Every few weeks, I ask one question to a founder, CEO, manager, or business owner I respectā¦
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The Heartbeat Podcast: A chat with Bryce Roberts
Bryce Roberts is a long-time, well-respected investor having co-founded OāReilly AlphaTech Ventures ā and more recently, started an investment firm that supports profit-focused companies, called Indie.vc. In our conversation, we chatted about the importance of accepting your mediocrity when you first start out as a leader, and not relying on having a mentor to save you, and being open and honest with yourself in order to evolve in a leadership role. Enjoy!
Listen to the podcast and read the transcript of the interview here.
What Iāve been writing lately
The hardest leadership advice to follow: āWork on the business and not in the businessā
āYes, conventional wisdom says to āsleep on itā, to step away from the work to get a fresh perspective on it. And yes, Iāve vigorously nodded my headed in agreement whenever someone espouses something along those lines. But, if Iām being honest with myself, how often do I personally act on that recommendation?ā
Iām writing a Guide on Managing Remote Teams ā would love your input!
If you havenāt shared already, Iād love to know: What are your biggest challenges or questions around managing remote teams? You can take the survey here ā and for the first 1,000 people who fill out survey, Iāll send you a free copy of the guide once itās done!
What Iāve been reading lately
How leading CEOs manage their middle tenures
āThe first theme: keep raising the level of ambition. One thing that we heard in almost all of the interviews was, of course, as a CEO, you start out with a high ambition. Almost everybody does some form of resetting the baseline, resetting the ambition, in the first year. What differentiated these high performers was not how high the ambition was at the beginning but whether they raised the ambition as they went.ā Podcast transcript with McKinsey partners Sean Brown, Rodney Zemmal, and Matt Cuddihy, McKinsey Quarterly
The confidence premium
āThis yearās CEO Survey reveals a dramatic drop in CEO confidence. We observed a 12 percent decline in the net balance of CEO confidence from last year. This foreshadows even more subdued global GDP growth than some leading economic forecasts suggest.ā Written by Bob Moritz, strategy + business
The Value of Taking a Sabbatical
āAbsence is a great measure of leadership effectiveness. When a great leader is absent, the team steps in to fill the gaps without any real disruption. Maybe thatās why I was nervous to take time off for eight years ā I was afraid to face all of the ways in which Iāve failed as a leader and failed to set my teammates up for success. But in hindsight, itās exactly what I needed to understand my leadership strengths and weaknesses.ā Written by Nick Francis, CEO of Help Scout
The five types of communication problems that destroy company morale
āThereās a saying in software that all bugs are eventually user interface bugs, because someone has to see them to report them. In organizations, it often seems like all problems are eventually communication problems, because communication is the way we interface with each otherāand the way most problems surface.ā Written by Cate Huston, Engineering Manager at Automattic, Quartz
Why Setting Ambitious Goals Backfires
āOur most ambitious goals have driven our most counter-productive behaviors, like focusing solely on short-term gains at the expense of the long-term. Conversely, our sweet spot of productivity, creativity, and ambition has come when weāve intentionally set modest, straightforward, and unambitious goals.ā Written by Brendan Schwartz, Founder and CTO at Wistia
A handy leadership tip
From our online leadership community of 1,000+ managers in The Watercooler in Know Your Teamā¦
How do you structure your all-company meetings?
What to talk about:
- The āwhyā behind the actions in each department and how they relate to larger company goals
- Challenges each department is facing
- Top projects of each department
- Company-wide retrospective on whatās been working, whatās not
- Mission, vision, and values and give examples of how a specific value impacts an every-day decision (sometimes this is a discussion, sometimes itās a presentation)
- Financial update
- High-level business development and project updates
- Travel things happening in near future
- Open it up for questions
What to NOT talk about:
- A laundry list of progress being made
When to hold them + how often:
- With 10-person remote company: Three times a year, done more as a āretreatā that lasts 7 days
- With 20 people: Once a month, called ācoffee hoursā
- With 40 people: Weekly, every Monday
- With 130 people: Once a quarter
Other considerations:
- Have 1 (sometimes 2 people) different person present each section so the meeting doesnāt feel like a drag
- Videotape them in case someoneās not able to be there
- Ask if people find the all-company meetings valuable
- Make them optional
Just for fun
Michelin restaurants and fabulous wines: Inside the secret team dinners that have built the Spursā dynasty
Loved reading absolutely every bit of this piece.