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As an executive in charge of operations with more than 30 years of expertise in the software industry, believe you me, I worked with several good bosses and a number of great bosses (Mike Fields, Ray Lane and Larry Ellison are a couple of names that crop up ).

At OpenView Partners, when we invest growth capital in an expansion stage software company, we commit quite a bit of time assisting the founders, CEOs and their management teams strengthen their skill sets. In fact, as partners we all authored blogs about management (The Lonely CEO), evaluation (Time to Look in the Mirror) and improvement (Mr. CEO: Would You Hire Yourself?).

I got my hands on a great article in the Harvard Business Review I feel all founders, CEOs, and their management teams should take the chance to go through. It was written by Linda A. Hill and Kent Lineback and entitled “Are You a Good Boss-or a Great One”.

In the article they examine how…

Most Managers Cease Working on Themselves

Ask some questions everybody really should ask…

Do you understand what’s necessary to become genuinely successful?

Do you recognize what you’re trying to attain?

Cover the 3 Imperatives required to obtain performance from a group of individuals. This is what management is all about…

1. Manage Yourself
   
2. Manage Your Network
   
3. Manage Your Team

Supply a tool to help you measure and evaluate your performance against the 3 Imperatives.

Then examine What You Can Do Right Now and incorporate the daily rhythm you must to get into. This entails…

• Prep
• Do
  
• Review

Everybody really should aim to improve their skills so they can transform from a good boss into a great boss. If you are in search of more tips on People & Team Development or Board & Senior Management Development, you should go over the Company Development section of our OpenView Labs website.

If interested, just go to www.openviewlabs.com and we will connect you.

George Roberts is a Venture Partner at OpenView and a former member of the executive management team at Oracle, with over 25 years of deep management experience in the software industry.

ShirtsMyWay.com lets you to design your own custom dress shirts with an online tool. It’s possible to select from several fabrics, combine with different cuts, thread colors, collars, cuffs, pockets and buttons and fit the dress shirts with your own measurements. You only pay for the base fabric and can order as many shirts with your custom design as you like.

The shirt design and order process is pretty nifty and you get a visual proof of every change. Co-founder Peter Crawfurd mentions about developing the site: “Not only is the programming of the site difficult, we had to make about two thousand images to make the shirt model work.”

In any case, the actual concept is far from simple, since the company is dealing with over 7 trillion different possible mens dress shirts designs of an actual physical product. Peter continues: “A very detailed quality control is needed to make sure everything is good.” Founders believe that tackling a hard and unique problem is a key edge in a market as completive as clothing.

Company is actually headquartered in Hong Kong has been in business for a month. Founders tell us that they’re planning and making continuous improvements on the site but still gathering data deciding where to focus their efforts.

ShirtsMyWay’s concept is somewhat similar what we have seen with other on-demand online services like Lulu for book publishing and with those endless t-shirt stores. It’s interesting to see if the concept can be profitably transferred to other sectors as well from clothing and printing.

When mass-markets are ruled by big players producing standard products, is there a cap for small startups to deal with customers that want something different? ShirtsMyWay seems to believe so and shows it’s also possible without huge resources.