Dan Martell - September 02, 2019


How To Lead Your Team to Scale Your Business

Hosted by
Dan Martell
Mentioned
Jack Dorsey Brad Pedersen Bill Campbell Steve Jobs Eric Schmidt Johnny Eisenhower Waterloo Square Jane Mark
Why Great Companies Stand Out with April Dunford @ AmbientStrategy.com - Escape Velocity Show #9 How To Hire a Sales Rep

Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

189.51

Word count

2,577

Sentence count

128


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I talk about how to lead your team, the editor, so that you can better scale your business. And be sure to stay to the end where I share how to get access to my precision scorecard framework to help you get better visibility and keep your team on track from a metrics and KPI point of view.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.300 What's up, everybody?
00:00:01.340 I'm Dan Martell, serial entrepreneur, investor,
00:00:03.300 and creator of SAS Academy.
00:00:04.760 In this episode, I want to talk to you
00:00:06.640 about how to lead your team, the editor versus the author,
00:00:10.640 so that you can better scale your business.
00:00:13.520 And be sure to stay to the end where
00:00:14.880 I'm going to share with you how to get access
00:00:16.640 to my precision scorecard framework
00:00:19.280 to help you get better visibility and keep your team on track
00:00:23.720 from a metrics and KPI point of view.
00:00:30.000 So a few years ago, I was on a kind of a mini speaking
00:00:41.500 tour in Toronto.
00:00:42.700 We were doing a few accelerators and a big tech
00:00:45.220 event with Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter and Square.
00:00:49.780 And that was my first time.
00:00:51.560 I actually met Jack in the past at different events
00:00:53.860 in San Francisco, but that was the first time
00:00:55.440 that I actually got to spend time with him,
00:00:56.860 because we actually spoke at these different events.
00:00:59.140 And in between, we actually jumped on a plane
00:01:00.980 to go from Waterloo to Toronto.
00:01:02.500 So we got to hang out next to each other on the bus,
00:01:05.560 transfer around the university, et cetera.
00:01:07.540 It was a lot of fun.
00:01:08.460 He's a very quiet guy.
00:01:10.120 He's very thoughtful.
00:01:12.380 But one of the things that's interesting for me
00:01:14.280 is I'm always, at a certain point in business,
00:01:16.940 there's levels of skill that you need
00:01:18.540 to learn to just build a business, from marketing,
00:01:21.020 to sales, to building the product, to delivering,
00:01:23.920 to hiring, all that stuff, financial knowledge and acumen.
00:01:28.460 But at a level up from there is really
00:01:31.820 about just like working through people
00:01:33.800 and understanding how to lead teams.
00:01:36.420 So I was really interested in a guy like Jack,
00:01:40.340 who ran $2 billion companies at the exact same time,
00:01:43.520 how he thought about leadership.
00:01:45.400 And I was really pleasantly surprised
00:01:48.140 that he shared some of his philosophies.
00:01:50.840 And one of them that's really stayed with me to this day
00:01:54.420 is the idea of author versus editor.
00:01:58.280 And since then, in learning those strategies,
00:02:02.060 it's had a profound impact on the way I show up for my team,
00:02:06.140 the way that I communicate with them,
00:02:09.080 so that I can get results from my team
00:02:11.780 and not feel like I'm always the creator.
00:02:14.220 And that's what I want to go through in this video
00:02:15.960 to help you really understand the nuances to get
00:02:19.140 to the next level of business growth in your company.
00:02:22.800 Number one, define the outcome.
00:02:25.440 So one of the things that Jack mentioned
00:02:27.720 is really being clear on where you want to go.
00:02:30.780 I think that understanding the describing the mountaintop,
00:02:35.200 the problem you want to right in the world,
00:02:37.560 or the wrong you want to right in the world, your mission
00:02:40.260 statement, your vision, those are the things that
00:02:42.180 really outcome focus.
00:02:43.600 And that, as a CEO and a founder,
00:02:45.900 is your responsibility to over-communicate with your team.
00:02:50.020 So if you don't feel like you've done that,
00:02:52.060 take a step back and really ask yourself,
00:02:54.480 have we talked about how we're going to disrupt this market?
00:02:57.540 Have we talked about what does this look like when the problem
00:03:00.780 is solved, right?
00:03:02.020 Have we discussed, Jack used this great analogy
00:03:04.620 of designing the bridge, right?
00:03:06.780 And he used the Golden Gate Bridge
