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Leaders Letter 198 – Who Do You Serve & What’s The Prioritisation?

Dear leaders, who do you serve? 

And in what order do you serve them?

I remember an all-hands I attended and the EVP stood up and read from a very simple slide:

“We serve the shareholders first, then customers second and then the staff” 

It stuck with me, I was in a follow-up meeting and the same priorities were repeated, followed by:  

“We have to remember who we are serving”.

Whenever I brought this up with leadership colleagues they failed to remember this, not just because we were clearly saying we serve two other layers of the business before the staff but because it was quite subtle, despite the slide being clear for all to consume. 

This prioritisation isn’t uncommon but isn’t spoken enough in businesses.

Survive — Thrive 

Survive: As a business when you are trying to survive you do everything you can with conversion rate optimisation (CRO), take rate (if you have a checkout) and inside of the CFO’s spreadsheet including its complex formulas to drive the most value for the shareholders (or for the owners).  

Thrive: When you are thriving you do the same, however, you do have the luxury to add more value through your product or pricing to make it more equal, and the customers tend to get a slightly better value exchange.

CVO aka Customer value optimisation was a trendy phrase towards the end of last year and at the beginning of this, it’s essentially how you get the most amount of value from your customer, increasing subscription prices, creating surge (demand-based) pricing or reducing down the basic packages to drive upgrades. 

Some brands will use shrinkflation (making items smaller) to drive up efficiency. 

Rightly or wrongly – all of this is business first and as a business performance is paramount.

Netflix Competing Priorities

Netflix has been doing this for the last few years and it’s worked wonders for their share price but not necessarily for their customers. 

Netflix is even trying to remove the basic entry-level package and recommending downgrading the user experience (yes making it a worse experience) to fulfil their advertiser numbers – adding ads for £3 less per month. This tactic has proven price elasticity studies lower quality tariffs improve subscriptions numbers.

Advertising is a way these platforms make more money, paying a high subscription to move away from ads was the way streaming enabled customers to move away from the burden of ads and cheap/low-quality content. 

Netflix is now TV (adding live content like sports into your schedule) without it calling itself TV now. 

Is this smart? Or is this market dominance pushing for more that may lead to less for consumers? 

Managing Expectations & Packaging Prioritises + Problems

Having led Product teams, a startup within a company, big company changing pricing projects and helping subscription businesses to switch their business models, the common theme is putting the business first and constantly trading what you can do for your customers, your external customers through product improvements and your internal customers (staff) by helping them manage workloads and managing their expectations on the tradeoffs. 

It’s now Q2 and most businesses start to find out where they are and what they need to do to improve the business or push harder on what’s working. 

Enter Answer Engine Vs Search Engine 

I am a user of perplexity answer engine, it’s not replaced Google completely for me but it has replaced the need to refine my searches for the right answer. 

In a recent podcast (embedded below – start at 13:45 “The Importance of Aligning Shareholder and User Interests” if prefer the audio-only experience) their CEO Aravind Srinivas calls out why Google isn’t incentivised to always offer the best answers and why their business model isn’t geared towards their customers. 

This Google example is a great example of how businesses set out on a mission and then when successful, they diversify. 

Once this shifts you then serve different stakeholders in different orders. 

Google was released in August 1996 and then went public in 2004. = Shareholders had to come first. 

>> I have an upcoming post breaking down the evolution of search engines and what we will see in the near future with “engines” and why Google’s business model is under intense threat. Teaser below 

This week’s focus action is to: Consider the prioritisation of your business and associated priorities. If you are a smaller business how can you look to serve your customers first and improve your service to a point that they will continue to use you and keep recommending your product or services. 

Thanks and have a great week, 

Danny Denhard 

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Leaders Letter 196 – Ask Me Anything 2024 Answers

Dear leaders, thank you for your challenging questions this week. 

As you will see there are many great questions, covering Company Culture, Strategy, Google Gemini, Apple AI and my “controversial opinions”. 

Let’s dive straight in: 

Q. What do you think of Google’s release of Gemini and the backlash received? 

  • Google decided to release early, they felt rushed to compete and if I’m honest it appears they released a product that missed the mark. And in other ways, it overstepped the mark. 
  • Google created amazing advertising products (particularly AdWords) and is smart to understand when to play solo or when to be multi-player to own market share through collaboration (Android). This launch will worry advertisers and their business partners. 
  • The Gemini launch would suggest they are concerned about their competitors and misunderstanding what their customers want from an answers engine, not a search engine. Google is trying to balance being able to do both without upsetting their (primary audience) advertisers and their users. 
  • Google is the utility offering, it is the default site and most trusted site for many, and this won’t change for a long time – even with more botched Gemini launches.
  • Google will come back bigger and better but until they understand their part to play here, I believe Google will struggle to tame their shift in internal culture and answer user queries in the most effective ways. 
  • Always remember Google has a unique powerful ecosystem to leverage and distribute their product, Chrome, Android, and Google Search & importantly not being discussed inside Google Suite (Docs, Sheets, Slides etc) to test, iterate and apply market dominance, whereas others are forcing new behaviour. 

