Busn 101:
Servant Leader

by Peggy Aycinena

The term "Servant Leader" is one I've heard bandied about lately. It's an interesting concept that portrays the successful leader as one that sublimates his needs to the good of the group that he's attempting to lead. It's an interesting idea, and one that I had on my mind when I was chatting with Vess Johnson several weeks ago. He's the CEO of Nascentric based out of Austin, Texas.

Previously, Vess was the CEO at Silicon Metrics, up until and through its acquisition by Magma Design Automation in 2003. Prior to Silicon Metrics, he was at Omniview Design Automation and Xynetix.

My initial interview with Vess was intended to serve as an update on Nascentric, the kind of interview that CEOs everywhere are encouraged to grant on a regular basis in order to keep the lines of communication open to the press. However, early on in the conversation with Vess, I realized that he could provide me with valuable insight into the topic of corporate leadership, and the transitioning from senior executive to CEO – a topic I had earmarked for my 4-part series on business issues in EDA.

* After the M&A

* 100% of Nothing vs. 10% of Something

* From Student to Technical Manager

* Crafting the Enterprise

The following conversation was initially a phone call. Afterwards, I submitted my notes from the call to Vess, so that he could review and revise them accordingly. I wanted him to be comfortable that I had captured his comments correctly.

It is not my intention in the Busn 101 series to promote any particular company or individual. It is, however, my intention to highlight some of the universal business issues surrounding the EDA industry by extracting them out of the specific experiences of various players in the industry. I'm grateful to Vess Johnson for the time he gave to this project.

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Nascentric was spun out of Silicon Metrics in 2003, prior to SMC’s acquisition by Magma. Following the acquisition, I remained at Magma and watched the development of Nascentric and its technology. As the end of my commitment to Magma grew near, I started looking for other things that I might go and do. Understanding the needs of today’s design teams, I watched other EDA vendors and analyzed where shortcomings or opportunities existed in the design flow. I was looking for technology that could complement existing design flows as well as form the foundation for new tools that address some of the problems that weren’t being adequately addressed. When the time came for me to leave Magma, the opportunity to lead Nascentric presented itself and I felt that the technology was compelling.

Our goal at Nascentric is to offer high-performance simulation and analysis solutions that address the growing concerns surrounding issues related to timing, power, and signal integrity. Within most design flows design constraints associated with timing, power and noise are evaluated in isolation and often somewhat external to the main design flow. The designer often has to leave the flow, run an analysis that could take from anywhere from hours to days, return to the main flow and see if that had any impact on his other design constraints. We didn’t see any existing technology on the market that could make multi-faceted simulation, analysis, and optimization a dynamic desktop application.

To complement those design flows we developed and will be introducing a high-capacity simulator that delivers SPICE-level accuracy at 10x the performance of the current generation of Fast-SPICE simulators. We will then use the simulation technology and our multi-engine architecture as a platform on which to build and introduce a new generation of extremely fast and accurate analysis tools for analyzing nanometer effects, many of which are dynamic in nature.

Initially, that would include Nassda, Synopsys, and Cadence. Each of those companies currently market a Fast-SPICE simulator, but I believe we will provide significant value and will be able to easily differentiate our solution in such a way that we will be very competitive in this market.

Q: If Synopsys acquires Nassda, do you feel okay about taking on Synopsys?

We believe that if you can provide the accuracy and the performance that people are looking for, they are willing to move to something new. [I believe] that many people accept the fact that some of the most compelling technology comes out of start-ups in this industry.

At Silicon Metrics we established ourselves as the industry leader in the characterization and modeling of foundation IP. We generated libraries that worked in the Cadence, Synopsys, and Magma design flows; even though both Synopsys and Cadence had their own characterization and modeling technology. In fact, both Synopsys and Cadence were investors in Silicon Metrics and its technology. I believe that at the end of the day, if your technology is compelling, customers are willing to adopt it and integrate it into their design flows. Most EDA vendors are willing to cooperate if it makes them and their customers successful.

At Nascentric, while we feel we can compete, we also know we can cooperate. Helping our customers is good business, and at the end of the day it's our only business. If helping our customers means providing the best solutions by way of cooperation with the other EDA vendors, then that's what we need to do. Again, it’s all about providing the customer with the best solution possible.

