Winning - Jack Welch [74]
IF YOU’RE RUNNING THE VENTURE…
The guidelines I’ve just listed are directed in many ways at the executives sponsoring a new venture. But they have important implications for the venture’s actual leaders—the people running the new show.
Consider the first guideline, about spending on resources and people. More often than not, you will find you are not getting enough money from the mother ship, nor are you getting the best people. What do you do?
Fight like hell. Get yourself in front of senior management and make your case. And work the personnel front on your own. Ferret out good candidates both inside and outside the company, and make your pitch directly to them. Just go get the best people, even if you have to throw a few elbows.
Now about hoopla. You need to realize it’s a two-edged sword. You want it in order to get commitment from those above you. But when you get that commitment, it is sure to tick off your peers. In particular, established businesses with fat profits absolutely hate it when little upstarts with no profits get a disproportionate amount of company resources and attention. They are certain they need more resources and would spend them more wisely than your risky little venture.
Their attitude may annoy you, but the last thing you need is to have anyone in the company rooting for you to fail. Recognize that resentment toward new ventures is natural. Keep your mouth shut if it bothers you. Humility will serve you well with your peers; someday soon, you’ll need their support.*
Finally, about autonomy. The fact of the matter is, you are always going to want more of it than you get.
The best way to get autonomy is to earn it. If you play by the rules, you’ll get your freedom soon enough. The spotlight of the company is on you. Don’t blow it by overreacting if you feel the early constraints put upon you are stifling. They are just part of the process of your “parents” letting go.
THE PERFECT STORM
You rarely see all three guidelines at work at once, but when you do, watch out. You get a “perfect storm” like the Fox News Channel.
Fox News was launched in 1996 by Rupert Murdoch, an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur, in spite of being the owner and CEO of News Corporation, a multibillion-dollar conglomerate. Rupert wanted to get into cable news and was willing to spend whatever it took.
To succeed as a cable channel, you need two things. First, you need to get subscribers from distribution providers like Comcast and Time Warner. Second, you need to get attractive content so that enough subscribers will actually watch you—the key to ad dollars.
Rupert’s first step was to hire someone to run the new venture. He found a match made in heaven with Roger Ailes. After running several successful political campaigns, Roger had worked at NBC for three years, putting the cable channel CNBC on the map. He had just launched another cable channel for GE called America’s Talking. But he lost it when GE used the assets of America’s Talking as its contribution to creating MSNBC, a fifty-fifty joint venture with Microsoft, which put up the cash.
Roger left NBC in frustration, but Rupert was on his trail immediately. He believed that Roger was the perfect new venture manager—bursting with ideas, energy, and passion—plus the burning desire to beat the company that had taken his “baby” away.
With the right leader in place, Rupert set to work getting subscribers. He paid well above market rates to get the subscriber access the channel needed. Meanwhile, Roger was hiring the best talent—Brit Hume from ABC, Neil Cavuto and a flock of others from CNBC, and the highly rated commentator Bill O’Reilly.
As it was all happening, Rupert continuously trumpeted the new venture inside the company, making it unambiguous that he was behind Fox News through thick and thin. In the outside world, both Rupert and Roger made it so that you couldn’t open a paper or turn on a TV without hearing, in some form, about the relentless advance of Fox.