How to Hire, Be a Leader, and Empty Your Mind Like Dee Hock (VISA founder) Evan Carmichael

"Money motivates neither the best people, nor the best in people." - Dee Hock

Dee Hock (born 1929) is the founder and former CEO of VISA. In 1968, when credit cards were first starting to get popular, Hock convinced the Bank of America to release control over their BankAmericard credit card program. He started a new company to control the credit cards. It was called National BankAmerica and later changed to VISA.

Hock came from a modest household. His father was a utility lineman and after marrying his high school sweetheart, Hock's first jobs were working in a slaughterhouse and for a brick mason. He became interested in the banking world and walked away from three separate jobs at respected financial companies because he thought they were too hierarchical and controlling which limited his creativity.

Hock went looking for an opportunity to build a different type of organization, one that valued the creativity and enthusiasm of its employees. The result of this plan was VISA. Today VISA has over $8 billion in revenues and processes over 60 billion transactions per year.

Action Item #1: Hire People Different From You

We all like to stay in our comfort zones and many entrepreneurs make the mistake of hiring people who are exactly like them. If you're great at sales you don't want to hire all sales people or your company won't have any organizational structure. If you're great at programming, you don't want to hire all programmers or there won't be anybody to promote your product. Successful entrepreneurs realize what they're good at and what they need help with and surround themselves with the people who best compliment their strengths and weaknesses.

Here's what Dee Hock has to say about hiring and managing people:

“Never hire or promote in your own image. It is foolish to replicate your strength. It is idiotic to replicate your weakness. It is essential to employ, trust, and reward those whose perspective, ability, and judgment are radically different from yours. It is also rare, for it requires uncommon humility, tolerance and wisdom.”

“Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities.”

“Money motivates neither the best people, nor the best in people. It can move the body and influence the mind, but it cannot touch the heart or move the spirit; that is reserved for belief, principle, and morality. As Napoleon observed, ‘No amount of money will induce someone to lay down their life, but they will gladly do so for a bit of yellow ribbon.’”

Action Item #2: Be A Leader

As soon as you start building a team they're going to start looking to you as their leader. They'll not only look at what decisions you make but also the process you go through to make those decisions. They're going to want to see someone who they respect and can learn from. Your leadership skills might be weak right now but you'll need to start improving them as soon possible if you want to build a successful organization.

Here are Dee Hock's thoughts on leadership:

“Here is the very heart and soul of the matter: If you look to lead, invest at least 40 percent of your time managing yourself – your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30 percent managing those with authority over you, and 15 percent managing your peers. Use the remainder to induce those you ‘work for’ to understand and practice the theory.”

“Think back to the best boss you ever had and the worst boss you ever had. Make a list of all things done to you that you abhorred. Don’t do them to others, ever. Make another list of things done for you that you loved. Do them for others, always.”

“People are not things to be manipulated, labelled, boxed, bought and sold. Above all else, they are not human resource. They are entire human beings, containing the whole of the evolving universe, limitless until we start limiting them. We must examine the concept of leading and following with new eyes. We must examine the concept of superior and subordinate with increasing scepticism. We must examine the concept of management and labour with new beliefs. And we must examine the nature of organizations that demand such distinctions with an entirely different consciousness.”

Action Item #3: Empty Your Mind

Many entrepreneurs have a hard time focusing. We're simply doing too much and never get the chance to empty our minds of the day to day to focus on the big picture and where our businesses are going. Creative ideas can't be forced and if you want more of them then you'll need to free up your mental energy so you can focus.

More than being just a businessman, Dee Hock considered himself a theorist. He enjoyed playing with ideas more than spreadsheets, with concepts more than numbers. Despite a successful career in the financial industry, Hock was also an active theorist, spending his free time developing new forms of social and business organization.

Here's what Dee Hock thinks about emptying your mind:

True Story

“The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a room packed with archaic furniture. You must get the old furniture of what you know, think, and believe out before anything new can get in. Make an empty space in any corner of your mind, and creativity will instantly fill it.” 

After building the company he felt proud of, Hock resigned from VISA in 1984 and spent almost 10 years farming a 200-acre plot of land in California, isolated from the business world.

He used the time to think about corporate life and how companies should be run. According to Hock:

“I left VISA in 1984 because I had proved everything I had set out to prove about the effectiveness of these concepts of organization. When VISA became so extraordinarily successful, I thought the world would beat a path to our door to explore the concepts, but it largely ignored us."