Q. How can brands learn from recent mass layoffs? 

There are a load of lessons that brands and company leads have to take away, here are my top 5 

  1. People have to come first, companies need their people they do not need a dream saying a more efficient company – people do not connect or resonate with this, even with huge bonus packages 
  2. Remove the (HR and business) jargon and quickly 
  3. Be first, be human – Don’t send an email, cut access and then force your employees to try and contact you about their employment 
  4. Many allow HR to do the letting go and tell their department leads not to contact their team members, this is an awful practice, managers reach out, make the time and explain the decisions to individuals – otherwise, you will end up on TikTok and news outlets explaining your bad decisions. Yes HR is there to protect the business however if you want to be a leader, lead from the front in the good and the bad 
  5. Layoffs should never be a surprise, if they are or will be in your business, share the business performance and what it will mean. 

Q. Meta has been on a tear, where do you think is their Achilles heel?  

  • Most likely would suggest it is Meta’s metaverse push. I believe it is their advertising and topping out on their cross-platform users. Unless they go into China (highly unlikely) Meta will struggle to grow further. 
  • Simply put, Meta is an advertising machine (like Google) that often hits them hard when their products struggle to convert users or the costs spiral. Meta will be around for years to come and is an important cultural tool in WhatsApp and Instagram, can WhatsApp make ads work in their chat app and can they squeeze more value from the Instagram app that is at best 20% creator (uploading content) and 80% viewers (who aren’t engaging in content as much and won’t create). 
  • WhatsApp being more popular in the US and Canada will delight Meta executives but it will also create trade-offs around advertising and paid subscription options (away from broadcasts) they have struggled to execute and ads are far from natural in chat apps. If anyone can make it work it’s Meta.  
  • Say what you want to but Facebook (their original product) is still an important part of their engine for Meta especially with older demographics and international audiences – this will decay over time but the Facebook app will continue to drive huge revenues and advertising opportunities, will another election be a problem for Facebook… 
  • I suspect Threads will launch an advertising product and won’t get the numbers to impress advertisers 
  • Unless Instagram releases a new killer product feature and increases organic reach from the everyday user a little more usage will slow and Instagram will be forced to show more ads and have more ad slots in the feed and within stories and even potentially DM like ads that LinkedIn have.

Q. Who will win Facebook or Apple in the VR space? 

  • VR is just a part of mixed reality and although Facebook owns a large percentage of the VR space it is not a space I ever see hitting the mainstream. 
  • For Zuck to come out and critique the Apple Vision Pro it is clear he is worried about an alpha product and the Apple hardware machine. 
  • The Vision Pro isn’t perfect but if you hear how people work in them, facetime in them and use them regularly for non-gaming tasks between the two I would say Apple has the advantage in the mixed reality (aka spatial computing) space. 

Q. What are a few unpopular or controversial opinions about today’s business world?

  1. Most large tech companies brought on company bloat themselves and never empowered middle managers and could keep running larger layoffs and feel the impact for 12-18 months – in 18 months time many brands will look back and say how did we really get here 
  2. Specialist managers are going to be invaluable for small and mid-sized companies. Especially those who want to be managers and develop teams and not just play politically. Large companies will have to embrace middle managers back into their hierarchy again.  
  3. The chat interface is not going to force mass adoption quickly enough for most AI companies 
  4. HR is going to become AI first – human-driven decisions second. HR had so many decision trees and the ability to add in performance data at an individual level that AI can make decent calls 
  5. Apple can win the current market in AI with two updates to iPhones – even though this is what investors demand, Apple will play the longer game and make time be on their side 
  6. Quarterly goal setting is never given enough time to be created, rolled out and evaluated 
  7. Re-forecasting in large businesses kills morale and wastes weeks of individuals’ time – it is a necessary evil in business, too many people are taken out every two weeks kills the delivery of work 
  8. There is not enough coaching within businesses and too many won’t push their companies to improve them professionally, most are happy to waste their L&D budget at conferences, waste on on-demand courses and cohort-based courses they will never complete  
  9. There are actually 4 layers to company culture, not just one. 
    1. Micro – 2. Sub – 3. Leadership 4. Company-wide. Micro culture(s) are between individuals and teams. 
    Sub-culture is between departments and cross-functional. 
    Leadership culture is how they set behaviours top-down and interact and engage with the company, leaders break culture as much as they make it. 
    Company-wide culture is a blend of other cultural formations. Most companies struggle with company culture because they ignore the day-to-day micro-cultures and sub-cultures and have not enabled buy-in from the leadership team and leadership teams are often too disconnected from what is happening causing disconnect throughout the business. 
  10. Instant messengers (Slack and Teams) encourage over-communication not deliberate or effective conversation and regularly contribute to misunderstanding between colleagues. Many companies never do anything to guide their teams on the usage of instant messengers and how to be effective. Win by telling your teams how to communicate, where and when. 
  11. Bad hiring creates 18 months of pain and slow decision-making around firing causes 6-12 months of pain – couple this together and the ripple effect is huge. 

