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56. RECAP
Leading = make the right
things happen
Coaching = (leading)
Care for your people
1
n
2
3
57. CREDITS
1. JET: SOUTHWEST.COM
2. BEACH: FLICKR CREATIVE COMMONS, KEN TEEGARDEN
3. COMPASS ROSE, CLIPARTBEST.COM
4. RHINOCEROS, ALBRECHT DURER
5. WIZARD, SHUTTERSTOCK
6. DAN PINK, DRIVE
7. MALCOLM GLADWELL, OUTLIERS
8. BEN HOROWITZ, THE HARD THING ABOUT HARD
THINGS
9. MAP, SHUTTERSTOCK
THANKS
I’M GRATEFUL FOR THE PEOPLE AROUND ME WHO
CHALLENGE ME TO LEARN AND GROW, PROFESSIONALLY
AND PERSONALLY. JESSE IMBACH, THANKS FOR ITERATING
WITH ME TO MAKE THIS PRESENTATION BETTER, AND FOR
THE GREAT DINNER WE SHARED IN THE PROCESS. THANKS
TO DAN PORTILLO AND GREYLOCK FOR THE
OPPORTUNITY TO SHARE AND LEARN WITH YOUR
PORTFOLIO COMPANIES.
James Birchler
VPE
@jamesbirchler
Notes de l'éditeur
As the title suggests, I’m going to talk about leading and coaching. I think they’re related.
I’ll offer a framework to think about leading and coaching, some practical examples, and time for discussion.
You all likely know this already, so I’ll be fairly breezy with this presentation so we can get to talking.
I like to start with definitions and etymology sometimes.
It seemed promising when I found this:
I traced it back through ye Old English, le French, and the um, Hungarian, and came up with
I thought that was pretty close to the mark. Especially if you consider finding the finish line in the first place to be part of that process.
I’m sure quite unlike anyone else who uses this trope, I had to cherry pick this one to avoid obvious confusion with fly the friendly skies.
Enough of the cheap laughs.
Okay, so what about leading?
Leading is important and big and complex. I summarize it thusly: To be a leader means to
Leaders take responsibility for making the right things happen. As in, “No matter what. Regardless of context. Rain or shine. Come hell or high water.” Period. End of story.
Except sometimes things don’t go as planned…
…sometimes things don’t go as planned, in which case, skip ahead to the section on Coaching.
This seems big…
Wouldn’t it be great if you had a team of people able to do this? I’m offering some ways to coach your team to be able to operate like this.
So how exactly are you supposed to take care of absolutely everything? Get help from your team of course. Taking responsibility doesn’t mean you have to do it all alone.
We start with clear direction about (click) What is important and Why.
It turns out that clarity can be hard, too. There will be questions.
Which means you have to be comfortable repeating yourself, and it helps to be creative about how you form your message. Everyone hears things differently, and has a different method for understanding your message. Form and content both matter. Your message should be tactical, strategic, and visionary—you’ll want to highlight a higher-level Purpose.
Unless you are (click) magical, though,…
You are not providing a pre-defined endpoint.
or a specific path from Here to There. You are providing clear Direction. A North Star….
A North star… You provide Direction, then offer autonomy and support to allow the team figure out How to get from here to there.
Think of this compass as your only tool. You don’t get the same hammers, saws, duct tape, nails, etc. that your team has—and nor should you… after all, nobody else gets the compass you have… but each leader does get “a compass” to lead their org… and all the leaders need to agree on North, and clearly communicate that.
all the leaders need to agree on North, and clearly communicate that. Wherever you are in your org, if you are a leader, you get a compass. All the leaders need to be leading in the same direction.
ow do you carry all this off? How do you enlist the help of your team, supporting them to be successful?
Coaching is how you scale leadership.
Because in this leadership gig, you must motivate, mentor, empower, grow, & develop proactive problem solvers. Yup, that’s it. This is all you have to do as a leader. Easy peasy. No pressure or anything. That’s when you’re not doing anything else needs to be done right now, no matter what. It’s, as they say, Hard.
I would argue you are developing great people if you want to win. This is a big deal to me. As leaders we are here to help people reach their full potential. It’s our responsibility.
But what were you expecting anyway? You’re a leader.
This is my reminder that part of our job as leaders is to do the hard things, say the hard things, on the way to making the right things happen.
You’re a leader, this is simply your job, and you get to take responsibility for making it happen if you want to win.
Ok, so back to coaching: How do you offer enough Awesome sauce to keep your team engaged and productive as they help get to where you want the company to go? Here are some ideas.
What if you could offer them autonomy, mastery, and purpose in addition to meeting their basic needs?
What if you could offer your whole team the chance to be exceptional at something, a path to get there, and to get validation for their experience and skill? It’s powerful, and it works. What if in addition to all that, you could offer them Perspective?
This is important, because this is how you keep your people focused on What is important. You’d like your people to focus much of their time on the tasks and tactical matters at hand, and you’d like them to feel empowered and autonomous—like they are the main character in their own adventure—like they are the subject of the sentences they write in the daily narrative that is their life and their day at work.
You want your people to be working in the trees. Your job in coaching is to offer objectivity as perspective.
Sounds good in theory. Now how does this look in practice?
How does it all come together? When you work for me, it starts like this: Hi, I work for you, and my job is to make sure this is the best job…
you have ever and will ever have. How am I going to do that? I’m going to to ensure you have the basic tools you need, and I’m going to go further. I’m going to ensure you learn and grow while you are here to the point that recruiters…
…are falling over themselves trying to pull you out of here… and it’s going to make my job that much harder, ensuring that this remains the
…best possible place for you working, learning, growing, and adding value. I’m going to do that by ensuring you have a career development plan…
…career development plan, and that we actually make it happen. I’m going to ensure that you have challenging interesting work, that you get to work with other brilliant people, and you get to support each other in learning and growing…
in learning and growing… together. You’ll have autonomy…
autonomy… to make smart choices based on your experience and instinct, and I’ll get you training and expose you to challenging work that allows you to develop mastery in technical domains that interest you… and you’ll get validation for that from the company and your peers. I’m going to ensure that see the connection between the work you do every day, and higher Purpose, too.
All that’s to say, we need to build trust as a path toward candid communication. Career development and just plain taking care of your people is one of the Right Things that you need to make happen as a leader. People need to feel safe and secure, and taken care of to be at their focused, engaged best.
Your people need to trust you to take care of things.
Minimum of 30 minutes. A place for listening. A place to practice communication.
Lead with, “How are you?”, and listen carefully.
Help teach responsibility taking, empowerment, autonomy.
Reflective listening
Noticing adrenaline
You do all this, and you do it with vulnerability, showing them that you are not perfect, that you don’t have all the answers. You do it with open, honest, forthright communication. You give them the “hard” feedback, because it’s your job.
Culture of learning must permeate the organization.
Hold yourselves accountable as leaders, every way you can. Make your goals public, and enlist everyones help to achieve them. Remember your compass? This is all related…
One last, important thought: if you treat your people with care, they will treat your business with the same care. It’s one of the “right things” you need to make happen.