When I started in EDA, I was willing to take on whatever responsibility my management entrusted to me, to be accountable for the results, and to do what was needed to drive my projects to a successful closure. I was always honest with my management, whether it was good news or bad news, I always strived to meet or exceed expectations. Of course, I won't tell you that I never failed to meet those expectations, but my goal was always to never surprise the people I was working with. I believe by giving your best effort and being honest with your management, you build trust. And, trust is the key.

Even as an engineering manager, I recognized the roles that other parts of the organization–sales and marketing– played and I understood that to be successful we all needed to work together. In my opinion, one of the worst things that can happen in an organization to have a lack of clear objects and a lack of alignment on the goals. As a result, I’ve worked to make sure everyone up and down the organization understands what we’re trying to accomplish.

As I grew in my career, I tried to learn from my mistakes and those of others around me. At my first start-up, I became the VP of engineering. Here again, I believe the position was entrusted to me because I was always willing to take on the responsibility, provide the vision, be held accountable, and deliver to the best of my ability.

As the VP of Engineering, I was a hands-on manager; it's just something that I enjoy doing – following the technology. I never put myself in the critical path, but I was always very, very close to the software development team. I feel it made me more effective to be involved at the technical level. As the person ultimately responsible for the project this put me in a position to yell, "BS!" if something wasn’t going right.

While VP of Engineering at the first start-up, we were looking to reposition ourselves in the market and grow the company. I worked very closely with the marketing team and they taught me a lot about how to present a vision to the customer and position the product. Around that time, I also worked with the services group within the company to perform process studies for customers, evaluate their methodologies, and suggest potential improvements. It was during these customer interactions that I learned more about the sales process, the broader business issues and I became much more customer focused.

The ability to growing in your current position and into new positions of responsibility depends on the CEO and whether he’s willing to mentor you and help you have a broader understanding of the business. He has to see the value in including his staff in all aspects of the business. When somebody with a technical background becomes a CEO, it's because they've been given the opportunity to grow into the position, and because they've been willing to learn.

I was very fortunate when I started in this business to work for a CEO – Lawrence Liebson at Xynetics – that always included me in the discussions on issues related to managing the business. He reinforced my belief that alignment within an organization is the key to success and that surprises must be avoided. He continuously stressed two main themes: the need for predictable levels of performance out of the entire organization, and if you want to be successful, all of the functional areas within the company have to communicate. As a result, I'm a big believer in free and open communication. In fact, if you ask my current and past employees, they may feel that I over-communicate. Nevertheless, I still believe you can’t expect alignment in an organization without a good flow of information.

I'm in a CEO position now, but I'll admit I don't know everything and I make mistakes. I have to surround myself with a strong team that I trust. I would never pretend, for instance, that I could be a better CFO than my CFO, or a better VP of Sales than my VP of Sales. My CFO at Nascentric was my CFO at my last company. My VP of Sales was my VP Sales at my last company. I’ve worked with my VP of Marketing at two previous companies. Trust on the team is one of the most important things. I trust them to do their jobs, to speak their mind, tell me if they believe I’m wrong, and do the things they believe are best for the company. And I believe they trust me.

Here at Nascentric and when I was with Silicon Metrics, I've tried to establish a clear vision with well-defined long- and short-term goals. Everybody knows what the vision is and what the goals are. Each functional group knows how their efforts contribute to the overall company success. A major concern for any company is to avoid being too one-dimensional in nature. A company can be strong in engineering, but weak in marketing or customer support. At Nascentric, we have engineering developing the product, marketing promoting the technology and building market awareness, and sales driving the distribution channel. We’re all headed in the same direction and everyone is pulling together.

There are lots of issues that come up on a daily basis when running a business. Sometimes people on my team are wrong about issues, and sometimes I'm wrong. If a CEO gets caught up in his own ego, it can be very bad for the business. A successful CEO can't allow himself to be surrounded by a bunch of people who always agree with him. The main focus has to always be on the business. After all, we are all here because we want to build a successful business, not because we want to make one person feel comfortable.

