They are the polar opposite of each other. Julie is outgoing, passionate, aggressive, go-getter, detailed oriented, and widely popular. Adam is introverted, insightful, absent minded, and socially awkward.

Julie is a star in the company, and her career has been progressing very well.

Adam is competent, but he tended to rob people the wrong people because of his social awkwardness. He is also not very detailed oriented – he is very good at getting 80% of a project done, but he has trouble to finish the project with highest quality.

There has been ongoing tension between Julie and Adam for a long time.

Finally, Julie couldn’t take it any more. She walked into her manager’s office and said “I’m done with that guy! I cannot work with him any more!” She was dead serious.

If you’re Julie’s manager, what would you do? What would you say to Julie?

I’ll write about my perspective on my next post. It might surprise you.

There is nothing right or wrong about this. However, this has some implications to you as an employee:

• When you have interpersonal issues or hold grudges against certain colleagues, don’t naively think that HR will be your trusted counselor to resolve the issue. They come from totally different perspective and motivation.
• HR’s priority and your priority are different.
• When you deal with HR, you need to be business-like and professional. Again, HR is not your personal counselor. Don’t reveal personal, sensitive information to HR. Otherwise, you’re risking your career and your future.

I had to admit that I hadn’t been a big fan of performance reviews in any shape or form in the past. In fact, one of the most popular articles on this blog is The Dirty Secrets of Performance Review.

However, my perspective on performance review, 360 feedback in particular, had changed a little bit lately. When 360 feedback is done right, it could be a very important and valuable tool for both management and employees.

Let me tell you a story. John is an experienced program manager at a large enterprise software company. He started working at his current company three years ago. During his six months, he was able to ship two products that had been delayed for a long time. His manager was really impressed. He felt really good about the hiring.

Another six months passed, and John just hit his one-year mark with the company. The manager started to hear complaints. It turned out that pretty much everyone who worked with John didn’t like to work with him. He was rude, abrasive, and had a tendency to rob  people the wrong way. In fact, the situation got so bad that several people had filed complaints with HR.

The manager had a meeting with John. When the manger raised the issues with John, he was completely blindsided. He felt that he was loved by everyone. In fact, he felt that he was very popular among his colleagues, and he couldn’t believe others’ complaints about him.

Fortunately, this company had a very experienced human resource team who care about its employees. The HR manager set up a 360 degree feedback loop for John, and introduced John to counseling.

In the end, John was able to change his behaviors, and significantly improved his interaction with his colleagues.

A key learning from this story is that people have different degrees of self awareness. Some people tend to be more “optimistic”, and feel good about themselves. Some people tend to be more self critical. But, our self perception could be very different from reality. For managers, if you’re not actively seeking feedback from others about your team members, you might be blindsided as well.

When 360 feedback is done correctly, it could provide well needed feedback to both employees and managers. Professionally, I have run into several personnel challenges in the past few years. Almost without exception, lack of self awareness is a key driver for the performance issues. Honest, direct, and fair 360 feedback could play a critical role in raising each individual employee’s self awareness, and improve his or her performance before it becomes too late.

If you have never implemented 360 feedback in your organization before, I have the following suggestions:

• Set clear objectives and expectation before you roll out the 360 feedback process. Ask people to be honest, direct, and fair.
• You should define who will provide the 360 feedback for a particular employee. Are you going to let people to self select reviewers? Or you want to designate certain people to provide feedback? Personally I like to designate certain people to provide feedback. Self selection might lead to employees mutually singing praises.
• Keep each feedback confidential.
• Implement a standard template or tool for the 360 feedback to standardize the process. If you have a small organization, a Microsoft Word template might be enough. If you have a sizable operation, you should consider to implement 360 feedback software package that enable your organization to gather and analyze 360 feedback more quickly and easily.

There are tremendous amount of hype in the online advertising network industry. But, I’m going to make a controversial statement today: most ad networks are ad agency in disguise. They’re essentially ad agency for the digital world.

