Once he has the right people in place, Barrie is all about autonomy – that is from the top to the bottom of his business. Everyone is CEO of something. “Everyone has to own something. You are the CEO of that little division, or that web page. You hire people smarter than you and give them responsibility. You set them on track with the vision and stand back. Some people love that, and some cannot handle it.”
Barrie rewards on merit. “There are not many companies where you can start and two years later you can be a vice president if you perform, deliver and get results, everything flows to you,” he says.
Then it is all about goal setting, from the top down. “I set goals for myself quarterly, and circulate them to my five or six division heads – growth, customer service, engineering and so on. Then they set their own goals, and then down to the next level. There are only four levels. Every single person has their own goals and everyone knows every other person’s goals. Even the customer service team in Manilla know my goals. The key is communication and transparency.
“On weekly basis, we have daily ‘stand up’ meetings about what are we doing today, what happened last night, priorities. All teams do it.”
Procrastination is a no-go zone for leaders, in Barrie’s view. “Procrastination is not very inspiring. Leadership is about making decisions, even if they are the wrong ones. You explain the assumptions behind your decisions, and then if something goes wrong, you can respond rather than just sitting on the fence.”
Doubt about hires is another leadership pitfall, Barrie has found. Almost without exception, when has had doubts, he’s been proved right. “If you are not quite sure, he is not the right guy.”
Barrie’s vision is a grand one: “It is abundantly clear to me that there is going to be a marketplace for jobs that is ongoing and be huge. That company is going to be a $20 billion, $30 billion, $40 billion market cap,” he says.
For the inspiration, he looks to others in the technology game. His favourite is a fellow grand visionary. Elon Musk, the South African who co-founded Paypal, now the world’s largest internet payment system. He also founded a space travel company, SpaceX, and electric car company, Tesla Motors.
Kath Walters is the editor of LeadingCompany and an award-winning journalist of 15 years’ experience. Kath was previously a senior writer and editor at BRW magazine covering management, strategy, finance, entrepreneurship and venture capital across all industry sectors. In 2006, Kath won the Citibank Award for Excellence in Journalism (General Business). Follow her on Twitter.
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