Management on Nick Wang

Road to Entrepreneurship is Long and Lonely and Full of Stress

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 08:54:33 +0000

The development of my site has hit a slight delay due to the developer I had hired is taking a 2 weeks vacation. I’m taking this chance to start entering some contents and check out the inner workings of Drupal. But it is putting some extra stress on me due to the progress of the project being stagnant. Recently, I’ve also started talking to my acquaintances whom I want to recruit to become my business partners. This basically means I have to “sell” my business idea / model to them. I’m definitely not a good sales person, so this is kind of tough for me. One of the people I talked to is my college friend who has been working at Microsoft since he graduated, switching from technical I.T. roles to marketing roles. So, he can help cover some business skills that I don’t possess. It was really hard selling to him, and I know he still isn’t completely sold yet, but I know if I get him to believe in my business and get him on board, he will be able to sell it 15 times better than I do! :) Besides, I totally understand his position as I had also been a satisfied employee at a major US technology company. I liked my job and although both he and I wanted to work on our own business, we were reluctant to give up our good jobs. Anyway, one interesting thing that he told me to beware of is to “not under-estimate the stress of having no full-time job”. It turns out his sister had tried her hands on starting her own business with her boyfriend, and during that time, they had received a lot of stress from the people around them. Unfortunately, I didn’t need him to tell me about that, as I am already suffering from a lot of stress from my family. This reminds me of a recent interview of a web entrepreneur in the US, he had had success with his previous web business and is now starting a new one, yet even with his experience, he said on some days, when it seems like there are absolutely no progress at all, he would still question himself… “What am I doing? Why isn’t it going anywhere?!”… That’s pretty close to what I’m feeling now too. At a time like these, when everyone around you is pressuring you to give up and “just find a job”… all you can do is to re-evaluate your vision… believe in the path you’ve chosen and continue to execute your plan!! It’s not easy, in fact, I can tell you I feel like SHIT right now! It’s definitely a lot easier to “just find a job” and become a “gear” within a machine again and do your 9 to 6. It really pains me to have the people close to me not believe in me and would rather have me submit to a 9 to 6 because of the pressure they feel from other people… Other people who doesn’t even know shit about me and my plans!!! But there’s nothing we can do about this. We all look at the world with our own set of values and we also judge other people based on that. You can’t win over everybody, and you don’t need to explain yourself to everybody. All you can do is stay focus on your vision, believe in yourself, work hard, network with the right people… and just NEVER GIVE UP! This is how all successful empires are built throughout history! As I get closer to launch, I can feel that things are within my grasp… yet at the same time, there are so many more things that can be expanded on… I can see the possibilities that will open up eventually as the business grow and expand. But for now, from my experience in Project Management, I know better than to lose control of the existing plan. I’m staying focused on launching with the foundation and features as planned on my functional requirements.

How to Identify and Hire Good People

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:04:32 +0000

Management that view their people as replaceable “gears” within a machine seems to be the norm these days, but that only applies to low level, mundane jobs that can be handled by robots. Obviously, this shouldn’t be applied to software developers. I would even argue that within any level of a company, it is crucial to recognize and keep your “Grade A” workers! I think I read about this in one of those Harvard Business books, a “Grade A” worker is not only more productive himself, but he also increases the productivity of those that work around him! In the case of a developer, various studies have shown that good developers can be between 10 to 20 times more productive than poor developers! But before we get to the part on how to keep them, the question should be… how to identify them during interviews and hire them?! That’s the question that bothered me the most. A few years back, when Yahoo!’s stock was doubling every few months and we were hiring like crazy, I read a book that gave me some interesting tips on how to do that. It’s really common-sense stuff actually… First, as the person hiring, you need to identify the characteristics you expect in the person you want for the job, and develop an interview technique that will test for these characteristics. Design some questions that can highlight the desired qualities of the candidate and have HR use those questions instead of their stock ones.

