Here links to a series of Podcasts with Interviews with Leica leadership, revealing some of their thinking in leadership, design, positioning, sensing.
"[Leica] knows that great companies require deep, specialized knowledge. (Which means they need to create conditions in which employees want to stay!)"
Not only technical knowledge. It's also about institutional knowledge. It's about conveying the culture to the new hires. Which, in turn, becomes a self-perpetuating mechanism. With enough people staying long enough, the culture remains more aligned and is more resilient.
Something that, almost universally, the startups break, and sooner rather than later. They're like "Oh, we've seen the early success, so let's double the team in a year/half a year and do more of what we did."
Now, such rapid growth is a *guaranteed* change in culture, so whatever brought them their early success is going to be killed in the process.
Yet, they'll probably boast about their culture anyway. Oh, well...
We have created a system where there's a default path for a startup, and the prevailing advice is to follow the most beaten path.
Heck, once you're on the path (you got the seed money from investors), it's a one-way street. There's only a push for more growth because that's the only thing investors care about. Survival without rapid growth isn't interesting.
For a startup, well, swimming against the tide is always hard. Sometimes impossible.
The one thing that calms me down: When I was young I was a bit disappointed that in Germany the Startup and company world is not that saturated by investors.
Meanwhile I think that might also have positive side effects.
Here links to a series of Podcasts with Interviews with Leica leadership, revealing some of their thinking in leadership, design, positioning, sensing.
Prime Lenses: Leica 100 - Episode 1 (watch out for product vs project, spreading of Design team etc.): https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/prime-lenses-leica-100-episode-1/id1736087657?i=1000716434736
Prime Lenses: Leica 100 - Episode 2: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/prime-lenses-leica-100-episode-2/id1736087657?i=1000717468006
Prime Lenses: Leica 100 - Episode 3: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/prime-lenses-leica-100-episode-3/id1736087657?i=1000718561179
Prime Lenses: Leica 100 - Episode 4 (still to be published)
"[Leica] knows that great companies require deep, specialized knowledge. (Which means they need to create conditions in which employees want to stay!)"
Not only technical knowledge. It's also about institutional knowledge. It's about conveying the culture to the new hires. Which, in turn, becomes a self-perpetuating mechanism. With enough people staying long enough, the culture remains more aligned and is more resilient.
Something that, almost universally, the startups break, and sooner rather than later. They're like "Oh, we've seen the early success, so let's double the team in a year/half a year and do more of what we did."
Now, such rapid growth is a *guaranteed* change in culture, so whatever brought them their early success is going to be killed in the process.
Yet, they'll probably boast about their culture anyway. Oh, well...
The rational question would be why a ton of startups go for quick, exponential growth when what we see is that it nearly never ever happens.
While building a sustainable company - maybe even lacking the startup sticker - seem to work pretty often.
Isn't the usual suspect (the system) the answer?
We have created a system where there's a default path for a startup, and the prevailing advice is to follow the most beaten path.
Heck, once you're on the path (you got the seed money from investors), it's a one-way street. There's only a push for more growth because that's the only thing investors care about. Survival without rapid growth isn't interesting.
For a startup, well, swimming against the tide is always hard. Sometimes impossible.
The one thing that calms me down: When I was young I was a bit disappointed that in Germany the Startup and company world is not that saturated by investors.
Meanwhile I think that might also have positive side effects.