Pedal to the Metal: A Personal Interview with Christine Comaford-Lynch

To say that Christine Comaford-Lynch is unique is both an obvious observation and a huge understatement. At the young age of seventeen, she dropped out of her California life to study Buddhism in San Diego and Los Angeles, where she spent seven years as a celibate Buddhist monk. Although she lived and worked in the world while retaining her vows, Christine did a fair amount of fasting, multi-hour meditations, and other common activities monks undertake. As Christine says, “I did lots of extreme things to try to get enlightened.”

At the ripe age of twenty-four, she returned to American society, realizing that she’d be more effective making a difference in the world if she dove deeply into it. Among other things, she was pretty clueless about all things “girly." A self-proclaimed geek, Christine needed some help presenting her softer, feminine side. “I didn’t understand how to be a woman, especially after being celibate for so long. Eventually, I dated a famous billionaire, got dumped, and didn’t know why.”

Her solution was to study the way of the geisha, and to start a business, American Geisha, Inc. She soon learned that you can’t use business to solve your personal problems, and she ditched her geisha plan after four months. She reinvented herself as an executive and entrepreneur; and the rest, they say, is history. She has worked with Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, and George Bush on projects as diverse as programming Windows^® version 3, launching the Clinton Administration’s intranet strategy, and securing $4 billion in funding for American small businesses.

Her first successful company grew out of the infamous Microsoft^®/IRS battle over the “employment” status of full time contractors. Still working at Microsoft when they had to change their staffing practices, Christine found herself in the right place at the right time. She helped Microsoft quickly transition into compliance by starting her first staffing company with thirty-five contractors. Since then Christine has started four companies that she has either sold or taken public. She’s on her sixth company now, Mighty Ventures, and has been a venture capitalist or angel investor in 200 companies and has served on thirty-six boards.

Stick with me, now. Christine has plenty to say about finding your inner-entrepreneur, applying some business basics, and turning your support center into a business-centric organization.

Daly. You’ve had a fascinating life. Let’s begin with your early lifestyle choices. What was your driving force to become a monk?

Comaford-Lynch. I had teenage angst. I thought that there was too much pain in this world, and I wanted to find a way to reduce it. Ultimately, I decided I could make a bigger difference if I were not cloistered away, so I threw myself out in the world. That terrified me. But, I realized I’m a more in-the-trenches kind of girl and need to see results.

Daly. Moving from monk to geisha girl to entrepreneur to angel investor, gives you quite a different perspective.

Comaford-Lynch. Reinventions are great, and business reinventions are not that different from personal ones—find a pain point and fix it. It’s fun to have the vantage point of both sides of the table. Entrepreneurs are creating new products, new markets, and new ways to entice customers. Venture capitalists are looking at costs, risks, and how compelling the team is. It’s fascinating to watch the dynamics when they are in the room together.

Daly. How does this entrepreneurial perspective apply to our community, corporate customer service, and IT organizations?

Comaford-Lynch. They are not that different, really. I like to think of corporate professionals as internal entrepreneurs: intrapreneurs. When they are proposing a new division, a new infrastructure investment, or more staff, they need to be able to justify that business proposition. Regardless of the perspective, you have to appease all of the “investors”—internal and external—and present a concise, compelling, and complete business case.

Daly. What common mistakes do you see managers making as they present this case?

Comaford-Lynch. I have seen so many projects that should have been funded fail to get it. And I’ve seen projects funded that were doomed from the start. I’ve read thousands of project and business plans. All too often the managers don’t do their homework, especially in IT where one has to be brilliant at cost justification.

Most fail to make their proposal concise or compelling, in a way that would drive the funding decision makers to say, “Wow, we really need this solution because it will cut costs (or time to market or increase innovation/productivity/uptime/retention/etc.).” Another common mistake is failing to make the proposal complete—identify the people, the processes, the project team, and how the project is going to be launched, understanding how to cost justify and acquire the necessary capital or budget allocation. Focus in ROI—always.

I invite everyone to download the free resources at www.mightyventures.com/resources.php. They will find a roadmap to presenting an ROI cost-justification just for corporate intrapreneurs.

Daly. Corporate managers—whether they are in the board room or supervising frontline customer support representatives—may achieve some surprising results if they thought more like an entrepreneur as they manage their areas of responsibility. What qualities that entrepreneurs have apply to the day-to-day running of a business?

Comaford-Lynch. Focus on execution, not just ideas. One of the big problems in corporate America, actually in the corporate structure worldwide, is that there is a widespread lack of ownership or accountability—often people want someone else to find solutions to their problems. We are not acting like owners.

When managers act like owners and take the success of their departments personally, they have their ego on the line. That, plus realizing that they need to constantly innovate. But, innovation only happens if management fosters a culture of risk and risk taking. Failure accelerates innovation—there’s nothing wrong with it. We need to foster an environment of failing forward, of extracting the benefits of so-called failures.

Daly. What is a key characteristic of this risk-taking environment?

Comaford-Lynch. Managers from the top down must create an environment where risk is okay. If you’re terrified of failure, you won’t take the risk. When things fail, smart entrepreneurs flip that failure. They don’t label it a failure; they treat it as progress and evolution. This is just how innovation works.

That’s one of the things I learned from Larry Ellison. He’s great at reinvention. He’s had total failures following huge splashy launches. He fails forward, lets failure roll off his back. Extracts the lesson and moves on. From Bill Gates I learned that self-confidence is a decision. You decide first, and the evidence appears later.

Daly. Using your 20-20 hindsight, what would you have done differently in your businesses?