Q. Is company culture dead in hybrid businesses? 

No, but it is hard and in most cases transactional, however, that is not always a bad thing if you are prepared to engage with team members more frequently and not just reward performance-first goals. 

The role of a manager in hybrid is likely the hardest it has ever been, many weren’t trained for hybrid, and even being four years into hybrid for most professionals it is still a work in progress and an operating style there was no manual for. 

Simple guidelines, agreed principles and training will help but not create a company culture without deliberate management and as I have recommended before a culture community manager is the person who helps to shape culture (micro, sub and leadership cultures) and interacts between the staff and the leadership teams. 

Many people will perform better in the office (they need a stage and an audience) and other people will struggle to perform when they do not have in-person buy-in and influence. This is some of why the mass return to the office is happening and in office policing (not management) is working for many who never wanted to change or adapt to this way of working. 

Q. My company needs help to connect departments to the company strategy – how could we go about improving their buy-in? 

Strategy means so many different things to different professionals. 

If you have multiple strategies you will lose. If you do not help your teams build their plans into your company-wide strategy you are going to struggle. This is why beliefs, bets, pillars and strategy are my go-to operating model for companies. 

You have to decide if you are top-down leadership first or a D Team (decision team that helps to shape important decisions and strategy) at a strategic level. 

Often the goals are set at the leadership level and then too many people are asked to be involved, causing no build towards your strategy. If there are more than 12 people in strategy you will experience death by opinion and leads defending their department. 

If you feel like the departmental plans are not built together with departments and their teams there will be disconnection and often this is where the middle management is lost and cannot help push the company forward in hard times or underperforming times.

So you will need to: 

  1. help the teams know how to ladder their tactics into the departmental plan,
  2. cross-functionally the departments will need to assign resources and then agree on priorities 
  3. Show and tell their department plans to the leadership team and the business while connecting to the core goals they have signed up for 

If you struggle with connecting teams and departments to leadership team set goals, then strategy is going to be extremely hard work. 

Q. What are the 3 ways to improve work for companies forcing a return to the office? 

  1. Explain why and how you are improving the office for everyone. If you cannot you are not ready for a full return to the office  
  2. Re-onboard the company into the office – so many don’t and won’t, you can win by bringing people on the office journey and asking for regular feedback away from why can’t we work hybrid. 
  3. Explicitly say how the office is going to be the connecting force within your company. Stop worrying about everyone else and have a dedicated plan for your office(s), how to collaborate and how to get into deep work mode without distractions. 

Q. What is the best advice you could give someone going from a department lead onto the C-Suite for the first time? 

Congrats on your promotion. Here are just a few to get you started –  

  1. Learn the business – learn the ins and outs and understand how decisions are truly made (if it is CEO first or always on the CEO or by committee will help you make smart decisions or fit into the leadership culture) – many don’t see this until on the c-suite or around the boardroom table 
  2. Know that the ELT and board meetings are battlegrounds and you will take many punches and knocks every meeting – you will have to grow thick skin and quick 
  3. Know when you are going to have to speak up and when you are going to allow others to speak 
  4. Find out quickly where the rest of the C-Suite lacks an edge and apply yours to that void  
  5. Your department lead experience is going to be invaluable, the difference between the most effective executives is those who use their expertise area, act like a translator and connect teams cross-functionally 
  6. Learn what your role is to play in the C-Suite and how you can be a subject matter expert and for instance, speak on behalf of the customer which many struggle to. 
  7. Understand where you need to create boundaries and own your own time, if you don’t everyone else will take it and remove all boundaries 

Read part 2 of 2024 AMA

I hope this AMA helped you, there are a couple of questions that came in over the weekend which I will turn into another leaders letter. 

This week’s focus action is to book an hour slot for yourself this week, take a step back and plan for Q2 and your development. 

Thanks for reading and have a great week, 

Danny Denhard

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Leaders Letter 195 – The 5 Best Podcasts To Improve Your Leadership

Dear leaders, many of you ask for follow-up recommendations for books, documentaries and podcasts.

