnover.

But results-only environments are not the best environments for everyone, especially those environments where an actual amount of work is measurable—for example, how many pieces did you assemble during an eight-hour shift? Or how many welds did you accomplish? Certain jobs and departments—accounting, baking, and construction come to mind—just cannot be run openly like this. But we can make these environments better places to work by giving employees the incentive to come forward with money-saving and money-making ideas—ideas that won’t interfere with productivity.

Results-only collaborative environments can actually be destructive to people who lack the discipline to self-manage their time or those who are incapable of taking responsibility for their work. People like this should stay in environments where management is hanging over their shoulder, where all they have to do is follow rules and finish a task. For people like this, working alone and taking responsibility for their own time management is not something they can ever get used to. It is too loose for their work ethic. They need (and want) to be managed.

To have consistent breakthroughs, intense creativity, and innovation, however, letting people manage their own time and output is the key to success."

Don't you think it's time we managed people better? Thank you for reading...


Brad Szollose
Award-winning author, business consultant and keynote speaker

Brad Szollose is a much sought-after management consultant and keynote speaker who helps smart companies understand just how much technology has transformed corporate culture and behavior…and how that impacts management, interaction and expectations in The Information Age.



But this is not based on management theory: With a 30 year career as an entrepreneur he knows firsthand what it’s like to grow a company from a simple idea in a coffee shop to an internationally recognized brand.


Brad is a former C-Level Internet Executive who went from entrepreneur to IPO in 3 yrs—co-founding K2 Design, the very first Dot Com Agency to go public on NASDAQ. His company experienced 425% hyper-growth for 5 straight years, expanded from 2 business partners to 4 with 60+ employees and offices worldwide. At its height, K2 was valuated at over $26 million. 

His results only management model (ROWE) was applied to the first wave of young Generation Y workers producing great results—winning K2 the Arthur Andersen NY Enterprise Award for Best Practices in Fostering Innovation.

Brad Szollose is the *award-winning author of Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia which explores the subject of new leadership styles – mainly how to get the tech-savvy Generation Y and analogue driven Baby Boomers working together. ISBN-13: 978-1608320554

Known for his humorous and thought-provoking presentations, Szollose received the highest testimonial of his career from a C-Level audience member: "I just had my mind blown." Brad’s keynotes and workshops are highly interactive, heart-warming, humorous, and filled with high-content information that challenge assumptions and help leaders and managers create a better work environment for innovation to thrive.


Liquid Leadership has been called "THE guidebook for the 21st Century" and has won the 2011 Axiom Business Book Award silver medal for leadership, The Indie Business Book runner up silver medal as well as becoming a #1 Best-Selling Business Book on Amazon for Organizational Learning. Published in the United States by Greenleaf Book Group, in India by Prolibris and in South Korea by UI Books/Iljinsa Publishing.

Mr. Szollose also writes a monthly column on business and marketing techniques that reach Generation Y for A Captured Mind newsletter and is part of The Mind Capture Group faculty.

Today, Brad helps businesses close the Digital Divide by understanding it as a Cultural Divide – created by the new tech-savvy worker...and customer. 



* 2011 Axiom Business Book silver medal winner in the leadership

* #1 Amazon Best-Selling Author

"I just had my mind blown..." - A.S., Vistage, New York

Liquid Leadership by Brad Szollose is available at all major bookstores and for Kindle, Nook, iPad and Sony ereaders. Internationally published in India and S. Korea.

Liquid Leadership is Released in South Korea!!!

리퀴드 리더십 by Brad Szollose

On February 10th, 2013 my book Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia was released in South Korea. Exciting to me that I have new friends in the Far East who are interested in my work.

But even more amazing to me is the year long effort to translate Liquid Leadership into another language. This is not an easy task. I made this edition special for the people of South Korea by adding stories of such noteworthy Korean Companies as Hyundai, Kia, and Samsung.

These are the Korean based companies that are giving American Brands like GMC, Ford and Apple a run for their money.

A special THANK YOU goes out to UI Books for reaching out to me and my publisher at Greenleaf Books in Texas, USA over a YEAR and a HALF ago.

