First Serve Strategies

Title: Moderating Panel Discussion for Global Creative Economy Summit
Location: Pennsylvania Convention Center
Link out: Click here
Description: Creating a Culture of Innovation. This panel explores the creative context of entrepreneurship. We move beyond the initial founding of the venture with a novel idea to the entrepreneurial challenge of sustaining the creative spark as the business grows. Critical issues of team formation and organizational design as it relates to innovation and creativity will be addressed. In particular, panelists will explore how entrepreneurial companies might avoid falling into the traps of bureaucracy that inhibit innovation and creativity as companies grow. The panel will creatively combine research on organizational creativity with practical insights from experienced entrepreneurs.
Start Time: 1030
Date: 2009-10-06

Meet John

After spending a lifetime toiling to build a nest-egg for retirement, with hopes of traveling to visit grandchildren and great grandchildren, John never imagined that he would be forced to spend his “golden” years tending to his wife with Alzheimer’s. Every day promises the same routine. The burdens of day-to-day life, once shared, now fall entirely on his arthritic shoulders. Life sure can be cruel.

Meet W.E.

Even though his arthritis “gets close” to him some days, W.E. has trouble hiding his enthusiasm about being able to climb onto his John Deere to give his grandchildren a short demonstration on how, and where, he would like them to use the Bush Hog on the farm. He is also pretty proud of the fact that, even though he didn’t learn how to do “ladies work” until he was in his eighties, he now knows how to cook, clean and even bake for his bride of 65 years. He just spent the day with children and grandchildren, working on his farm, buying a shiny new/used truck, and celebrating his wife’s 90^th birthday. The way he is grinning ear-to-ear, you would think it was his birthday. He can’t believe any man could be so blessed. W.E. prays that God will not take him before his wife with Alzheimer’s, because nobody can care for her quite like he.

Same man. Same life. Different perspectives. Is your glass half full?

©Mark P. Loschiavo

Sitting on the deck of the Tree House in Three Rivers California at sunrise, I have an amazing view of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It is not really a tree house. That is just the name given by the owners of the vacation home we are visiting just outside the southern entrance of Sequoia National Park. At this hour of the morning I seem to share God and God’s creation mostly with the plants and animals. Most humans prefer sleep at this hour. Although I have never understood that preference, I am thankful for it, because it is the one time of day when I don’t feel like I have to share this amazing gift with others—at least for a little while. It is my time.

Growing up with three siblings, we shared everything, including my parents’ attention—except in the early hours of the morning. It was then, while my siblings slept, that I would have my parents all to myself, usually accompanied by a bodacious breakfast. Maybe that is where I first fell in love with the mornings.

The morning is a time to contemplate. A time to reflect on yesterday and ask, “what do I want to do differently today?” Morning provides the playbook for do-overs. Strong leadership requires desire, commitment, reflection and forgiveness: the desire to lead effectively, the commitment to build the necessary skills, the time to reflect on your effectiveness, and the ability to forgive yourself for failures. What better time than the morning to reflect and plan your do-overs.

©Mark P. Loschiavo

Driving the twenty-five mile trek through hairpin turns and beautiful vistas from the southern entrance of Sequoia National Park, my mind is flooded with metaphor. It is a good thing my family is not aware of my reverie. They are confident I am concentrating on maneuvering each twist and turn, keeping them safe.

Immediately I am struck by the beauty and majesty of what I see. In the presence of the greatness that envelops me, I experience dual emotions—insignificance and motivation. Surrounded by a beauty too big to be captured through the lens of a camera, I realize just how transitory and small I am. At the same time, surrounded by such greatness, I feel the need to achieve—to make a difference in the world. If you want to be an effective leader, and make a positive difference in the world, surround yourself with greatness.

If you have never experience the beauty of the Giant Sequoia, there is nothing quite like it. As I drove into the Park I expected to see 404,051 acres of Giant Sequoias. Instead, we traveled roughly 15 miles without seeing even a hint of the big boys. Just as I was becoming convinced I was in the wrong Park, we rounded a bend and were confronted by the most amazing sight—clusters of Giant Sequoias that towered over us like something from a JRR Tolkien novel. As it turns out, the Giant Sequoia is quite rare, growing only under very specific condition.

While I was treated to hundreds of these majestic trees that grow up to 300 feet in height, 30 feet in diameter, and have a lifespan that can reach 3,000 years, they are rare. In the midst of 404,051 acres of awesome beauty and greatness, the Giant Sequoia stands out among all others. Humanity is much the same. While only a few leaders stand as tall or have as lasting a legacy as the Giant Sequoia, great leadership comes in many shapes and sizes.

