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Men of Letters

December 28, 2009 by Chris Colbert · View Comments 

Bronze statue of Giordano Bruno by Ettore Ferr...
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In the beginning there was religion, philosophy, science, and the craft of law. The study by a few to understand the reality and necessary rules of the whole. The capture of that commentary and observation was augmented by the rise of the Fourth Estate — a recognized profession of wordsmiths, ponderers, and reporters who carried a responsibility to provide the masses with a generally unbiased view of the current day, its news, its stories, and the topics that define(d) a civilized society. Alongside these professional journalists were “men of letters,” independent sorts, typically well educated and committed to the intellectual task of delving into the truth of life and whether it really needed to be nasty, brutish, and short. At the end of the “public intellectual” spectrum was an educated man, one who was valued for his (or her) capacity with words and his informed position on matters of intellectual import.

As noted in my favorite public intellectual — and not so intellectual — dumping ground (Wikipedia), the following:

Regardless of the field of expertise, the role of the public intellectual is addressing and responding to the problems of his or her society, as the voice of the people with neither the ability, nor the opportunity, to address said problems in the public fora; hence, they must ‘rise above the partial preoccupation of one’s own profession . . . and engage with the global issues of truth, judgment, and taste of the time.’ The purpose of the public intellectual remains debated, especially his or her place in public discourse, thus acceptance or non-acceptance in contemporary society; to wit, Edward Saïd noted that as almost impossible:

[The] . . . real or ‘true’ intellectual is, therefore, always an outsider, living in self-imposed exile, and on the margins of society.’

So let us compare all this to the reality of today. The Fourth Estate has been served with liens of implied irrelevance. Men of letters and the well studied and articulated role of the intellectual man who lives by choice on the outside looking in have been supplanted by random observations of the biased and uninformed that reside by choice at the center. The defining voices of today are supported with limited lexicons and shallow calculations, and are often motivated not by truth but by celebrity and fame. Their all too frequent distribution of “weakly thought” thoughts garner attention simply for being bold in their declaration and bank on the limited attention span and capacity of their “markets” to absorb, let alone challenge, the integrity of their claims. I am one of these voices. And I apologize.

Is this all to suggest I don’t believe in blogging? I truly do, but I also believe that we must balance our reliance on the informal guidance of the amateur intellectual (like me) with the elevation and support of the professional commentator, the public intellectual. The demise of the Fourth Estate would in fact be a terrible consequence of blogospheric pressure. I believe that the complex questions of today demand more rigorous study and contemplation than our sphere alone provides. They demand a certified form of intellectual engagement that can explore and communicate about the biggest topics of life without bias or self-serving intent. They demand a Fourth Estate, men of letters and individuals committed to understanding the external and eternal truths, willing to intellectually invest, to check their “facts” and be able to explain the derived understanding in ways that make a difference for those that apply their insights and guidance.

So for those of us who blog about things that matter, a challenge is herein posed. Let us take a step back and re-think our motivations, let us balance our desire and readiness to share with a willingness to check our supporting logic and data. And let us proffer words that carry truth about the truth, words that matter and nothing less.

Okay?

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Truth and Agency Management

November 22, 2009 by Mike Troiano · View Comments 

Truth or Consequences
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The fifth of the five goals that mark our journey to Santa Clara is “We are profitable to enable growth and giving back.” Taking this seriously means doing the math.

Most agency managers see metrics as some kind of administrative exercise to be delegated to the accountants.

Weekly metrics are so much more than that. There’s been a lot of good work in this area, and I’m not sure I could add much value to the nuts and bolts of why a good and comprehensive set of weekly numbers is even more than an essential tool of financial management. I will say this, though – one of the most common symptoms of poorly defined operational metrics is a dysfunctional management team, along with the inter-departmental friction and infighting that fragmented management teams invariably encourage.

Why do better metrics encourage better team dynamics?

Because if you give smart people with aligned incentives the same set of facts, nine times out of ten they will come to the same conclusions about what needs to be done. And then they will do it.

Good business metrics define an objective truth for a group of people trying to get to the same place from very different points of view. This is absolutely essential as a business becomes too large and complex for the people in one part to understand what’s happening day-to-day in all the other parts.

And yes that’s “an” objective truth, rather than “the” objective truth. It’s not clear that the latter exists in business except in retrospect. Rather than be paralyzed by this, executives can use it to their advantage by choosing specific metrics that focus people on the right things. For example, think about the many ways to measure what is most often the easiest thing to measure: revenue. A company interested in driving behaviors that maximize revenue growth in a highly transactional business might want to make sure that week-over-week percentage sales growth is the big number in bold at the top of the reporting package. That same business, if it was more interested in maximizing gross profit (revenue minus direct expenses) might be more interested in measuring the gap between forecast and actual sales in a given week, or even in projecting a quarterly variance number that reflects the gap between the budget and the new forecast.

Once you get these numbers right you begin to understand the levers behind each, the drivers and even leading indicators that provide real insight to the state of the business. The numbers evolve, into percents and ratios first, then into bar charts and pies and scatterplots. With a little creativity and genuine commitment it’s not long before the weekly reporting package takes shape as a pithy and well-formatted document people really depend on to make decisions… and when that happens, more and more of those decisions tend to be aligned with one another.

We are trying to build a culture of disciplined, metrics-based management at Holland-Mark… not to limit creativity, but to liberate it. We are doing so not because we value numbers over judgment, or action, or creativity; but because we understand the importance of seeing the truth.

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Truth and Business Strategy

October 6, 2009 by Mike Troiano · View Comments 

In the long run, most pain in life is caused by distance from the truth.

Think about it. We get hurt, we suffer, we get over it. Over time, the things that cause the biggest problems in our lives most often derive from our inability to see the whole truth – about ourselves, another person, or even a particular situation.

Pick a source of pain, maybe one in your own life. Lost love, bad relationship, maybe just not living the life you thought you’d live? In most cases I’ve come across, in my own life and others, the real source of life-scale problems is an inability to see, understand, or face the whole truth about some aspect of that problem. What about medical issues? Pick one, and I’ll point you to someone online who can at least claim to have overcome the true pain of a given illness by accepting it in the larger context of their own lives, and coming to terms with what that meant.

I have long held this belief, and it has a big impact on my approach to business in general and entrepreneurship in particular.

Each new company I’ve been a part of started in a specific direction – call it 180 degrees north – based on a commonly held belief in a set of external truths, and in an opportunity rooted in those truths. As the work to capitalize on that opportunity proceeded, those beliefs were tested against up-close observations in the real world. I’m talking about a hundred individual successes and failures, up and down the scale – uncomfortable conversations and sales triumphs, acrimonious departures and zealous new hires, failed forecasts and prophetic predictions. And with each new data point, the business concept evolves just a little. It moves 10 degrees left, 25 degrees right, a little at a time, as underlying assumptions are identified, confirmed or rejected.

For me this is the true process of entrepreneurship, managing the collision of a business plan and the real world – of an idea with the truth – that turns that idea into something that creates value for the people who believed in it first. That’s why entrepreneurial success is more about execution than it is strategy… because in the end, great execution brings your strategy in line with The Truth.

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