Here is the 5th group of five little exceprts from Leadership without Ego by B. Davids, B. Carney & I. Getz (Palgrave MacMillan) in print Jan 2019.
“The fun of a business is inversely linear to the size of the company. The bigger you get, the less fun you have and more headache, and the culture starts to fall apart. When you get past 200 people, then you have to have another level of management–the vice-presidents, aka, the fun killers.”
“I’m not sure growing a company just to grow is good. I think the quality of product and the quality of life is something to go after. Size doesn’t always matter.”
“The more power you get, the less you can use because as soon as you use the power incorrectly, you lose it all. The power lies in the organization, not within you. It’s like the wall. There are the bricks and the mortar. And in the mortar there are gypsum, water, sand, and the smallest component of all: lime. So, as the CEO, I’m the lime, that little trace of adhesive that holds the wall together.”
“If employees are primarily after material needs, it means that they are in bad environments, with bad leaders who cater to these material needs, hoping to motivate people. I think it is anti-human. If people are put into the right environments, they can motivate themselves.”
“A leader needs to be looking at month to year and beyond. All minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day, week to week, month to month stuff—the people you hired should be dealing with those. If you’re doing one single thing of them you are mismanaging your business.”