How To Scale A Business

I probably learn more from Fred Wilson's blog than any other source that I read regularly. However, a couple of days ago he blogged about an interview given by Mark Pincus in the New York Times this week.

Mark has built a number of successful web businesses, and like all entrepreneurs who turn start-ups into success stories he has learned that his ability to personally manage every employee only works while the company remains small. His threshold is somewhere between 50 and 150 people. A range that matches our own experience.

As Mark points out, you have to find ways to scale the organization, “to find some way to keep everybody going in productive directions when you’re not in the room.”

With this perspective, I could not agree more.

Mark’s solution is “to have everyone be the CEO of something.” An experience he illustrates with a description of his receptionist buying the company’s new phone system.

A practice that I would strongly suggest you avoid at all costs.

In running my own companies I have erred both by creating too rigid a hierarchy, and then by providing too few parameters. The first limits imagination and innovation. The second guarantees that either the individual or the organization will eventually fail through an absence of perspective. And experience.

I have learned to avoid both extremes.

Organizations, in my experience, do not manage themselves towards collective success. No matter how well-intentioned, talented or selfless its employees may be.

Instead, I believe scaling a business requires a management approach that has eight elements:

1. The ability to articulate why what the business does is important. An evangelical mission that gives your staff both a reason to build the company and a way to measure their progress - both critical to our species.

2. A clear understanding of the essential structural elements of the business. Pick from sales, customer service, financial management, operations, technology, manufacturing, and the process by which you make or provide the thing you sell. Sometimes one may blend with another (for instance, sales and customer service overlap significantly in some businesses). Defining your operational model creates not only scalability but also a way to measure what’s working and what’s not.

3. An emotional willingness to hand responsibility for the success of each area to others.

4. An appreciation of the skills needed to be successful. Nothing is more destructive than letting an enthusiastic staff member jump in the deep end, only to discover they don't know how to swim.

5. A definition of success for each area. And for the company as a whole. Supported by the awareness to redefine both as required by evidence and evolution.

6. An atmosphere that encourages those responsible for each area to use their initiative. And makes them accountable for their decisions.

7. The instinct to recognize talent and to empower it quickly, regardless of seniority or process. Putting your best people where they can have most impact is critical to creating a vibrant, innovative and effective organization.

8. An information management system that creates an early warning of problems in any area by highlighting bad news as well as good.

To go back to Mark's example, the receptionist buying the phone system in an organization of 50+ people is making a decision that can cost $200,000 in the short-term. And well over $1,000,000 over ten years. Getting it right requires understanding: telco politics and regulations; bandwidth; firewalls; data requirements and pricing analysis; packet-loss; financing alternatives; the tax impact of each alternative; the communication needs of every department; of other offices; the company's customer service philosophy (which is frequently defined for the first time at moments like this); the financial robustness of every manufacturer, vendor, installer and service providor; the pros and cons of maintenance and training plans, and the time to do all that. And answer the phones.

Creating a model in which your best people have wide-ranging responsibility and the opportunity to grow quickly is essential.

Which includes challenging them in ways that they might not instinctively choose for themselves.

But asking them to be micro CEOs is unfair to them.

And to the organization.

And both will fail.

iWant

Most business owners spend a lot of time figuring out how to give their customers more of what they want.

At various points in the business cycle they add better and cheaper to the analysis. An approach that creates productivity and efficiency. But little originality.

It is a strategy that also systematically undermines the value of those businesses. By turning the unique into the common and individuality into commodity.

My brother-in-law showed me a quote last week that described Steve Jobs’ approach to building his business.

“First he creates black holes. Then he fills them with stars.”

If we seek to only do better that which has been done before, we will eventually optimize ourself out of business.

But if we focus instead on what makes us magical to our customers, we will be irreplaceable.

Philosophical Friday: An Imperfect World

In an imperfect world, anytime we can disrupt the status quo, isn't that a good thing?

How To Find Your Purpose

It’s been a week of milestones. None more important than the one we celebrate today. Chris’s birthday.

It’s rude to discuss a woman’s age. And potentially dangerous if it’s your wife’s. Suffice to say, mine has the energy of a thirty-year old, looks like she’s forty and has reached this milestone with no regrets and an open heart.

