So you’re staring at redundancy…what happens next

This past week I’ve been thinking a lot about the people I know or have heard about, especially in the wider public sector, who were made redundant from their jobs on 31 March. To some folk this may have come as a surprise, to others they’ll have had a sinking feeling this was going to happen for some time – perhaps since the change of government last May. For everyone it’s a shock and sometimes a relief. A shock because your pride is dented and in your heart you wonder why you were picked and not someone else. A relief because perhaps you’ve know for a long time that you weren’t getting enough from your job or the organisation you were working for – you had become a “prisoner” – reliant on your regular salary to pay the bills & taking the easier option of leaving things as they are instead of grasping the nettle & making a change in your life. It’s ok – we all do this and not just with our careers!

I thought I’d drop a few thoughts down in my blog in case it helps a couple of people out there, especially those that are going to use what’s happened to them as an opportunity to take stock and think about a complete change in career or change in direction.

First thing to do is not to rush into any decisions but think about what you’d like to do next and avail of any help your former employer has provided – especially the services of a career coach if you’ve been offered one. On this, do take whatever you’ve been offered – you never know what you might learn or who else you might meet. Seek advice or read up about coping with change and how to go about starting an active thinking programme. Consider all your previous experience and what else it might enable or equip you to do – many people will have passively thought about changing their career so you may have already planned what else you could do.

Next make a plan. Type it up or write it all out longhand but do physically do this. It’s cathartic and research has shown that if you write a plan in this way it’s much more likely to happen. Get your family on board and keep your partner in the loop – especially in terms of any significant changes you are considering (perhaps moving to another place) or any changes you need to make to your immediate financial plans and household budget.

Once you’ve narrowed down the jobs and sectors you’re interested in, do some research on the companies & players and keep in mind that 70% of jobs never get as far as being advertised. Target your chosen companies or organisations carefully and beware when using job agencies – sometimes they flood the market with your cv or worse still employers see your cv coming in from several agencies in a most random way and this makes you appear desperate. Remember that there are always opportunities and there are always opportunities for good people.

Take a long hard look at your cv and show it to someone else (not your mum) once you’ve reviewed and updated it. Do the same with your LinkedIn profile and any other online presence you have such as a blog – prospective employers will always check you out online. As a small, growing business, Learning Pool has spent the last 5 years in recruitment and on the lookout for new people – it’s the most important activity that Paul & I undertake as our team is everything. Many of the cvs we see are awful – they’re too long, the good stuff is hidden away & too hard to see, the cv is generic for any job, there’s nothing in the covering letter that sells the person for this specific opening, the person hasn’t thought about how they would bring value to our company & enrich our existing team, the person hasn’t thought about anything and so on. I wrote a New Year’s blog related to job seeking which you can read at this link http://bit.ly/h6H077

Think about your network and don’t be afraid to use it.

In summary:

1. Don’t panic, stay calm & take stock

2. Use any “free” resources you’ve been offered

3. Make a plan

4. Research the market – approach this like a full time job

5. Use your network

6. Carefully target organisations you are interested in; I would do this before signing up with an agency

7. Brush up on your interview techniques, take a good look at yourself in the mirror & buy a new suit or interview outfit and get a haircut (remember all that stuff about first impressions being based on how you look – regrettable but true)

8. Don’t give up, keep looking; opportunities do exist out there

9. Keep an open mind about anything you come across & don’t rule opportunities out too quickly

10. Keep busy, take up volunteering, catch up on things you’ve been too busy to do, exercise.

Just to finish, some of you might be interested to know that I elected to take voluntary redundancy in 2003. I was glad to do it but at the time it was uncomfortable as I had always taken the easy career options. For the following 2 years I worked as a freelance consultant and this moved me out of my previous comfort zone. It also opened a lot of doors and I met a lot of new people. The eventual outcome for me was that I completely changed the direction of my career and I have no regrets. Not a single one. Remember that you make your own luck and you’re unlikely to find it sitting in the house.