©Mark P. Loschiavo

As the Executive Director for the Laurence A. Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship at Drexel University, I incorporate our guiding principles of “always rich content” and “excellence in everything we do” into all of our events. At our recent annual entrepreneurship conference I was struck by a recurring thought. As one might expect, a significant amount of research, thought, planning and coordination took place long before the day of the event to make it successful, but that is not the theme that kept playing through my mind throughout the day.

Like the tune that stays in your head, long after the song has been heard, the concept of transitions kept tickling my gray matter. As important as the registration process, the audience, the panel, the presentations, and the food, the transitions were what brought it all together. The transitions were an important differentiator.

This should not come as a surprise. For three decades I have been heavily involved in strategic management. Strategic management inevitably results in change—sometimes very significant. Change causes stress for everyone in the organization, and those not involved with architecting the change feel the stress more intensely. When planning, communicating and implementing change it is important to focus on the transitions.

Television networks carefully manage the placement of their commercials to entice the viewer to stay tuned for the next show. With the advent of technology and the increase in choices the phrase, “don’t touch that dial” is no longer sufficient to hold the viewers attention.

Successful novelists focus on the transitions from the end of one chapter to the beginning of the next. A fluid transition entices the reader to rush headlong into the next chapter. The objective is to ensure that the reader “can’t put it down.”

Change requires everyone to move from one chapter in the organization’s life to the next. In order to manage it successfully, stakeholders need to be motivated to rush forward into that next chapter with enthusiasm. If you do not want them to “put the book down” focus on making the transitions as fluid as possible.

©Mark P. Loschiavo

This often misquoted line from the movie Field of Dreams (“Build it and he will come”) has led to the demise of more than a few entrepreneurial ventures. The sentiment is actually much older than the movie. It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who first said, “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.”

Any high school graduate in the U.S. should remember Emerson as a famous American essayist, philosopher and poet. Few people, however, realize that in his early career he co-founded and ran a school for young ladies. That said, he might have made a dismal entrepreneur in today’s world with his “mousetrap” philosophy. With today’s increasingly crowded markets it takes much more than a better mousetrap to get customers to beat a path to our door. With so many products, options and features, just creating customer awareness of your product can be a daunting task.

Following the dot com bust, the idea of “eyeballs” and “clicks” as a barometer of company valuation became laughable to many. In retrospect the concept has merit in one particular arena.

Take a moment to reflect on how villages, towns and cities form. It always starts with a group of settlers, brought together in community based on location. Location may be decided based on trading routes, access to natural resources or common interest. Once the community is in place commerce ensues. Said differently, where there is a common community, there is a place and an opportunity for entrepreneurial ventures to flourish. If we transpose this same concept to the electronic age, we start to see the value of “eyeballs” and “clicks”.

A recent article in CNNMoney.com entitled LinkedIn’s startup story: Connecting the business world, Ellen Lee describes how LinkedIn founder, Reid Hoffman built his company around the single goal of getting to 1 million members. “I’m a huge believer in getting a million people, getting them engaged, and then building a business model on top of that,” he says. Forty-one million members later that is exactly what he has done. With the community in place, the opportunity for commerce ensued, and entrepreneurship flourished.

The difference between online communities and physical communities is that online communities are typically built around a common interest. In the case of LinkedIn the common interest is professionals wanting to connect. Facebook, on the other hand was based on a particular demographic—college students. One could argue that Twitter is based more on a specific psychographic.

So, the next time you are tempted to scoff at a business idea based on a business model that is built around “eyeballs”, you might want to first ask, “will these eyeballs lead to a community of people with a common interest, which once in place, provides an opportunity for entrepreneurial ventures?”

©Mark P. Loschiavo

Excerpt for Laurence A. Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship Newsletter

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

- Winston Churchill

Have you ever noticed how much energy is spent focusing on things that are unpleasant? Whether discussing current events with friends or watching the evening news, the topic invariably turns to threatening weather, crime in the streets, disease, political scandal or a bad economy. If you think I am overstating the case, categorize every conversation or encounter you have in one day on a sheet of paper with two columns. In the left column list all encounters focused on something positive. In the right column list all of the encounters focused on something negative. By the end of the day, that piece of paper will be listing to starboard.

Consider the amount of time and attention in the first quarter of 2009 that was devoted to talking and writing about the woes of the economy. There are roughly 200 million working-aged people in the United States. If each of those people thinks about the woes of the economy for only 20 minutes a day, it amounts to 6 billion hours. Now consider the possibilities if those 6 billion hours were spent focusing on entrepreneurial opportunities.