00:03:08.160 of this incredible monumental like building that is a figure
00:03:15.820 and a representation of what's possible, right?
00:03:19.220 And the people involved in building it
00:03:21.160 and the fact that every year they got to continuously paint it,
00:03:24.160 I guess it's like they don't stop painting it,
00:03:26.400 just keeps having to get painted because it's so large,
00:03:29.280 but to make sure that it continues
00:03:31.360 to be this icon of an example of possibilities.
00:03:35.140 And I like that outcome is kind of the language
00:03:38.900 he used to describe it so that you can really
00:03:40.860 get your team to think way further into the future.
00:03:43.960 Number two, let them author.
00:03:46.480 So one of the core ideas, the thing that really resonated
00:03:49.480 with me was this, is that he looks at his role
00:03:53.020 is not the author, the creator, the writer of the book,
00:03:56.900 the business, the strategy, but more of the editor.
00:04:00.540 His role, he explains it, is for my team
00:04:04.080 to create and bring to me the finished product
00:04:08.580 or, directionally speaking, kind of where they want to go
00:04:12.460 or how they want to approach something
00:04:14.020 or what they're creating.
00:04:15.000 And for him to just be, to give some guidance
00:04:19.140 and ask questions, it'll help them get clear
00:04:21.960 and really edit.
00:04:23.340 If you think about like authoring a book
00:04:25.020 and then hiring an editor, really editing.
00:04:27.080 So the essence is still there, but what you're doing
00:04:30.020 is you're removing stuff.
00:04:31.520 And I mean, that's Jack's approach.
00:04:33.300 But I think of Steve Jobs and his relationship with Johnny
00:04:35.960 Ive.
00:04:36.460 I feel like they probably had the exact same relationship
00:04:38.640 where Johnny was the author of all these innovations
00:04:41.420 and the form factors and the designs,
00:04:43.520 and then Steve really came in as the editor to review it
00:04:46.320 and challenge some of the assumptions
00:04:47.940 and provide some critique to remove things,
00:04:51.160 to simplify things so that it could stay true to the vision.
00:04:54.280 And that, to me, is just as a leader, think for yourself,
00:04:59.200 are you authoring all the time?
00:05:01.000 Or are you allowing your teams to author and you edit?
00:05:04.540 That's a big question.
00:05:05.840 Number three, sort.
00:05:07.560 I think one of the most important tools and things
00:05:11.660 that you need to teach your team is how to sort.
00:05:13.920 And more importantly, how to prioritize.
00:05:15.920 At the end of the day, the way I think about it,
00:05:17.860 and that's why I call it growth stacking,
00:05:19.820 is it's not about the strategies themselves.
00:05:22.960 It's about the sequence that we put them in, right?
00:05:25.300 Sequencing equals success.
00:05:27.500 So for example, I can have a founder over here
00:05:29.560 and a different founder over here give them the same list
00:05:31.800 of things they could do to be successful.
00:05:33.700 One founder executes it in this order.
00:05:35.900 The other one executes it in the reverse order.
00:05:38.180 This founder succeeds and crushes it.
00:05:40.280 This one fails after 16 months, completely goes broke.
00:05:43.640 Why?
00:05:44.380 Same strategies.
00:05:45.780 The reason why is there are certain things
00:05:47.980 need to be done this week versus next month versus next quarter
00:05:51.120 versus next year versus never because they don't make sense
00:05:54.580 for the context of your business.
00:05:56.320 So what you need to do as a leader is understand how to
00:05:59.620 communicate the prioritization matrix for your team to
00:06:04.620 essentially evaluate different strategies and come to the best
00:06:08.840 conclusion in regards to what's next for your business without
00:06:12.180 you being involved in that, right?
00:06:15.640 Recently, we were meeting with the founding team at HubSpot.
00:06:18.940 And one of the things one of the guys said in the meeting
00:06:21.460 was that I've never met a 2x2 matrix that I didn't love.
00:06:25.140 What he was saying by that that I really appreciated
00:06:28.200 was in drawing a 2x2 matrix, and if you've ever
00:06:31.400 seen the Eisenhower matrix, urgent, important,
00:06:35.760 it's like 2x2, not urgent, not important, et cetera.
00:06:39.020 What it does is it gives a mental model for your team
00:06:42.220 to understand how to make decisions,
00:06:44.700 how to put certain decisions in different categories
00:06:47.000 and to make the decisions on their own.
00:06:49.200 So I always think about that when