Comaford-Lynch. I would’ve invested more in people earlier on. I’ve come to realize that energy equals equity. The more energy we put into our team the more emotional equity they develop, the more they care about our business, the more engaged they are, and the more they innovate, are accountable, and take risks. People who are emotionally engaged thrive.

The more you embrace the attitude of the entrepreneur, the more agile you are. It’s so important not to have happy ears, hearing just what you want. You need to keep your ear to the ground and pay attention to what’s going on without being pessimistic. The sooner you catch a problem before it snowballs, the sooner you can be a quick-change artist and avoid a potential disaster. Recognize the warning signs, and you will react more quickly. It gets really expensive in terms of money and morale to rigidly stick to the plan. It’s easier to get a new budget if you have to change; it’s harder to repair morale. When you have that increased agility and no fear of failure, it’s easier to do the reality check.

Daly. You have turned ideas into profitable business ventures. Can you shed some light on how anyone can take an idea—a new way of staffing, a new way of using technology, a new way to structure resources—and turn it into business reality? What is it that makes a business plan stand out from all the others? What gets executives’ attention?

Comaford-Lynch. Intrapreneurs need to think like entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are always thinking of scrappy ideas to pitch their ideas. Use visual aids to explain your proposition to management. Ideas in text format can more easily be shut down. A visual chart, graph, or prototype gets people more engaged because it helps them to “see” the potential future. This will help you move your case forward and show management what the benefit is going to be. If you don’t have the graphics expertise in your department to create that visual, find it and find it in a scrappy way. One IT executive I worked with had his sixteen year old son mock up a system prototype and cost/benefit proposal. Dad paid him fifty bucks and got a nice visual brochure that helped management understand his idea. It was kind of cute, IT people acting like marketing people.

Daly. Next step. It’s time to stand up and give that pitch. Any suggestions for professionals whose forte is not giving presentations in front of a group?

Comaford-Lynch. Prepare. First create a sample business proposal outline and a short, sweet executive summary. Read the ROI white paper and sample business plan outline in the Resources section of the Mighty Ventures site so you can speak in financial terms. Do a dry run. Get colleagues to do a “mock trial,” asking them to mimic how they think management will respond. These people must be new to the idea, not people who are already in the loop. Test it out and see what happens. Have a friend with you to gauge the audience, watch if their body language shifted, when it shifted, and what you said when it shifted. Do a post mortem. Adjust the presentation before you do the real one for the decision makers.

Daly. Success often has been attributed to who you know. Do you agree?

Comaford-Lynch. It’s not always who you know, but what they will do for you. The reason you will know the right people is because you learn to love networking. And, the reason they want to help you is because you have built emotional equity with that individual. Emotional equity is far more valuable than financial equity will ever be. It is personal when they really want you to succeed. They will introduce you to the right people and get your projects funded. First, you have to learn to network and to make that a career-enhancing strategy. The number one way to network is to ask people about their business and its goals, and then offer to help. Network by offering “palm up” assistance rather than trying to grab benefits for yourself. The more you help others, the more others will help you.

Daly. Aside from your startup work, you’ve also consulted to 700 of the Fortune 1000 and the Clinton and Bush administrations. What was one of the business challenges you worked with?

Comaford-Lynch. In my career I have dealt with both stifling bureaucracy and rampant anarchy. President Clinton is a more start-up oriented leader. He started a division, led by Al Gore, called National Performance Review, with no funding. He required each department to dedicate one staff person for a one to three year term. The goal of the NPR was to make the government work better and cost less. The immediate charter was to get government Web sites up and running in ninety days. It didn’t have to be pretty, it just had to articulate the problem and offer a solution. The team was terrified. These government IT folks had little to no Web expertise. I had to take this freaked out staff and instill confidence and motivate them. Some just weren’t going to make it. The people who were going to make it were totally reenergized. The group had no history, the project had no funding, and the individuals on the team were very diverse. Al Gore threw out the radical challenge. The team adapted, learned new skills, and thrived.

Daly. You’ve worked or interacted with some fascinating people: Bill Gates, Barbara Walters, and Hillary Clinton to name a few. What have you learned from them?

Comaford-Lynch. Bill has supreme self-confidence. Consider these words: think, hope, believe, know. He knows something will happen, and there’s no doubt whatsoever. Windows was the laughing stock of the industry from 1985 to 1990. Yet, Bill Gates said it would be the world standard, that Microsoft would lead the browser wars. He said, and I’m paraphrasing, “We’re great at partnering. Yes, we are behind, but we will catch up, and we’ll win.” That energy of knowing is what moves mountains. Stick with it tenaciously.

Barbara is so personable, very sincere. She is one of the few famous people who really looks you in the eyes, really connects with you, and really wants to know what you think. She has a spectacular handshake. She connects on the spot.

Hillary has a memory you would not believe. At a party with 200 other people, I had a conversation with her about contemporary poetry. Eight months later I saw her again, and she remembered our poetry conversation. And, she remembered me: “Aren’t you the one who got into Microsoft with no high school or college degrees?” She does her homework, and she remembers.

Christine Comaford-Lynch, founder and CEO of Mighty Ventures, will awaken your intrapreneurial mind and offer you ways to drive your ideas forward in her high-speed keynote presentation, “Pedal to the Metal: Find and Foster Your Inner Entrepreneur” at HDI 2007, www.thinkhdi.com/hdi2007.

The Daly Interview^TM is a publication of Focus Events, Inc. This interview was written exclusively for ThinkService, Inc. by HDI 2007 Program Chair, Cinda Daly, CindaLDaly@windstream.net.