People often ask me how the entrepreneurs we work with every day are dealing with these difficult economic times. My answer is always the same. They know times are tough, but their focus is on building their businesses and making a difference in the world. The economy, good or bad, is just one of the many external factors they need to consider when trying to execute on their visions.

In a recent interview, one of our entrepreneurs, Zach Conover, was asked about the skills necessary to be a successful entrepreneur. He said, “Being a good entrepreneur is like being a good pitcher in baseball. You need a short memory. You have to remain confident after a bad pitch that your next pitch will be better.” That is the voice of an optimist who sees the opportunity in every difficulty. That is the voice of the Baiada Center.

©Mark P. Loschiavo

Forty years ago, Herman James, a Tennessee mountain boy, was drafted by the Army. On his first day in boot camp, the Army issued him a comb. That afternoon, an Army barber sheared his head. On his second day, the Army issued him a tooth brush. That afternoon, the Army dentist yanked several of his teeth. On his third day, he was issued a jock strap. The Army is still looking for him.

As leaders we communicate in many different ways. Sometimes our non-verbal communication comes across “loud and clear” even when we mean nothing by it.

Several years ago when I attended a Middle Management School for IBM one of the first things they told us is that the people in our organization, who are not our direct reports, are generally afraid of us. I found this difficult to believe, since I see my self as a very approachable person. The fact is that the further removed a leader is from his or her people the more they rely on his or her Signals for communications and intent.

As leaders we must work hard to determine how we are perceived by our people. We must also be deliberate about the signals we send. We don’t want them running for the mountains, when we are expecting them to charge the hill.

©Mark P. Loschiavo

When I was in High School I had a small business selling and servicing swimming pool cleaners. In the early 1970s a robotic pool cleaner that operated unattended was a cutting edge technology, and I was the sole distributor in the Greater Cincinnati area for a company out of Florida that invented and manufactured these little gizmos. It was by far the easiest item I ever had to sell. They were such a novelty at the time they sold themselves.

My clients ranged from the upper middle class to the very wealthy. One Saturday afternoon I had an appointment to demonstrate my product to the second wealthiest man in Cincinnati. As I drove up to his estate in my yellow 1965 Ford Falcon I noticed what appeared to be the gardener at the front of the main house. Hunched over in the bushes with his tattered shirt and a Camel cigarette hanging from his mouth, he seemed only mildly interested in this visitor in the yellow car. Because my dad always taught me to treat everyone with dignity and respect, I stopped in front of the man with the dirty face and said, “Good afternoon sir, sorry for the interruption, but I was wondering if you could tell me where I might find Mr. Heekin?” He said, “What do you want him for?” “My name is Mark Loschiavo, and I have an appointment with him about a swimming pool cleaner” I answered. His response startled me when he said, “I’m Herb Heekin, and I’ll take it”. “Nice to meet you Mr. Heekin, but you haven’t even seen it yet”, I stammered. “Young man, you treated me like I owned this place, even when you thought I was a hired hand. I admire that. I’ll buy the damn thing even if it doesn’t clean my pool?”

I went on to sell him a pool cleaner that day, and in the weeks and months that followed I sold—or more accurately he sold—many more of my pool cleaners to his friends, family and associates. Remember to treat everyone you encounter with dignity and respect. You never know when you may be talking to a billionaire in gardener’s clothing.

©Mark P. Loschiavo

Legend has it that a young man stopped on a dusty French path in the late Middle Ages to watch a laborer chipping away pieces from a large stone. “What are you doing?” he asked the worker.

“I’m trying to make this round stone square,” came the reply. “I’ve been working on this one stone for more than a week, and look how little progress I’ve made.”

The young man walked a bit farther and saw another laborer hammering away at a similar block of stone. “What are you doing?” he asked.

The worker replied, “My job. I’m a stone mason.”

Not much farther down the path the young man encountered a third laborer, also working a heavy piece of stone. “What are you doing?” he asked.

The worker looked up briefly from his task and replied, “I’m building a cathedral.”

Where do you find yourself these days? Are you chipping away at the tasks in front of you, just doing your job, or are you fulfilling your vision for the future? How about those around you?

The difference between “doing a job” and “fulfilling a vision” is often reduced to nothing more than risking the comfort of the current state long enough to visualize a desired state. Once you have even a fuzzy vision of where you want to go you must set specific goals along the way, and have the courage to tell someone about them. If you don’t think you have the time or patience for that, remember that the cathedrals of the Middle Ages typically took about 100 years to complete.

©Mark P. Loschiavo