00:06:50.880 I think of have I properly communicated to my team
00:06:55.920 how to make the right decisions, how
00:06:57.540 to sort through a list of options,
00:06:59.800 and really clearly communicated a mental model for them
00:07:03.040 to come to those conclusions on their own.
00:07:04.920 Number four, the 1-3-1 rule.
00:07:09.280 I got to give full credit to my buddy Brad Pedersen.
00:07:11.820 He is an incredible entrepreneur.
00:07:14.040 He built a toy company of all things.
00:07:16.420 It was so funny, real quick side story.
00:07:18.960 I met him in an airport first time.
00:07:20.960 He asked me if I had kids.
00:07:22.200 He said he'd send me a package.
00:07:24.600 A month later, I get back from a trip.
00:07:26.700 I show up, there's this box.
00:07:28.120 And there was more PAW Patrol toys in that box
00:07:31.360 than we would give our kids for Christmas.
00:07:34.240 And that was Brad.
00:07:35.000 That was just the kind of guy he was.
00:07:36.840 He literally created a nine figure a year toy company,
00:07:41.520 ended up exiting it, and is one of the people
00:07:43.780 that when I think about leadership,
00:07:45.120 literally spending any time with Brad is a masterclass
00:07:49.420 in just operations and leadership.
00:07:51.480 And one of the strategies just recently,
00:07:54.520 we were spending some time on snow bikes.
00:07:56.820 I don't know if you follow me on Instagram, but you should.
00:07:59.320 We were snow biking out west in British Columbia
00:08:02.540 and one of my buddies, Nick, asked him about,
00:08:05.300 you know, what do you do in these situations
00:08:06.960 when you have managers coming to you
00:08:08.640 with all these challenges?
00:08:09.480 How do you help them make their own decisions?
00:08:11.580 And his response was the 1-3-1 rule.
00:08:14.080 Then the way it works is simple.
00:08:15.600 One issue, three options, one recommendation.
00:08:19.480 So no matter what, because this is what happens often.
00:08:21.900 I don't know if you've experienced this,
00:08:22.860 but it literally happened to me yesterday
00:08:24.240 with one of my team members, is we
00:08:25.920 were talking about a problem.
00:08:27.440 And then all of a sudden, they introduce another problem.
00:08:30.340 So I was like, hey, let's focus on one problem at a time.
00:08:32.920 And they were like, yeah, but.
00:08:34.300 And I was like, yeah, I know, but.
00:08:35.720 But we won't get a solution if we keep changing focus.
00:08:38.620 OK, boom, started the conversation again.
00:08:40.860 Guess what?
00:08:41.480 Boom, another problem.
00:08:43.060 OK, let's stop doing that.
00:08:45.180 And then it was like, all right, here's the rule.
00:08:46.940 One problem, three options, your recommendations.
00:08:49.880 List all the problems that you think you have.
00:08:51.960 Follow the 131 rule.
00:08:53.580 Send me an email with them, and we'll get on a call
00:08:55.480 and review them and pick the one.
00:08:57.240 Because that, to me, is just so much more efficient
00:09:00.980 and really pushes the heavy lifting on your team members.
00:09:04.560 Another strategy I'm going to throw out there,
00:09:06.020 since we're on this topic.
00:09:07.380 I read in a book recently called The Trillion Dollar Coach,
00:09:12.020 the story about Bill Campbell, an incredible book.
00:09:14.160 If you really want to learn how to coach teams perform better,
00:09:17.760 not just how to be a better coach or be a better leader,
00:09:20.820 this is the book, okay?
00:09:22.220 It was written by Eric Schmidt from Google.
00:09:24.240 And Bill Campbell literally coached Google into it,
00:09:27.600 was on the board at Apple, worked with Steve Jobs, et cetera.
00:09:30.160 He was somebody that not a lot of people knew about.
00:09:32.500 And luckily, they sat down to write this book in honor of Bill
00:09:36.680 because he would have personally never written this book.
00:09:39.020 So you must read it if you're in the tech space.
00:09:41.620 And one of the ideas that he shares that Eric wrote about
00:09:44.780 that Bill does in the book very often
00:09:46.280 is when there's issues, like challenges,
00:09:49.060 he'll often get somebody that he knows
00:09:51.160 that knows how to solve problems really well
00:09:53.300 to partner with the person that's struggling.
00:09:55.500 So in a meeting, he'll say, hey, Jane,
00:09:57.000 can you partner with Mark?
00:09:58.460 I'd love for you guys to talk this week
00:10:00.000 and come back next week with some recommendation.
00:10:01.900 And this is cross-functional.
00:10:03.480 Why?
00:10:04.440 So powerful, because what it does is
00:10:06.540 It allows two people from different teams to connect,