There are many, many things she does better than anyone I know. She is also, it is fair to say, still discovering what she wants her legacy to be.

There are many, many people who would say she has already done so. That their lives have been made better for knowing her. That her support, her inisght, her kindness and her honesty have enriched their lives and helped them unlock their potential. That she has made a difference.

That she loves to help people is a fact. That our business increasingly lets her do so on a wider basis than ever before is true. That doing so makes her happy is obvious. But she would say there is more to be done. New challenges to meet. New opportunities to explore.

And through that journey she is unwrapping her Purpose.

Purpose, as anyone that comes here regularly knows, is a passion of mine. I believe it creates focus and reward far beyond financial returns - though it impacts those enormously too - and allows us to make decisions in the moment that are more reliably positive.

For a business or a person, Purpose is hard to define. An under-statement of some significance in many cases.

Over the last couple of years I have come to learn there are two ways to do so.

Through disciplined analysis supported by insight, experience and sensitivity. A process we use with our clients with great success.

And through exploration. Of trying and failing. And trying again. And discovering patterns that lead you to a simple truth.

I wrote in Boards magazine this week that Steve Jobs has created a culture at Apple that is prepared to fail in order to succeed. Which has allowed both the company and the man the opportunity to explore. What they are. And what else they can be.

I don’t presume to know whether Steve Jobs has discovered his Purpose. Though faced with his own mortality last year, I suspect it has been on his mind.

Before he introduced the iPad - an invention that I personally believe changes everything - he discussed Apple’s recent performance.

The numbers are astounding. In 34 years they have become a $50 billion company that has already changed the world three times.

A success story capable of distracting anyone from understanding their Purpose.

Instead, I believe it has allowed Apple to define theirs.

Today Apple sells three product lines. Macs. iPods. And IPhones. With the exception of a few desktop computers, the overwhelming majority of the products they sell are mobile.

Today, they are the largest seller of mobile devices in the world. Bigger than Sony. Bigger than Samsung. Bigger than Nokia.

Apple was a computer company. It is definitively not any more.

Instead, its Purpose now is to allow us to enrich our lives wherever we are.

A discovery made not through analysis but through exploration.

It is a Purpose that I believe they share.

With my wife.

Happy Birthday Chris. Thank you for sharing your journey. Can’t wait to see what happens next.

Why Great Companies Value Passion Over Pragmatism

People start businesses for all kinds of reasons. Those that succeed support passion with pragmatism. A difficult balance to maintain over time. And one that eventually requires a choice.

Passion is fueled by a vision of better. Better service, better product, better way, better world. Visions that have changed the world. Locally and globally.

But passion, unfettered, creates unnecessary risk and long-term consequences. Many of which, unchecked, are difficult to differentiate from the recklessness of self-indulgence.

Pragmatism is equally personal. A variable scale based on confidence and circumstance. After all, to fight City Hall one needs both the will and the reason.

Most business owners set the bar for pragmatic decisions dangerously low. Confronted by an obstacle, they resort too often to the easy and the obvious. And claim the best interests of the business as their justification.

Great companies, however, are built on transparent hopes and clear visions.

Clarity that gives them both the framework and the passion to overcome short-term threats.

And which makes picking the easier path the reckless choice.

Millbrook

Chris and I were invited to speak to the Millbrook Business Association last night.

We moved to Millbrook sixteen months ago. After living in a city all my life it’s still breathtaking to walk outside our house and realize I’m a long par five from the next closest house and a couple of golf courses away in the other direction.

We have big skies in Millbrook, a view I never tire of, and more room than our dogs know what to do with.

Except for six weeks in the spring when allergy season kicks in, it’s easy to see why people stay for generations.

The village of Millbrook lies about ninety miles north of Manhattan with a full-time population of about 5,000. On weekends in the summer, it’s more than that. Though not much. A New York Times article in 2003 described it as a haven. A perfect choice.

A lot of people come here to ride. Apparently if you love sailing you go to the Hamptons. If you love riding you come here. Whatever the reason, some of the estates have to be seen to be believed.

