How a startup evolves LO25152

From: Archie Kregear (archiek@ihot.com)
Date: 08/15/00


Replying to LO25144 --

It's been a while since I have posted on this list. However, I have been
on here for almost 5 years now, proves time flies while your having fun.

I saw the article Don mentions a week or so ago, it was given to me by a
friend who is working for a startup here in Silicon Valley. She was hired
in July as a Financial Analyst to put together a business model for her
new company. Also in July I started with a company that fits more of the
second stage of the model, I'm coming in as infranty to revamp processes
or create them. My new company now does most things by e-mail. If you want
something done you shoot off e-mail to the person who you think takes care
of that sort of thing, if they don't do it, they forward it on. If what
you have is urgent, all you need to do is get up and go to the other
persons office or cubicle.

What intrigued me about my new company is that there are individuals of
all three types in the organization. Some like my direct boss, is a
commando. He's created a new business model, is driving his team to
reinvent how the company markets their products and has been too busy in
the last month to really oversee what I have been doing. That's ok as I
realize that in this case I am the infantry brought in to stablize part of
the corporation and cover all the bases that my coworkers miss. My first
task is to automate our technical support group. In looking for solutions
I ran into the companies "police". Those who are in the company who took
it on themselves to make sure that the "companies" interest was met by
whatever decision I make.

There also was a fourth group that came out during this. That was the few
that, to categorize them, are the small "allies". "I want to help so that
I will be on the winning team" troops. My friends at Cisco tell me that
there are lots of these sort of folks there now. They want to be on the
winning team, so that they will benefit, not that the organization will
succeed. These folks have been involved with me and had a lot of input
but wanted to make sure that they were included with the successful
project.

A couple of points to conclude here. What I see in the company I have been
a part of for a month now, is that individuals that meet all of the stages
may be present in a company, knowing who is playing what role and what
role is expected of yourself is very important. The office politics in
dealing with the "Police" and "Allies" are what the "commandos" and
"infantry" hate and it's why they leave the scene. They all have a role to
play, it's just which is the driving force.

Then, a big thanks to all of you who have been posting interesting reading
material over the years. I've learned a lot!

Archie

> There's an interesting article at
> http://www.fibersource.newsalert.com/bin/story?StoryId=Coyt5WcObzM90A that
> discusses the evolution of startup companies, particularly in today's "web
> time" world. The author presents a 3-stage model, characterized by
> "commandos", "infantry", and "police" as the driving forces.

-- 

"Archie Kregear" <archiek@ihot.com>

Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>


"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.