Two groups of people have the power leverage in online advertising network companies: ad sales, and ad operations.

Online advertising is a transaction based business. Ad sales continue to sell campaigns to bring money to the company.

Ad operations run the campaigns. They do the dirty work to fulfill ad sales’ promise to clients. And the truth is: most of the work done by ad operation are manual work. There are some technologies, but most of the work are done by ad operation professionals.

As ad networks need to scale their business, they cannot afford to do everything manually. So, the software development teams become an IT support team to automate processes and create tools for ad operation team.

Now, it comes the brave product managers. They want to listen to the market, create product requirement documents, prioritize requests, and work with development to launch the product.

But, where is the “product”? While the product managers are arguing with everyone in the company and fighting for his cause, the sales guy just sold a campaign. To run the campaign, the ad operation person needed a customized tool from development. He would bypass the product manager, and told developer what he needed. He got the tool from the developer, and he made the client happy. The sales guy was happy. The CEO was happy because the company just made more money.

The product manager is left sitting there and arguing: “we need to be more strategic. We need a road map. We need to be more methodical in prioritizing.”

Nobody listened to him. Most ad network companies are not your typical technology product or SaaS company. They are largely service business. The senior management are most likely coming from media or ad sales background. They don’t understand the role of product management. They probably don’t give a damn about the role of product management.

I feel your pain, my fellow product managers who work in online advertising network. Don’t blame yourself — there are structural reasons that make your job really hard.

Related posts

• Is product management being marginalized in your organization?
• Know enough technically to be dangerous
• Is product management a good career entry point for new college graduate?
• GeekMBA360.com Publishes How To Become A Product Manager

• Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love
• Tuned In: Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities That Lead to Business Breakthroughs
• The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition

It’s "high profile" because

• it has two of the most famous venture capitalists on earth sitting on its board.
• it had received $100 million in venture funding.
• its senior management consists of super stars from major internet companies such as Google and Amazon, top-tier strategic consulting forms such as McKinsey & Company, prestigious universities such as Stanford and Berkeley, etc.
• It has been selected by major publications as "top 100 start-up super stars", "The next Google", "The 21 Century Top Digital Company", etc.

SOP’s goal is to make one product: it offers a "secret sauce" — its scientist have figured out a way to apply artificial intelligence technology to make any start-up become profitable instantly. It holds the secret of profitability.

But, SOP has one problem: it is not profitable itself. In fact, it doesn’t even have a product yet.

SOP had four rounds of funding. Its senior management team had changed three times. About one year ago, the company hired its 4th CEO. He had done a good job to turn around the company. Product development is on track. Initial beta test of the product had very positive results. SOP seems to be finally turning a corner.

SOP still has some cash left in the bank. But, the CEO wants to launch a very aggressive marketing and sales push. He wants to beef up his cash position so that he can take SOP to the finish line as soon as possible. His goal is to make a lot of money quickly.

To make the aggressive marketing and sales push, the CEO has decided to raise 5th round of funding. He’s already gotten verbal commitments from several venture capital firms.

But, he ran into a problem. A couple of years ago, when the company raised its 4th round of funding, to protect employee’s stock options, the management put in a "poison pill" — in the future, if the company wants to get more funding that will further dilute the employee options, the financing must be approved by employees that represent 70%+ of the total number of employee stocks.

The CEO’s challenge is to get the required votes from employees to approve the 5th round of financing.

The shrewd CEO worked with CFO and legal counsel to come up with a game plan. Instead of calling a company-wide meeting that include all employees, he identified a group of employees who are close to him. Most of them are managers or above. And they represented a little bit over 70% of the total employee stocks.

The CEO gathered these people in a small room. He told them that in order to approve the financing proposal, everyone in the room had to vote "yes". If the financing proposal didn’t get pass, then the proposal will be presented to the entire company to approve, which would significantly delay the financing process.