This week I am going to offer you 5 podcasts (in YouTube format for you visual learners) that will help you to improve your leadership, including leaders from Netflix, Stripe, Amazon and Activision Blizzard, with 5 reasons to listen. 

In many businesses and leadership teams I recommend you create a podcast club to improve and share knowledge. Podcast clubs go away, listen, take notes and then come together in 30-minute power sessions, compare notes, discuss what you can roll out internally and then share to the rest of the business to inspire action.

Tim Ferriss Interviews Ex-Stripe COO Claire Hughes Johnson 

“How to Take Radical Ownership of Your Life and Career“

Why Listen?

  • Claire and Tim go deep into Claire’s working principles from her brilliant book Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building (UK Book Link — US Book Link)
  • Why personality insights are either great guides or seen as horoscopes
  • Why many Managers & Department leads actually waste time on underperformers rather than high performers – and how you can move your department forward with leadership
  • How to set clear goals and keep on top of progress while not overburdening your team
  • Understand board responsibilities and your long-term commitment as a board member

This podcast is great for COOs, People leaders and low EQ CEOs.

Elizabeth Stone Netflix CTO is interviewed with Lenny on Lenny’s Podcast

Why Listen? 

  • Understand why leaders’ journeys are so varied and not as straightforward as you think (from data analyst and trader to CTO of Netflix is not)
  • Why data so closely linked to Netflix’s success and why Netflix is in the pole position as the industry leader in streaming
  • Why being present is more than just being in a meeting and engaging in meetings and working sessions – just being there is not enough
  • How breaking the rules on sharing important information and updates is critical 
  • Open slots in your calendar are vital in building the right internal management culture – think of why ‘skip meetings’ and cross-functional relationships are so important (tip: do more cross-functionally than other leaders, it really pays back)  

This podcast is great for data driven leaders and CEOs looking to refresh their C-Suite with different approach to leadership.

Vinted CEO Thomas Plantenga & Investor Alex Taussig On 20VC

Why listen? 

  • To understand marketplaces and marketplace dynamics properly. I can tell you from working across numerous marketplaces so many do not understand how two and three-sided marketplaces work and how to assign resources accordingly
  • Why cheap isn’t always a bad business – but challenging
  • Why going again and again was critical for Vinted (and will be for you too)
  • Why pricing changes were critical to survive and then thrive 
  • Why localisation of product is critical and why many fail with localisation of their product

This podcast is great for GMs, CEOs looking to make a real impact and rethink their relationship with their board and investors.

LuLu Cheng Meservey On How I Write Podcast

Why Listen? 

  • Learn how to write important updates and consider how to write for the right audiences 
  • Why writing is much clearer than speaking (and why writing will be critical for leadership for years to come)
  • How the right updates (externally) make the real difference, rather than just BAU and noisy product feature releases 
  • How the next crisis might not be as bad as you think with the right prep and right PR work system 
  • Understand the tech you are promoting and be prepared to answer the difficult questions – you are front and centre

This podcast is great for comms leads, CEOs with less PR and press support and Marketing leads wanting to improve Product releases.

Jeff Bezos On Lex Fridman Podcast

Why Listen?

  • Jeff Bezos masterclass on metrics and why so many are looking backwards not forwards
  • How space is being rethought and why Blue Origin is about hope and having a big personal project for a good cause
  • Understanding principles and setting business principles so your leadership team and their departments can move the business forward
  • Why companies who ignore papercuts (small problems) lose – concentrating on the big problems with teams and ignoring papercuts is bad business and bad leadership
  • How enforcing day 1 thinking helps businesses to focus on the customer and not

This podcast is great for founders, CEOs, CMOs and operators who are looking to step up and recalibrate their company for long-term success.

This week’s action is to select the podcast that jumps out to you most and then listen and share insights and your notes with your fellow leadership team. 

Thanks and have a great week improving as a leader. 

Danny Denhard

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Leaders Letter 193 – Is It Time To Reshuffle Your Executive Team?

Dear leaders, how are you and your managers and management team doing? 

It is business week 8 (where has 2024 gone already) and typically you get a pretty good baseline of how things are going, how the business is shaping up and how your team have performed. 

One question that is often asked around now is: 

How do I know when it is time to review your leadership team? 

And connected follow-up question: 

» Is it time to review my management team around you (those who report to you)?

The big question you have to ask yourself is:
How are you performing and how are the relationships and dynamics helping the team and the company progress?  

You might be in one of three situations: 

  1. Leaders like their colleagues but don’t love their output. 
  2. Leaders dislike their colleagues and the team around them but they perform.
  3. Leaders wouldn’t mind if they left and it wouldn’t impact performance. 

If you land with option 1 or option 3 you are ultimately in a place to consider performance plans or a reshuffle. 

