The Entrepreneur Interview:
Jim Balsillie, Co-founder and Co-CEO of RIM
Cool Companies magazine 2008 Vol.3 Issue 1
Interview by Donald Rumball, Chair of Cool Companies magazine’s Editorial Advisory Committee
This is an excerpt of the 5 page article.
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Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis are the co-CEOs of Canada’s superstar, Research In Motion Inc. (aka RIM), producer of the BlackBerry®. Mike started RIM in 1984 and Jim joined in 1992 to help grow RIM into the company it is today in 2007 with $3 billion in revenue and 7,000+ employees. This interview with Jim Balsillie was done in 2001 when RIM was a mere 1,000 employees. While the interview is now 7 years old, it is a treasure of rare insight into the ideas that have fueled RIM’s past and recent growth. It’s an interview all true entrepreneurs will appreciate: it is Jim speaking candidly and at length about his approach to vision formulation, planning, organizational design, hiring and employee motivation.
Introduction
Donald Rumball, Chair of Cool Companies magazine’s Editorial Advisory Committee, conducted this interview with Jim Balsillie of RIM on January 16, 2001 when RIM had 1,000 employees. While the interview is now 7 years old, it is a treasure of rare insight into the ideas that have fuelled RIM’s past and recent growth. It covers issues of interest to entrepreneurs focused on growing their business.
Management Structure
Cool Companies’ Don Rumball: How many layers of management do you have?
Jim Balsillie: I don’t know. We don’t have an org. chart. What does layers mean anyway?
COOL: Well I guess, you might say for a person who is out there doing the work, whether it be manufacturing something or writing code or whatever, how many people would there be between that person and you?
JB: I don’t know, I’ve never seen an org. chart and I’d probably go a little apoplectic if I did. It just makes no sense to me.
COOL: So when you hire managers, it’s kind of like you see a need for somebody…
JB: A team leader and all that kind of stuff and responsibility; there are people that work with them, but this idea of a hierarchy, an entitlement, and climbing and all that stuff, I’m not into that. That just promotes gamesmanship.
COOL: Right, so there is another sort of concept of management if you like where rather than the hierarchy you’ve got a large number of people who’ve come together for specific projects and then they disperse.
JB: It’s an empowered, involving, dynamic, fluid, networked collaborative organization, so all your styles are really based on … I mean, command and control are very policy oriented and this other one is collaboration, communication, network, fluid oriented, so you organize your company accordingly. The plant is a little bit more organized—it has to be, you’re chunking out radios—but the sales and marketing scenario is chaotic, in many respects. So you fit the structural aspects to the critical tasks.
[Editor’s note: See page 44 of this issue on the book Mobilizing Minds for a model on how to put this idea into action.]
Some quotes from Jim Balsillie found later in this article
• Businesses are 5% strategy and 95% execution… you make or break yourself on your execution.
• You lead by example, you know, by working hard and treating people fairly and reasonably, then they feel inclinded to treat others the same way.
• We don’t do awards, but we have a lot of fun like parties and picnics.
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Other topics directly addressed by Jim Balsillie of RIM in this interview (requires subscription to read)
• Vision
• Personal Goals
• Planning
• Customer contact
• Management structure
• Hiring senior people
• Hiring process and turnover
• Hiring criteria
• Motivation and recognition