Like a lot of towns and villages around America, Franklin Street - Millbrook’s Main Street - has been hit by the recession. A reality that impacts the surrounding service businesses as well. In three and a half hours last night we met a head master, two architects, an insurance broker, a real estate agent, two landscape designers, a publisher, a designer, a hardware store owner, a general contractor, a bookshop owner, and a maker of the most delicious french-style tarts you’re ever likely to come across.

Millbrook has an incredible base on which to build. A compelling location. A diverse and invested business community. Some of the most talented artisans I’ve ever encountered. A growing Farmer’s Market. A nascent architectural reclamation project. A proud history. Nationally recognized schools and a lot of smart, sophisticated people interested in the welfare of the village and the surrounding area.

Like a lot of small communities it’s trying to decide its future. A challenge brought current by the collapse of the economy and the malling of America.

Small towns are organizations. Looser and more divergent, perhaps. But still able to combine the diverse skills of individuals to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Historically, they were created for a variety of reasons. Some geographic. Some politic. Most of which have disappeared over time as transportation has evolved, communications have accelerated and sprawl has taken cities further into rural America.

Today, many exist out of tradition or habit. Values diminished by time and widespread economic frailty. And a poor foundation from which to build a vibrant future.

In this week’s local paper - a blessing in and of itself- I read a letter to the editor. It suggested that small-towns across America need to define themselves differently if they are first to survive. And then to thrive.

They need to become experiences, the writer concluded. To give people a reason to come.

A good starting point I think. But one that does not go quite far enough.

Before any organization can define how it should present itself, it must first establish its Purpose.

A focal point that defines the essential values of a community, and coalesces interests and innovation in ways both indigenous and organic.

This establishes a process that allows a community to define the inevitability of change on its own terms.

The alternative is to resist change in the name of small-town America. Which ensures two things.

That change, when it comes, will not be pleasant.

And the great American Main Street of yesterday will be most easily found at Disneyworld.

In Paris.


What Really Matters to Most People

The Harvard Business Review recently finished a piece of research in an attempt to understand what makes a day great.

An esoteric question that should defy any attempt to produce a specific answer. The definition of great being as unique to each of us as a snowflake.

The results, however, suggest otherwise. And resonated as soon as I read them.

Life is a journey in which we are born incomplete and die unfinished. A reality that is hard to accept in youth and increasingly obvious with age.

In the quest to make a difference, a goal in which we are all connected, we become obsessed by results and absolute measurements of success and failure. A focus which makes us less mindful of the opportunity of today. And reduces to the sporadic few the number of occasions on which we can feel the satisfaction of achievement.

Over ten years of owning our own business we expanded the number of offices from one to four. At the end of each year we made a point to attend each individual office party. In part to provide connectivity. But largely to offer three perspectives.

The state of the business.
The contribution made by each individual.
The goals for next year.

To do so we talked first about how far we had come as a company over the preceding year, and thanked each person individually for their role in that growth. Recognition that elicited the most heartfelt responses over the course of a decade and a sense of gratitude no raise or promotion ever brought forth.

The reason for which, as the Harvard Business Review research now quantifies, is that the attribute which people value most in their day is a belief that they have made one thing.

Progress.

That regardless of the final outcome, they have made a difference.

People do not need to define this for themselves. Indeed they are happy to operate within a set of expectations defined by others. A fact which emphasizes the impact of management on employee satisfaction.

Telling people what they are doing is important is evangelical.

Telling them what to do is managerial.

But making sure they know how they’re doing is not only good business.

It’s human.

Philosophical Friday: Respect

If being respected is a big deal to you, the chances are you're not.

Pragmatic Visionaries

I was in a meeting yesterday morning and the subject of embracing the new while protecting the old came up.

It’s a delicate balance for any business owner to strike. One that compares the potential of what might be against the cost of change.

Companies that navigate this transition successfully are led by Pragmatic Visionaries.

They are defined by two characteristics.

Their confidence in the value they provide their customers.

Their clarity of the business they want to build.

Going Horizontal

Adding new offices to an existing business is almost inevitable if you’ve been around long enough.

In part this is a practical result of looking for new ways to expand once local markets have been maximized.

In part it’s anthropological. A nod to the explorer that exists within every entrepreneur.

Adding new offices is rarely done well. And often in such a way that the potential benefits are reduced by more than fifty percent and the costs increased by a third. A quantifiable piece of analysis based on comparative studies.