“It was so different, people couldn’t quite understand it. There was no stock, so it didn’t fit the normal business model. I decided I wanted to return to nature and seclusion and try to develop these ideas further, so I bought 200 acres of ravaged land in a tiny, isolated community on the coast of California, built a house with a library of four or five thousand books, and spent ten years in manual labour restoring the land to health and beauty and studying incessantly trying to develop these ideas. I wanted to see if they were applicable to other organizations and industries, or merely unique to banking and credit cards."

How to Hire the Best, Never Give Up, and Be Hands On Like Howard Hughes by Evan Carmichael

"I intend to be the greatest golfer in the world, the finest film producer in Hollywood, the greatest pilot in the world, and the richest man in the world." - Howard Hughes

Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American industrialist, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, philanthropist, and was one of the wealthiest people in the world.

When Hughes was a teenager he lost both his parents and was left with a family inheritance from money his father made by selling his inventions. Ever ambitious he was quoted as saying “I intend to be the greatest golfer in the world, the finest film producer in Hollywood, the greatest pilot in the world, and the richest man in the world.”

Hughes aggressively pursued business interests in Hollywood films, airlines, and hotels and casinos to expand his empire. He managed to turn his $1 million inheritance into a $2 billion fortune. Equivalent to $6.6 billion in today’s dollars, Howard Hughes was and still would be considered one of the richest men in the world.

Action Item #1: Surround Yourself With the Best

As entrepreneurs we can't do everything ourselves and need to recognize what we're good at and what we need to delegate to others to help us with. Getting the right team in place is one of the most important tasks you'll ever do as a business owner.

After inheriting his father's company as a teenager, Hughes recognized that he didn't have the knowhow to run the business and looked for someone who could. He hired 36 year-old Noah Dietrich to be his accountant and right-hand man on a $10,000 a year salary. For the next three decades, Dietrich eventually became director, vice-president and CEO of various branches of Hughes’ empire.

According to Robert Maheu, a chief advisor to Hughes: "Dietrich was delivering Howard profits of $50 to $55 million a year. Big bucks in those days."

Action Item #2: Don't Give Up On Your Goals

Whatever your goals are for your business you need to keep attacking them until you accomplish them. Forget about what other people say and that the odds might be stacked against you. Take consistent action every day until you reach your targets and believe that you can do it.

The Hughes H-4 Hercules was the world's largest flying boat, the largest aircraft made from wood and had the biggest wingspan of any aircraft ever built. It was contracted by the U.S. government to transport troops across the Atlantic to avoid German U-boats in the Second World War. Nicknamed the "Spruce Goose" it was three times the size of the largest plane ever previously built. Nobody thought Hughes would ever get it off the ground but he kept pushing towards his goal despite the naysayers.

According to Hughes: “This thing was a black sheep. Nobody wanted to fool around with it or become contaminated by it. We were working in a complete vacuum as to information based upon prior performance and prior design... I defy anyone today to design an airplane substantially more efficient than this one for its purpose."

Action Item #3: Be Hands On

Being an active part of your business is crucial to its success. You need to know when to hire people but you also need to know  what your job is and show people that you're dedicated to doing it and inspire them to do their jobs to the best of their abilities.

With some of the best people in the industry working for him, Hughes could have chosen to distance himself from the goings on of his various enterprises. But, instead, Hughes chose to be hands-on, involving himself in even the smallest of details. He would personally test fly all the planes that he helped design. He often even put his own life at risk to involve himself and improve his product. He was also, for the most part, adored by his staff, who appreciated his hands-on approach and were inspired by his dedication and enthusiasm.

According to Hughes: “If I have made a mistake in the design, then I’m the one who should pay for it. I certainly would not ask somebody else to fly a plane if I were afraid to do it myself.”

True Story

Hughes' love of flying first began when he attended a Yale-Harvard boat race with his father. After his father lost a bet that Harvard would win, the 14 year-old Hughes was promised anything he wanted. While his dad proposed buying him his own boat, Hughes Jr. asked to fly in the old broken down seaplane anchored in front of their hotel. With the plane’s old age and its corroded wires, Hughes’ father’s initial response was no, but Hughes Jr. proved so persistent that he could not be denied. “He finally gave in,” said Hughes. “This was the very first contact I had with flying.” Throughout his career, many more were forced to ‘give in’ to Hughes’ desires.