Letting go of people you dislike but perform within their role is what makes or breaks leaders and tests your executive chops. 

The Cost & Effects Of Hiring & Firing

Hiring and firing is a core part of being a leader and many struggle with hiring replacements, understanding the demands of their org and then replacing almost like for like or go to an extreme opposite and miss the subcultural impact. 

The Caretaker AKA The Number 2: Others thrive in the firing but the replacements are often not lined up and can take a long time to replace, you are then expecting someone internally to step up and often this will see performance stay as is or improve. 

You are then left in a place with a number 2 who will ultimately have two decisions to make: 

1/Is this number two role enough 

2/ Will this new boss feel threatened and can I learn anything from them to progress my career further? 

Often the ‘Number 2’ will move on and you will be left with a hole and a six to twelve-month window where you will have instability and turbulence.  

Middle management is a tricky place to operate and often when you are in the mid to senior end of your career a new boss coming in to replace your old C-Suite boss is a big swift and has months’ worth of impact on you and the team around you. 

Executive Changes = 24 Months Of Hard Change 

If you notice what happens in many companies, a new CEO comes in, assesses their colleagues and their board and the supporting management team and then makes changes, some make sweeping changes and bring in their people, while others refresh core areas and often make the management team smaller. 

This approach is often about the CEO being successful first not always directly correlated to the business being successful. 

10 Leadership Levels Questions To Consider

There is no one size fits all but here are 10 important themes to consider and bake into your plan (sidenote – always check with legal and HR to ensure you have taken the right legal steps to protect you, the company and the individuals you might be letting go). 

  1. Any Move Is A 2-Year Bet: Don’t make big and rash decisions if you haven’t planned out the next 2 years 
  2. Identify The Right Interim Lead: The next question to ask and answer is: Is there is someone within the team who can and will step up or will there be another exec who is tasked to step up and run dual areas
  3. Thrive Vs Chaos: Some departments thrive in change, while others don’t. Chaos and confusion are never tolerated – find out which the departments are and how you remove any confusion with a timeline of next steps and actions 
  4. Back Up Plans: If you are an exec and department lead understand how you are reshaping a team/discipline lead will impact the business for the next 12 months and have backup plans for additional support, hiring consultants, agencies or reshaping to adding more headcount under the original level will help to get back into the driving seat. You will naturally need to step up and have relationship managers with external vendors to own the alteration  
  5. Sub Culture & Cultural Impact: Culture can be made and broken by hiring and firing mistakes, hiring is more important than firing, if you hire badly you have six months to understand their capabilities and influence and then be confident they are right for the next 12 months 
  6. Popularity: Popular employees being let go sends ripples through businesses, from gossip to direct questions about them and their performance. Understand the impact of these decisions and how you will address this 
  7. Comms Plan & Plan Execution: Communication is key, what you say to the key member of staff you are hiring and firing is critical it stays between you.
    1. Welcoming new senior staff or a shift in operating models requires a well-thought-through comms plan. Time and energy are critical here 
    2. You will need to have a company-wide notice to explain the reasons and what the future looks like clearly. Over-communication and over-sharing lead to questions and a reduction in confidence 
  8. Difference Between Small Biz & Large Orgs: If you are looking to make many changes inside a small business it will reshape quickly, if you are in a mid-sized business it takes longer to understand the impact, in large and enterprise businesses it can be 9-12 months for the effects to come out in the wash 
  9. Talk Of The Town? Big exec firing will lead to external questions and will be the talk of recruitment/headhunter firms, C-Suite groups and industry press. Knowing how to frame the layoff and reshuffle externally is as critical as internal comms. Know internal comms will be shared and screenshotted to be shared across social media and chat apps 
  10. Day 0 Influence: If you want to restart a department’s performance you will have to think about the executive in charge and their relationships and influence over their department. If they have influence and sway you will need to understand how to replicate this, if they don’t think and plan about how you will restart from day 0 of letting them go. 

This week’s focus action is to review if you should reshuffle your exec team, review the list of exec hiring and firing notes and make an action plan on who, what, when, why and how to move forward with reshuffling your executive team. 

Best of luck this week and if you are in doubt ask yourself, if this person were to leave on their own terms what would the plan be, versus letting them go as the leader? 

Thanks and have a great week,

Danny Denhard

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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 192 – How You Will Know You Are On Thin Ice As The Leader

Dear leaders, I have recently written a number of leaders letters that you have told me have resonated with you, from: 

Today’s leadership newsletter will make you take the time to analyse and your improve leadership skills. 

It makes my day when I receive feedback on the newsletters, I will always invite replies to my newsletters, to discuss the topic, and see where you have rolled something out or where you might be struggling and need a quick pointer. 

