clintgc

nearly two years ago i decided to leave novell and join mozy, which was not a tough decision in itself, but one major motivation for joining mozy was the opportunity to work for josh coates, mozy’s CEO and founder. i didn’t know at the time that josh was pretty much hands off at mozy waiting for the big payload from the EMC acquisition, but what i did know came from a google-stalker search: cal berkley graduate, founded scale8 and watched it crash & burn, internet archive project, sabbatical in utah and then founded mozy and won a bunch of awards as an entrepreneur.

so when i got to mozy as employe number forty-something i often walked past josh’s office waiting for him to pull me into his office and ask me who the hell i was; this never happened.  but over a few months and few interactions in meetings, chats in the hallway and his office and of course some heckling from him during my  company lunch presentation on arbitrarily increasing mozy prices b/c we want more money (a total failure i should write about sometime in the future).  nevertheless in this short time i learned a lot of little things from josh, but i also learned one really big thing (lesson):

YOU NEED LEADERSHIP TO FOCUS.

it’s just that simple. businesses that fail eventually realize they needed to focus. good companies that survive have just enough focus not to fail.  successful companies have leadership and real leadership knows how to focus. mozy as a startup is a great example of focus …

NOTE: sometimes the ideas and words focus and simplicity are playfully interchanged and mean the same thing and rightfully so b/c simplifying a complex task or project into smaller more manageable and consumable parts makes focus more natural and achievable. i don’t think you can have one w/o the other.

in the beginning mozy had a very simple product: online backup. focused at a very simple market: consumers and small businesses. the company’s mantra exemplified simplicity, “set it and forget it”. even pricing was simple: $4.99 a month unlimited storage (sure it got a little more complex for small business at $0.50 a gb).  though the product functionality didn’t always translate into simplicity we were focused and iterative trying always to improve.

josh had learned the hard way in an earlier startup, so he set the focus. he was the leadership and he made sure everyone understood the focus. yeah, there were times when he understood strategically stepping out of focus was important, but it usually had a certain objective w/ a certain advantage. e.g. the early deal w/ GE (stepping into enterprise software … blah!)

this is pretty anti-climatic, but this all became cognizant after a meeting i attempted to lead on improving the restore experience in the mozy service. i had invited all the necessary stakeholders and had even invited josh, though he was extremely hands off and more of a distraction in meetings than anything else.  the meeting was randomized by differing ideas and opinions and by the end of it nothing was accomplished (sounds like most meetings, why is that?).  but i took a few minutes after the meeting to ask josh what i could have done differently.  in the josh coates nonchalant manner he told me my leadership style sucked big time and that was demonstrated by my lack of upfront objective in the meeting and inability to keep the team focused on that objective. if the objective is reached in 15 minutes then end the meeting. if the objective isn’t being accomplished in 15 minutes end the meeting.

how focused are the leaders in your company?  don’t confuse busy w/ focused … executives and management are always busy, but are they always focused?