Pretty much everyone in the room voted "yes" — they knew that they had no choice. The company might go under if they didn’t vote "yes". But, they all felt pretty bad — they wonder why they had such a secret meeting. Isn’t every employee shareholder equal? Why were we invited to this meeting while some colleagues were not invited?

In my opinion, the CEO is not very ethical. All employees should be invited and given a chance to vote.

I’m not a legal professional, but I wonder if this is even legal — this is like the United States has a presidential election, but only certain people are allowed to vote initially.

This post is a fictional account, but it’s based on true stories. I’d like to hear your take on this story: is the CEO’s action ethical? Or even legal?

Related posts:

• Don’t get screwed! Stock option questions you should ask before you join a start-up
• IPO shouldn’t be the goal for a start-up
• Is starting a company in Silicon Valley stupid?
• If I can pick and choose any start-up to work for, I’ll pick … Part 1

Excellent resources:

• The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Business Law
• Entrepreneurial Finance: Finance and Business Strategies for the Serious Entrepreneur
• Raising Venture Capital for the Serious Entrepreneur

Jake was a member of the senior management team in his company. On the surface, he got along really well with the president. They worked together at another company before they both came to work for Jake’s current company.

Jake told me that his last day would be two weeks from yesterday. In the high tech industry, the "norm" is for employees to give at least two-week advance notice.

Jake emailed me this morning at 5AM. Today is his last day.

Yes, he is supposed to be in good terms with everyone in the company. He doesn’t have any performance issue. His team has been performing well. He is a member of the senior management team. He did the right thing by giving two-week notice. But, he was still asked to go immediately.

I’m NOT surprised. For most of us, unless you belong to an union, the employment contract you sign is at-will. Either employer or employee can terminate the contract at any time. The two-week advance notice is a common courtesy, but employers are NOT required to honor your courtesy and professionalism.

When you offer your resignation, you really don’t know how your employer will react. You need to protect yourself. You need to expect the worst.

So, before you offer your resignation, you should be ready to leave immediately.

You should clear out your office, save contact information, and clean up your computer.

You should be ready to leave the second you tell your boss that you’re leaving.

Related posts:

• Quit early, and quit fast
• Seizing the enemy without fighting is the most skillful
• The clear and present danger of internal transfer
• The dirty secrets of performance review

Excellent resources:

• Corporate Confidential: 50 Secrets Your Company Doesn’t Want You to Know—and What to Do About Them

It’s All Politics: Winning in a World Where Hard Work and Talent Aren’t Enough

Every Employee’s Guide to the Law

Fired, Laid Off or Forced Out: A Complete Guide to Severance, Benefits and Your Rights When You’re Starting Over

I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area at that time. So, I packed my belongs and drove to the L.A. area. For some reasons, instead of finding an apartment, I chose to stay in a motel for a couple of weeks while I was looking for an apartment. I was the type of person who would plan ahead. But, somehow I didn’t feel right to commit to an apartment. Looking back, I think subconsciously, I had some doubts about the job I took.

Within two days, I started feeling that I joined the wrong company.

On day one, I was part of a product planning meeting that included both the product management and program management teams. These two groups used to be part of the same team. It’s incredible for me to watch them to fight about who owned what. It was a complete mess.

On day two, I was assigned to be the product manager for a new initiative that would improve the performance of an existing product by 2X. But, the problem was that it’s an impossible goal — it’s against the law of physics. It’s like asking me to increasing the speed of dial-up connection to the speed of broadband.

The funny thing was that everyone on the product management team and the software development team knew that it was an impossible goal. But, nobody was willing to challenge it because it was a directive from the CEO. He ran the company like a dictator. The CEO was a marketing guru, but didn’t have a technical background.

On the other hand, my direct manager was a great person. I joined the company largely because I wanted to work for him.

So, after two days, I pretty much knew that I didn’t like this company. But, I had never been a quitter. I didn’t want to quit a job after two days.

It’s my first job after getting my MBA. It would look really bad.