Since the turn of the year, there has been a theme of replies and they can be bucketed as:   

How Do I Know If I’m On Thin Ice As A Leader? 

Although each environment is slightly different; there are common themes that come up and there should be a series of warning signs you’ll spot or worryingly you could be blind to. 

From experiences here is a breakdown of the standard signs:  

  • Performance
    • Poor company performance 
    • Poor performance from direct reports
    • Bad decisions or poorly timed decisions leads to poor performance 
  • Communications
    • Waiting for everyone else to catch you up on the important updates
    • When you are days behind in communications (email, slack etc) and it impacts how the business operates 
  • Offbeat
    • When you are not in the same rhythm as the company
    • When decisions drive larger heartbeats jumps and is like a shock wave through the business   
  • Stagnation
    • Status quo from your team (if department lead) 
    • Projects and product(s) stagnate from decisions or lack of clarity 
  • Trust
    • Lack of trust among your colleagues 
    • Being uninvited / removed from meetings 
  • Feedback
    • More feedback from colleagues 
    • No feedback from colleagues and direct reports 
  • Discipline
    • HR issues and common HR issues 
    • Team members misbehave as they have seen others being rewarded for these behaviours in previous promotions 
  • Crisis Mode
    • Everything seems to be the highest stake meeting 
    • Everything is urgent or a crisis 

Leaders Duty

There is often a blend of the eight themes above, most often leaders are undone by their miscommunication and the lack of clarity and repetition of their important decisions. It is the Leadership Team’s duty to address the misfiring of the teams below them and build trust between internal customers and external customers constantly. 

Leadership IS

Leadership is incredibly challenging, and making the right and smart long-term decisions comes under the microscope of the business frequently especially the larger the business is, the more investors, advisors and shareholders evaluate you, one shift in the market and you will be under fire. 

Your Decisions To Delivery Hole 

In business leadership roles, there are thousands of ‘micro-decisions’ you make every day as a leader, you make what feels like small decisions and your business then gives them inflated weight, you are often judged on bad decisions part of your core team makes and frequently the disconnection between your leadership team and their department and team heads cause big directional shifts. 

AUDIT TIME! 

It is how you understand and improve: 

  • What is happening (not just the numbers – this is issue number one of bad leadership)    
  • The behaviours of you and the teams below you – if key individuals are causing the problems or allowing bad behaviours you will need to make hard decisions of keeping and improving them quickly or removing them to ensure improvements 
  • How you got to this situation as a timeline is critical to turning the problems around and addressing the majority of the issues 

Most leaders do not dedicate the time and then the resources to address the issues and core traits within the business, this is what makes the top 10% of leaders. Move into the top 10% and address the issues and audit performance of the business, the teams and the people. Get under the skin and inside the culture of the business to drive positive change within the business. 

This week’s focus action is to: 

  • Short Term: Dedicate the time to audit what is happening and not happening within the business and in your leadership 
  • Mid Term: Create an action committee from around you and your trusted team members to create the next steps and hold everyone accountable 
  • Long Term: Admit things were not perfect and present the actions under the 5 pillars you are changing and why these are changing 

Have a great week stepping up and being the leader you want to be and need to be, I will land in your inbox next week

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 190 – The Who, What, When, Why, How Of Leading Business To Success

Dear leaders, you may have noticed this week the newsletter is slightly delayed. 

Apologises, I want to be transparent, I have been working on a couple of larger consultancy projects combined with my coaching commitments and I wanted to take a few extra days to land with the usual high-quality newsletter that’s going to add value rather than just a good newsletter that I’m not happy enough with. 

Let’s dive into The Who, What, When, Why, How Of Leading Business To Success.

The Different Ways Of Working Towards Success 

Startup Approach:

  • If you have worked in a startup you would have noticed everything is often thrown together, the idea of strategy and tactics and often blended and sort of everyone’s job. 
  • On the flip side, some startups have more leadership team that says who does what and when and sometimes include “the how” you are going to do it. 
  • Startups win by hitting aggressive targets and getting a lot of buy-in from the teams not always being autonomous and democratic. 

Scaleup Approach:

  • If you have worked in a scaleup, successful businesses know how to split out who does what – when, the why is explained and the how is often left to department leads and they present to the business.
  • Scaleups win by maturing from their previous state, they mature and grow by adding in more processes and taking away the goal(s) is the only thing to hit. Scaleups fail by acting like startups with only startup employees. Sad but true.  

“The Mature Approach”:

  • In mid to large-sized businesses the exec team will say to the business what you need to do to hit a set of big goals and then the discipline leads to controlling the who, the what, the why and the how, the why is often left to the business to explain otherwise the business results will go aray. 
  • Larger companies win by what I call controlled collaboration and being hard on the goals and output but the who and how many are often most flexible. 
  • Middle managers will be critical in some mid to large-sized businesses, and completely redundant (as we have seen in layoffs from Amazon, Meta, Google and many other tech companies) in others. 