UI Books/Iljinsa Publishing in South Korea
 has done an EXTRAORDINARY job making Liquid Leadership look beautiful both inside and out. 


Here, take a look:

리퀴드 리더십 interior. 2 Color...beautiful.

리퀴드 리더십 exterior design...also beautiful.

To order 리퀴드 리더십 by Brad Szollose, click here.

I hope I have honored The Korean people with the very best of my work...

Thank you for reading...


Brad Szollose
Award-winning author, business consultant and keynote speaker

PS: If you are interested in one of our white papers entitled... 

What Every Business Needs
to Know About Generation Y:
Understanding How Technology Transforms Culture and Behavior, and Impacts Management, Interaction and Expectations 

email us with your name, title and email address.
Your information is confidential.

Ask me how I can help your company evolve into the 21st Century of Management.

Brad Szollose is a management consultant and keynote speaker who helps smart companies understand just how much technology has transformed corporate culture and behavior…and how that impacts management, interaction and expectations in The Information Age.



But this is not based on management theory: With a 30 year career as an entrepreneur he knows firsthand what it’s like to grow a company from a simple idea in a coffee shop to an internationally recognized brand.


Brad is a former C-Level Internet Executive who went from entrepreneur to IPO in 3 yrs—co-founding K2 Design, the very first Dot Com Agency to go public on NASDAQ. His company experienced 425% hyper-growth for 5 straight years, expanded from 2 business partners to 4 with 60+ employees and offices worldwide. At its height, K2 was valuated at over $26 million. 

His results only management model (ROWE) was applied to the first wave of young Generation Y workers producing great results—winning K2 the Arthur Andersen NY Enterprise Award for Best Practices in Fostering Innovation.

Brad Szollose is the *award-winning author of Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia which explores the subject of new leadership styles – mainly how to get the tech-savvy Generation Y and analogue driven Baby Boomers working together. ISBN-13: 978-1608320554

Known for his humorous and thought-provoking presentations, Szollose received the highest testimonial of his career from a C-Level audience member: "I just had my mind blown." Brad’s keynotes and workshops are highly interactive, heart-warming, humorous, and filled with high-content information that challenge assumptions and help leaders and managers create a better work environment for innovation to thrive.


Liquid Leadership has been called "THE guidebook for the 21st Century" and has won the 2011 Axiom Business Book Award silver medal for leadership, The Indie Business Book runner up silver medal as well as becoming a #1 Best-Selling Business Book on Amazon for Organizational Learning. Published in the United States by Greenleaf Book Group, in India by Prolibris and in South Korea by UI Books/Iljinsa Publishing.

Mr. Szollose also writes a monthly column on business and marketing techniques that reach Generation Y for A Captured Mind newsletter and is part of The Mind Capture Group faculty.

Today, Brad helps businesses close the Digital Divide by understanding it as a Cultural Divide – created by the new tech-savvy worker...and customer. 



* 2011 Axiom Business Book silver medal winner in the leadership

* #1 Amazon Best-Selling Author

"I just had my mind blown..." - A.S., Vistage, New York

Liquid Leadership by Brad Szollose is available at all major bookstores and for Kindle, Nook, iPad and Sony ereaders. Internationally published in India and S. Korea.

Reinvention or Renovation?

Bill Gates said many years ago that he had 4,000 jobs he needed to fill. Unfortunately, those jobs will not go to Americans. Specifically stated, he is not hiring anyone from the United States.

Why you may asked? Because in the country that invented The Internet—The United States—we have 90 million people who were never prepared for the Digital Age. mainly, baby Boomers.

I have this problem all the time. Especially since I am a Baby Boomer as well. Many simply cannot comprehend how much has changed business wise. Very shortly we will be facing a new world where 30 years of business experience becomes meaningless when technology is brand new. And 20th Century thinkers apply models, law and structure to 21st Century people.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot
read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
                                   - Alvin Toffler

Go back over 130 yrs ago. What could a farmer tell his son as he was leaving the farm to head off to the big city? How could that farmer, who never learned to read or write give advice to a son who was educated and went to college and was heading off to the big city to get a newfangled job as a Stock Broker?

