Are you so focused on following the rules you’ve forgotten that to make your brand shine out what you really need to do is break them?
Too often we are so fixated on finding and then adhering religiously to the “right” formula (so that customers will buy, buy, buy…) what we actually become is just another face in the crowd; a second-hander, inheriting a world we never made. This is why the Linden Lab story appeals to me so much. Founder and CEO, Philip Rosedale, did it his way. Not content with inheriting a second-hand world, he created his as he wanted it (albeit a Second Life and all!). And boy do they shine out.
In Part 1 I explored the necessity for new ideas, and what that can mean for your business in terms of your bottom line. Here I have one main point – which relates to breaking the rules – and I’m going to travel via Linden Lab’s creative internal business model to make it.
It’s partly because of my human resources background and partly because of the rebel in me that I got so excited when I read about Linden Lab’s experimental cultural ideology and model. The reality that confronted me in HR was that we were essentially bureaucrats, developing and enforcing policy. I started out believing that I could make a difference, but over time merely saw myself as part of the “fun police”. Fun was allowed mind you, as long as it was neatly orchestrated. Anything was allowed really – as long as it conformed to policy…
In my experience, innovative, out-of-the-park ideas for internal business models are usually met with outright horror or amused condescension, even in companies who view themselves as very progressive. Many companies talk it up, few mean it.
Okay, I’m going to get a bit mushy here, but bear with me.
Author Henry Miller once said the one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough of is love. (Interestingly, Miller’s middle name was Valentine!)
All too often, one of the places we feel most unloved is at work. Indeed, it’s a well-known fact that employees rate a desire for “appreciation” and “recognition” over higher wages. Another age-old work woe is self-expression, or lack of it, and variety – the opportunity for new, exciting challenges outside our “job descriptions”.
The Love Machine & Creating Entrepreneurial Employees
Well, have I got something special for you. In Michael Fitzgerald’s “How I Did It…” article over at Inc.com, founder and CEO of Linden Lab, Philip Rosedale, explains their internal model:
Our approach to engineering was this: Tell everybody in an e-mail every week what you are doing, then make some progress of some kind and tell everybody in an e-mail how you did it. That was our organizational scheme. We said, Everybody is smart here. Identify what you are going to do today and get it done.
That evolved over time into the work system that we have today. We have this huge database of stuff to do. You choose your own work from it. So groups are formed more organically. I am pretty critical of traditional business styles. The biggest way you avoid that is you continue to make everybody entrepreneurial, which is easy to say–everybody says garbage like that in big companies. But the way you really are entrepreneurial is that you have to set your own strategic direction. That’s what entrepreneurs do. You have to take risks and you have to expect to be held accountable.
We have this thing we built called the Love Machine. The Love Machine allows anyone who works here as a Linden employee to send anyone else a brief note that says “Thank you for doing this for me.” There is a little webpage where you can go to send an e-mail, and then you get a little e-mail that says “Love From Philip” in the subject and it’s got text in it. Now, you think, what’s the big deal about that? Well, all of that stuff goes into a database. Your review carries that. Everybody is sending love to each other. It creates a positive collaborative environment.
Most businesspeople communicate in a mostly negative way. If people are encouraged to be entrepreneurs and take risks, they can also become combative and competitive. You have to balance that. So we built the Love Machine for balance. We joke that some day we will be more famous for the Love Machine than for Second Life.
We use a lot of the ideas from The Wisdom of Crowds. We vote internally on tasks. And when you get something done you can say, “Oh, I got 17 votes on this.” And again, you use that as part of your review.
We also use anonymous spot surveys for a lot of stuff. So I send out surveys saying, like, “Should we get rid of me as CEO?” Or I send out several options: “We should get a new CEO: now; when we have 200 people; when we have 500 people; never.”
There were some nevers. I think people didn’t figure I was good for a thousand-person company. I actually think I am, but I’d be fine not doing it, either.
We don’t even have a concept of budgeting here, really. For example, we don’t have a travel budget. If you travel you have to send an e-mail to everybody that says how much you spent and why it was worth it.
As an entrepreneur in high school, I thought starting a company was about a process where you do all these official things to create a company. I was so proud of my business license. I hung it on the wall. Now I’ve realized that a company is a culture and a model and a business surrounding an idea or ideas.
How do like that? – an entrepreneurial internal business structure. I think it’s magic. Not to mention smart. In his post, Imagine, the ever-inspiring Renaissance man, Mike Wagner from Own Your Brand!, highlights Traci Fenton’s innovative idea: a forum for recognising businesses that use democratic models. This month the inaugural WorldBlu Most Democratic Workplaces 2007 honoured thirty-four businesses and non-profits from around the world. Not surprisingly, Linden Lab made the grade.
I could go on about Linden Lab’s brilliant cultural ideology – and Rosedale’s joke that some day they will be more famous for the Love Machine than for Second Life might be right on the money – but my main point is about the style of thinking that generated this approach. This is independent thinking, which leads to innovative thinking.
Not long ago I was talking with someone who, in the course of the conversation, painted a picture of how my business should look in the future – how it should be structured, where it should be based, et cetera. This person’s vision for how my business should look was like fingernails on a chalk board for me. It was just wrong, wrong, wrong. However, I was very grateful for that episode because it made me clarify how I do want my business to look, and how I see it evolving. Prior to that conversation I had only a vague-ish idea.
I began to think carefully about it, and my way of approaching this was to consider three things: the lifestyle I want and what it is I want from this business personally; how I would like the business to be perceived (and meeting customers needs is an integral part of this); and the type of internal culture I want. Then I worked backwards from there.
Whether or not you currently employ staff, the broader message here is: don’t follow convention blindly. Don’t accept a second-hand world view if it doesn’t fit right with you and your dream. Design your business as you want it to look. Tailor make it to your style.
When you break the rules and follow your own path, the payoff (often after a long and difficult road) is not only measured in cash, but in the sense of satisfaction that you have created the world as you want it. Can you think of anything better? I can’t.
All You Need is Love
In her post Loveocracy Kathy Sierra shares what their secret to success is:
The secret is simply this: you have a much better chance for success when your business model makes what’s good for the users match what’s good for the business, and vice-versa.
In another take on the “love” concept, in his post How to Surf the Attraction Economy, Kevin Roberts from Branding Strategy Insider demonstrates the power of a fascinating brand concept, “the Lovemark” (gotta love that!) – the zone that brings you High Love and High Respect. Ooh la la.
And guess what flows then? Yep, a river of riches. “Love” = Cash + Happiness. So try this:
1. Forget about the dollars for a minute and put your thinking cap aside.
2. Take three deep breaths, and tap into your inner zone – the place that will tell you what it is you really want to create. Dream bold.
3. Break the rules where necessary and write your own.
By doing this you will open yourself up to the chance of creating a Lovemark and a Loveocracy. And hey, your brand may even wind up on Lovemarks.com! The alternative is to end up as just another face in the crowd. A second-hander, inheriting a world you never made.