Most businesses succumb to these results because they fail to identify the characteristics that made them successful locally.

1. They understood what they were selling


2. They understood why that was valuable to the local market


3. They were trusted by local customers


4. They learned from their mistakes and applied the knowledge to make themselves better


5. Their systems were designed to support their business and improve their customers’ experience


6. The employees believed in the owners’ vision and were motivated to help the entire business grow


7. Employees were rewarded for creating value


8. Investment decisions were made that benefitted the whole company

When you add a second or third location, each of these characteristics is immediately put under threat. And many are eliminated entirely.

They need not be. But getting geographic expansion right requires the following:

• A clear strategy


• The ability to identify your company’s core DNA and to find someone who can plant it and nurture it in new locations


•  The elimination of the ‘not invented here’ pathology that most human beings instinctively bring to the table


• Systems and practices that don’t just connect each location, but inter-twine them


• A financial management and compensation philosophy that aligns everyone's interests


• A willingness to defend the whole while supporting the parts

These are not easy to come by. But they are critical to any successful expansion.

And to making sure that ‘going horizontal’ is a growth strategy.

Not an analysis of your P&L.

All Growth Will End

Today’s announcement of the acquisition of Cadbury by Kraft is more evidence of one of the great lessons I learned from Jim Schrager - my strategy professor at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

All growth will end.

The question is, what then?

Organic growth comes from three sources.

1. A growing economy. A rising tide lifts all boats.

2. A growing industry. Same principle, fewer beneficiaries.

3. Innovation.

When one and two lose their power, innovation is all that’s left. A point Apple has demonstrated powerfully in the last twelve months, during which its share price has risen from $78 to $210. Proof of the power of innovation in any economy. And which the launch of the iTablet next Wednesday will undoubtedly continue.

But when a company’s innovation pipeline is allowed to run dry, it falls victim to weak economies and mature industries.

At that point, all that’s left is transactional growth.

As mature industries, chocolate and processed cheese take some beating. Chocolate has been around for about 2000 years. Processed cheese since 1916. But whatever your passion, neither gets the business heart pumping when it comes to year on year organic growth potential.

Given that, with rare exception, neither Cadbury or Kraft have been able to produce meaningful innovation pipelines, the growth of both companies has for forty years or so been predominantly fueled by merger and acquisition.

Cadbury got into and then out of the soft drink business before settling in 2008 on a strategy that focused on being the biggest and best confectionary company in the world.  Their plan, laid out on their website emphasizes focus, efficiency and under-developed markets. A plan that lacks passion and Purpose. Big for big sake contains neither.

Kraft’s history involves endless name changes, mergers and acquisitions. They have been owned by Phillip Morris and merged with Nabisco.

Twice Kraft have sold off their entire confectionary business. A confused strategy for a company that just spent $19 billion on acquiring another one.

As a growth strategy this deal is a short-term solution. M & A deals rarely produce the kind of results the owners project, and the inherent problems of both companies now become a larger headache for more people.

As a demonstration of long-term planning it demonstrates what might kindly be described as inconsistency.

But as proof that some companies run out of new ideas before they run out of money, it’s hard to beat.

I Have A Dream

I received an email early this morning.

You know the kind. A hyperbolic headline. Followed by a first line of text that says something like, “Can you believe this?”  And then endless scrolling down through forwarded addresses of others who have received, commented and passed the message on.

Eventually you get to the subject. Usually a block of text describing the imminent danger we are all facing, or a conspiracy of some sort. They exhort you to be afraid. And to act. And to pass this on to as many people as you know.

What the web giveth the web taketh away. And the advent of Snopes had made it a simple matter to validate or deny the content in a couple of moments.

Over the last four years, none that I received were ever found to be true. Not one.

Which hasn’t stopped people disseminating and propagating. A waste of time and emotional energy of staggering proportions.

And the creation of negative energy on a massive scale.

An action that has consequences. If you believe in Noetic Science.  Which can be over-simplified as the power of positive thinking. As support for which some people offer The Global Consciousness Project. 

The GCP uses random number generators around the world to track whether collective human emotion makes these random patterns more cohesive. Whether thoughts can affect the physical world.

