Newsletter Issue 50

Every few weeks, I ask one question to a founder, CEO, manager, or business owner I respect…

The Heartbeat Podcast: A chat with Jason Fried

This is a special episode 🙂 For our 50th Heartbeat podcast episode, we have back on the show Jason Fried, CEO, and co-founder of Basecamp – one of the world’s most popular project management tools. Two and a half years ago, Jason was the very first guest I invited on The Heartbeat. To celebrate our 50th episode, I invited him back to the show. We turn the tables a bit during this conversation – Jason asks me some questions, and I ask a few tough ones of him. We talk about what I’ve learned in running this podcast for 2.5 years, and what he’s learned in running Basecamp for now 20 years.

Watch or listen to the full conversation below…

Listen to the podcast and read the transcript of the interview here.

❤️ If you’ve been enjoying The Heartbeat podcast, it’d mean the world to me if you wrote us a review on iTunes. The more reviews we have, the more we’re able to share all our lessons from leaders. Thank you! 🙏

What I’ve been writing lately

5 essential expectations of a good manager that you should have of yourself
“You can only be as good as what you expect of yourself, as a leader.”

What I’ve been reading lately

The mindsets and practices of excellent CEOs
“The best go one step further and reframe the reference point for success. For example, instead of a manufacturer aspiring to be number one in the industry, the CEO can broaden the objective to be in the top quartile among all industrials. Such a reframing acknowledges that companies compete for talent, capital, and influence on a bigger stage than their industry. It casts key performance measures such as margin, cash flow, and organizational health in a different light, thereby cutting through the biases and social dynamics that can lead to complacency.” Written by Carolyn Dewar, Martin Hirt, Scott Keller, McKinsey Quarterly

Employee Emotions Aren’t Noise — They’re Data
“When we generally speak about organizational culture, we speak about a recognized and acknowledged set of cognitions viewed as important for the group to enact to meet its goals. However, emotional culture is the set of emotions necessary for a group to enact to meet its goals. But the importance of emotional culture is not just definitional. The type of emotional culture an organization or a department has — for example, whether it’s based on caring, optimism, or anxiety — predicts many important work outcomes, including employee absenteeism, teamwork, burnout, satisfaction, psychological safety, and objective performance outcomes like operating costs.” Sigal Barsade, interviewed by Frieda Klotz, MIT Sloan Management Review

Why Groups Struggle to Solve Problems Together
“You might assume that we move through these stages sequentially to solve problems. But in the past several decades, psychologists have discovered the opposite to be true. Rather than advance through the stages in order, we tend to do so in a manner that is rather unsystematic.” Written by Al Pittampalli, Harvard Business Review

Why You Should Skip the Easy Wins and Tackle the Hard Task First
“Breaking down complex projects into small milestones can help give workers the completion high they get from easy tasks while still supplying the challenge and opportunities for development.” Based on the research of KC Diwas, Bradley R. Staats, Maryam Kouchaki, Francesca Gino, Kellogg Insight

A handy leadership tip

From our online leadership community of 1,000+ managers in The Watercooler in Know Your Team…

Favorite books on leadership read this year so far:

An interesting read

Don’t Heed the Haters: Albert Einstein’s Wonderful Letter of Support to Marie Curie in the Midst of Scandal
Maria Popova of Brain Pickings has a wealth of gems, but this is one of my favorites.

Written by Claire Lew

CEO of Know Your Team. My mission in life is to help people become happier at work. Say hi to me on Twitter at @clairejlew.