As always interested in your comments and stories – please keep them coming as I love to read them.

The night I met Barack Obama…

Sam Barbee & I were in Cardiff getting ready for a Learning Pool customer event the night President Barack Obama was elected. Sam Barbee is American and I’ve always wished I was – although being Irish is almost the same thing. It’s certainly closer to being American than any other nationality. Our Irish diaspora numbers 45m in the USA. As a child I listened to the stories my great aunts and uncles in Donegal told us about Amerikay – they’d all been to the US many times although they’d never been to Belfast or Dublin & certainly not to the GB mainland. At the Northern Ireland Bureau St Patrick’s Day breakfast, Martin McGuinness recited a 2 line poem to illustrate our unique relationship with our cousins across the water – I can’t remember it exactly but it was something like this:

Have you been on your holidays yet this year?

No we’ve just been to America again

The morning of our Cardiff breakfast event, we were a bit tired having been up all night following the election results coming in and watching the President’s wonderful acceptance speech. Neither of us would have missed it for anything.

It was therefore with great excitement that I received the invite to the President’s St Patrick’s Night party at the White House along with a few others from the Northern Ireland business community (that’s us in the second photo). The build up to the big day nearly killed me & it was a relief that I only had a week’s notice. I had to rush out to the shops to buy something green to wear and thank goodness I did or I would have stuck out like a sore thumb (I’ve never seen as much green clothing in my life as I saw in Washington DC on 17 March). I had an amusing incident at immigration when I was asked the purpose of my visit – the immigration officer asked to see my invite and after studying it for a long time appeared to be most impressed. From talking to people around Washington DC it seems that the President isn’t much in evidence locally apart from on the tv – although the First Lady has a significant local presence through the many good works she’s involved in. So what stays with me from the night itself? – the following highlights:

· Hearing the President and the Vice President speak & being at the front with such a clear view

· Watching the way the Vice President & the First Lady never took their eyes off the President when he was addressing the crowd

· Being in the White House for 3 hours and being able to wander round the rooms and freely take photos of the decor, the view from the windows, the paintings and everything else (my full photo set from the evening is at this link http://bit.ly/h8VK1q)

· The craic in the crowd whilst we were waiting for the President to appear – especially all of us being able to try on the Rose of Tralee’s tiara (thanks Clare!)

· The mounting excitement waiting for the President – we were almost hyperventilating by the time 7pm came along

· The pomp & circumstance of the whole evening – the pipe band, the choir, the banquet, the greenness, the beautifully dressed & polite members of the military dotted about everywhere who offered to take photos & were extremely cordial

· The lovely people that we met who were also there as guests

· Rather perversely I enjoyed seeing one woman spill her wine on the furniture

· Glen Hansard of the Frames being joined by Tim Shriver for a rendition of The Auld Triangle

· Being spontaneously hugged by Michelle Obama when I held my hand out to shake hers – I still can’t believe that – she didn’t hug anyone else and I’m glad she picked me

· Meeting the President for a few seconds & telling him how glad I am that it’s him that’s there – Jannine’s photo is a bit of a joke but I promise you that’s the President’s nose!!! You can tell by my face anyway

· Realising that the President & the First Lady were as good in real life as I imagined they would be

· Feeling the warmth from our diaspora first hand – doesn’t matter if you’re 4^th or 5^th generation guys – you’re still ours!

Thanks again to everyone that made this possible – people I knew already (Martin & Stephen & Alastair) & people I hadn’t even met that were so nice and so good to me (Kamala & Grainne). The Learning Pool team has me down as a people collector but even with Robert Plant in the portfolio, Barack Obama’s a bit of a prize so I may give it up whilst I’m ahead.