The successful CEO has to allow his team to challenge him. Since there is a lot of trust on my team we are not afraid to challenge each other – with the caveat that we attack the ideas, and never the people. For example, we recently had a half-day off site. We sat down and talked about the strengths and weaknesses that we each brought to the company. Here we had to be honest with ourselves and with each other. We defined what we believe was needed to have a successful, functional management team. We left the meeting in agreement we were all responsible for ensuring that as a team we’re as effective and productive as possible.

I really don’t really think it’s necessary to have a strong engineering background in order to be a successful CEO in high-tech. You need to have a good understanding of the market and of the technology. But, it's probably more based on the individual. You have to look at what the individual’s good at. What is his management style? What does the individual like to do? How effective can he be building and leading a strong management team?

Also, I think that you have to look at what stage the company is at. A person that would be a great CEO for a company at one stage may not be the best CEO at another. You have to recognize that companies evolve and the person who was successful guiding a company through the $0-50M stage may not be as successful managing the ramp to the next stage.

For example, if you look at a company that's reached $100 million, it probably started as a top-down organization with one person directing it from the top. Probably at the $100-150M level, I believe that you have to look at expanding the breadth of the organization, the company may need to consider separate business units. It really becomes a completely different management challenge. Other individuals may need to be entrusted to drive each business unit so as to work in concert in achieving the overall corporate goals. In the end, I believe that the individual has to decide for themselves what kind of organization their strengths and contributions are best suited for and where they can be the most successful.

Whether you’re in engineering or any other discipline, I think a lot of people believe they must ultimately become a CEO or they feel like a failure. Our society says that you always have to achieve, you always have to strive to reach the next level. I don’t believe that’s true. You don’t have to become the CEO to play a major role in a company’s success. All of the people on my team play will and are playing a major role in making our company successful. And, in the end if we will succeed, it will because the team did what it took to win.

The culture or personality of the company is something that develops around the tone set by the CEO. But if I look at some of the high-profile CEOs in the business – I respect them for their vision and leadership skills, not just for the personal image they or others create. My job as CEO is to establish the vision and direction for the company, but the entire team must execute on that vision in order for us to succeed.

As I said earlier, Lawrence Liebson was a mentor to me – he showed me things to do, and what not to do to be a successful CEO. I learned from the things he did very well and from what I felt were his mistakes. We didn’t always agree on things, but I always had a great deal of respect for Lawrence and felt that he was always doing what he believed was best for the company.

As I've struggled with the challenges of being a CEO, I've read many books on management styles and how to be an effective CEO. I found one book, recommended to me by a friend that was very insightful. It is the "The Five Temptations of a CEO" by Patrick Lencioni.

It's a short read. It’s very much like a fable, but you can identify a lot of action and attitudes that you've seen in other CEOs, and perhaps in yourself. What you take away from the book is that being a CEO must always be about the business, it cannot be about you!

Absolutely. At Nascentric, we're going to be launching our first product in March and so it's important for us to understand each other, where we're going, and how we work together as a group. That's something I learned early in life.

I started playing the guitar when I was 8 years old, and started playing in a band in high school – it was a rock band called Mirage. I played during my undergraduate years as well. After college, I played professionally on the road for 3 years –from 1981 to 1984. We started playing southern rock, moved to more top-40 rock & roll, and even did heavy metal for a while. I still play music a lot now – I've got a guitar at my office and at home.

In a band you’re constantly together and have to learn how to communicate with and work with each other. It's all about the five guys each playing their part to the best of their ability. Success depends on how well the group plays together, it’s not just about a single individual. I try to learn something from everything I do and I learned a lot during that period.

And, believe it or not running a company is a lot like running a band. To be successful you need a shared vision of where you’re going, everyone needs to know their part, and you need to trust that the other members are going to do their part to the best of their ability. That's something that everybody who's ever been in a band – or on a successful management team – understands.

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Editor's Note: Vess Johnson has a BS in Mathematics, a BA in Philosophy, and an MS in Computer Science from the Bagley College of Engineering at MSU.

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February 18, 2005

Peggy Aycinena owns and operates EDA Confidential. She can be reached at peggy@aycinena.com

Copyright (c) 2005, Peggy Aycinena. All rights reserved.