The only advice he could give was "remember where you come from, stay true to the values we taught you and don't forget to write your mother."
Now let's face today's world.

Baby Boomers were raised to work hard, study, respect authority, obey the rules, and when you pass the test, you can move up in the world. We took that model out into the real world and applied it to our careers.

At one point, through hard work, we were going to get the corner office, a good salary and young people would look up to us and respect us for our knowledge and experience.

So, how's that working out for you so far?

It doesn't. That's because the world has changed around us. Something came along that Boomers didn't pay attention to in the slightest...and that was video games.

This has created a Digital Native, prepared to work in a virtualized work environment, or a Cloud Network, or even work from their laptop anywhere in the world.

To keep pace with today's work environment and methodologies will require something that Baby Boomers need to take seriously: reinvention.

Right now there is a race. A race you may not know is happening. And that race is to create the very first Information Age Business Model that works consistently.

Time for reinvention and a complete over hall of what we are clinging to...like hierarchy.  

“At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that
they all come from the top – I’m afraid that’s not quite right.”
                                          – Bill Gates

You can't micromanage innovation.

Thanks for reading,

Brad Szollose

Brad is the award winning, international bestselling author of Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia: Multigenerational Management Ideas That Are Changing The Way We Run Things ISBN-13: 978-1608320554

Mr. Szollose writes a monthly column on business and marketing techniques that reach Generation Y for A Captured Mind Newsletter and is part of The Mind Capture Group faculty.

"I just had my mind blown..." - A.S., Vistage, New York

Truth: The Most Important Environment for Leadership to Work

On page 9 of Liquid Leadership I point out the Credo of a Liquid Leader. Most importantly, the 2nd law stands out the most for leadership to be affective

"...Leadership should cultivate an Environment Where It Is Free and Safe to Tell the Truth.

Ever work for a company that micromanages everything to death? In these environments a paper trail becomes more important than getting the work done. Our current enthusiasm for technology has created even more potential for micromanagement, via massive amounts of emails and documentation and endless meetings to sort through it all. Yet when this temptation is given in to, the result isn’t better communication or higher productivity, but the opposite. Management becomes the last to know what is actually happening.

Conversely, in companies that have moved to flatten their hierarchies and create environments where it is safer to point out the truth, you begin to notice that each person takes their role seriously. When responsibility is shifted to the individual—when people are given the freedom and power to manage their time and solve problems—the result is that no one wants to let down even a single member of their team.

An organization like this runs more smoothly and with more trust. The best and the brightest naturally gravitate toward the chance to work with one another. They know courage will be rewarded, not penalized, and innovation will see the light of day. Such environments operate like entrepreneurial start-ups, with each individual engaged in the success of the company. People are encouraged to challenge one another. They operate with confidence and a sense of personal ambition because they have skin in the game.

This approach may fly in the face of every business manual you have ever read, but those manuals are out of date. We are not in easy times. Consider that betting on one direction or a single type of technology can send a company into bankruptcy overnight. All the more reason to put aside your ego, to listen, and to encourage the sharing of knowledge in every area of an organization’s operations. Environments such as these do not centralize creativity; they make it a systemic part of what drives their entire organization.

It is your job as a leader to support the development and creation of big ideas, integrating them into your company’s mix of products..."

The truth has become fuzzy these days as people are more interested in the almighty dollar instead of doing great things. We know fluoride is not safe to put in our water and drink on a daily basis. We know our food supply is filled with carcinogenic chemicals. We know our politicians are...well you get my drift.

But when drug company whistle-blower Cheryl Eckard tried to fix problems at a GlaxoSmithKline pharmaceutical factory in Puerto Rico she was fired.
The 60 Minutes story is here:

Bad Medicine: The Glaxo Case  January 2, 2011 7:00 PM

Yet when Cheryl brought well documented problems to her boss, she was dismissed, told that it would be taken care of and eventually, when she pressed harder, fired. Admitting the truth can destroy entire companies and bring about unwanted changes. Yet the truth is where progress begins.

