Behind the Scenes at Global-Roam

As a brief PS to this recent post about people who are right for our bus, I saw this HBR interview with Heidi Grant Halvorson pop up on my iGoogle page.

Heidi references this earlier post about “Nine things successful people do differently” and promotes her new ebook of the same title.

These nine behaviours/beliefs are food for thought – both for us, as possible selection criteria for new recruits, and also as focal points for anyone interested in achieving better performance, over time.

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As a further note to Heidi’s point #5, have started reading Carol Dweck’s “Self Theories”, which expands on this concept.

A whirlwind trip interstate this week to see some existing clients, and some potential new clients, provided a few hours on the plane to catch up on some reading.

Amongst the things I read was “What brain science tells us about how to excel” by Edward M Hallowell in the December 2010 issue of HBR.

Given we have set some ambitious goals in terms of where our bus is headed, and that I have learnt (the hard way) the value of getting the right people on the bus, and in the right seats, I read this article with great interest.

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Unfortunately I certainly was.

Though I have improved, I’m certain I still have much that can still be further improved – hence in some ways I still resemble Chad more than Mike.  I now have more practical tips to help me continue improving.

Let me explain…

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The June issue of Inc Magazine arrived recently.

Some issues don’t have much relevance to where we’re at, but this one had a few interesting articles.
1)  On this post, I’d like to comment on “Never read another Resume” by Jason Fried, co-founder of 37 Signals, specifically as it relates to us.
2) Perhaps I’ll also find time to post about the others at a later date …

Repeat visitors of this blog will understand how we’re investing quite a bit of time and effort, of late, in upgrading our capabilities – we’ve brought in a couple coaches (to bridge our skills gaps, short-term) and have started recruiting in a number of key people (starting with the software development team).

This article was relevant to these efforts.

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As noted previously, we have recently appointed our General Manager for Discerning, Developing and Delivering what the Customer Wants.

As part of the process of getting our new GM up to speed in understanding who our customers are (and what keeps them awake at night), we are investing significantly in touring around Australia to meet with a diverse sample of our clients.  Others will be talked to via phone, Skype or WebEx – whilst we hope to visit clients in other countries later in the year.

On the plane out of Brisbane yesterday afternoon, I had the chance to read this article “Specialise yourself right out of a job” from the AFR.

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(Excuse the sad pun)

This week we went out for lunch with one of the guys in the office who was celebrating his birthday.  One of the small things we do in the company to celebrate the uniqueness of every individual (that’s a tick – thanks for suggesting it those years ago, Ricky).

Anyhow, as we were waiting for our meals to arrive in the local steakhouse and conversation drifted to some of the more detailed technical nature of software development, my mind began to wander (yeah, that’s a cross) and I pulled out the latest copy of INC, which had just arrived in the mail and started to browse (yeah, another cross)!

An article in the magazine caught my attention, as it provided a few pointers about the workplace culture that we are working to cultivate internally.

Given that I have been asked a couple of times this week by candidates for our Chief Software Engineer position about our culture (how it is now, and how we want to evolve it, over time), I thought it would be useful posting this (though I know it does not absolve me of the crosses above). read more »

I posted, early in January, about where our bus is headed (you might refer to this as our Vision).  I have progressively refined this, since then, to improve the clarity of this core message.

For those who are interested, I have also started posting more details about some aspects of this Vision – as falling under any of these core headings.  Posts that have preceded this one are:
1)  I posted about my vision for growing clients (and revenues) 20x.

A key prerequisite for this to happen is that our team of employees also grows (in numbers – but more importantly in competency).

Based on the experience we have gained in the past 10 years, we think that our growth in client numbers can be achieved with an increase in staff numbers of only about 3-4x our current levels.

In “Good to Great”, Jim Collins calls this “getting the right people on the bus” … and then “into the right seats”.

We have some work to do in the next couple of years in this respect, as follows:

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Post updated on 1st February 2010 to clarify the primary KPI.

This post is designed to provide an overview of what is required.  Note that (if you are successful in your application) I would expect that you would be proactive in working with me to flesh out the details of this position, in terms of specific deliverables and dates!

I have spoken with a number of people (online and offline) over the course of the past few months, since I determined that we needed to hire you.

It seems that no job title that could encapsulate this role is universally understood.  For this reason, you will be known as our:

General Manager for Discerning, Developing and Delivering what the Customer Wants

Bit of a mouthful, I know, but all three aspects of the role are important.

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