On two occasions, the Project believes they did.

Lady Diana’s funeral.

And 9/11.

There are many scientists and theologians who dispute the science. I’m neither.

What I know is that those two days represent the days in my life in which I have felt most connected to humanity. A fact. Not a claim.

One which supports a belief that we are more connected than we want to know.

And that what we feel has the power to cause change in the physical world.

Which brings me back to this morning’s email.

It contained a picture. Of Barack Obama. In 2005. Taken with eight other people. Including the White House gatecrashers. Tareq and Michaele Salah.

Supporting the picture is a lengthy dissertation that connects Obama to Hamas and accuses the White House of co-ordinating cover-up efforts with a pro Palestinian organization.

As proof of these claims, the email provides a large, bold link to Snopes.  Which in turn confirms the authenticity of the photograph.

What the email doesn’t show is a picture of John McCain with the Salahs. Apparently from the same event.

Truthfully, it didn't take a lot of research to find this second picture.

It was in the same Snopes link the email author offered as proof. The same Snopes link.

Politics creates emotion. As do differences of all kinds. A fact Dr King so powerfully made in 1963.

The election of 2008 was a remarkable event. The power of positive thinking at work.

But as Doctor King's dream comes true, so must new dreams be forged.

My dream is for a world which looks at the whole story.

My dream is for a world in which we use only the power of positive thought.

My dream is for a world in which the future is better than the past.

For everyone.

Philosophical Friday: Better For The Sake of Better

What was the last thing you did to create a better experience for your customers that wasn’t caused by one of these three things?  

1. Your competition.

2. A belief it would increase revenue.

3. A response to a customer’s complaint.

Sometimes, making it better for the sake of making it better is the right answer all by itself.

Why Ownership Is Not A Salaried Position

Companies are started by people with a willingness to invest.

Money and talent usually. Supported by passion and pragmatism. Both are required.

For those investing talent, the commitment is a full-time one. Sometimes paid. Often not. Or at least not until everyone else is.

When compensation comes, it does so slowly to begin with. And always below market rates. A sacrifice on every level. One made in the hope of a more rewarding tomorrow.

For some, this investment is part of the deal. A small cost to pay for the benefit of owning your own business.

For others, it forms part of an emotional ledger. A debt to be repaid in full as circumstances allow. Often in the form of reduced effort for the same pay.

This is not a malevolent point of view. But it is an entitled one.

A difference difficult to separate for those founders still fully committed to the day to day. And for whom a growing company has brought greater responsibilities. An imbalance that can lead only to resentment and mistrust.

The solution is simple. Based in two age-old economic truths.

1. Pay profits based on ownership.

2. Pay salaries based on current contribution.

A formula that aligns interest to effort.

And keeps everyone focused on long-term success.


Confidence and the Competition

A couple of years after we put our company the Whitehouse together, we made the decision that we needed to add some talent to our London office.

Adding talent on demand is one of the hardest things for any business to do.

In every industry, the pool of difference-makers is small, and the ability to offer significantly better terms than their current employer is limited by the economics of the business you’re in. If they’re not unhappy, a five or ten percent increase won’t normally do it. Offer more and you undermine your own company’s compensation structure. And the benefits of hiring them.

John Smith, the partner responsible for our London office at the time, made some calls including one to a highly regarded editor at one of our biggest competitors. We weren’t optimistic, but nothing ventured nothing gained. The editor wasn't around. John left a message, called me to fill me in, and went home. It was 7pm in the UK.

Several hours later, as I was finishing a meeting in Chicago, I got a message that the competitor’s managing director - whom I had met once - had called. He asked that I call him back that night. He left a UK number.

I looked at my watch, added 6, and wondered if he really wanted me to call him at midnight in London. According to our receptionist who had taken the message, he did.

Negotiation is a fine art. One of the keys is to know the relative importance of the issue to the other side. I knew the answer to that question before I started to dial.

He answered the phone on the first ring. And explained forcefully that he and his parters were very upset that we had approached one of their editors who, he added, was also a partner.

Approaching talent is one thing. Approaching partners is another. It crosses a line of propriety. And it’s illegal. In the States, it’s called tortious interference. And it’s a very big deal.