It is hard to tell the truth when doing so could bring
a wave of lawsuits

By the way, how hard is it to act like a human being?

Some believe that Cheryl Eckard did what she did for the money - (she was awarded $96 million from a $750 million suit against GSK)...really? Did she know she would be a multimillionaire when she discovered drug mix-ups and unsanitary conditions at Glaxo's plant? It was her job to oversee quality control and if she had not followed through she would have been fired. But what is unforgivable is the reaction of the executives; they simply tried to make it seem as if conditions weren't that bad.

Shame does not seem to exist in some boardrooms

Want to make changes in your organization? How about your life or your community? Start by facing the truth...not your opinion. Like maybe my wife is right – I don't look good in that sweat suit anymore, (not that that has ever happened to me. LOL).

What is important to you? Paper trails, micromanagement, telling people what to do? Truth telling is not pretty...but it is transformational.

Happy New Year.

And Thank you all once again for your interest in my work,

Brad Szollose

Reverse Mentorship is a Great Idea...but NOT for the reasons you think

A few days ago I came across a great article on Reverse Mentorship by Erica Swallow at Mashable - an idea I point out in my new book Liquid Leadership - an idea whose time has come.

Why is Reverse Mentorship so important you may ask? 
This is type of mentoring is necessary in today's disruptive climate of change for many reasons. First, Reverse Mentorship is a great idea, but not so executives can learn how to use Twitter and Facebook, but because Generation Y is in touch with technology that just might put your company out of business.

Today, many a Baby Boomer (I am a Boomer myself) are out of touch with what is happening. Cynical business executives may not be aware of a simple phenomenon that is taking place right in front of them: their favorite brands are dying away. Brands like Fortunoff, The Sharper Image and K.B. Toys are shrinking or even disappearing. Much like Drive-In Movie Theaters became ghost towns, the local Mall is soon becoming one as well.

The reason many a Mall Brand is dying is they didn't realize that early on, The Internet was destroying their foot traffic. On top of that, many established brands assumed they had the same relationship with the real world consumer as they did with the Internet consumer. Au contraire! 

The new trend to capture our attention away from Internet shopping is the Mega Mall - complete with a built-in amusement park, giant theater, super food courts and a big time entertainment complex.

But what they may not realize either is that many of the billion dollar companies we are all going gaga over, were started by 20 somethings!

So as a Boomer you can continue to ignore the trend, seeing the young Millennial as a "kid" and suffer the consequences, or you can start listening to that Web designer.

You see, companies that are staying relevant in the 21st Century are adapting to new technology...technology that digital natives can't live without. Take a look at Kodak, a survivor. They adapted by acquiring young companies that were developing new products. Today, 50% of their 10 billion dollar revenue comes from products that did NOT exist 5 years ago. Products that a Baby Boomer may not be aware of that Generation Y uses every single day!

If you are a Baby Boomer and want to stay on top of your game, you need to get rid of that generational cynicism and listen. Millennials have a skill set you do not, and the jobs of the future require those skills.

Want to learn the hard way, or learn the easy way? Erica's article is right on track, we need to get rid of the "us" versus "them" mentality. Try a Reverse Mentorship program today.

Thank you for you time and interest in my work,

Brad Szollose

PS: Happy Thanksgiving 2010!!!

All of this is covered in my new book Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia. Available at Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Amazon, as well as your favorite ereaders.

http://tinyurl.com/2aphkgq

The 7 Biggest Disruptors Affecting Business Today - Part 2 of 7

Disruptor 2: Shifting Economic Power and Manufacturing
 

As more and more countries join the new global economy, the Unites States will be forced to go through some very bumpy growing pains in order to play catch up. Quite simply, our employees here make the highest salaries in the world while American manufacturers have spent years moving operations to Mexico or overseas.

So where does that leave us when companies can get six full-time employees in India for the price of one here in the United States?

It means we will be going through a depression while once impoverished countries overseas develop a manufacturing based economy...and begin to prosper.

