Andrew Mason, CEO of Groupon, was fired yesterday. Here is his announcement to employees and staff. His style should be model for those of us who either choose or are forced to move on. Exit with Style.
People of Groupon,
After four and a half intense and wonderful years as CEO of Groupon, I’ve decided that I’d like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding – I was fired today. If you’re wondering why… you haven’t been paying attention. From controversial metrics in our S1 to our material weakness to two quarters of missing our own expectations and a stock price that’s hovering around one quarter of our listing price, the events of the last year and a half speak for themselves. As CEO, I am accountable.
You are doing amazing things at Groupon, and you deserve the outside world to give you a second chance. I’m getting in the way of that. A fresh CEO earns you that chance. The board is aligned behind the strategy we’ve shared over the last few months, and I’ve never seen you working together more effectively as a global company – it’s time to give Groupon a relief valve from the public noise.
For those who are concerned about me, please don’t be – I love Groupon, and I’m terribly proud of what we’ve created. I’m OK with having failed at this part of the journey. If Groupon was Battletoads, it would be like I made it all the way to the Terra Tubes without dying on my first ever play through. I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to take the company this far with all of you. I’ll now take some time to decompress (FYI I’m looking for a good fat camp to lose my Groupon 40, if anyone has a suggestion), and then maybe I’ll figure out how to channel this experience into something productive.
If there’s one piece of wisdom that this simple pilgrim would like to impart upon you: have the courage to start with the customer. My biggest regrets are the moments that I let a lack of data override my intuition on what’s best for our customers. This leadership change gives you some breathing room to break bad habits and deliver sustainable customer happiness – don’t waste the opportunity!
I will miss you terribly.
Love,
Andrew
Friday, March 1, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
Take the Long Way Home
A few days ago I had the urge for some home style soup. No canned soup but something that might resemble old fashioned make you feel warm on the inside soup. I opted for one of the cylindrical packages of 15 Bean soup. I scanned the ingredients to make sure I had tomatoes, onion, garlic, chili powder, and of course, something like sausage. I got home and was very excited to get going, only to discover that the beans had to be soaked for 8 Hours before the cooking could begin.
There was a short version which had me soaking and cooking the beans for 3 hours, but you couldn't be sure that the beans were fully soaked and you'd get the flavor you set out to get. So I went for the 8 hour version. After the 8 hours, I then had to combine all the goodies and simmer for 2 hours. It all turned out to be a wonderful soup. The way it was meant to be.
I've come to the conclusion that living in a large city requires finding workarounds. If you're going from the Valley to the City, you take Wood Cliff to Roscomare and go through Bellaire past the school. If it's after 3pm, you don't take the Freeway. The list goes on and on. The cost of living somewhere that is crowded is finding the secrets that help us endure. And save time.
We do the same thing in our business practices. We text. We email. We do what will be the fastest. Check your email exchanges. It looks more like Jai Alai and VolleyBall than it does a conversation. The phone still works quite well but we would rather be brief and direct.
It strikes me that we are doing things for expediency rather than effect or impact or quality.
Take a look at your shortcuts this next week and decide which are really time savers. Once a week, take the longer route. Make the Steel Cut Oats that take 28 minutes instead of Instant Quaker that just takes boiling water. Make the phone call instead of 4 texts and an email.
Take the long way home and see if it adds anything to your relationships, to the quality of your product, or perhaps to the Quality of your life, other than just time.
My choice would still be Highway 9 rather than 17. It gives me a greater chance think.
There was a short version which had me soaking and cooking the beans for 3 hours, but you couldn't be sure that the beans were fully soaked and you'd get the flavor you set out to get. So I went for the 8 hour version. After the 8 hours, I then had to combine all the goodies and simmer for 2 hours. It all turned out to be a wonderful soup. The way it was meant to be.
I've come to the conclusion that living in a large city requires finding workarounds. If you're going from the Valley to the City, you take Wood Cliff to Roscomare and go through Bellaire past the school. If it's after 3pm, you don't take the Freeway. The list goes on and on. The cost of living somewhere that is crowded is finding the secrets that help us endure. And save time.
We do the same thing in our business practices. We text. We email. We do what will be the fastest. Check your email exchanges. It looks more like Jai Alai and VolleyBall than it does a conversation. The phone still works quite well but we would rather be brief and direct.
It strikes me that we are doing things for expediency rather than effect or impact or quality.
Take a look at your shortcuts this next week and decide which are really time savers. Once a week, take the longer route. Make the Steel Cut Oats that take 28 minutes instead of Instant Quaker that just takes boiling water. Make the phone call instead of 4 texts and an email.
Take the long way home and see if it adds anything to your relationships, to the quality of your product, or perhaps to the Quality of your life, other than just time.
My choice would still be Highway 9 rather than 17. It gives me a greater chance think.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
How Much Knowledge are You Sharing?
A few years ago, my colleagues at the UCLA Center for the Art of Performance presented an exhibition of great ideas. They invited members of the campus community to submit ideas that would change the world. The selected ideas were all blown up on posters and featured in a display in the lobby of Royce Hall. I was honored to have two of my submissions accepted and blown up on posters and displayed. I can't remember the first of my ideas (I'm still looking for it), but the 2nd one had some potential:
"How much Knowledge are you sharing versus how much are your hoarding? How many lives would you change if we all focused on sharing for one week?"
