I sit typing this in at one of 108 PCs in one of those monster cybercafes springing up all over northern Europe. This is big by Copenhagen standards, I am told-but the one I checked mail at in Amsterdam was three times larger. The amazing thing is how these seem to have no staff and run completely automated. It's full of users at midnight-showing, I guess, how focus can make you successful quickly and scalably.
I'm thinking of focus as that's what a few of you have written to me about. A common question is: ''We're three (or five or x) partners who started our business as equals, now how should we share responsibilities?''
Having been through some interesting times at ''democratically run'' companies, I'm a big believer in autocracy. One person with focus should run a company. Not a committee. Too many cooks will seriously spoil a business broth.
This is hard. You may think you really know your partners well, and they you. But trust me. There's a very good reason every Fortune 500 company and successful family business house in the world has just one decision maker. Only one person takes the final responsibility. So if you're in a partnership-work it out now, before it's too late.
When it comes to responsibility, I believe you need one focused person. But when it comes to any one person, I believe in the opposite. Let me explain.
One of you wrote to say you had several passions. Music, business, and programming, if I remember right. You'd asked which one you should choose. And my answer was ''all of the above''.
I've never been a big believer in that adage about jack of all trades. I do think you can be master of more than one. Indeed, king of as many trades as you're passionate about. One of my heroes, Richard Feynman, was a Nobel laureate in Physics who worked on quantum theory. And the bomb. And the Challenger shuttle disaster probe. But he was also an ace congo drummer, an expert lockpicker and, yes, a best-selling author. Ian Anderson doesn't just play flute and front Jethro Tull. He's one of Britain's bigger fish farmers. And let me not even get into da Vinci. Would you say he had a successful career as a painter? An inventor? Or a scientist? An engineer perhaps?
What about business-could you be a successful CEO of a business and do more? Sure, look at Oprah Winfrey. Or Steve Jobs, who runs Apple and Pixar-two not-so-middling companies. Or Linus Torvalds, who held down a day job at Transmeta while being a beacon to the worldwide Linux movement.
Why do we then resist the notion when it comes to ourselves? I have a theory that says multiple careers should be the rule, not the exception.
It may sound simplistic, but here goes: Let's start by assuming that all human beings are inherently different from each other. Hence, each of us has a different set of talents from all others. Now let's make a second assumption. That each of us is happiest when we're using our talents to the fullest.
Now isn't it ironic that we go through life, education and career preparation with six billion of us trying to fit into some six hundred boxes called 'careers'?
My theory is simple. If there are six billion of us, there should be six billion different careers. And the way to create that 'new, different' career for each of us is to do a combination of all the things that make us happy.
There is nothing wrong in working at parallel passions. I, for one, used to be embarrassed when explaining to my folks what I did in life. They'd ask: Do I run companies? Write? Invest? Travel? Speak? Mentor?
My answer was ''Yes'' to all of the above. I knew that was confusing them as they couldn't pigeonhole me, put me in a box. It took me a while, but I've come to terms with it. I guess so have they.
I realised, as any chef would say, too many broths would never spoil a cook.
