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Stars, Stairs and Self-awareness

July 22, 2016

Relaxed weekend reading

OK. This one is going to be tough to explain considering the example and analogy that I’m going to use. Some of you will not have an idea what I’m talking about. Some will think that I’m filthy chauvinistic pig. And some that I’m still sexually frustrated teenager. Some may be right. But here it goes!
I highly recommend you to watch (before or after reading this article) a movie Showgirls (1995) directed by controversial Dutch/Hollywood director with (my personal opinion) amazing vision and skill to tell the stories from the future – Paul Verhoeven. At the time of the release the movie was a total failure. It was done ten years too early. But for the ones who were willing to see over some nudity and sex (OMG!), this was a movie which anticipated, through a Las Vegas based story, coming years of cruel, unscrupulously, deviant and wild wild world initiated by 90’s and brought to it’s very peak in the new millennium.

Stars. In order to become a star you usually have to start from the very bottom. And it was always like that. But now you have to do it really fast. The faster the better. So, after learning to do pole dance (Power Point presentations, Excel analysis) and you dance for a while, you can do a private lap dance (presentation for a client or sales pitch). If you succeed and she/he is happy with your performance, your boss might push you to a bigger stage. But! Don’t even go to a bigger stage if you are not ready to put some ice on your nipples. Because you are not successful yet. You just started.
Stairs. If we assume you did good job and audience likes you, then it’s time to become number one. And as Cristal Connors (Gina Gershon) says in a movie: There’s always someone younger and hungrier coming down the stairs after you. So, you have to push the current star down the stairs. Here we can apply the same rule as with ice and nipples: if you are not ready to push don’t go into this game. Playing a role of honest, hardworking, caring colleague will not bring you to the top. And after one top, there is always a higher one. So, with experience you got in Las Vegas, your road to Hollywood will be much faster. It was at least for Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkley).

Self-awareness. Well this one is trouble. You have to take a deep look into yourself and figure out if you want to hitchhike to Las Vegas at all. And even if you do, are you OK with playing pole dance forever? And be happy? Then, you have to take even deeper look and understand if you are able to push someone down the stairs. And be happy. And last, but not the least, you have to figure out at some point when it’s time for you to be pushed down the stairs.

The smartest ones create their own pushers and pay for good insurance.

Cheers! And enjoy watching Showgirls. Recommended drinks are Campari Soda or Aperol Spritz. Trash and refresh.
Words of Impact

July 17, 2016

Monday morning office reading.

Looking for some days already in a beautiful Adriatic sea some words of impact are coming to me out of nowhere. I say impact not wisdom, because maybe some of them don’t have any wisdom at all, but during my studies and my career they had some impact on me.

Being relaxed after many years I obviously re-evaluate many things including some concepts and ideas that were inside my mind for ages.

No lists this time. Just couple of thoughts. No special order, no special topic. From editorial point of view pure crap. 🙂

First one. Said by one of my professors during my studies of drama and script writing. In Serbian: Zeni se ne moze oprostiti ako nije lepa, a muskarcu ako nije uspesan(English: You can’t forgive a woman for not being beautiful and to man for not being successful). I have seen later on during my career many demons coming out of people due to those two painful facts.

Second one. I don’t know who said this one to me but I still hate him. I would have spent last 6 years more peacefully without having this in my mind. In Serbian: Sve sto uradis posle tridesete vise nije tako posebno. (English: Everything that you do after age of 30 it’s not so special anymore). Since I was always young and successful, youngest student, youngest creative director, youngest publisher – turning 30 kicked me in my ass, head, balls, name it! Then I figured out that Mesa Selimovic did his best work after age of 50 and I chilled out a bit. Just a bit!

Third one. During first year of my studies one of the colleagues was explaining relationship between two of his characters from the script – a mother and a son. And he said that their relationship was cold and superficial. Professor started yelling: In Serbian: Odnos izmedju majke i sina moze biti svakakav osim hladan i povrsan, jer, pobogu, on je izasao iz njene picke! (English: Relationship between mother and son can be anything but cold and superficial. God damn! He came out from her pussy). At the time, apart from the fact that this was hilarious script writing class, I was also of the opinion that you can have cold and superficial relationship with your mother. Some years after I changed my view. Now, I can tell – sort out your relationship with mother (with any outcome) before trying to do anything with your life. It simply can’t be cold and superficial. And yes – this is very much business related. But more about this particular issue in a stand alone post.

Now I will take my glass of Malvazia and say cheers!

