Diary of an Entrepreneur

 

Un-flipping the "Bozo Bit"

 

By Lee Gibbons

 

As much as I keep a conscious focus on driving revenues, I also have a visceral awareness that our ability to maximize revenues is dependent upon team cohesion. Brace for a quick injection of geekiness to help explain the challenge I faced this week between my top two software developers.

Geeky: Computers store information by "flipping bits" from zero (false), to one (true). Flipping combinations of bits within a set of bits, or a "byte," forms the basic units of stored information.  Now, our story:

Tuesday afternoon I got a call from Steve (all names changed to protect the innocent, ... or whatever), a recently hired Web developer, asking if he could meet to talk. We arranged to meet for breakfast the next morning. I sat across from Steve as he launched our conversation with, "You think Tom's productive. He's not. You praise him openly in front everyone, and you are wrong about his work."

"How so?" I asked.

"Tom is working quickly, but sloppily, and causing everyone to slow down and clean up after him. Not only that, he is also holding information back from me ... starving me for what I need to go faster myself."

So, I asked him, "What are all the motivations you believe Tom has for his behavior?"

"He feels threatened by my experience and qualifications ... a threat to his status as top dog on the team ... and, I don't know," Steve said, recoiling at realizing that he was more whipped up than he intended.

"Are there any other motives that could be in play here? If you had to explain on his behalf, and he were here, what would you say?" I pressured.

Steve sat there, poking at his eggs and hash browns. Then he looked up at me, blushed a little, and his tone softened. "Tom is trying to carry a huge load right now, since John left." (John was the team leader who had just left us for more money ... a lot more money.) Steve continued, "He must be feeling a ton of pressure right now. Maybe that would explain both the quality lapse and the lack of effort to give me much of his time."

"You have flipped the Bozo Bit on Tom, haven't you?" I said.

He cocked his head to the side slightly. "Bozo bit?" he asked.

"Yep. Bozo equals TRUE. Then, from that point you have given yourself permission to tell yourself anything you want about him that will position yourself as ‘right and looking good,' and him as ‘wrong and evil.'"

To Steve's credit, he nodded acceptingly, looked me in the eye and said, "I am going to walk out of here and call him and see if he will go to lunch today."

The two had lunch, talked it through, and in the days since, I have seen a dramatic increase in the trust between them. They still have coding practice differences, but their renewed trust lets them keep the Bozo Bit set to FALSE.

 

Lee Gibbons is the co-founder and CEO of Podango. He has led or directly participated in the launch of over 20 products, four of which have been Internet based. He has 10 Years of Internet product development and management experience and has been part of five startups.

 

Launch - May/June 2007

 

 

For the full "digital magazine" version of May/June 2007, visit: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/growutah/launch0507/