In this case, I explained gently, we hadn’t known. We hadn’t spoken to him. And we certainly wouldn’t pursue it now that we did know. That, I thought, would bring the conversation to a close.

He paused for a moment. “I think we should have an agreement that we won’t approach each other’s talent," he said quickly. "After all, we can both offer great opportunities. It’ll just be easier if we don’t hire from each other.”

Company owners use a variety of methods to keep key talent. Contracts and compensation being two.

But, while compensation is always part of the equation, I have never found contracts to be compelling. Other than formal definitions of the terms of employment. In my experience, they usually just provide a place from which to start the conversation.

Any key employee who is desperate to leave is not worth keeping. And by the time the lawyers get involved, you’re arguing about issues that were created long before you got to this point.

The key to getting employees to stay is to pay them fairly and provide them an environment which lets them explore their talent and cares about their future. Get that right and the only ones that leave will be those that yearn to own their own business. And some of those you can keep if you get your ownership structure right.

By the time I was on the midnight call with my competitor I was confident that these underlying philosophies had become embedded in the DNA of our nascent culture.

“How about this instead,” I offered. “Why don’t I email you our company’s address list so that you can contact any of our people you want. If you can convince any of them to leave, I’m not doing something right. I’ll get more value from finding that out than I will from creating an artificial situation that prevents people from working where they want.”

He declined. And hung up.

The free market is a powerful force.

And people do their best work in an environment they want to be part of.

Not one they are forced to be.

Keeping the doors to your company open requires confidence.

The best platform from which to run any business.

The Path of Least Resistance

I had dinner with my friend Jerry Solomon last night. We stopped by a party that mourned the end of an iconic New York advertising agency, Cliff Freeman and Partners.  And then went to dinner at a restaurant Jerry’s sister the Gotham Gal recommended on her blog. Breslin.

Cliff Freeman was known, among other things, for Where’s the Beef. Though I don’t think I ever consciously decided to eat at Wendy’s because of Clara Peller.

The Gotham Gal’s blog, however, has become a trusted source. Except for the wait, Breslin delivered as promised. A testament to the power of earned versus bought media.

During dinner we talked about why companies like Cliff Freeman fail. Companies that for years appear successful and often aspirational. Companies that know they need to change and talk passionately about change even as they do nothing to change.

In every company we work with, the reasons some successfully evolve and some don’t are many and varied.

The ones that do have four things in common:

1. A conviction that change is necessary


2. A willingness by the owners and senior managers to see themselves differently


3. A vision for what they want the company to become


4. A means to get from today to tomorrow through a process

They do not look for the path of least resistance.

Because, as Jerry observed last night, the path of least resistance is not, in fact, a path.

It’s a self-deception.

Designed to offer the illusion of progress.

While keeping you firmly in the same place.



Never Again

In our travels we come across two kinds of people. The optimist. And the pessimist.

The pessimists are more certain about their perspective. An ironic display of confidence.

I used to believe there was merit to either view.

I used to believe some things can be done. And some things can’t.

I used to believe.

I was wrong.

Evidence comes in small ways. And proof takes time. But it is all around us.

In 1961, JFK challenged us to go the moon. A challenge of epic proportions. We went six times. The last was 38 years ago. If you watch the clip, you’ll hear Kennedy reference another achievement that took place 35 years earlier.  Listen. You won't believe it.

In 2002, Minority Report showed us a new way to manipulate images. A way that every one of us talked about afterwards. Today, a 2 year old throws any toy to the floor that doesn’t work that way.

In 2007, Apple invented the iPhone. Today, it unlocks my car, remotely controls my computer, finds my dog. It does 100,000 things beside. And we’re hoping the Droid finally gets it right.

Last year those that defended the publishing industry said it would survive because some people wanted to be able to hold what they read, not look at it on a screen.

This weekend, Chris showed me this on the web. 

The drawback? They’re a couple of months away.

And finally, last week a client sent me a link to a video. This morning, my friend Dennis Ryan blogged about it. Which made me finally watch it.

Watch the video. Any part of it. As Dennis says, do so in HD. And then tell me there is anything that is not possible.

Anything.

It’s not possible?

Never again.

Philosophical Friday: Fail

Ever tried.

Ever failed.

No matter.

Try again.

Fail again.

