Isn’t it a neat feeling when you’re introduced to a coworker’s kids or spouse? For a moment, the bubble of work is burst. You imagine baseball games, music recitals, anniversary dinners. I remind myself of this when I get frustrated at people.
“One day, a sign appeared on a soda fridge in RedWest saying something to the effect of, “Did you know that drinks cost Microsoft [ed: millions of dollars] a year? Sodas are your perk at work. Don’t bring them home.” This depressed me on too many levels to enumerate, but I’ll toss out a few: Someone had enough time to get these signs professionally printed and affixed to our fridges. It was someone’s salaried, 40-hour-a-week job to do things like this. Someone thought soda smuggling was a big enough “problem” at Microsoft to draw attention to it. How much soda can a person steal? How much does that same person cost the company per hour in salary and benefits? Our most interesting profits will come from capitalizing on huge opportunities, not from micromanaging costs. I’m sure some finance person will lambast me for this, which would only further depress me. Believe in our upside. Focus on our upside. We used to get Dove Bars and beers all the time. It felt like free food was on offer at least once a week, usually with a pretense of some small milestone to celebrate. Why did we cut stuff like this? (I know the boring fiscal reasons why. I’m asking the deeper why, as in, “Was it worth the savings? Is Microsoft better now that we’ve cut these costs?”)”
I have known many talented people throughout my life; Olympians, Musicians, Mathematicians, Activists, Entrepreneurs and Scientists. But for this question, one person stands out for his leadership abilities. His name was Graham Balch. When I was 24, I spent a time living and volunteering in hurricane ravaged New Orleans. It was a life changing experience. We were working in horrendous conditions. Our volunteer centers were inside abandon schools, homes and buildings. We self organized systems of feeding, protecting and taking care of ourselves, without any real government or organization superstructure supporting us. An endless stream of people were flowing into and out of the volunteer center; criminals, hippies, drug addicts, homeless people, ministers, retirees, residents and students. There was political fermentation; debates every night about what should be done to NOLA, how it should change. Some of those volunteers did more harm than good. Some just sat around doing nothing. People organized political protests and the national guard was sent in to keep the peace. Amidst all of this, we would organize crews to do backbreaking cleanup work of clearing peoples homes. We did this work for free because residents could not afford the tens of thousands that it took to gut a home. Everyday a crew of us would suit up and travel out into abandoned public schools and homes to do free gutting work. We worked in the sweltering heat, suited up in Tyvek suits. We went into mold infested, bug infested homes to clear out the mold. It takes a crew of ~10 people two days to clear out a home. The first thing you do is shut off the power, open all the windows and duct tape the fridge shut. The fridge is toxic. The food has been sitting for weeks in the hot sun, mixed with oil and floodwaters and probably has liquefied into black waste. You pull it out at your peril. After this, you pull everything out of the home and put it on the curb for FEMA to collect. You trash people’s baby photos, wedding dresses, their cupboards full of food, you pull out their memories and dump them on the street. You find cockroaches, baby mice and spiders. In the midst of all of this, I met a real leader named Graham Baulch. Graham was sent to New Orleans by the Boston Consulting Group in an effort to clean up the schools. He was coming off a MBA at UPenn and a stint in the peace corp in Guatemala. We were having problems keeping people motivated, and organized. There were lots of strong willed people in this environment - lots of fighting, lots of debate and no money to motivate people. We were several months into the effort and dealing with a lack of tools, resources, people, organization and criminal issues. Graham got us organized. I was impressed. He: * Helped coordinate efforts parents, teachers, church groups and volunteers in the clean up of more than 16 public schools. * Put his own job on the line, when we need supplies, tools and equipment. * Stood up to contractors who were physically and logistically trying to intimidate and push volunteers out of the school cleanup. Contractors who gouged residents and FEMA out of money needed for the school clean up. * Got dozens of argumentative, fighting volunteers to agree and work together. * Created many more leaders and taught many of us how to lead. He was one of the strongest leaders that I have ever met. He has since gone on to many great and meaningful things. * Was one of the best high school teachers in the state of Georgia * Was featured as a outspoken critic in the Atlanta cheating teachers scandal; where he was part of a Frontline piece. * Started and ran an Atlanta charter school * Ran for Georgia state senate (and lost). * Served as a member of the Atlanta city council * Served as an executive director in the Baltimore county school district
Think of yourself as the conductor of an orchestra. Your jobs is to awaken possibilities in your musicians. Do their eyes light up as they play their music? If not, what can you do to make it shine?
Learn how to evaluate what people are great at, and put them in those roles. (This is the most important thing I have learned about management, and I haven’t read much about it.) You want to have a reputation for pushing people hard enough that they accomplish more than they thought they could, but not so hard they burn out.
