The Powerful Noncompete

From HBS Working Knowledge

Does the noncompete clause have an effect on the day-to-day behavior of employees? Well, yes — and to the very employees who are most desirable.

While noncompetes do constrain mobility in a demonstrable way, more important was that these effects were amplified for inventors with particular characteristics. As [research author Matt] Marx explains, the results suggest that “star” or “specialist” inventors wishing to explore career opportunities may need to look outside a state that enforces noncompetes.

Marx, it turns out, has first-hand experience in the noncompete world. And he discovered the easy way that a noncompete signed in Boston didn’t hold much water in Silicon Valley.

25 Start-ups To Watch (Mostly Literally)

From Business 2.0

Think that YouTube and its like is just a flash in the screen? These 25 new businesses will change your mind — they’re heavy on the video sharing/filing/sharing. But there’s also a company building wi-fi hotspots,  a couple of companies targeting the exuberant online advertising market, another that lets your cellphone pull up your office desktop.

Like Your Job? You’re in the Minority

From MSNBC.com

Seems we are more dissatisfied at work than ever. A CareerBuilder survey says that among workers under 25 only 39% say they are satisfied with their jobs. It does beg the question what jobs your typical under-25-year-old has, but the second unhappiest group were the 45 to 54-year-olds.

The simple poll accompanying the piece splits at 23% each for “love my job” and “all the above,” which includes pay, commute, boss and stress.

Good Gardeners Make a Wiki Work

From Business 2.0

Wiki knock-offs need to learn a simple lesson: Focus wins the day. Just as a print magazine has a personality and an audience and a specific focus (food, household hints, clothing), so the crowdsourcing sites of recent vintage need to cultivate its gardens. Readers and writers want guidelines — at least something to rally against. Total freedom is like the animated short in which anything goes because anything can. But is anybody watching?

20 Ideas for 2007

From Harvard Business Review

A neat list of ideas to watch in 2007 includes:

Maybe Malcolm Gladwell didn’t get it right. New research shows that rather than a minority of influentials leading, the masses do.  These researchers found that “the principal requirement for what we call “global cascades”—the widespread propagation of influence through networks—is the presence not of a few influentials but, rather, of a critical mass of easily influenced people….”

• Sometimes, it’s all you’ve got to give: hope that things will get better. And sometimes, that’s all it takes.
• Fire the engineers, let the users take over. Okay, not that extreme, but more companies are realizing that their customers aren’t waiting to be told about the next product innovation — they’re doing it themselves.
• The power of sleep — sometimes you just can consciously wrestle your way through a problem.
•  And, from one of our favorite thinkers, David Weinberger, the insidious side of accountability, which claims there’s a right and wrong answer to everything. “Accountabalism is a type of superstitious thinking that allows us to live in a state of denial about just how little control we individuals have over our environment.”

Lots more. Good reads.

Outside Advice

From BusinessWeek.com

Your business is small, but your ideas and growth potential is big. Where do you turn for advice? There’s a new helping hand: The Alternative Board.  This peer advisory group “brings together small and midsize business owners from noncompeting companies to share their collective wisdom and act as a professional sounding board.”

Around since 1990, TAB grew out of informal groups of entrepreneurs sharing what they share best: advice. Today the company has 140 franchises in almost 40 states with 3,000 business owners and board members.

Best Hires

From StartupJournal.com

Some advice and recommended books that will help you make the right hire for the job — and keep that hire headed in the right direction once onboard.

Book include:

• Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching, and Keeping the Best People, by Bradford D. Smart
• Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler

I’d add another: Smarts, by my pal Chuck Martin. A self-diagnostic helps you figure out what you’re naturally good at (and bad) and offers suggestions to help you in careers that enhance your own skills. Better yet, use it on your employees and stop complaining about their being slow when you really value their carefulness.

Know What Your Problem Is?

From Forbes.com

Well, you probably don’t. Enter the personal brand trainer who, for a scant $15,000, will tell you better than your ex what’s wrong with you.

Professionally, that is. And executives who are leaving you in the dust are paying for the service. One used the service to help him develop and promote a new business; another faced her outer harshness and learned to tone it down.

Among the advice: Pick a signature color and stick with it. Well, that was free. Maybe you need to pay the full price.

Ivy League For Free

From CareerJournal.com

In 2003, MIT’s started its “OpenCourseWare” program, which posts the syllabus and class notes for more than 1,500 courses online for anyone who wants them. Recently it’s been joined by other such as Tufts and the University of Notre Dame. Stanford’s classes will be on iTunes by the end of the year; Berkeley’s already are.

How about the syllabus from MIT’s Sloan School Literature, Ethics and Authority. Or the Economics of Open Content from University of California at Berkeley.

 Maybe you’ll be listening to something other than Rodrigo Y Gabriella on your iPod at the gym.

Advice on Disagreeable Coworkers

From CareerJournal.com

From the overly touchy marketing honcho to the HR person with the people skills of a toad, everyone else is always a problem. Which isn’t a problem except you have to work with them.

How? Remember that not everyone has to like you. The office isn’t a pageant for Miss Personality.  Getting the personal out of the way is the place to start. Then,

Focus on what you need to achieve by working together, not on how awful you think the other person is or how insufferable they may think you are. Wendy Alfus-Rothman, a New York psychologist specializing in executive coaching and leadership development, says that when you have the conversation with your co-worker, say something like: “When you talk to me in that tone of voice — and I don’t think it’s deliberate — I feel attacked. What I’d really like is for you to tell me what does and does not work, so we can put together a killer presentation.”