1: “The peacetime CEO does not resemble the wartime CEO,” Ben Horowitz writes in The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers.
One example? “A basic principle in most management books is that you should never embarrass an employee in a public setting,” Ben notes.
“On the other hand, in a room filled with people, [Intel CEO] Andy Grove once said to … continue reading
1: McKinsey consultants asked a CEO how much time he spent managing other people’s egos.
Probably 20 to 30 percent of the time, he answered.
Then, they asked him what percent of time people spent managing his ego.
Silence.
“Beyond the anecdote,” Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra write in CEO Excellence, “the research is clear: When CEOs are asked if they act as a … continue reading
1: Pixar is the animation studio behind some of the most beloved movies of recent times, including Toy Story, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, and Monsters Inc., to name but a few.
One of the secrets behind the studio’s unprecedented string of successes is something called the BrainTrust.
According to Pixar co-founder and former president Ed Catmull, “The BrainTrust is the most important thing we do by far,” … continue reading
1: This week, we’ve been exploring author Kim Scott‘s ideas around what she calls “Radical Candor.”
Which is also the title of her book: Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity.
Radical candor involves two critical elements, Kim explains: Care personally and Challenge directly.
That’s what radical candor is.
2: What about what it is not?
“Radical Candor is not a license to be … continue reading
1: “Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off,” former Secretary of State Colin Powell once said.
That’s because to be an effective leader, we must be willing to “challenge directly” the people on our teams.
In her book Radical Candor, author Kim Scott tells us we must both care personally and challenge directly.
Challenging people directly “can be particularly difficult, especially at the outset,” Kim notes. We “may have … continue reading