I didn’t want to let my managers and colleagues down — they interviewed me, appreciated me, and offered me the opportunity.

For a week, I was totally torn.

Everyday after work, I would grab some fast food, and then went back to my motel room and felt stressed out. I didn’t look for an apartment because I didn’t feel to commit to a permanent lease.

But, I only reserved a few days at the motel. So, for a stretch of 7 days, I switched motels/hotels three times. Let me put this way: I knew really well how to find cheap hotels/motels in the greater L.A. area.

One and half weeks into the job, I told myself that it was enough. I’m not a quitter, but I couldn’t see myself to continue any longer.

One day after lunch, I walked into my manager’s office, and told him that I decided to quit. I apologized, apologized, and apologized. I felt that I let him down.

He was very understanding. He told me: "Totally understand. Don’t feel bad — in a few years, this would be something we all laugh about. Not a big deal."

I left this company after exactly two weeks. I then took a very interesting job at a very good company. I learned a lot at this company. Things all worked out.

Six years later, looking back, I’m glad that I quit early, and quit fast. We’re all taught not to give up. But, there are times you know things are not working out. It’s time to go.  It’s time to change.

Jack is a hard working software developer. Like many of us, he works for a highly dysfunctional organization. He is part of a major software project that could make or break his start-up employer. The project has no functional specification, no technical design document, and no single owner who is driving the project at the detail level.

The business side of the company is nervous. They desperately need this new product to grow their business. They’re putting a lot of pressure to the manager of software development, who is Jack’s boss. The software development manager puts a lot of pressure onto his team members. He told the software developers that they must stop playing Ping Pong and foosball in the break room during working hours. They must get to work by 9AM in the morning. They must deliver, or they’ll be gone.

The problem is that the software developer manager is very inexperienced. He had never run any software project before. He had never managed a software development team before. But, he is golfing buddy with the Vice President of Engineering. He knows how to navigate the political landscape of the organization. He cares very little about his team members. He just wants to look good in front of the senior management team.

Jack is frustrated. In project review meetings, he openly challenged his manager. During his one-on-one, he criticized his manager.  When his manager emailed the software development team about certain decision he had made, Jack replied to the entire development team that he opposed his manager decision because it was wrong.

His manager started to ignore him. When Jack emailed his manager, he never heard back from him. When Jack took initiative to write a spec, his manager told him not to worry about it. When Jack set up a meeting with his boss, he never accepted the meeting invite.

Jack is worried. He starts to feel that his job is on the line. He wants to contribute to the project. He wants to do good work. But, he is extremely frustrated with his boss.  He feels that his boss doesn’t like him, and will find a way to get rid of him.

Jack has every reason to feel frustrated. Many of his team members are equally frustrated. But, Jack is the one who had the gut to challenge his boss. Jack is right in many ways. But, he has to face the reality — he has a family to support. He has a mortgage to pay. He needs a stable job.

Out of frustration, Jack had lunch with me.

My advice to him:

"Your manager is not very good, but he is very politically savvy. You’ll not make any meaningful changes by confronting him and criticizing him in the public. You’re only hurting  yourself. It’s like you keep hitting a wall, but only you get hurt in the end.

If I’m you, I’ll do whatever your boss tells you to do. Lay low for a while, and  look for another job. I think it’s time for you to move on given how dysfunctional your company is."

Finally, I mentioned my favorite line from the Art of War to Jack: "Seizing the enemy without fighting is the most skillful." — This is very applicable in the corporate environment. Good, ethical employees who want to make positive changes in corporate environment should act strategically and skillfully. The optimal outcome is to achieve your objectives without a fight. Don’t hurt yourself.

