Randy Weber

It’s OK to make mistakes as long as you admit it, apologize for it, and fix it. This is a great example from Hulu on doing just that found at 37signals:

This note, however, is not about the fact that episodes of ’’It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’’ were taken down. Rather, this note is to communicate to our users that we screwed up royally with regards to how we handled this specific content removal and to apologize for our lack of strong execution. We gave effectively no notice to our users that these ’’Sunny’’ episodes would be coming off the service. We handled this in precisely the opposite way that we should have. We believe that our users deserve the decency of a reasonable warning before content is taken down from the Hulu service. Please accept our apologies.

Given the very reasonable user feedback that we have received on this topic (we read every twitter, email and post), we have just re-posted all of the episodes that we had previously removed. I’d like to point out to our users that the content owner in this case – FX Networks – was very quick to say yes to our request to give users reasonable advance notice here, despite the fact that it was the Hulu team that dropped the ball…

Well done.

A former co-worker at Verizon who was new to the group once asked me what it takes to learn how to be in Partnership Development. At the time I didn’t really have an answer. It had seemingly just happened for me. But after much reflection, it didn’t just happen for me. In addition to some basic skills, I had a lot of help along the way. Here’s what I think it takes to be effective at Partnership Development (and Product Management):

1. Vision – ability to see the future and visualize possibilities
2. Persuasion – ability to sell this vision to your management and your potential partner
3. Negotiation/Contracts – patience and attention to detail necessary to grind out an agreement, the requirements/specifications necessary to implement it, and the perseverance to manage the partnership (product) once launched
4. Leadership – ability to inspire members of cross-functional teams and get them to share your vision in order to develop and launch the partnership (product)
5. Communication and Organization – ability to keep everyone on the same page and up to date

All of this starts with a mentor to help you master these skills.

Vision and Persuasion
My former boss Shane taught me how to see the big picture and to sell that vision as we cranked out a multi-stage e-commerce strategy for a wholesale distribution company taking the company from a crude web site, to a polished online catalog, along with e-commerce and customer support applications that were back-office enabled. He was a great mentor and a friend.

Negotiation/Contracts
My former boss Patricia mentored me on the intricacies of negotiations, term sheets, and the contract process leading to a handful of multi-million dollar deals and dozens of smaller deals. It takes patience, perseverance, and creativity. She too was a great mentor and a great friend. She created the Partnership Development executive in me.

The attorneys I worked with (Allison, Cody, and Mark) were very gentle with me and helped me through the contract process. I still consider them friends today.

Together, all of these kind people helped me to understand the value of and how to get to a win-win-win partnership (both companies win, along with the customer).

Leadership
My former boss Kendall taught me how to survive in a matrixed organization with the result being the successful launch of over a dozen new features in a 3-month window for an online trade show startup. She was very good to me. A great mentor and a friend. She’s the one that pushed me into a larger organization to beef up my Product Management skills.

My former boss Karl taught me how to lead large cross-functional teams. He was a great mentor and a great friend. He created the Product Manager in me and helped me develop the confidence to try new things resulting in multiple successful product trials and the launch of millions of dollars worth of new products.

The Communication and Organization skills seem to come from practice. Lots and lots of practice.

If there is a theme in this story it’s that you need people to help you on your way towards developing the skills of your profession. I was very lucky to have had some great bosses/mentors/friends along the way to help me grow into my Partnership Development and Product Management roles. Thank you.

I look forward to passing these skills on as I advance in my career.

Slow Leadership discusses research out of Wharton about how treating partners fairly matters. No kidding. Any good business development person can tell you this. Yet many executives don’t get it. So here’s how it works: if your partner feels like you screwed them, then they won’t put any effort into the relationship and both parties end up losing. So the lesson for today is DON’T SCREW YOUR PARTNERS!

The Slow Leadership blog has a great post on “Conscious Incompetence.”

If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing badly first. In the real world, doing something new almost always means doing it poorly the first few times. Improvising never produces a polished result, but it’s nearly always the first step towards creating something new and worthwhile. To do something new, you have to make a conscious decision to let yourself try things that you know you can’t do. That’s practicing “Conscious Incompetence.”

It served as a much needed reminder of how I learned what I know. There was lots of trial and error along the way. I highly recommend this post for those who’ve gotten really good at what they do and seldom venture outside of that area of expertise.