Nature, Nurture or just plain hard graft…

At the American Irish Foundation gala dinner in Washington DC last Wednesday night I was lucky enough to be seated next to one of Ireland’s cherished treasures – classical pianist, eternal optimist & the greatest living interpreter of Beethoven’s piano music, John O’Conor. Sitting on my other side was John Nolan from Dublin’s National Concert Hall. When he found out that I wasn’t aware of John’s fame (I know – I was excruciatingly embarrassed by my ignorance of classical music and its main players) he described John O’Conor as “being like a god that had stepped down from Olympus to grace us with his presence” – quite a big sell then – no pressure John!

I’d attended an “Unlocking Creativity” event in Derry earlier in March hosted by the magical Sir Ken Robinson and I’d been fascinated by the story that Ken had told us about Bart Conner, the American gymnast, and his journey to becoming a world class athlete and multi Olympic medal winner. In a nutshell, Bart’s mother had noticed he had a talent for gymnastics when he was a very young boy & had enrolled him in a gym early doors rather than force him to continue with school and academic studies to the exclusion of all else. That led to Bart being “spotted” by a coach when he was 10 and the rest is history. This caused me to ask John about his own career journey as to be honest, becoming a world famous concert pianist is pretty unusual. He told me that he was fortunate enough to have a mother that encouraged John & his sisters to try out many non academic things when they were children – so as a result John had learned tin whistle, elocution, singing, Irish dancing and the viola as well as the piano; his sisters learned the violin, cello and ballet. Indeed, John O’Conor is quoted as saying the hardest part of achieving his music degree was the academic side – as all he really wanted to do was play his instrument.

This reminded me of another of Sir Ken’s stories when as a student in the 1970s he approached a guy playing keyboards in a pub band in Liverpool one night. He said to the chap “I’d love to be able to do what you do” and the keyboard player said to him that if he’d love to do it that much, he’d be doing it too. He went on to explain that he’d started playing when he was 5 years old, practiced 5 hours a day come hell or high water & gigged 6 nights a week. Sir Ken’s point is that when you’re engaged in something that you love, it isn’t in fact work at all.

All this does of course link back to Malcolm Gladwell’s idea in his book Outliers of the 10,000 hours a person needs to put in before they will be good at something – so when you’re choosing a career, you’d better be careful and pick something that you love or you’ll never be good enough at it. Harsh but true. I asked John O’Conor about the difference between good and great pianists and he said it’s practice – not magic or anything secret – it’s simply constant daily practice that makes you truly good at the thing you already love – and if you don’t love it enough, you won’t practice enough – and that’s the bottom line. John says that the great pianists have never had to be told to practice – they just want to do it – all day every day.

I appreciate that the photo of us is a bit strange. It’s because I wanted to photograph the great man’s hands…Thanks for your company in Washington John and John!

I confessed to John as the evening went on that my own piano teacher had taken my mother to one side after I’d been attending lessons for about 3 years and said “Mrs McKenna, you’re wasting your money here. Don’t bring her back any more.” He was right and it was lovely of him to be that honest with my poor mum who really couldn’t spare the money for the lessons, but wanted her daughters to learn more than academic stuff.

I know this is a topic that generates a lot of discussion so I can’t wait to read your comments. Keep your stories coming – I love to read them.

From Wall Street to Hollywood – everyone wants to be in Northern Ireland

Last week I was lucky enough to be at the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington DC to listen to the great and the good pitching Northern Ireland as a business destination. I was in Washington as part of the St Patrick’s Day government delegation and my role was to be part of the team promoting and celebrating Northern Ireland’s many treasures for businesses and tourists alike.

The on-the-road double act conducted these days by First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness is an impressive effort. Both Ministers competently and in a single voice extol the benefits of starting or basing business in modern day Northern Ireland listing our young and well educated workforce, the fact that 60% of our population is under the age of 40, our good transport links with the rest of the world, our cost effective operating environment, our focus on the important emergent digital sectors, our high speed connectivity (especially to the US) and our soon to be highly competitive corporation tax rate.