I have a confession to make. I have a fixation with knowledge. I'm driven by the concept of knowledge management and sharing of knowledge. I'm fascinated by the way that organizations share their knowledge throughout their organization. How does one part of an organization know what other parts of the organization know? How does your organization keep track of knowledge? How do you know that someone has actually received and utilized the knowledge you shared with them? And, how does your organization share knowledge? How do you know that other people know?
I often ask people these questions about their organizations and I'm amazed to discover that the number one knowledge dissemination and storage tool is............Email! Remarkable, given the fact that it was never designed to be a search engine for thousands of messages. Yet, most organizations share knowledge by emailing it to their members. 10,000 emails in your in box (yes I did read them) need to be searched every time you're looking for some shred of information.
How does your organization share knowledge? When I worked at the front desk of my Residence Hall, we had a log book. We would come to work 15 minutes before our start time. Our job was to read through the log and find the last time we had initialed the log (marking where we "left off" or the last time we worked). We then read everything up to right now, and then initial it again. A brilliant way to both disseminate knowledge (to me) and let others know that I had read what had occurred since I last worked. This saved my supervisors and fellow workers from having to ask the question "Did Heller know about the change in operating hours?" Since they saw my initials on Saturday and then saw my initials on Wednesday, they know what I have acknowledged I'm supposed to know.
How does your organization distribute information and store knowledge? How does it know that people have the information they need to function effectively?
And most importantly, Are you sharing knowledge with other people in your organization that will help them and your organization?
The future of your organization depends on you. Are you playing well with others and sharing?
"How much Knowledge are you sharing versus how much are your hoarding? How many lives would you change if we all focused on sharing for one week?"
I have a confession to make. I have a fixation with knowledge. I'm driven by the concept of knowledge management and sharing of knowledge. I'm fascinated by the way that organizations share their knowledge throughout their organization. How does one part of an organization know what other parts of the organization know? How does your organization keep track of knowledge? How do you know that someone has actually received and utilized the knowledge you shared with them? And, how does your organization share knowledge? How do you know that other people know?
I often ask people these questions about their organizations and I'm amazed to discover that the number one knowledge dissemination and storage tool is............Email! Remarkable, given the fact that it was never designed to be a search engine for thousands of messages. Yet, most organizations share knowledge by emailing it to their members. 10,000 emails in your in box (yes I did read them) need to be searched every time you're looking for some shred of information.
How does your organization share knowledge? When I worked at the front desk of my Residence Hall, we had a log book. We would come to work 15 minutes before our start time. Our job was to read through the log and find the last time we had initialed the log (marking where we "left off" or the last time we worked). We then read everything up to right now, and then initial it again. A brilliant way to both disseminate knowledge (to me) and let others know that I had read what had occurred since I last worked. This saved my supervisors and fellow workers from having to ask the question "Did Heller know about the change in operating hours?" Since they saw my initials on Saturday and then saw my initials on Wednesday, they know what I have acknowledged I'm supposed to know.
How does your organization distribute information and store knowledge? How does it know that people have the information they need to function effectively?
And most importantly, Are you sharing knowledge with other people in your organization that will help them and your organization?
The future of your organization depends on you. Are you playing well with others and sharing?
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Valentine's Day: Showing your Love for Clients and Supporters
Happy Valentine's Day to You! I hope you had a wonderful V Day and opportunities to feel loved and appreciated. If you are anything like me, you spent some time this past week thinking about how you would show your love and like for those special people in your life. And more importantly, you were actually able to do something that expressed your adoration. A card, some flowers, chocolate, jewelry, (hopefully not an appliance), or even an email that professed your special feelings for that someone. And if you were successful in your efforts, you will be appreciated and acknowledged for your thoughtfulness and remarkable capacity to have done just the right thing!
Whether it's Valentine's Day, President's Day, or Groundhog Day, how do you express love for your clients, customers, board members, supporters, and followers? Do you send them Valentine's Day cards or Candy? Do you take them out to dinner or buy them gifts? The answer to all of these questions is probably NO.
I offer you the following Challenge for next week:
- Choose one segment of your Organizational EcoSystem (Service Recipients, Donors, Board Members, Staff, etc)
- Identify what your Service would be like if that segment ceased to exist (Kind of like "It's a Wonderful Life" for Board Members.
- Dedicate at least two hours to "thinking about how you would show your love and like for those special people"
- Choose your own "Valentine's Day" for that segment and shower them with the gifts you've dreamed up in step 3.
- Start the process again with another segment of your EcoSystem.
If you are successful at following each of these steps, you will change the culture of your organization for the better before next Valentine's Day. And that would be the greatest Valentine's gift you could give yourself and your organization.
