The Idea: Last week I introduced two lies that are frequently incorporated into our everyday lives. We often embrace beliefs that that are wrong. Brainstorming is not effective in creating the best ideas, nor does multi-tasking make you more efficient. Their intention was noble but they didn’t deliver on their promise. When you embrace a lie you are holding yourself back. What else have you believed that may not deliver results?
Lie #1: You Don’t Need a Boss!
Bloomberg recently published a terrific article titled Why GitHub Finally Abandoned Its Bossless Workplace. In it, GitHub executives explained that the objective of a bossless startup was to maximize creativity and output by eliminating reporting relationships and boundaries within their talented organization. They believed freedom was the key to creativity. Yet, recently leaders of the “no management” movement have reshaped their corporate structure because of some obvious problems associated with this philosophy.
GitHub’s corporate structure “has taken us down some pretty interesting paths, and we’re a better company because we went down those paths. But not all of those paths were the right paths,” says GitHub’s vice president, Kakul Srivastava. There are still plenty of companies exploring loose corporate structures, including Zappo’s and Medium, and they may truly be working. But focusing on the type of structure – whether that means insisting on massive bureaucracy or none at all – is not the way to view great management, says Ethan Bernstein, assistant professor of leadership and organizational behavior at Harvard Business School: “It’s very possible to maintain your startup culture while still doing what you need to do to scale… that trade-off is not black and white.”
Holding onto a corporate structure that doesn’t work is a way to fail regardless of what it looks like. As Catherine Turco, professor at MIT Sloan School of Management says, “The risk in startup culture is that you fetishize that early culture and you get committed to a set of practices that eventually outlive their usefulness.” Bad management is bad management, and it doesn’t necessarily mean more or less – quality trumps quantity.
Lie #2: Brick & Mortar is Dead!
A colleague recently told me: “The advancement of software does not mean the regression of hardware; in fact, it means the exact opposite.”
We have a fascination with the online marketplace, and rightfully so, but contrary to popular belief, we need to be paying more attention to the physical marketplace. As Rick Tetzeli, co-author of Becoming Steve Jobs, reminds us, “Apple profits exceed the combined profits of Facebook, Google, Amazon & Microsoft!” He also says, “one out of every seven people on the planet has one of their products. With Apple, it’s not about firsts, it’s about doing it better over time.” The Apple Store is the showroom for customers to check out their options, choose size of phone or laptop, and be hands-on with the merchandise. Without it, they would not be the same.
Companies from all sectors that were founded online are taking their products to Main Street: Warby Parker, Fabletics, and Baublebar are just a few. Most notably, Amazon is opening up a chain of Brick & Mortar stores across the nation. Experts predicted this move, but few believed it. Why would they make this decision? The reality is that humans crave tangible, visceral experiences. They always will. Even though the online marketplace has revolutionized consumer knowledge, retail is here to stay.
Don’t believe the lie. We love stories and we crave experiences we can touch. Retail and effective leadership is here to stay.