The photo above is of Jay Roewe (Senior VP of Production from Santa Monica based HBO). Also speaking at the event was Brian Conlon (CEO of highly successful indigenous company the Newry based First Derivatives). Although Brian’s story is a great one, it’s Jay that I’m going to focus on in this blog – as I thought everyone might be interested in knowing the reasons he gave for selecting Northern Ireland as the place where HBO based and filmed their new series “Game of Thrones”. Some of his reasons may come as a bit of a surprise to you.

Jay was at pains to point out that HBO is first and foremost a business and that all decisions the company makes are carefully considered in terms of the business benefits they generate. These were the reasons why HBO selected Northern Ireland ahead of any other location:

Our senior politicians were willing to travel to HBO on the US West Coast to make the case in person and this helped Jay “sell” Northern Ireland to his senior team
The Northern Ireland film industry workforce is young but keen and very willing to learn quickly
Belfast gave HBO easy access to UK & European crew and actors
Belfast is a small city and this made the logistics of moving 200+ people around on any given day very straightforward
The cost analysis exercise carried out by HBO showed Northern Ireland provided the best value for money
Belfast’s Paint Hall in the Titanic Quarter (where ship components were once painted) is a unique venue with extraordinarily high ceilings.

There were a few more points that to me were less predictable or expected:

· HBO liked the fact that Belfast has great restaurants and comfortable lodgings for its West Coast staff.

· Jay also added that the warm spirit of the Northern Ireland people and the warm welcome given to HBO was a positive factor.

I’m sure HBO was also swayed by the availability of Martin McGuinness’s brother as an extra for Game of Thrones. Martin described his brother as having long grey hair and standing on the back of a cart – we’ll all keep an eye out for him Martin. I know I for one can’t wait to see Game of Thrones and it makes it even more exciting that it was filmed here.

Washington Calling…Happy St Patrick’s Day

It’s a bright sunny day (with intermittent showers of course) as I leave Belfast International on the first leg of my journey to Washington DC this week. Sitting here on the plane headed for London I’m slightly panicked that I have nowhere to stay tomorrow night in DC and even more panicked every 5 minutes when I think I’ve lost my bag – I checked a bag in today for the first time in what must be two years of constant air travel.

In my luggage I have my all important itinerary for the week, my mini lint roller (had to run back into the house when I remembered about that – don’t want to be having important meetings covered in lint), a small herd of purple & black Learning Pool pigs (photo opps only – there aren’t enough of them to give away on this trip – and these guys are tired – they’ve already been to Scotland last week!), a bag of salt & vinegar Tayto crisps and a handful of Bewley’s Irish teabags. Also two pairs of St Patrick’s Day fun specs – one for me & one for Learning Pool’s Breda Doherty who’s already in the US having spent the last few days at SXSW in Austin, TX. And an unusual amount of green clothing.

On the plane I read with pride the new Derry City of Culture 2013 corporate sponsorship brochure, hot off the press. Reading the words of our poet Seamus Heaney almost brought a tear to my eye. I really believe the City of Derry is standing at the brink of something big – and that’s the message loud & clear that I’ll be giving to our American friends & potential investors in Washington this week. I’ll also be telling them:

· what a great place Northern Ireland is to live & work in

· how fabulous our standard of living is, how beautiful our scenery is & what an awesome amount of history & culture there is everywhere

· how much fun Northern Ireland is to visit & how friendly everyone is

· what a great entrepreneurial spirit exists in our people and how well educated they are

· how fabulous our emerging digital & creative media sector is

· and what a great place Northern Ireland is to invest in.

I’ll be posting up blogs here whenever I meet anyone interesting or see something worth reporting on.

