Managing in the Age of Uncertainty

Small Business is "Out-Managing" Corporate America

Meet Rik Jones — who went from tech sales to owning a pizzeria

I write this newsletter from the point of view of my experience and my research — primarily the mid- to larger-sized business. But I hear from more than a few readers in small businesses that many of the ideas in the newsletter apply equally to them.

So I decided to take a field trip to see what managing is like at a successful small business. My friend Rik Jones left tech sales 20 years ago to launch Cicero’s Pizza, a single location restaurant in NorCal that churns out more than 100,000 pizzas a year. It’s a well-known place in the heart of Silicon Valley and has been profiled on the TV show “Check Please Bay Area” for its story and its success.

I wanted to learn first hand how managing in a small business is different, if at all, from larger organizations.

I left the interview with this feeling that managing in a small business is so much more intentional than the Manager Crisis taking place in Corporate America. Remember, less than 50 % of enterprise managers get any training at all. And - managers spend less than 10% of their time developing people.

“In small businesses, managers work right next to their people — side-by-side versus delegation,” Rik told me. “It’s a flatter structure, and you need to train people for a different kind of work environment.”

In listening to Rik, managers are the business. It’s a different approach from what I’m hearing when I talk to enterprises, who focus training and development on leadership and the “top 10%.” Talking to Rik reminds me of talking to my brother Steve who runs a different kind of small business but has about the same sales as Cicero’s. My brother and I have had hundreds of conversations about the role of managers in small business success.

So, I’m making this declaration on the week of July 4: small business is out-managing Corporate America. The biggest difference is training. Exactly where big companies are failing their managers.

Why: Start with Intentionality

In big companies today, there’s a lot of discussion about “culture as strategy.” It’s a true premise, but it’s often the chicken or egg question. Which came first? The great culture creating a great business or a great business creating a great culture?

As Rik talked, I could sense this idea that culture in a successful small business is the exact opposite: it is intentional from the beginning.

“A lot of the people working here are young and haven’t found their footing,” Rik told me. “We have to teach and train our people for what they don’t learn in school: that you may not always like your co-workers, but you have to treat them with respect.”

What’s so interesting to me is the focus on setting expectations for the culture you want first and foremost, and training around it.

It turns out that treating each other with respect is the key to running a successful pizzeria, not just offering great pizza. “No one is a number to us,” Rik emphasizes. “Respect is the foundation of how we work. Our success is based on treating everyone the same — customer, DoorDash driver, suppliers, employees — and saying thanks to everyone.”

Intentionality is hard. It requires a lot of forethought. It definitely requires sacrifice — because it is hard to be intentional about a lot of things.

What: Focus Matters

The big picture learning from a small business owner to managers in larger companies is simple: to be intentional, you need to be simple. Can you get your culture and training down to one word, idea or behavior? (The top 25 companies on the F500 average 7.75 “values” that define their cultural focus.)

I really love the idea behind Occam’ Razor: all things being equal, focus on the simplest solution. If you are managing today — no matter the size of the organization — what are you being intentional about?

When I worked directly for Cisco’s CEO John Chambers, I personally saw the power of being intentional about just one thing. When John was CEO, every Cisco employee knew this: John would personally do whatever he could to help an employee when they needed help the most, like a sick child or spouse in need of special medical care.

I came to believe the Cisco “dive and catch” — where Cisco employees worked around the clock to solve a customer problem — was the employees way of thanking John for his “dive and catch’ for them.

How: 5 Ways to Make Managing More Intentional

Rik mentioned five different scenarios he uses as teachable moments or areas of training emphasis for the managers at Cicero’s. As you think about yourself as a manager, how many of these behaviors do you exhibit?

1. Take a Stand: Would you stand behind your people when you’ve seen them act the way you want them to, even if the customer is upset?

2. Delegation: Do you “get” that delegation does not mean doing the work for them?

3. Shadowing: Have you ever had a skip-level meeting in reverse — shadowing your people to see how they talk to each other or treat each other?

4. Expectation-setting: How well do you know what frustrates your employees — are you asking your people to work at a 600-degree oven when it is a 100 degrees outside for 8 hours?

5. Accountability: Do you own your “shit”? Okay, Rik said that.

Small business, big business; it doesn’t matter. Rik’s 5 ways to intentional management are just good managing.

Manager Thought of the Week

“We hold these truths to be self-evident.”

These are the most famous words in the American Declaration of Independence, and they seem fitting to express the power of intentionality about a single idea. The only pronouns used in the document are we, us and ours. Happy birthday America, and here’s to the power of us.

In Summary: Principles of Managing in the Age of Uncertainty

• I left Cisco to answer this question with research and evidence: What does the manager of the future look like? What are millennials and gen-z seeking in a manager? Which behaviors, tactics, skills or processes matter? What’s it going to take to attract and keep the best people over the next decade? In short, how to be a great manager.

• Based on this research, the core philosophy of this newsletter is rooted in one idea: successful managers in this moment in time, for this generation of talent, need to be “career dot-connectors.” The next-gen doesn’t expect to spend their entire career on your team — that’s an idea boomers grew up with. A job on your team is like a chapter in a career story to the current generation. If you want the best people on your team, you have to connect the dots between roles on the team and the career opportunities of the people working on the team.

• What is the“Age of Uncertainty”? If the industrial age was about taking predictable steps up the ladder, the age of uncertainty is about finding or discovering the path of a career without any predictable steps, without an obvious ladder — it’s why being a career dot-connector will differentiate you as a manager.

• How to be a Great Manager in the Age of Uncertainty: Be a Career Dot Connector is available on Amazon.

• What kind of manager are you? Take my free self-assessment and learn about yourself.