Hey Travis! Don’t Squeeze Lemons
Reflection For Thought Leadership - As a Leadership and Performance Coach and Venture Mentor, I have engaged with several Fortune 500 companies and global ventures and startups over the years. Having coached and mentored founder CEOs and global teams of global ventures and home-grown unicorn startups, it has been a great learning experience about things one should do from among the few and things one should not do from among the many. One such anecdote of things that one should not do, comes to mind from my brief encounter with Travis Kalanick of Uber, who hopefully just learned his lesson the hard way. I met Travis at a gathering hosted by a senior bureaucrat and several angel investors. I was invited to deliver the keynote speech at the gathering and my theme was how leaders need to inspire trust in their people and empower them.
After my talk, I found myself seated by the host at the same table as Travis and his motley crew of lawyers and business associates. Travis, who was as charming and magnanimous as ever, asked me what I thought of Uber and Uber’s future in India. I said to Travis, “I see some dark clouds on the horizon as every time I speak with Uber drivers, whenever I use the service, I sense huge disgruntlement and angst, since many drivers who bought cars with loans are now unable to make ends meet and pay their instalments, thanks to delays in payments and huge incentives being cut suo moto by Uber, without the Uber cab consent.
I told him an uprising was brewing. One of the lawyers with him (a lady with US education and much enamoured of Travis) said to me, “Jerry we are ready, as we will never allow uprisings or unions,” and Travis seconded her thoughts and told me, “we need to juice growth and we are ready for the cab drivers…”
I ignored the lawyer and said to Travis, “you are the founder, please do what is right, never forget the people who trusted you and bought cars are your product. Do not squeeze them like lemons to juice growth. They trusted you, so enhance the trust and inspire loyalty, coach them for life, financial and saving skills. Transform them from drivers into entrepreneurs”. I told him, “If you do not treat your people at all levels, especially your cab drivers well, then my friend you are doomed for a downfall”. I said that and l left the table as I did not want to indulge with them anymore. As I was leaving, Travis came up to me and gave me his card and asked me to write to him. But I never wrote back.
#IdeasForAction — Many a founder is failing today because they know not how to handle success. Leadership is not a PR exercise nor about fame and wealth. Leadership is about Inspiring Solid Character to Unleash heroic Potential in all the people you work with, so that they gain and make the venture gain. Mission NavaYuvak has been started by the government to mentor startups and founders to enable them to build teams and relationships of trust with employees and vendors and to understand how quick-fix scalability and valuation, could hamper long-term sustainability and growth. Startups and founders need to become humane and treat all stakeholders with respect and inspire trust.