First I have some people to thank:

· Thanks to Paul & Deborah for picking up my meetings and work this week

· Thanks to the Learning Pool team for scurrying around organising my trip and even going as far as to having new business cards driven to my house on a Sunday night

· Thanks to my friends & colleagues in the industry for being so generous & gracious

· Thanks to Grainne McVeigh, Martin Adair, Stephen Wightman and others at Invest NI

· Thanks to Kamala Lakhdhir & Lorna McCafferty at the US Consulate for making me do things on time

· Thanks to the many people that have made introductions for me this past week to people in Washington

· Thanks to my colleague and friend Martin Bradley, Chairman of Derry’s Millennium Forum and also Derry’s new Culture Company

· Thanks to Mary McNamee from Ilex for driving brochures and copies of the “Voices” DVD to the airport for me today on her day off

· Thanks to my sister for lending me her best party clothes

· Thanks to my nephew for scoring a couple of goals on Saturday & getting full marks in his spelling test at school last week

· Thanks to my goddaughter for teaching me how to say “Happy St Patrick’s Day” in Irish

· Thanks in advance to Breda for her company in Washington this week and for letting me share her hotel room when everywhere is booked up

· Thanks to my Mum for being so excited

· Thanks to Alan for running round after me all weekend & driving me to the airport this morning

I’m wondering about the people I’ll meet this week & what they’ll be like – and also wishing that the two boys that were with me last time I was in DC were with me again today. Paul & Alan – the craic just won’t be the same without you.

One way to tell if a new team member is going to last the distance

Anyone who knows me will know that like most techies (apologies for making such a broad generalisation – but most of my techie mates won’t mind I think) I’m a bit of a science fiction fan. I’ve recently been re-watching Dark Skies which was on tv in 1997. At the start of an episode called “Hostile Convergence”, John in a voiceover makes the following observation “I’ve heard that if you want to find out everything there is to know about somebody, all you have to do is drive across the country with them.”

It suddenly struck me that the same applies to travelling with your colleagues. The Learning Pool team travels a lot. Sometimes people travel alone, sometimes in pairs, occasionally the whole gang is on the move. Travel stories form a big part of what we talk about around the campfire or when we all get together. Spending a day with a colleague from 5am until 9.30pm and taking in two flights, 4 sales or customer meetings, a lot of train rides & cramming in your email & phone calls in around the edges – all under significant time pressures & frequently without enough to eat during the day – can put your working relationship under a bit of strain.

Funny when you think about it like that, isn’t it? I’m lucky in that most of the people I usually travel with are easy company and a good laugh as well. I’d love to hear your work travel stories.

A blog about appreciation

Today’s blog is an appreciation blog. Often we find ourselves just taking people for granted and not giving them enough appreciation for what they do for us – so this is an attempt to redress that balance in some small way. I’d just like to say a big thank you on behalf of all of us who work in Northern Ireland’s emerging digital and online content sector to Matt Johnston (@cimota) for the tireless work he does on behalf of us and to promote our sector and our companies.

I’ve spent the last two days in London with Matt. We decided it was time to go and tell a few more people about the many talented people and small businesses that work in our chosen space in Northern Ireland. Over the course of those two days we’ve promoted Digital Circle and its companies to:

· The Technology Strategy Board

· A group of social entrepreneurs

· The Royal Society of Arts (RSA)

· Everyone present at Friday’s Tuttle Club in London’s Centre for Creative Collaboration

· The gathering of entrepreneurs and start up companies at Dominic Campbell’s City Camp London get together at the Hub King’s Cross

We’ve been blown away by the amount of interest there’s been in Digital Circle and at every event Matt’s had a stream of people wanting to ask him about the workings of the Digital Circle, how it started out, what the future plans are and what the Digital Circle members have gained from being part of the community. It appears that what we have in Northern Ireland is quite unique in terms of small and micro businesses actually engaging, collaborating and helping each other out.

So this is my way of saying we appreciate you Matt and all you do for us. The non-stop networking, the liaison with our government departments and Invest NI, the constant promotion of our companies, the search for opportunities for all of us and the signposting, the bright ideas you have, the introductions you make, the tweeting you do (I couldn’t believe how many people at Tuttle nodded when you revealed your Twitter name – they’d all come across you), the sheer volume of stuff you wade through so that we don’t have to and the dry good humour with which all of the above is delivered.