00:10:09.840 to really understand, to add value and teach maybe a different
00:10:13.740 perspective or lens to look at the problem,
00:10:17.180 to learn some new tools about how to think through it and come
00:10:19.920 up with solutions and then create that trust and create
00:10:22.780 that relationship.
00:10:23.860 And if you do that maybe every couple of weeks with different
00:10:26.200 team members on your team, then guess what?
00:10:28.660 You're not the one doing it.
00:10:30.500 They're doing it, which is a huge opportunity to get leverage
00:10:33.540 and really lead the team, not tell them what to do.
00:10:36.980 So the 1-3-1 rule, Brad, appreciate that one.
00:10:39.720 It meant a lot.
00:10:40.680 And be sure to get that book.
00:10:42.260 Number five, coach to success.
00:10:44.460 This is really the concept of transformational leadership.
00:10:48.480 If you Google on my YouTube channel,
00:10:50.520 you will find me talk about this process,
00:10:52.940 because I think a lot of first-time founders, early CEOs
00:10:57.060 really make the mistake of doing it the wrong way.
00:10:59.520 But transformational leadership is the idea.
00:11:02.820 There's three different things, but the big thing is coach
00:11:04.720 to success, meaning that as a leader,
00:11:07.760 when you start building your executive leadership team
00:11:09.920 and all of a sudden you have somebody running marketing,
00:11:11.500 customer success, and product, and engineering,
00:11:13.800 and sales, et cetera, you need to almost be really clear
00:11:20.640 about what their outcomes are, measure where they're going
00:11:23.080 and how you're gonna measure their success,
00:11:24.680 and really help coach them.
00:11:26.140 What does that mean?
00:11:27.140 Get them the resources, put them through the drills,
00:11:29.380 get them the training, build the accountability,
00:11:33.280 reset, go back to basics.
00:11:35.220 Like think what a great football coach might do
00:11:38.020 or a great business coach might do and use that approach
00:11:41.600 because I think too often when we're working
00:11:43.400 with our team members, we can get emotional
00:11:46.840 or frustrated in the situation and trust me,
00:11:49.260 this guy right here is guilty of that.
00:11:52.200 But I'm always asking myself,
00:11:53.640 whenever those moments happen,
00:11:54.780 I got too attached to the outcome emotionally
00:11:57.700 And I was like, oh, that wasn't cool.
00:11:59.540 I always step back and I say, OK, if they were a coaching
00:12:02.080 client, how would I approach that scenario?
00:12:04.120 And that is a much better frame and lens
00:12:07.480 to use to approach those problems,
00:12:09.280 because in that, we're supporting the team.
00:12:11.380 Now, at the end of the day, if they don't perform,
00:12:13.300 if they aren't able to step up and lead
00:12:15.220 that area of the business, obviously make a change.
00:12:17.980 But in helping them, you want to coach them to succeed.
00:12:22.940 So quick recap, how to become the editor, not the author,
00:12:26.440 to really lead your team to scale your business.
00:12:28.680 Number one, define the outcome.
00:12:30.880 Number two, let them author.
00:12:33.940 Number three, sort, really teach them to prioritize.
00:12:37.480 Number four, the 1-3-1 rule.
00:12:39.940 And number five, coach to success.
00:12:43.800 As I mentioned at the beginning of this episode,
00:12:46.260 I want to share with you a really powerful framework
00:12:48.560 called the Precision Scorecard that I use every week with my
00:12:52.300 team that I coach to my clients.
00:12:53.860 It's a must deploy into their business
00:12:56.520 to really get visibility into their current state
00:12:59.600 of their numbers and make sure they're
00:13:01.380 making progress week over week and quarter after quarter
00:13:04.640 in really, truly many areas of the business.
00:13:06.940 There are six core functions, but most importantly,
00:13:09.860 to increase their MRR, their monthly reoccurring revenue.
00:13:12.620 So you can click the link below to get your copy
00:13:15.020 of that workbook, the Precision Scorecard.
00:13:18.260 Let me know in the comments if you deploy it
00:13:21.160 and how it worked for you.
00:13:22.340 If you like this video, please click the like button,
00:13:24.500 subscribe to my channel.
00:13:25.500 If you're new, if there's anybody that you care about,
00:13:27.480 that you feel like this could serve,
00:13:29.580 feel free to share with them directly.
00:13:30.980 And as per usual, I want to challenge you to live a bigger
00:13:33.740 life and a bigger business and I'll see you next Monday.