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Career in Transition 2. The Upsides

July 8, 2016
First of all, thank you for a positive feedback to my first post. Didn’t expect so many comments both live and via messages.

As I said at the end of my first post, just the same, there are many upsides of working in market in transition. I will again stick to five of them. When I was a magazine publisher I learned from one of my amazing bosses Frank Hitzert that readers like lists of five or ten or even nineteen. Hope it’s still the rule.
1. You have a good chance to be a pioneer in a certain industry or in a certain way of doing business. This brings of course many challenges but it’s very rewarding as well. I believe it’s human nature to wish to be the first one and to pioneer things. For most of us who are not genius enough to invent wireless battery charging or Facebook it can still be rewarding to introduce new, modern, efficient supply chain into retail business, for example.
2. You can try out new, fresh and crazy ideas and projects because if you fail – it’s not too expensive. Personally, I had a chance to create several magazines, special editions, events, campaigns… Some of them were successful some of them failed big time! But, how many people had a chance to create professional, high circulation, lifestyle magazine in France or UK by the age of 30?
3. If you are working for a decent international company, although you are not contributing to global P&L as much they will still invest into your development. You might get a chance to attend conferences, trainings and programs that you would never ever be able to pay with your salary. And you will be able to transfer knowledge and experience to your colleagues and your business partners. All companies that I worked for did this for me. And I’m grateful.
4. You learn how to do things in more entrepreneurial way, to take more risks, to improvise and to fight. And then, if you go to some of the mature big markets you can really stand out. I will never forget the faces of my UK colleagues looking at the photos of an event that I have done for 50K EUR. They thought I spent a million.
5. You can achieve a lot and make a big career at quite a young age. Since most of the transition countries have this “lost in transition” generation, younger guys were the ones to get a chance and make fast progress. I was 24 when I got a team of 15 people to lead. Age of 27 – over 50. And it’s not only because I’m a fantastic leader – let’s be honest.
I’m trying to stop advising people but I simply have to give this one: if you work in transition markets don’t take it too dramatic – try to have fun! Because just a few years later you will not remember 2007. P&L but you will remember a fantastic crazy night in a konoba near Dubrovnik or a conference in New Delhi where you are the only guy presenting to 100 editors of Cosmopolitan magazines from all over the world. Cheers!
Career in Transition

July 4, 2016
I’m approaching 15th anniversary of my more or less successful career. I have changed four companies, six or seven different positions, had business trips in more than thirty countries, worked in nine markets, met thousands of interesting people and made some valuable friendships. Did my best for some amazing teams, changed jobs when I thought that I can’t or don’t want to contribute anymore. Some of those that I hired and coached as beginners already have big careers. So far so good.

Either because I’m getting old (37 this year) or because I’m getting emotional (or both), I started thinking a bit more than before about my professional life, trying to figure out where I stand today and where to go in the future. Not where in the sense of which industry or company, but where in the sense of my heart and mind. One word started to pop up a lot in my mind – transition. Although a notorious word for East Europe countries, it is in my opinion the key word that explains many things that business professionals are going through in this region. Here are five specifics of having a career in transition times and countries. There is probably many more that I can write about in the future posts.
1. Whatever you do, it will never be that significant in terms of volumes or profits. You have to learn how to live as a less important person (LIP) if you work for multinational companies. This may vary only in cases of IT ventures that work from East Europe for other markets. This is not unfair. It’s logical. But sometimes, hard to swallow.
2. You will never earn big money because no one has rational reason to pay you millions. This will lead you to a fact that you can sustain decent above average life standard but you will never be able to buy your freedom like executives from rich markets can after 15 or 20 years. So you have to find other ways to sustain your sanity. You can be still fairly young but quite tired and without many real alternatives.
3. You can’t accept western capitalism even if you work in such environment for ages. You are too emotional. It’s personal even when it’s not. You were raised in communism, went through wars, saw revolutions, participated in riots and you can’t buy corporate bullshit. At least not fully and to the end.
4. You can’t find proper work-life balance. Either you work like crazy and you earn good money (again – East Europe good) or you work less but you hardly survive. In some cases you even work like crazy and hardly survive. You pay a lot for a bunch of travels because than you have a feeling that it’s worth it. You buy expensive goods to feel better.
5. You had couple of good bosses from abroad. And you were lucky to learn a lot from them. But for sure you had a couple of 3rd class managers from western countries that multinationals didn’t know what to do with. They sent them to transition countries because whatever they do here it doesn’t matter. This is hard one to survive.
There are also some good things in having career in transition. I will think about them for my next post. Cheers!