Lots of insightful comments from my first post. Some points that especially hit home with me:
- Leverage the massive AOL community & infrastructure with new product offerings
- Reinvigorate product development by making longer term investments and clarifying ownership
- Be transparent to overcome the "fiefdom" mentality of the past
- A strong vision is desperately needed from our executive corps
To the first point, I remember seeing a presentation from the early days that outlined a business plan for an online auction service -- an eBay before eBay. How many other employee generated idea opportunities have been squandered? There are still interesting ideas generated from engineers, architects, product managers and middle level management circulating around AOL that aren't getting heard.
We need a company forum to present and evaluate ideas internally.
To the last point, I'll add that AOL needs leaders that also build a strong corporate community vision. I believe the leadership issue is actually the one that needs to be corrected first. You have heard of Web 1.0 and 2.0, but what about Manager 1.0 and 2.0? Here's a detailed explanation and a boat load of comments:
Creating Passionate Users: Manager 2.0
I love that Manager 1.0 vs 2.0 comparison graphic. Can we post that on Employee Central? Make it part of GOALign?
All of those are instructive to our current management throughout the org. But to further the point, AOL now needs state-of-the-art C level leadership to become vibrant again.
Executive 2.0 types, you might call them. Here are a few comparisons:
1.0: Is the smartest guy in any room
2.0: Understands the power of group intelligence is superior to any individual
1:0: Ignores or ridicules those that disagree
2:0: Keeps the right to make the final decision, but honestly considers contrary lines of thought
1:0: Openly criticizes former leadership, products and strategies
2:0: Realizes nothing is ever black and white, and takes the high road
1:0: Non-communicative with employee base
2:0: Realizes that transparency is necessary for employee morale
1.0: Holds important information secret only at highest levels
2.0: Shares all that is profitable, realizing that information most often gets out anyways
1:0: Sets draconian deadlines for complete product revisions
2.0: Builds a sustainable culture of incremental product improvement
1.0: Burns out the teams doing the work
2.0: Builds an environment where people work hard, but still have quality of life
2 comments:
I agree with your assessment that the leadership issue should be solved first. I was always amazed at the extent to which cronyism persisted throughout the organization. The old mantra "it's not what you know but who you know" was certainly alive and well. I too like the 1.0 vs. 2.0 comparisons and would suggest that this is not only a senior and/or C-level executive problem, but is also relevant to directors on up.
Interesting story... I had just entered a conference room for a meeting, and there on the whiteboard was the word "crepuscular". I had never heard it, but found the definition shortly after the meeting: "of, pertaining to, or resembling twilight; dim; indistinct." A fitting descriptor for most of the executives I knew (and their direct reports); dim insight into corporate plans and objectives; indistinct (and often inept) concept of execution. This not only applies to the tactical aspects of management but also the important aspects of managing personnel.
A couple books came to mind when reading your post. 1) Primal Leadership, by Daniel Goleman, and 2) The No A**hole Rule, Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't, by Robert Sutton. I've read the former, and found it an eye-opener. I have yet to read the second, but came close to giving it to a few of the more narcissistic directors I knew, based on the title alone.
Regardless, your point is well taken: the type of mindset espoused in the 2.0 qualities must exist in and be enforced by the highest levels in the company.
But this time around, maybe the bottom up approach might work best? Perhaps this blog site might serve to get a few motivated to empower one another to work and live by these qualities?
oh those vocabulary, so old time AOL, so idealistic, secrete sauce, magic, pixie dust...
The hardest thing to change is people's habit and mind, and your prescription was for exactly that.
I used to believe the AOL magic, the passion for consumer, "members rule", my favorite shirt was from 97 that says "just do it", but seriously being away from that mad place let me come to the realization that "it's not the company it's the market". The market had moved on, consumers have moved on, what the market and consumers expect is thousands of entrepreneurs playing out thousands of ideas, and reward just a few winning ideas with a few years of traffic and attention. Is this something that can be delivered out of Dullass? Over the years I saw passionate young guys/gals settle down, having kids, demand daycare and and change their priorities and I was one of them. I saw heroes from the earlier days drifting further and further away from reality of consumers' need and taste or TWX's expectation but never find their grand vision pontificated out of those ARBs out of date.
Anyhow, basically I don't think the death of the access and publishing business is something anybody can reverse, no magic product will save it. Senior executives' execution were flawed, like in the case of search relaunch, but not the primary factor. I mean, what if they launched totalTalk? do you know what it cost these days for Vonage to acquire the next customer and do you know their churn rate(now that's two metrics old AOLers can recognize). I kept hearing guys pointing to some latter day miracles and say we could have done that, the fact is we did not, and we probably could not, and the illusion that we could stopped us from really reinventing ourselves.
It's all business, I think the plan to focus on platform-a kinda make sense, growth there is OK but margin thin, but still that's better than the dynamics on the access and publishing sides. If you leave today, great, you are free from the bad dynamics of a bad business. If you stay, please drop the illusion that the old glorious ways are still relevant, it's a new world, requiring new skills, new business models, new people and maybe renewed passion.
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