Fail better.

Samuel Beckett

Baby It’s Cold Outside

I just came back from a long walk with the dogs. A welcome return to the land of the living after four days with New Year flu.

It was beautiful. The snow which fell on Sunday lies anywhere between eight inches and a couple of feet deep. It looks like we’ll get more tonight. I hope so.

It’s 22 degrees.

The Midwest has it worse. Feet of snow. Lows in the teens. In Cincinnati this Saturday, it will get down to 12. If you’ve got tickets to the Jets game, bundle up.

Which is precisely what they will do. They’ll pull out their thermals, dust off their fur hats, buy some double A’s for their electric sock warmers and head off to the game. As coldest NFL games go, it will be a non event.

I went to one of the coldest games in NFL history. In January 1986, during the Chicago Bears’ indefatigable march to the Super Bowl - back when they had a Head Coach with a heart and a football brain - I sat in the stands when it was -20 degrees. The windchill was - 50. And the thing I remember from that day is the moment when it started to snow as the Bears scored the touchdown that took them to the Super Bowl. Cold? I was warm from head to toe.

I was one of 61,000 in the stands that day. We weren’t special. Or crazy. Or unusual.

We were doing what we expected.

In Manchester, England tonight, a large football stadium called Eastlands sits empty. It is the home of Manchester City who were scheduled to play their most important game in the last 28 years. The game was called off yesterday morning. 36 hours before kick-off.

Great Britain is suffering one of its harshest winters in many years. With snow and freezing temperatures. However, the pitch, traditionally a problem in bad British winters, was found to be completely playable and entirely free of snow or ice - the result of the state of the art underground heating system.

Instead, the reason for the postponement was the concern by the local authorities that, “would not like to speculate on what type of journey home fans may face at 10.00pm tonight when temperatures will be sub-zero."

The low in Manchester tonight is 22 degrees.

The difference between my view of 22 degrees and that of the Manchester police is not one of ethnicity. We are both British.

It is not one of technology. Eastlands is a state of the art facility that provided a playable surface under conditions that would have defeated many American stadia.

It is not one of interest. Manchester City versus Manchester United beats any American sporting rivalry in any sport for passion.

It is not one of courage. The history of World War II was not casually written.

It is simply one of perspective.

In England, 22 degrees is dangerous.

In the Midwest and Northeastern parts of America, it is a moderate winter day.

If we see a challenge as impossible to overcome, it is.

If we see it as business as usual, we’ll show up and figure it out.

A lot of things go into informing those perspectives. The great thing about owning your own business is that you get to define most of them yourself.

Lovin’ It

45% of Americans are satisfied with their jobs.

Which means if you are, the next person you encounter today probably isn’t. A sobering thought if you’re responsible for managing your company.

All of which entirely ignores whether satisfied is a measurement we should be striving for in the first place.

Passionate seems like a better threshold. The kind that comes when we believe what we’re doing is contributing to something significant.

Great companies are evangelical. They are clear about what they’re building, passionate and consistent in how they articulate that vision, and realistic about which people can help them get there. And which ones can’t.

A distinction that separates supporting employees from enabling.

Building an evangelical company requires finding the story that separates you from everyone else.

A skill missed by even the great brands.

Take McDonald’s.

McDonald’s is a remarkable business. They serve 58 million people a day. Which is tantamount to feeding all of Great Britain. Every 24 hours. It makes one wonder what they might be able to do managing health care.

I have spent a lot of time at McDonald’s - the corporation - at various stages in my career. It is a company that elicits pride and passion among its executives.

But it is a company that has also systematically focused on the wrong story.

The food. An area which they have done much to address over the last few years. But which still remains a bigger obstacle than it does a benefit.

People don’t go to McDonald’s for the food. They go because they know what they will get.

Value.

And a great experience for their kids. Which is why McDonald’s distributes more toys than anyone except Mattel.

Those two attributes are global truths. And helps to explain why, as Thomas Friedman points out in his excellent book The Lexus and the Olive Tree no two countries that have a McDonald’s have ever gone to war.

I don’t think either of us would theorize that the solution to world peace is simply to build McDonald’s.

But what is undeniable is that McDonald’s brings people together.

And that’s as evangelical as it gets.