I love watching exceptional people do what they’re good at. It amazes and inspires me. I once saw an alleyway chef in Shanghai turn a basketball-sized clump of dough into hand-pulled noodles for a table of eight, amid a blur of arm movements in under a minute. Ever watch speed stacking? We each have astonishing potential.
This is why I have had problems on delegating tasks when QC Secy or when selecting UC team: I would worry about things outside my control. Example: University Challenge Mastermind hosting Cooking for Walking Club members. Thinking too much about how others will think, too obsessed with the outcome rather than having conviction about the process. Sometimes respect is commanded by being commanded. People their decisions made for them. People like to think that who they are working with has his shit together and knows his stuff. Be mentally tough. Learn to get over your fears. Most people are afraid, and for the most part, irrationally afraid. What happens when one is afraid? You retreat, you hold back, you dither, you procrastinate. Worse, you become more prejudiced, or even take on extreme forms of hate. You miss out on opportunities, you become a prisoner of your irrationality. So learn to ask a simple question when you are uncomfortable with something, what have I got to lose? In most cases, nothing, nothing but that quickening of your heartbeat, nothing but that little burning sensation on your face, nothing but that ego of yours getting pinched. Here is thing, once you realized the absurdity of those fears, you soon realize that vast majority of people around you are pre-occupied with those same idiotic fears! So if you really want to get head and shoulders above the rest of people, you don’t need to have better looks, you don’t need to have more money, you don’t need to have better education, you don’t need …. well the list goes on and on. But you only need one thing that is actually in all of us, just reach down a bit more. You have the courage, the toughness, yours skin is thick enough, your time here is only getting scarce… so get over it already!
Respond to fear, anxiety and hostility with love, courage and kindness: Men with character are able to control and shape situations, rather than being shaped and influenced by them. They can turn the tables in negotiations, diffuse a hostile situation with humour, reframe a difficulty as a challenge, or a challenge as an opportunity, and in general trampoline their way out of deep pit holes.
Leadership is about creating meaning for others: for interpeting the world into a story that makes them feel alive, that nourishes the soul, that brings out their best selves, that makes them feel better about themselves, that makes them feel not alone.
Learn how to delegate, how to motivate others and recruit great talent. Nimble and lean force that is resourceful, instead of having a large supply line Solution: Get Stakeholder Buy-In
One thing in common between consultants and product managers is that they often have to ‘influence without authority’. It’s critical for consultants to get buy-in from executives by finding common ground. Most construct a stakeholder diagram at the beginning of the project to figure out the key people to influence. Contrary to stereotypes, no smart consultant will walk in to the big meeting with a heavy PowerPoint deck without getting buy-in privately from these decision makers (‘pre-wiring’). Product Managers (especially in a big company) have to navigate complex organizational units. Many PMs, especially those from a technical background, seem to have the naïve belief that ‘the best idea will win’. ‘Politics’ may sound like a dirty word, but it’s nothing more than using emotional intelligence while dealing with organizations and executives (that are human too!), considering their collective self-interests.
Things like leadership, authority, respect, friendship, love etc. can only be commanded, or evoked, but not demanded. People give you these things willingly, voluntarily, happily, based on your attitude towards yourself, others, and life. Demanding them is self defeating; the moment of demand it, you betray or undermine the attitude that commands these things.
Explaining your actions fully (Samar Singla) vs Having Boundaries (Cate Blanchett) vs Being Totally Opaque (Modi, Rooney Mara)
“We are likely to admire behavior more as we understand it less” ars est celare artem - it is (true) art to conceal art
A leader should make his positive attributes, actions and behavior opaque, but his negative actions understandable. For a leader, it is essential that he always maintains an aura of infinite depth. To show your own boundaries pins down exactly what you are - leaving little to the imagination. It humanizes you to the point that people think you are one of them in ability as well - and then look down on you - which does not bode well for you to lead. People want to be led by someone who they perceive to be better than them in a black-box sort of way. Being opaque gives the impression of a black-box - you never know what it has the potential of producing, and to what depths your talent extends has a reasonable degree of ambiguity about it.
vs
We connect meaningfully and trust it more the more we understand. “Consider the claim that “we are likely to admire behavior more as we understand it less” (p. 53). In a strong sense of “explain,” it follows that we admire virtually all behavior, since we can explain virtually none. In a looser sense, Skinner is claiming that if Eichmann is incomprehensible to us, but we understand why the Vietnamese fight on, then we are likely to admire Eichmann but not the Vietnamese resistance.” - Chomsky, The case against Skinner.
”As I have been writing I’ve found myself fighting a desire to make myself look better. A big part of me wants to present myself as some kind of sage who has always been wise. But that isn’t true. I learned most of these lessons the hard way. Shame is a powerful force in our society and prevents us from sharing our lessons. We protect ourselves from criticism but also prevent people from connecting with us meaningfully. Shame begets more shame. Maybe by me talking about these things people will think less of me. But someone else will connect with it and maybe avoid the same mistake, or maybe even share their own.” - Andrew Bosworth
I came in every day and figured out what I could make 1% better.”