Related posts:

• The dirty secrets of performance review
• Don’t get stuck
• The clear and present danger of internal transfer
• "HR won’t listen to me. They don’t really care about me. I cannot talk to them about my problems and frustrations." — HR is NOT your counselor and you need to understand the role of HR

Excellent resources:

• Corporate Confidential: 50 Secrets Your Company Doesn’t Want You to Know—and What to Do About Them
• 21 Dirty Tricks at Work: How to Win at Office Politics
• Secrets to Winning at Office Politics: How to Achieve Your Goals and Increase Your Influence at Work
• The Art of War by Sun Tzu – Special Edition

Professors, recruiters, career center counselors all told us that we needed to be team players to succeed in the real world.

But, is this really true? Is team work really that important for company and career success? Will being a team player help you build a successful career?

I have worked over a decade now.  I have had several employers so far: one management consulting firm, two Fortune-500 companies, 3 start-ups. Some of them have been successful while a few have failed miserably.

None of them operated in a "team environment".

From my own experience, it seems that 80/20 rule applies:

• 20% or less of the sales guys generated 80% or more of the company revenue
• 20% or less of the software engineers wrote 80% or more of the software code
• 20% or less of the QA engineers caught 80% or more of the software bugs
• 20% of less of the professional service consultants did 80% or more of the implementation work

Here are a few examples.

A star sales guy was arrogant, demanding, a pain to work with. But, he kept his job because he generated a significant amount of revenue for the company.

A software engineer was extremely high-maintenance. But, he was extremely productive when he was writing code. He would always get a good review because the company needed him although his peers hated to work with him.

A VP of Account Management was ruthless and clueless. But, by luck, her team operated in a very hot market. Customers would happily write a check without any selling. Her Account Management team met the sales goals although she had alienated a lot of people in the company. She still had her job.

I knew many people who worked at Oracle, a highly successful enterprise software company. Very few of them told me they enjoyed working there. It was a sales machine, but not a team environment.

Microsoft is one of the most successful high tech companies of our time. But, I heard a lot of complaints from current and ex-Microsoft employees about how political the place has gotten. Just read my Microsoft Layoff Satisfaction Survey.

Apple has been very successful in the past few years. But, everyone knows Steve Job is a micro-manager. It’s extremely difficult to work for him. But, he delivers, just not in a "team environment".

I could give you many more examples.

No, I’m not becoming cynical. I’m writing this post because I want us collectively to accept the reality:

• Every human being is dysfunctional. But, a dysfunctional human being can still make great contribution to the world.
• Every family is dysfunctional. But, a dysfunctional family can still raise great kids.
• Every company is dysfunctional. But, a dysfunctional company can still succeed.

Team work is neither necessary nor sufficient for building successful companies.

As an individual, each of us needs to figure out how to fit into the overall organization, balance our own interests with others’ interests, and maximize our contribution in alignment to the company’s profit objectives.

It’s not about being the team player. It’s about being the 20% or less that contribute to 80% or more.

Related posts:

• The clear and present danger of internal transfer
• The dirty secrets of performance review
• Microsoft Laid-off Employees spoke up! — Layoff Satisfaction Survey Results – Microsoft
• Layoff Satisfaction Survey Results — Sun Microsystems
• Layoff Satisfaction Survey Results — AT&T

Excellent resources:

• Living The 80/20 Way: Work Less, Worry Less, Succeed More, Enjoy More
• The Star Principle: How It Can Make You Rich
• The Natural Laws of Business: How to Harness the Power of Evolution, Physics, and Economics to Achieve Business Success

It was time for me to bring in my car for a regular maintenance service. Like many auto repair shops, this particular auto shop provided a shuttle ride to where I worked while they worked on my car.

The shuttle driver was a lady in her fifties. There were several passengers in the shuttle. She pulled out a stack of index cards. She asked each passenger his or her destination, and pick-up time. She wrote the information on the index cards, one card for each person. Since I was sitting next to her, I noticed that she had really nice handwritings. While she was writing down the information, she got a call from from a customer who needed a pick-up. Her phone manner was impeccable. When she started driving, she took complete command of the car. She made the passengers feel safe.

Let’s put this way, she reminded me of one of those articulate writers or artists who seemed to do everything with elegance and ease.