Please join me in appreciating Matt and post up your story in the comments of how he’s helped you or your company.

If you’d like to know more about the Digital Circle or join our community, you can do so via this link http://digitalcircle.ning.com/

So you want to network?

The Business Link website defines business networking as being about connecting with other people in order to share information, resources and leads. It adds that the emphasis is on relationship building – getting to know people, finding out how you can help them and what they can do for you. Not a bad definition to be honest. The Americans do this so much better than we Brits & Irish – they just aren’t as shy as we are & they’re blessed with oodles of self confidence from an early age that we just don’t seem to have. The picture above is the Learning Pool team welcoming guests to our conference last year. I love this picture because everyone’s engaged in animated conversations and there’s a tangible air of busyness.

There’s no doubt that a sizeable and varied network is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. The act of building your own network is a lot of fun, good (and sometimes quirky) things can happen along the way and you get to meet loads of great new people. But it’s an investment that takes a lot of time & effort, especially in the early days when you’re just starting out and don’t know many people. The end result however is valuable and well worthwhile and should result in you having a variety of people you can go to for:

· business advice, maybe specialist advice about new product development or a new market, or just a general sounding board;

· career advice, perhaps you feel as if you’re losing your way with your progress or just need a one off discussion with someone about a specific job offer;

· introductions to all manner of people and organisations;

· sales introductions and potential leads.

So – how should you get started with networking. The first thing to note is how much easier this is with the arrival of Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook. Gone are the days of showing up at a conference or event with a delegate list & praying you may catch sight of the name badge on a person you want to talk to. Social networking is a great leveller as well – I treat everyone the same on Twitter as I usually have no idea of their status – and it’s also good news for people that are very shy. Other ways to get started are to comment on other people’s blogs, volunteer in your local community, use your professional body if you have one, use work related groups that you may be part of, join your local chamber of commerce or junior chamber, get involved in a political party if that’s your bag. You should also have a long, hard think about everyone you already know and you should remember that building a network is something that is additional to being at work – a lot of this needs to happen in your own free time.

Like most things in life there are a few cardinal sins – these are the main ones in my book:

· not following up on an introduction that someone has made for you;

· collecting people for the sake of it and not really having any interest in them or what they do (those serial networkers with hundreds of LinkedIn contacts with people they’ve never met);

· only collecting people that are “useful” to you right now – this is shortsighted (you never know what’s around the next corner) and it’s also mean;

· mixing up networking & selling – never, ever pitch to a new introduction unless you’ve been specifically invited to.

Some people are phenomenal networkers and if you know someone like this & treat them well, with a bit of luck and a lot of grace they may one day gradually introduce you to their own networks and accelerate your progress. These are people I know who are legendary networkers – Twitter names in brackets – Ellie Stoneley (@E11ie5) Matt Johnston (@cimota) Dave Briggs (@davebriggs) Bill McCluggage (@BillMcCluggage) Michelle Gallen (@michellegallen) Shirley Ayres (@ShirleyAyres) Lyra McKee (@lyramckee) Bill Liao (@liaonet).

Some hints and tips – there are more of these on Dave Briggs’ excellent & related blog “The networked public servant” which you can read at this link http://davepress.net/

· Remember karma – what goes around does come around – this is a two way street where you have to be as generous with your time and introductions as others have been for you;

· Be brave – what’s the worst that can happen – someone doesn’t want to speak to you or connect with you;

· Make a conscious effort to speak to people you don’t know – don’t take the easy option and hang out with your friends the whole time at events;

· Be courteous and a little bit persistent when making contact with new people; don’t be afraid to approach people speaking at conferences for a quick chat – most people are approachable and it’s part of human nature to want to help others;

· Take time to get to know people and talk to them properly when you meet them, chat until you find commonality, don’t be rushing on to the next person on your list, remember why you have two ears and one mouth.

As always I’ll leave you with a story. We were at an awards dinner a couple of years ago with our own senior team. It was one of those occasions where none of us really knew anyone – but the room was full of investors, politicians and general big wigs – people whose radar we wanted to get onto. Ok guys – we said – network! – let’s go. My business partner’s wife, who was also there, tells how fear passed fleetingly across their faces but when I looked around the room 5 minutes later – every one of them was chatting away to someone different and my heart swelled with pride – again!

Welcome your comments, stories and tips for others on this important topic.

Photograph courtesy of Anna Karas – thanks Anna!

10 reasons to work in someone else’s startup

If you’ve never worked in a startup business you don’t know what you’re missing. It really is the most fun you could ever have at work – even when they don’t become the next Groupon (let’s face it – any of us that have been around for a while have all got drawers full of old share option certificates from the companies we believed to be “dead certs”). However, if you’re not yet quite ready or equipped to start your own business, working in someone else’s startup can be a marvellous stopgap solution and one that brings all sorts of opportunity. These are my top 10 reasons why:

1. Whatever you do, your startup job will have more scope simply because there are fewer people in the company and everyone is required to work beyond their comfort zones – that adds more strings to your bow & improves your confidence;

2. Your working day will be far more varied than if you worked in a bigger or more established company and there’s bags more opportunity to move sideways into something else if you find you fancy it;

3. If you’re talented and hard working, you can move up fast & make yourself indispensable far easier than in a different sort of organisation; no-one cares about your age or gender or even experience – it’s what you can do today that matters;

4. Startup teams are really special – the bond between team members is unusually strong (probably because we all have so much at stake & let’s face it – there’s usually nothing else – no customers, no product, no money – so the team is EVERYTHING) and it’s a unique experience; when I think back to the startups I’ve worked in the teams have all been pure gold (Learning Pool’s Team Lovely pictured, snapped at our May 2010 conference by the rather wonderful Paul Clarke);

5. Visibility – you can have access to the CEO’s big picture vision if you want it (if you’re not interested in what that is, you probably shouldn’t be there);

6. You can learn so much so fast at someone else’s expense & with no financial risk to yourself – I remember the dizzy learning curve of my first startup dalliance – but even more I remember the exhilaration;

7. Potential long term risk-free financial upside in your share options – if you work in someone else’s startup & don’t have options ask them why;

8. The environment is extremely challenging & it helps you find out stuff about yourself as you become more resilient;

9. There’s a chance that this might just be THE ONE – the next Google or Amazon;

10. It’s serious fun – those roller coaster highs sure are high & we celebrate every success (sometimes even a little too much); you never know what’s around the corner.

Sounds good so far – sounds like you might enjoy this. If you’re going for it, it’s only fair for me to give you the other side of the coin – which I’m going to call:

5 team member behaviours that really p*** the startup CEO off – and in my book they are:

1. Whining – either to me or your colleagues about (delete as necessary) long working hours/not enough time to get stuff done properly/the spec is too loose/the working environment is too transparent/my salary is too low/the goalposts keep moving/etc);

2. Not being customer focused enough – unforgivable in a startup;

3. Wasting money – booking travel late, forgetting to cancel subscriptions, not parking in the cheapest car park at the airport, not asking for a discount on absolutely everything we buy as a matter of course, nor getting the most out of every minute of the day;

4. Not thinking about stuff – inexcusable & I don’t want to hear your excuses;

5. Not being a team player – peddling your own agenda, bitching about a colleague, not carrying your fair share – unacceptable – we’re all in this together & see above – the team is everything. If you don’t believe this you need to get out & let the rest of us get on.

As always – I hope you enjoyed this blog & I look forward to your comments or questions – some of you will no doubt have different views & stories from your own start-ups which the rest of us hope you will share.

So you wanna be a startup CEO…5 qualities you absolutely need

Being a startup CEO seems to be an attractive occupation right now and one that the press & certainly Hollywood makes look pretty easy as well as fairly glamorous. I thought I’d write a blog about my own views on the necessary qualities people need to make it through to the other side. Please note that being the CEO of a startup requires a different set of qualities to being CEO of a mature & established business and indeed, that sort of experience may well be a hindrance in a startup environment. Also it’s no accident that the photo of Paul & me above shows us in a casino setting – there’s a lot of luck at play as well – so don’t feel too bad if your startup is one of the 50% or so that fail in the first year.

I’ve seen other bloggers make great long lists of these but I’ve distilled mine down to 5 main qualities:

1. RESILIENCE – this is the big one. It’s also a quality you should look for in a business partner or in your team members as you recruit them. The official definition of resilience is an ability to bounce back into shape. In reality in a work setting it means being able to continue functioning & making sensible decisions in the face of adversity – which could be a one off event (like a disaster) or longer term (like always being tired from working 16 hour days consistently). As part of this quality I would include not bleating about how miserable you are & making your colleagues feel bad as well – there’s nothing worse than that. Resilience is what you need when the 10^th bank you’ve spoken to that week won’t lend you money & you don’t have enough to cover payroll right now, it’s the quality that makes you get up at 3am to go & catch a plane to London even though you only finished work at 10pm last night, it’s what makes you sit down & start working on another response to tender when you’ve just had a rejection letter in from something you thought was a dead cert. In summary, this is the quality that keeps you going & you either have it or you don’t – so be honest with yourself. At the end of the day, having the stamina & energy required to make a new company a success should not be overlooked. The amount of sheer hard graft is savage & impossible to communicate to anyone that hasn’t been there.

2. READING PEOPLE AND SITUATIONS – you need to be naturally good at this and it’s the quality that stops others from pulling the wool over your eyes. First up you need to have a gut feel about how things are going for the company – you should be able to just tell, a bit like second sight. You also need a natural ability to read your markets and know what products are right, when to launch them, etc. Other times you use this is in appraising ideas (which you do on an hourly basis in a startup) and rapidly sorting them into good & bad, negotiating, making decisions (most of the time with a serious lack of information), recruiting people, choosing partners and so on.

3. OPTIMISM & POSITIVITY – if you don’t have this alongside being the keeper of your original vision, don’t expect anyone else to believe in your company and that goes for both team members & people outside. I don’t mean blind belief but I do mean being confident and using a bit of spin when you need to. By that, I don’t mean lying to your team about stuff – it’s more about protecting them from many of the stresses that they don’t need to know about as they have no ability to influence the outcome & it will only distract everyone. You need to be able to absorb all of this burden and put a smile on your face and your best foot forward at all times.

4. RISK – I’m unsure if this is a quality or not but being a startup CEO and being risk-averse do not walk along hand in hand. You will borrow large sums of money, you will guarantee those loans against whatever tangible assets you own, you will take major decisions without any of the information you need never mind would like, you will fail at stuff over & over again. If you are unable to compartmentalise & shut these things away in a place where you don’t think about them – you aren’t cut out for this life. It will make you ill & paralyse you with fear.

5. LEADERSHIP & VISION – your team needs to look up to you & your customers & other stakeholders will hopefully admire you & what you’ve achieved. You need to keep the team on track, communicating the shared vision to them over & over again so that no-one ever loses sight of where you’re going, you need to be able to pull off what I call “Take my hand & walk with me into the abyss” when you only have half the story yourself and you need to be able to keep it real – no-one wants to work for a CEO that never does any work themselves.

I hope this helps any of you that are thinking about going down this route yourselves. It’s hard work & unrelenting being in or heading up a startup but it’s also deeply satisfying and a lot of fun. Always interested in hearing your views so post your comments up below.

Mary McKenna's Blog

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