Alfred Lin’s description of what his job was when he was COO at Zappos. He said. Mostly I learned by failing at these things and trying to figure out, every week, what I could be doing better. In fact, I think that’s a really good meta-lesson: you have to* focus on figuring out what you’re not doing well as a founder to get better at being a founder. That’s an every-day job, and it’s subtly different from figuring out what your company as a whole needs to be doing better.
Communicate your vision repeateledly to employees. Be passionate about your product – but also about your company’s culture and ethics. Build the compass for your company – and stick to it. If you want the folks at your company to know something (e.g. high-level company goals, product direction, etc) it’s not enough to just say it once. You have to repeat it many times and weave it into the operational rhythm of the company. At any given time, an employee at your company has so much on their plate in terms of their day-to-day job and their personal life that “that one slide in your all hands with the mission statement” isn’t going to leave much of an impression. This is something I’ve heard other founders say but I didn’t fully get it until we hit ~50 employees and observed how hard it was to keep everyone on the same page. :Executive / Board Alignment: Have one executive read all or part of the vivid vision at the beginning of your meetings meetings with executive and board members.Link. When reflecting on his own career as an entrepreneur and investor, Reid said he wished he’d published something like The Netflix culture document when starting LinkedIn.”
Make easy to visualize rules/litmus tests: * UX Cliches * “Regret-minimization framework.” “When I’m 80,” he asked himself, “am I going to regret leaving Wall Street? No. Will I regret missing a chance to be there at the beginning of the Internet? Yes.” * “The number-one criterion was that I wanted a woman who could get me out of a Third World prison,” he says. “What I really wanted was someone resourceful. But nobody knows what you mean when you say, ‘I’m looking for a resourceful woman.’ If I tell somebody I’m looking for a woman who can get me out of a Third World prison, they start thinking Ross Perot – Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! – they have something they can hang their hat on! Life’s too short to hang out with people who aren’t resourceful.” * ‘If you’re not embarrassed of your first product, you’ve launched too late.’ * “If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough” Mario Andretti (reminding myself every day) * “The market pulls the product out of the team” * “If you cant convince people to join you for your mission, you can’t convince investors to invest” * “Ask for forgiveness, not permission” * Not Every Four Years, Every Day * Define your company’s culture – and indoctrinate all new employees into it * Twitter defined a set of six assumptions for all its employees, based on humility, openness, respect, equitable partnerships and holistic vision. (i) We don’t always know what’s going to happen. (ii) There are more smart people out there than in here. (iii) We will win if we do the right things for our users. (iv) The only deal worth doing is a win-win deal. (v) Our co-workers are smart and they have good intentions. (vi) We can build a business, change the world and have fun.
deny anything without a clear gain How much crucial time a founder can lose on the wrong events and meetings. Especially in France, startups are in a strong hype right now, and at the beginning I attended many such events. A few deadlines taught me the hard way that most, if not all, of those events are non-essential. On the other hand, a few of the right events in the valley (from YC and others) showed me just how efficient a gathering event should be. Finally, our advisor at our VC firm showed us just how useful an investor can (and should) be, if that investor pretends to be helping you. Now, me and my co-founder deny any event/meeting without a clear gain in knowledge (first or second order through the right connections) or investor money, that can be predicted beforehand. For example, we only meet with specialists or advisors with strong relevant connections. *Knowing this beforehand would probably have saved us several month’s worth of work in the early days.
HR mistakes: Not getting employment contracts, proprietary information agreements, harassment and discrimination, wage and hour violations, immigration visa violations, not doing payroll taxes, improperly classifying employees as contractors, not doing reference / resume checks. Lack of documentation: Ignoring / not dealing with legal matters: caused by not signing paperwork, poor record-keeping, procrastination, not having Board and shareholder approvals, trying to save cost, using online incorporation services. It can be dangerous to delay turning yourself into a company, because one or more of the founders might decide to split off and start another company doing the same thing. So when you set up the company, as well as as apportioning the stock, you should get all the founders to sign something agreeing that everyone’s ideas belong to this company, and that this company is going to be everyone’s only job.
Get an executive assistant to write emails and connect with people
Marcelino García Toral
“From the very first session, I could sense something different,” he said. “I don’t know, something. Not just him, all of his staff. The way we trained, the way they saw football, the way they worked, prepared games. It really struck me. And I said to myself: ‘I can’t waste a year of my career not working with this coach.’
Gabriel said: “The first time I worked with him, I thought: ‘What a pain this coach is!’” The first time his new Valencia team-mates worked with him, they felt much the same. “We went hungry,” said the captain, Dani Parejo. There had even been arguments with his wife, he admitted.