Instinctively I felt that there must be an interesting story behind this person.

My destination was the furthest from the auto repair shop. As all of the passengers except me had gotten off the shuttle, we started an interesting conversation.

"You must be meeting a lot of interesting people everyday by doing this?" I said.

"Oh. Yeah. I definitely met a lot of interesting people. I could write a book. Actually, I could write several books."

"How long have you been doing this?"

"Eight years. I worked for another shop for six years, and then I came to work for this shop. I got a divorce 10 years ago. I was married for 33 years, and knew my ex-husband since I was 17. We had our own business for more than 30 years. I knew that something was wrong with the relationship. I should have gotten out of the relationship earlier."

"Wow. That must be hard."

"Yes. I have never worked any where except our own business. It was very hard. What am I going to do? For the first couple of years after our divorce, I lived off the settlement money. I moved fifteen times in two years. I was grieving, recovering, healing. I was seeing a therapist, a wonderful man. He helped me a lot. A friend of mine told me that there was a class in the local community that taught people how to unstuck."

"That sounds a really interesting class. How was it?"

"It was a great class. We took a number of personality test, like the Meyer-Briggs test. All of the tests showed that I had a altruistic nature. I like to help people. Also, I like to work outside. I’m not the office type. When we had our own business, I lived and worked in the wood the whole day. I’m not someone who would work in the office every day. But, I needed to find some work to do."

"I took the Meyer-Briggs test myself. I thought it was quite helpful. So, what did you do next?"

"I just believe that things would work out. I had a friend who needed to pick up her car in a car repair shop. So, I drove her there. When we got there, we learned that they needed more shuttle drivers because one of the driver just quitted. I like driving, and I like to be out there. So, I applied and started driving. It has been eight years now."

"Things did work out for you. It got quite snowy the previous two winters. I remembered that I had to hike a couple of miles to go home because the bus could make it to top of the hill where I lived. How did you handle driving in the snow? It’s quite dangerous."

"I just kept driving. Last winter when we had the big snow storm, I was driving a customer back to his house in a really wealthy neighborhood. It just started snowing when we left the auto shop. The snow just piled on. When we finally got to the customer’s house, he started worrying about how I was going to get back.

I told him not to worry. I’ll  make it. I lived 30 miles away. It was hard. I just kept telling myself I would make it. I never stopped because I knew that if I stopped, my car might stuck in the snow. I just kept going, going and going. When I got home, my brother had his boots on and was ready to rescue me."

"That’s quite a story! I can tell you are a very safe and skilled driver".

"I like driving. I like to be out there."

"You drive a lot and you have lived in this area for a long time. You must have seen a lot of changes."

"Oh, yeah. This place has changed a lot. I live in this city since 1971. Last few years, I had to move away to live with my brother. I really missed living here. So, I decide I would go shopping at one store in this area everyday. On Monday, I would go to the Trader Joe’s. On Tuesday, I would go to a small mom-and-pop shops I’ve frequented in the past. I’d go somewhere in this city every day. By Friday when I have the only day off, I would have everything I need.

Oh, did you see the blue sky, the trees, the sun. The rain just stopped. It’s beautiful. It’s so beautiful."

"It’s beautiful." I said.

"You know, it’s beautiful. We’ll be okay. My mother uses to say to us — ‘Don’t get stuck’. She was a very wise woman. I love her. If you ever get stuck, you need to figure out how to unstuck yourself."

We arrived at the destination. I said "good bye" to her. But, I keep thinking about our conversation. I want to write down the story. I want to share with you.

Don’t get stuck.

If you ever get stuck, unstuck yourself.

Related posts:

• Are you nice to yourself?
• The first time I cried at work
• Your relationship with your parents have a lot to do with your career success
• From laid-off dot com worker to medical doctor
• Joe Wong the comedian

Excellent resources:

• Unstuck: A Tool for Yourself, Your Team, and Your World
• Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression
• Getting Unstuck: How Dead Ends Become New Paths
• Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace