Last week, I wrote about Inquiry vs. Advocacy, an important principle I learned early in life and then explored more deeply in an Action/Design workshop my coach Marc took our whole leadership team through years ago. This week, I’ll continue to riff on the theme of communications tools in the CEO toolbelt by talking about The Ladder of Inference (detailed article here). This is a great graphic from the article: Any time you’re struggling with opinions vs. opinions or people are jumping to conclusions based on a narrow set of evidence, this framework is your friend. The best way to start any tricky conversation with those characteristics is to start “at the bottom of the ladder,” meaning you start by…
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Leadership
What Does Great look Like in a Chief Privacy Officer?
(This is the second post in the series… the first one When to Hire your first Chief Privacy Officer is here) Most Chief Privacy Officers are fairly specialized, often coming from a legal or law enforcement background, but regardless of background I’ve found that ideal startup Chief Privacy Officers do three things particularly well. First, a great Chief Privacy Officer will work to create educated evangelists inside the company. Our Privacy team at Return Path, under Dennis Dayman’s leadership, had a lot of experience and industry certifications, but that experience was not something only for regulators and other companies, or only bragging rights within their team. They also took the time to make sure others in the company, especially in…
Inquiry vs. Advocacy
My Grandpa Bill used to not want to talk about himself at dinner parties. When one of us asked him why one day, he said, “I already know what I have to say. What I don’t know, is what the other person has to say.” There are a few principles I learned years ago in a workshop that my coach Marc led for us called Action/Design. I’m going to try writing a few posts about them, and you can find some articles on them here. Inquiry vs. Advocacy is simple. Understand the balance of when you ask and listen vs. when you speak in a given conversation. Both are important tools in the CEO tool belt. My rule of thumb…
When to Hire a Chief Privacy Officer
(Post 1 of 4 in the series of Scaling CPO’s) Most startups don’t have a Chief Privacy Officer and just rely on outside advice from external counsel or a privacy consultant. In Startup CXO our Chief Privacy Officer from Return Path, Dennis Dayman, strongly advocates for privacy to be baked into a startup at the very beginning. Some startups probably don’t have any help in this area at all but given the importance of privacy and security issues today that’s a mistake. If your startup doesn’t start life with a Chief Privacy Officer you’ll have to heed some warning signs and here are some I’ve picked up over the years. First, you’ll know it’s time to hire a Chief Privacy…
Bring People Along for The Ride, Part II of II
Last week, I wrote about Bringing People Along for The Ride by involving people in the process of ideating and creating change in your organization. That’s the most important thing you can do to make it easy for people to handle change. But what about the people you don’t or can’t bring along for the ride in that way? If you organization has more than 10 people in it, there will inevitably be people where you’re IMPOSING CHANGE ON THEM. And honestly, even people who are involved in designing change still have to live through its impact. Today’s post is about managing the actual impact. The best thing you can do as a leader in helping your organization navigate change…
Bring People Along for The Ride, Part I of II
One of the CEOs I mentor asked me the other day asked me this question: I need to start making my organization think differently – more like a startup that needs to scale and less like a project. People need to start doing more specific jobs and not swarm all over everything. How do I get people to “get” this without freaking out? Every CEO faces dilemmas like this all the time. One of my management mantras over the years has been, “You have to bring people along for the ride.” Fundamentally, that means two things. I’ll write about one of them here today and save the other for next week. First, bringing people along for the ride means you…
Collecting Feedback from Your Board
A friend of mine just emailed me and asked how I collect feedback from the Board after Board meetings. I have a good routine for this which I wrote about a little bit here but have since expanded. First, we are disciplined about leaving an hour at the end of the board meeting for the following three things : All three of these are important, and it’s important to do them every meeting, even if you don’t have any specific issues to discuss. That way, no one freaks out (including you) if suddenly and unexpectedly, there’s a part of the meeting to which they’re not invited. The key to this is really leaving time for it. Now that board meetings…
How I engage with the CCO
Post 4 of 4 in the series of Scaling CMO’s- the other posts are, When to Hire your First Chief Customer Officer, What does Great Look like in a Chief Customer Officer and Signs your Chief Customer Officer isn’t Scaling. You can engage with each person on the executive team one-on-one to understand what their issues and challenges are, but I’ve found that engaging with the CCO offsite with customers is far more productive and leads to a better understanding of the service organization than any other meeting time. I have typically spent the most time with or gotten the most value out of CCOs over the years doing the following. In person at “Canary in the Coal Mine” customers….
Patience vs. Impatience
Patience and Impatience are both critical tools in the founder toolbelt. That sounds kind of funny since they’re at odds with each other. Let me explain. Patience is hard, but there are some things that require it. As they say metaphorically about Product, nine women can’t make a baby in a month. Products needs to be built, tested in the wild, marinate with clients. GTM motions take time to figure out. Brands take time to build unless you have billions to throw at the problem. Bread takes time to rise. Patience is a really useful tool when people on your team or board get itchy for success and you need to calm them down and keep them focused. Impatience, on the…
Signs your Chief Customer Officer isn’t scaling
This is the third post in the series. The first one When to hire your first CCO is here and What does Great Look Like in a CCO is here). Although we think of scaling issues as primarily startup issues, any company can face scaleup issues for example, through a merger or acquisition that changes your landscape immediately. Nowhere is a scaling issue felt more deeply than in the company-customer relationship and there are several signs that I use to quickly figure out whether the Chief Customer Officer is up to the task, or even ahead of the game, in scaling. A CCO who isn’t scaling well past the startup stage is someone who typically throws bodies at things like…
It All Starts With Self-Awareness
If I had to pick one human trait that is the single most impactful in one’s ability to have positive and successful interpersonal relationships, there’s a hands-down winner: Self-Awareness. This is true no matter what kind of relationships you’re talking about — parent, manager, executive, friend, partner or spouse. Someone shared a framework with me years ago that helps explain why this is true, which I’ve been meaning to blog about for a long time. I found this image, which is close enough to the 2×2 that was once drawn for me on a whiteboard. The framework is at once incredibly simple and incredibly complex. Having true self-awareness and the ability to be reflective, to take in input and feedback,…