No Secret Formula? 

I have worked across the full spectrum of businesses, from small ten-person businesses to larger 5k to 15k-person businesses and there is no perfect one-size-fits-all for the who, the what, the when, the why and the how. There are ways to push the business in the right direction by understanding if it is leadership-owned or leadership-guided. 

Change Is Hard But Necessary

There are, however, businesses that just stick to how they have always done it and top-down (directions from the exec team) that went from being successful to slowly but surely status quo-based businesses that decline and then the point the fingers phase, blaming those underneath them for struggling to make bigger changes or being able to make broader changes to their tech and then hiring more sales doesn’t work and Marketing can’t squeeze another 10% out of a bad Product. 

You lose in business by staying the same and squeezing more and more out of a bad product and badly positioned products. 

This is where trust evaporates within leadership teams and rips through your business when everyone is fully aware of this situation and cannot make any meaningful change because of poor leadership decisions.  

Below is a way to consider the who, what, when, why and “the how of your company”, regardless of how you build your company goals (OKRs or an alternative) 

Leadership Flex 

Leadership is mostly won by: Adding in the right level of guard rails and adding in flex to take ownership if and where required. Flex does include layoffs (Google is spending $700m on severance this quarter alone), removing department leads and finding a blend of the two or (not in recent times) mass hiring to accelerate with market shifts and new opportunities.  

Question for today: “Is our company leadership team giving enough direction or is it providing too much?” What stage are we at and how do we empower or power up our employees to feel part of the driving force behind the business? 

This week’s focus action is to: review The Who, What, When, Why, How Of your leadership teams and proactively drive change throughout your leadership, management and up and comers to keep being successful and drive long-term growth within your business. 

Have a great week and I’ll land in your inbox next week,

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 189 – This Is Not The Way Book – Unleashing Creativity: An Interview with Author & Founder Andy Reid

Dear leaders, this week I have a special interview with the author of This Is Not The Way, Andy Reid. 

Andy Reid is the founder of Genius Box who help companies big and small address company issues from creating North Stars to creating or optimising company strategies. 

In this interview, I ask Andy 6 questions:

  1. Your new book aka anti-manual “This is not the way” is a mass of knowledge and learnings from your successful career of change making, why an anti-manual and why now?
  2. You have helped many well-known and upcoming companies move their businesses forward, who are the best people to get into the room to create the most effective company-wide strategy?
  3. You interviewed a number of smart strategic operators and facilitators (not just because I was involved) and curated a number of actionable insights. What surprises or new approaches have inspired you to improve your workshops?
  4. You have suggested brainstorming don’t work – what’s the best alternative in getting the best ideas and concepts out of colleagues?
  5. Many companies always problem-solve the same way or mimicking how they’ve always done it – what’s the best way to problem-solve with your decades of experience?
  6. What’s the best piece of wisdom you can share from your anti-manual? 

The Interview

I am also interviewed in the book:

  • I offer my insights around company strategy is baking a better cake, 
  • How to thrive in workshops 
  • Who to bring into workshops (hint not just the leadership teams but never overload strategy is too many opinions, analysis and time to step out and create the compass is critical). 

Here’s my section

Here’s The Learnings Broken Down

In a world where business books often provide high-level strategies and case studies, Andy Reid’s new book, “This Is Not The Way (The Anti Manual)” takes a refreshing approach rather than the usual approach. 

Andy dives into the motivations behind the book, the importance of innovation, and practical tips for driving creative change within organizations. Andy’s insights and discover how you can become a fantastic creative facilitator alongside several experts interviewed including me.

Why an anti-manual and why now?

Andy recognizes that existing business books often lack actionable tactics for turning strategies into real-world actions. With “This Is Not The Way,” he aims to bridge that gap by providing tools, language, examples, and stories that empower individuals to align and excite their colleagues around a new organizational narrative. This book is a treasure trove of knowledge and learnings from Andy’s successful career as a change-maker. Whether you’re looking for inspiration or tactical guidance, “This Is Not The Way” has something for you.

The importance of getting the right people in the room

When creating an effective company-wide strategy, Andy emphasizes the need for individuals willing to embark on a challenging yet rewarding journey. Making change happen requires tearing down old rules, which are often met with resistance. The best strategists and facilitators are storytellers who can flexibly explain the vision and inspire others to follow. It’s also crucial to involve senior leaders who have a line of sight on the business, as their insights are invaluable.

