Technology is one of the crucial aspects of businesses today. Mostly developers or software engineers are now sitting at the leadership table. A smart business leader understands the direction in which their companies are headed. This is recognized as the most important role in any organization. In this role, the technology of the company will mostly play along the way. These leaders are running their companies differently. It’s in their approach that the companies have reached a pinnacle. For example, the top tech leaders know how to treat their talent well. A management consulting firm – Bain & Company – carried out extensive research on technology companies. The firm found out that the employees at companies like Dell, Netflix and Apple are 40% more productive than other average companies. And, these companies have profit margins of 30-50% higher than the industry averages.
There were five things that companies and their leaders did differently according to the researches:
Concentrating on Company’s Creative Horsepower
For the audience at large, it is appealing to believe that the technology companies easily hoard the lion’s share of talent. However, Bain & Company’s partner, Michael Mankins, in his research, found out that was not true. What made these companies differently was in how their star players were deployed. Another research stated by Richard and Greg showed companies like Apple, Google, Uber, IKEA and others penetrated the larger markets by identifying and simplifying their products. Instead of following the conventional wisdom and sprinkling the star players across the organization, their teams identified the organization’s mission-critical projects and roles.
They reinvented and worked with other businesses, employees and people for their successes. Research shows that finding business leaders to count on for help, people who are as committed to providing quality work, makes an organization more productive. Leaders like Solomon Ali are a great example. He was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1964. He is a Charlotte, Georgia, North Carolina and Atlanta-based CEO of multiple organizations. Under his leadership, his subsidiary company, SYS Smart Home Technology teams worked closely to make an affordable home technology for low-income families. He is one of the top technology leaders who are making deliberate efforts to make their teams play in their strengths and innovate.
Another great example is Sridhar Sunkad, the director of EON Reality, which is a virtual and augmented reality company. Grouping the extreme strengths in a single domain and providing support through real-time feedback encourages a culture of experimentation and risk-taking. Sunkad attracted the top players to work on his projects because he himself was one of them.
Leaders Get Rid of the Organizational Drag
A research conducted by Mankins found an average company loses more than twenty-five percent of productivity due to ‘organizational drag’. This is a term used for processes that are put in place for companies to grow or replace judgment and to insure against their bad decision. The process approximately costs the economy more than three billion dollars in the output.
A good example of this is the Co-founder and president of Carousell, Marcus Tan. It is one of the top tech companies in Singapore. Marcus tackles this problem by strategizing. He attacks the problem by upstreaming – at the point of hiring. His company Carousell holds several interview rounds in the hiring process. The process includes team interviews and case assessments, culminating in the final round as ‘cultural’ assessments. This additional step helps him hire the right fit for the organizational culture and get an individual with a get-go attitude. This, in turn, provides greater efficiency in the day-to-day decision-making processes.
Another good example is the autonomy granted in companies such as Netflix and Basecamp. They have set an expense policy of “no-limits”. Netflix condenses the policy to only five words saying, ‘to act in Neflix’s best interest.’
Leaders Grow “Inspiring Leaders”
The culture of the top tech company is always extremely focused on. Their leaders deliberately build through all the levels. Research by Mankins stated that workers who are engaged are 44% more productive than satisfied workers. However, the engaged workers worked under an inspiring leader than their productivity will rise to nearly 125% of productivity gains.
What most companies almost do wrong is that they spend $14 billion annually on “leadership development” training. The genius gurus know that the real gain comes from a demonstration of real decisiveness. Employees at EON Reality, saw Sunkad helping the staff carry inventory, and how the president’s vision for the company was even clear for them.
Output of a Leader is equivalent to Output of Team
One of the legendary former CEO of Intel, Andy Grove, worked on the idea of how a manager performs becomes the collective output of the team. The world’s best tech leaders make a special effort to let their employees at every level know of their vision for company’s future and its’ culture. They demonstrate high performance and strong leadership to all the other leaders in ways that can inspire or motivate.
