Listen to me in a WSJ podcast, and the stork of entrepreneurship
Two interesting things happened to me yesterday.
First, I was in a podcast, with Ryan Healy of employeeevolution.com, for the Wall Street Journal discussing how some young people are impatient in their careers (article | mp3). If you’re a new reader visiting from the WSJ, here’s a good place to get started with my popular posts.
Here are some of the questions I answer in the podcast:
“You’ve started an online business, a popular blog and written a book since you graduated from Stanford a few years ago. Why did you chose the entrepreneur route?”
“Ramit, you’ve also written that’s it’s a bad idea to focus on compensation early in our careers. One example you cite is a bunch of Bay Area hedge fund employees who were furious because their bonuses last year were only 30%, not 50% like their friends at other funds. Why do you think young people be a less demanding about their wages than their older counterparts?”
“All this talk about what individual twentysomethings want does sound a bit selfish. What about just having faith in the team, giving up control and going with the flow of the company’s vision? Obviously no one will benefit from that forever because personal agency is what ultimately makes people successful but why not acquiesce in the first couple years as a novice instead of trying to immediately launch a revolution?”
Check out the article / podcast (article | mp3)
Second, I had an interesting exchange with a reader who emailed me. From her email address, I noticed that she was part of an organization I’ve been trying to work with, so I answered her question and then sent her a note (some details changed for privacy):
I’ve been thinking about [doing something interesting]. Do you think the [your org] would be interested in helping pioneer something like that?
Her response:
Honestly I may not be the best [person to ask], since I haven’t even been here a full year. From my limited knowledge of our very, very big organization, we seem to mostly work with school board members, although some divisions offer other services, such as our legal department and risk management. This isn’t to say [we] would be uninterested, I’m just not sure who to direct you to (we have about 500 employees, so I’m still figuring things out myself). I’m not aware of any departments that originate [what I wrote to her about].
So here’s the deal. Entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs because of their actions, not because someone labels them a fancy word. Here’s someone who has the opportunity to demonstrate entrepreneurship by pushing an idea through an organization.
This is what I researched for Seth Godin when I worked with him on Free Prize Inside, which became a bestseller. I interviewed people like Paul Sagel, who invented Crest Whitestrips at Procter and Gamble, and my favorite, the man who came up with the idea of putting dinosaurs in Chef Boyardee.
They made something happen in a huge organization. And this iwillteachyoutoberich reader has the possibility to do something similar. Now, I’m obviously a little biased since I’d love for her to help make my idea happen, but let’s look at the larger point: Organizations value people who can push something through. (To her immense credit, the iwillteachyoutoberich reader told me she believes in the idea, and she’s already emailed people to get the wheels turning.)
It’s easy to sit and do your work all day and go home at 5pm. A damn monkey could do that. The superstars are the ones who get their work done and then go the extra step. The hardest part isn’t coming up with an idea. The hardest part is pushing it through the organization: identifying the right people, figuring out what motivates them, positioning it right, and following up. Or…you could do nothing.
But 5 years from now, what will people in your company remember about you?
Note: Here’s the 5-minute podcast (MP3).