But some of you are asking, "Brad, doesn't the falling dollar make our goods more attractive? " Yes, that used to be the case. Today we manufacture very little in the United States except construction equipment (that gets shipped to China) and war machines.

Companies like GM, Dell and Harley assemble their products here, but they are constantly balancing how many parts are shipped in from overseas to keep the "Made in America" stamp. "Assembled in America" is what it should say.

Time to face the raw truth-the factory floors have moved to the BRIC nations-Brazil, Russia, India and China...anyplace were a factory can be built and workers paid for less than a million dollars. This is going to shift union dominance here in the US, while creating the need for unions in countries that have very little regard for human rights.

In my first part of this series I covered how technology has lowered the cost of manufacturing, but another huge influence-and the main reason for outsourcing-is economies of scale...so huge in fact that many American companies have physically moved overseas in order to partake of lower building costs, lower employee expenses and no taxation. The United States is simply not competitive with the rest of the world's pricing.

It's economies of scale. Just look at the BRIC nations that have joined forces and formed a tight knit economy...where the United States is excluded.

With factories being built in 3rd World Countries for pennies on the dollar, the future looks very bright for manufacturing in newly emerging countries. It is cheaper to build a fully automated manufacturing plant in Brazil and ship products to the United States than to build them here or ship them to countries where their dollar is falling as well.

It is becoming harder and harder to sustain an $80,000 a year riveter here in the United States with medical and dental coverage when automobile manufacturers can hire ten riveters halfway around the world for the same price...and still sell a car for top dollar.

It is a simple paradigm: Find a way to build things at the lowest cost possible, then sell the finished product to a prosperous market. It's about how much profit can you generate after manufacturing costs. There is just no way Detroit can compete with Brazil or India.

What has happened is we've simply out-priced
ourselves from the global marketplace.

To compete in a global marketplace many of our brands have moved simply to be competitive. Hard to sell a $2500 car in India when it costs five times that to build it here on US soil. These newly industrialized nations and their governments are offering companies whatever they want to set up shop including free construction and no taxation. Now companies that started in the United States can move to another country so they can afford to sell our own stuff back to us.

In economies where $20 can buy one weeks worth of groceries, $50 Power Point presentations from freelance administrative assistants, $6,000 a year tech employees and 90% less construction costs make these countries incredibly appealing to executives used to the higher salaries and union pressure prevalent in the West.

Yet, the global economy is straining against its own might as once impoverished countries, once eagerly waiting in the wings, hungrily step into the arena of worldwide commerce, only to find it collapsing under the corruption of fiat currencies, malinvestments like derivatives and perpetual war. Wobbly and unsure of themselves like a baby taking her first steps, many will be skipping the Industrial Revolution altogether and go straight to the Technological Age of computers. But will they be able to handle the emotional shift?

These are countries that only 20 years ago did not have a sustainable electrical grid system. or a public sewage system. Imagine going from the 1800s to the year 2010 in less than 25 years and you get the picture. Many older workers in these newly emerging countries cannot keep up financially as inflation is pounding them and making their retirement savings worthless. Survival depends on their young tech minded children taking jobs in the city to support them.

If historians are paying attention at all, and I hope they are, they would realize quickly that while the United States is floundering economically we will be able to watch the rest of the world catch up to us while at the same time observing these countries mimicking our own Industrial Age history back at us. Basically, this global economic meltdown will be giving newly industrialized countries the chance to catch up economically, technologically while building a competitive infrastructure. Economies of scale may become a thing of the past as the economic landscape slowly evens out.

In the already developed industrialized nations of the West, we took over 100 years to deal with and emotionally adapt to the Industrial Age and then accept the faster pace of the Information Age. Many of these emerging economies will be skipping the Industrial Age altogether in their eagerness to be a part of Western prosperity. But will these countries be able to handle the changes and responsibilities that come from too much growth too soon?

Globalization is not so much about giving other countries a shot at prosperity and once closed markets privy to the EU, but about a new era of competitive chaos where everyone from anywhere competes for everything - all at once. It's about newly emerging countries demanding accessibility to European Union styled systems of prosperity and economic stability. If they are declined, these emerging markets now have the power to form a self sustaining cartel of their own. When this happens, it will be the West begging for a seat at the dinner table.

Why can't we all just get along?

So what will the American economy be based on in the future? Time will tell, but being the only economic super power at the table along with Europe and Japan is a thing of the past. Many countries will simply not have a population capable of buying anything...whether it is manufactured in China or not. Hard to buy a car when you can't find a decent job.

The World Bank expects a 1.7% drop in global GDP -
the first decline in industrial production since
World War II... a clear sign the recession is global.

Up until 2005, the average German was working only a 35-hour week, paid for a 13-month year while taking 6 weeks vacation in the summer. The German government along with the labor union party changed the official workweek to 40 hours and within less than 2 years, Germany, with a population of 83 million, and a land mass the size of Kentucky, became the number one exporter in the world in 2007 while The United States slipped to number two. The shift in economic dominance has begun.

It's about numbers folks: India is the largest democracy in the world at 1 billion people and China has an army currently at 250 million troops and a population of 1.3 billion people. The entire global population is around 6.4 billion and growing and China and India have the lions share.

In the major cities of the East such as Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo, the standards and systems are similar to the major cities of the West. But, outside of these cities, the countryside is 30 to 50, sometimes 100 years behind us. If they skip the Industrial Revolution we enjoyed for one hundred years, it won't take very long or much effort on their part to catch up and even surpass Europe, Japan and the United States in GDP.

Now let's do the math - here in the United States our population is somewhere around 300 million and our army hovers around 3 million (we had 20 million troops during WWII.

Despite technological advancements, we are grossly understaffed). Also U.S. output per person is not very efficient and with the sheer population numbers alone, in the billions - with very little effort, Brazil, Russia, India and China will surpass our Western industrialized nations in GDP. All they need to do is finish building their infrastructure, completing their own industrial age.

We will either need a new way to measure GDP, or we will have to return to a manufacturing based economy. I know we are in a New Economic Order and all bets about what an economy is are off, BUT...

...throughout history, whoever has the manufacturing base, calls the shots in the global economy.

Since the United States doesn't really have a manufacturing based economy anymore, (we do make war machines, construction equipment, and electronic devices for the rest of the world), we will now become whatever the rest of the world needs us to be. Being the consumer for the world's goods can no longer be our job...after all it is unsustainable for us to just keep spending. You have to be in a prosperous economy to be considered a consumer based economy and our prosperity is slipping away (I'll be talking about that in Part 3).

The decline of our dollar may actually be a good thing as companies, tourists and speculators bring their investment capital to our shores. Imagine that, given enough time, America will become the place for cheap goods and labor, but it will also mean more foreigners can buy just about everything we have at much cheaper prices than are out there now.

And Americans will no longer own America.

Imagine making $120,000 a year and being incapable of making ends meet...and you get the picture. I'll be talking about inflation and Keynesian Economics in Part 3.

Now there is nothing to be afraid of...I for one embrace a global world were we have access to other countries and cultures...what I do have a problem with is this: Americans were NEVER prepared for a Global World! Our America first xenophobia and isolation has been used against us for too long. We should be leading this transition and showing the world how it is done....embracing other cultures and races, showing them how our way of life is what changed the planet..instead, we are about to be the outsider at a feast we paid for. It is time to face the truth...

Those permanently losing Industrial Age jobs are not being retrained for the 4 million jobs being created for the Information Age-simply put, there is a misalignment of skill sets.

Someone has to step up to the plate and be a leader who gets economics, manufacturing and our model of Independence, Freedom and Sovereignty. Without it, we will become a third world country soon. After all, the Industrial Revolution could not have taken place without us declaring independence from 6000 years of dominance by tyrannical monarchies. It was our factories that built the furniture, the machines, the goods, the produce and the cloth for countries that were newly independent...and able to afford our goods. Without a global middle class, the Industrial Age would have never happened.

Thank you for reading,

Brad Szollose


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