PS: Happy Valentine's Day Babette, Ally, and Josh. You remind me everyday why I'm a very fortunate man.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Orbiting the Giant Hairball: Learning to Manage Creative People
Quite a few years ago, someone shared a remarkable book with me. Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie changed my life and my view of both managing creative people and what it means to be a creative person. I've made it a practice to go on line about once a year and buy a few copies of the book so I have a supply to give away or circulate among colleagues.
MacKenzie worked many years for Hallmark Cards. As an artist who later helped to manage artists, he became well aware of the challenges associated with managing "Creatives". The title of the book refers to organizations or corporations that have to have many rules or hairs that hold them together. A large corporation might be considered to be a Hairball.
If left to their own devices, artists will create remarkable things. If allowed to create without constraint, their value to the organization may be limited. If kept close to the corporation, they will be sucked into the hairball and lose their creative spark.
Managing "Creatives" requires putting them into an orbit that allows them to operate just outside of the gravitational pull of the Hairball and not so far away that their creations have no relevance or connection to the Corporation.
Let's all be reminded that it takes more to manage creative people than it does to manage mere mortals.
MacKenzie worked many years for Hallmark Cards. As an artist who later helped to manage artists, he became well aware of the challenges associated with managing "Creatives". The title of the book refers to organizations or corporations that have to have many rules or hairs that hold them together. A large corporation might be considered to be a Hairball.
If left to their own devices, artists will create remarkable things. If allowed to create without constraint, their value to the organization may be limited. If kept close to the corporation, they will be sucked into the hairball and lose their creative spark.
Managing "Creatives" requires putting them into an orbit that allows them to operate just outside of the gravitational pull of the Hairball and not so far away that their creations have no relevance or connection to the Corporation.
Let's all be reminded that it takes more to manage creative people than it does to manage mere mortals.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Seth's Blog: Those people
Seth's Blog: Those people
A simple statement to remember that we have responsibilities as leaders of organizations and movements that go beyond getting the job done. There are so many ways to provide value and support to our customers, clients, and members.
A simple statement to remember that we have responsibilities as leaders of organizations and movements that go beyond getting the job done. There are so many ways to provide value and support to our customers, clients, and members.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Digital Civility Part One: Love the One You are With
I was recently engaged in both a verbal and digital interchange with an old friend who asked whether my life was better through my constant access through a smart phone that twitters, messages, facebooks, emails, and ... oh yeah, is used as a phone. She wanted to know whether I really believed that my life was enhanced by such useage. She was also frustrated with friends who had to constantly be IMing over lunch and coffee. After giving a great deal of thought to her questions, I responded with the following email:
I think that you are responding to people's lack of civility and common sense more so than whether twitter or mobile access to communication is a good thing. I most assuredly agree with you regarding the frustration I experience when I'm with people who are constantly using their phones to check emails or tweets or the stock market or ..... I often bring it to their attention by suggesting that they may not know that they can turn off all notifications except for the phone. Since most phones have the ability to be specific about which notifications you want to receive, there is no reason to receive a vibration every time some someone tells you what they are eating.
I do think that civility has taken a downturn in the world. This goes hand in hand with an artificial sense of familiarity. Many students do not know how to address faculty and staff electronically since their primary form of communication is e-mail or instant messaging. Digital literacy is not something we teach and I'm reminded of this on a daily basis.
Returning to your questions regarding the quality of my life related to the availability of more up to date communications; I see it no differently than what advantages might be afforded when you compare reading news on line versus the daily newspaper. If the content is identical which is the case with the New York Times and the LA times, I believe the convenience of access has enhanced my life and made it more convenient to receive information. Similarly, the availability of email for communications has enhanced my access to my friends and colleagues over the use of the postal system.
There is no question that digital communication can detract from the here and now if we allow it to. It can also abuse the nature of a relationship when people choose to send so much digital spew that it truly does not feel like thought generated by the people we know. In fact, the vast majority of digital communication comes in the form of forwarding or retweeting content that the sender found amusing.
I have often shared the following with people who I like, but who feel it is essential to forward every funny thing they find:
If you think I would really like the 55th picture of a kitty on a piano, please print it, cut it out, put it in an envelope, and mail it to me with a handwritten note telling me why you think it's so special and why you believe I would like it. That makes it so much more personal and causes those people to think about whether it's that important for me to know about it.
In regard to the terrible things that happen when people message or tweet with no thought to what they should be doing, I can't agree with you more. I could say the same thing about passing the bag of fries or dropping a cigarette in the car. We've only just recently outlawed the use of phones while driving. We haven't done the same thing with food, smoking, looking back at your kids in the back seat or the 15 other things people do that cause them to get killed.
I believe that the availability of mobile devices has made it easier for me to stay in touch with people I care about like my family and friends. It does allow me the benefit of knowing about things in a more timely method than previously. Does it change the quality of my life? It enhances my ability to carry out things that I was unable to effectively do previously. Is my life better? I suppose I'd have to say yes because it allows me to stay more aware of things that are important to me. And that is a benefit.
The next time your friends at lunch pull out their phones, ask them if they could wait until after lunch to do it. If not, then schedule lunch with them when they think they can. The same can be said for people that take calls and then motion to you that it will be very very short. It's your time. You have a reason to be offended when they show a lack of civility.
Just my thoughts
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