highlights
14 highlights saved, filed under leadership.
- 01
Spend zero time on what you could have done, and devote all of your time on what you might do. Because in the end, nobody cares; just run your company.
- 02
In good organizations, people can focus on their work and have confidence that if they get their work done, good things will happen for both the company and them personally. It is a true pleasure to work in an organization such as this. Every person can wake up knowing that the work they do will be efficient, effective, and make a difference for the organization and themselves. These things make their jobs both motivating and fulfilling.
- 03
Andy Grove’s management classic, High Output Management, titled “Why Training Is the Boss’s Job,” and it changed my career. Grove wrote, “Most managers seem to feel that training employees is a job that should be left to others. I, on the other hand, strongly believe that the manager should do it himself.”
- 04
In my mind, I was keeping everyone in high spirits by accentuating the positive and ignoring the negative. But my team knew that reality was more nuanced than I was describing it. And not only did they see for themselves the world wasn’t as rosy as I was describing it; they still had to listen to me blowing sunshine up their butts at every company meeting.
- 05
For example, consider the old management standard: “Don’t bring me a problem without bringing me a solution.” What if the employee cannot solve an important problem?
- 06
If you run a company, you will experience overwhelming psychological pressure to be overly positive. Stand up to the pressure, face your fear, and tell it like it is.
- 07
“There are no silver bullets for this, only lead bullets.”
- 08
An early lesson I learned in my career was that whenever a large organization attempts to do anything, it always comes down to a single person who can delay the entire project.
- 09
It turns out that is exactly what product strategy is all about—figuring out the right product is the innovator’s job, not the customer’s job.
- 10
Note to self: It’s a good idea to ask, “What am I not doing?”
- 11
People always ask me, “What’s the secret to being a successful CEO?” Sadly, there is no secret, but if there is one skill that stands out, it’s the ability to focus and make the best move when there are no good moves.
- 12
If we hadn’t treated the people who were leaving fairly, the people who stayed would never have trusted me again.
- 13
The hard thing isn’t setting a big, hairy, audacious goal. The hard thing is laying people off when you miss the big goal.
- 14
It taught me that being scared didn’t mean I was gutless. What I did mattered and would determine whether I would be a hero or a coward.