If time allows, after HR and someone from the hiring department had interviewed a candidate, a good next step for potential candidates is audition. Have the candidates present on a topic for 10 - 15 minutes in front of those they are likely to be working with if hired. This is also a good time to ask those theoretical / IQ questions and let the candidate think out loud. Give your team a checklist of questions also can help them focus on specific aspects of the candidate’s performance. Here, if candidates are not going to fit well with the team, it doesn’t matter how good they are, they won’t be productive and may actually decrease the productivity of the team! Finally, if auditions are not possible, instead of just sitting across a table and ask questions, work with them at a whiteboard! Walk them through some standard scenarios at work and ask them how they would solve the problems. Start with easy ones and increase the level the difficulty, note the level of problem at which they start to have trouble and how they handle it! For developers, have problems that test implementation-level, design-level, and analysis-level thinking. Both the audition and whiteboard sessions are looking for the ability to think, learn and adapt, more than just the experience or knowledge in a specific field. Hopefully, after these 3 to 4 steps, you’ve identified a few good candidates and also, those candidates will have a good impression of your company due to a good interview process. Once you’ve gotten your good people, a manager’s next challenge is to not lose them! :D LOL… May be I’ll write about that later…

Management Problems in Hong Kong (and generally in Asian Companies)

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:45:52 +0000

One stereotypical image of a Chinese manager / business owner is that they tend to be stingy and would work their employees into the ground. I’ve never worked for a Chinese or Asian company (unless you count Yahoo as Asian :P ), but I have heard enough horror stories and now, my wife works for a local handbag design company in Hong Kong. I get to experience the legendary Chinese management style… second hand. (Phew…) How’s this for a job change? You are a mid-level designer that makes more than $60K a year in New York, working 5 (or 4.5) days a week. You don’t have a boss to look over your shoulder and the decisions you make in your designs are final, albeit there may be some final, minor changes to suit the buyers’ taste. Now, you moved to Hong Kong! Guess what? You have to work 5.5 days a week! (Yes, working on Saturdays are still the norm here in HK!) You make 1/3 of what you used to make in NY, you have to risk your life and travel to lawless China to visit the factories in order to monitor the making of the samples. You have a time card to punch, when you are late, your vacation time are deducted! Your boss or your boss’s wife literally sit behind you to “look over your shoulders”! You have a 1 hr lunch and it’s restricted to 1 - 2 pm! Your boss has the final say on your design, your opinions are not respected. Sales people in the US tell their customers that they can make changes or ask for new designs anytime, because the Chinese here work 24 hrs! Your boss basically expects you to have no life and work your ass off!

These are just some of the typical complaints you’ll hear from a typical Hong Kong employee. So why are management so different here? It’s quite obvious to me that this management style is self-destructive. Employees are put to work bounded by strict rules, management is basically prison guards who watch over the prisoners, making sure they abide by the rules. Hence, employees are not motivated, they do the bare minimum to fulfill the boss’s requirements, grind through their daily 9 - 6 and live like a zombie. Retention rate is close to zero. (I’ve heard of a manager in Yahoo who came from India, he uses similar Asian style micro management methods to manage his team of programmers, asking them to report to him on an hourly basis what they had done! Needless to say, he lost all his top talents and are rewarded with a team of low performers that need to be constantly monitored! Effectively turning himself into a prison guard.) I really wonder, how far are business owners here looking into the future? I’m sure if they can just expand their visions a little bit, they’ll see that the life of their business will end before their own! (given the owner doesn’t get hit by a truck.) So why does such poor management continues? Haven’t they read the numerous books and articles out there, like the Harvard Business Review may be? I think management is a field where drastic changes are needed in Asia. This type of “extreme micro management” is poison to any company! Part of the solution could be returning expats like myself ~ but I think most returners are younger kids who had just finished college and don’t have enough work experience. Those who have worked more than 5 - 6 years in the West have enough invested into their career, they don’t want to risk coming back to Asia, where they’ll most likely get a pay cut. Another solution is through education. (Note to self, open management summer camps! :) There’s no reason why HK Chinese have to remain in management dark ages! The US has one of the highest productivity and talents, so take a page from them! In a few words, good management is about motivation, hiring the best people, retaining the best people, improving productivity and job satisfaction, setting and communicating expectations, releasing control and ownership to promote career growth, cultivating the next breed of great managers… etc.