But Gabriel knew and, soon, so did they. When Gabriel joined Arsenal he called Marcelino, his manager at Villarreal, to thank him; when Marcelino called him back this summer he didn’t even have to think about it. When Marcelino arrived at Mestalla and spoke to Parejo he didn’t have to think about it for long, either. He had intended to leave, ready to follow 16 other players out of the club, but Marcelino made him stay.
So, Parejo got to work. They all did. Within weeks, the captain was describing Marcelino as one of the two best coaches he had worked with alongside Ernesto Valverde.
The squad had been made manageable; now he had to manage. Although some players say the serious image is exaggerated, that his demanding nature does not make him draconian, that he engages with players, reaches them and knows how to convince them, that he is likeable, his touch light at times, that Marcelino pushes them and it works. Direct and honest, he has talked about his admiration for Arrigo Sacchi and Rafa Benítez, while Diego Simeone says he identifies with him, and Marcelino insists on a building committed, competitive team. The word Gabriel used for him is “pesado”: roughly, a pain, heavy, hard work, tough going. Intelligent and intense, he wanted a squad that he could lead and that would follow him, creating a climate conducive to a change in culture.
Some of his key men had things to prove: Simone Zaza had West Ham to leave behind; Gonçalo Guedes, only 20, barely played at PSG; things didn’t entirely work out for Geoffrey Kondogbia at Inter; Rodrigo had never scored more than five league goals; Parejo had been halfway out; José Luis Gayá, like Parejo, stood accused but was given a second chance; Neto emerged from Gianluigi Buffon’s shadow. Marcelino wanted them hungry, metaphorically. And, some soon found, literally. “We got used to it,” Parejo said.
It’s not only about the weight, although that does symbolise the seriousness and it is genuinely something that people in the game talk about. Marcelino insists that the physical condition and analysis “quantifies the footballing work; it does not dictate it” and says that he doesn’t really know anything about the physical preparation – the genius is Ismael Fernández, his fitness coach – but it is fundamental and non-negotiable. Everything starts with tests that set the parameters for the season, identifying players’ optimum statistics which are monitored constantly, with fines for those who do not fulfil the criteria daily, and they work in what the coach calls “micro-cycles” that seek to maintain that. If a player’s body fat index goes over 9.5 he simply doesn’t play
The players talk of a greater intensity on the training ground and a manager in Silva who is meticulous to the point of obsession about match preparation. It reminds of his compatriot Jose Mourinho shortly after his arrival in England, whose thick dossiers for each match raised eyebrows at Stamford Bridge.
That assessment underplays Silva’s role. If this supreme away form really is just a question of “wanting to win”, it is the manager’s responsibility to inject that mentality into the players. Silva sees himself as a facilitator rather than authoritarian.
Marcelino García Toral, Valencia’s new manager, has a reputation for obsessing over weight and physical condition. A pioneer, even now when professional football is catching up with him, every detail controlled, tests conducted daily, weight pinned on notice boards at training grounds worldwide, he goes further. He is so strict that stories circulate of players starving themselves or starting the day in the sauna, scared of arriving a gram overweight.
Jurgen Klopp
“Think about the passes you have to make to get a player in a No 10 role in a position where he can play the genius pass. Counter-pressing lets you win back the ball nearer to the goal. It’s only one pass away from a really good opportunity. No playmaker in the world can be as good as a good counter pressing situation.”
Mistaking familiarity and loyalty for competence is a sign of insecurity, and stunted, tunnel vision. When Moyes attempted to sign players from his former club Everton. Moyes was an insecure Manager. So is Mourinho (Matic, Carvalho, Paulo Ferreira, David Luiz). The difference with Mourinho
Top managers rarely look for signing their former loyalists (Klopp, Guardiola). They have a sense of strength, calm and security in their heads. They inspire the loyalty and following of new players - wherever they go. They look for talent, not familiarity or loyalty. Familiarity and loyalty are about YOU. Talent is about winning matches. When there is a gap between the two (like Moyes and Man Utd), you have to decide whether it is you who would fill that gap, or whether you are going to stay at the same place and entrust your former methods to work. When there is an actual gap, the latter is wishful thinking and delusion. Sometimes your incompetency extends to not seeing the gap in the first place.
United never recovered. The players never recovered mentally, because they didn’t remember what winning feels like. It is important to remember what winning feels like - ask Federer or Ronaldo or Messi. You see a winner. in Morning or Guardiola. They eke out wins even when everything is against them. Mourinho is a narcissistic, but he knows how to play psychology. He understands the poison of self-doubts - especially how to feed it into the opponent. Klopp understands the poison of self-doubt as well, but he does not know how to avoid it. Klopp and the Choking syndrome. Seems like luck but it has has happened so many times that it is hard to see. Same with South Africa.
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