Surprises and new approaches to improve workshops

Andy interviewed several smart strategic operators and facilitators for his book, he discovered that creative techniques have been around for thousands of years. What may seem familiar to him is often new and valuable to others. Incorporating experiments, stories, tools, and techniques into workshops injects novelty and creates tremendous value for the participants. By encouraging everyone to share their thinking and building upon each other’s ideas, workshops become collaborative and productive.

Say goodbye to brainstorming?!?

Brainstorming has long been hailed as a creative technique, but Andy challenges its effectiveness. Our minds often shut down when forced to generate ideas on the spot. Instead, he suggests providing a clear brief and allowing people time to incubate their thoughts. In facilitated sessions, starter thoughts can be shared, and participants can build upon them. By creating an environment that welcomes all ideas without judgment and capturing them consistently, teams can foster better idea generation and capture.

Innovative problem-solving strategies

To solve problems effectively, Andy advocates for injecting 10% of difference and newness into every endeavour. The brief can provide stimuli for thinking differently while changing the environment can spark imagination. 

An example Andy shares is using a musical metaphor for a project called “Project Allegro,” which allowed the team to design activities and tools that connected to the client’s need for a new perspective. The key is to embrace new approaches and avoid striving for perfection, as progress is often more valuable.

The wisdom within the “Anti Manual”

Through his interviews with various professionals, one consistent message emerged for Andy – the importance of providing a safe space for people to share their thoughts and ideas. Creating an environment of psychological safety encourages individuals to be themselves and embrace their unique styles. 

Stories play a significant role in conveying information and inspiring change. By valuing safety, personal style, and storytelling, leaders can pave the way for a new creative era.

This Is Not The Way Conclusion:

Andy’s book, “This Is Not The Way: The Anti Manual,” is more than just another business guide. It’s a call to action, challenging the traditional approach to organizational change and encouraging individuals to become fantastic creative facilitators. 

By implementing the practical tips and insights shared in this interview, you can unlock your creative potential and drive real change within your organization. Embrace the power of innovation, storytelling, and collaboration, and let your creativity flourish.

BUY THE BOOK

This week focus on moving your business forward by learning to do things differently, and refresh your strategy by embracing another approach. 

I highly recommend the anti-manual for executive teams. 

Have a great week and I will land in your inbox next week, 

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

More Essential Reading For Leaders

Leaders Letter 187 – The 2024 Corporate Buzzword Bingo Card
Leaders Letter 185 – Free Metrics Masterclass From Jeff Bezos
Leaders Letter 184 – The Important Themes Through My Coaching Sessions In 2023
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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 188 – How To Get Better At Problem-Solving & Develop Leadership Level Problem Solvers

Dear leaders, do you want to know how to get better at solving problems? 

If the answer is no I’d be very surprised. 

When you’re faced with a huge problem or a brand new problem you’ve never faced before. 

What do you do?

  • Do you automatically stress and panic? 
  • Do you look for help?
  • Do you go into autopilot and make quick muscle memory-driven decisions? 
    OR
  • Do you revisit or review prior issues and problems to reignite the problem-solving muscle you have been building your whole professional career? 

Reflex Actions? 

We all have a bank of problems we have experienced or been connected to, some learn from them, others struggle to remember the details and don’t have the sixth sense that waves the big red flags in front of us to warn us. 

Problems become a reflex action for many experienced leaders (most don’t even have to think, they act).  

The best learn from problems and develop a sixth sense of how to think and tackle major problems and the most efficient stay calm under pressure, some even thrive. 

You’ll likely have a (unknown) two-by-two matrix in your head of where the problem fell and how you had to tackle these problems. 

The 2×2 could be problem size by problem impact, scored by small to big and then apply the actions right away. 

Reaction & The Ripple Effect Is Everything 

One of the biggest signs of a leader on their journey is instant stress and panic. 

You can always witness a less experienced leader who will run around, make a lot of noise and make people around them feel pressure and stress – this is either deliberate or often a sign they haven’t been in situations before or learnt from related problems. This ripples through the business and causes panic – this is not an environment to thrive in. 

If some appear to thrive in causing more confusion and chaos they aren’t a leader at all. 

Clarify, Remove Confusion, Confront 

The best leaders often will take a beat, ask clarifying questions, review their experience and bring in the best people to solve the problem(s) at hand. 

As I have shared before and in my superpowers and kryptonite newsletter, one of the powers I was made aware of was my “ability not to panic and to be a calm person in business problems” So below is how I got here and how you can apply a similar approach. 

I am often asked in coaching and inside of my problem-solving workshops how businesses can get better at decision-making and problem-solving and my answer is simple. 

Enter The Problem Wiki  

Create an open wiki of problems, and the solutions used and then revisit to remind yourselves you have faced numerous issues before and review how you’d tackle the issue today. 

Remember: Over the last decade (and specifically the last 4 years) we have lived and operated in numerous huge problems and the likelihood is you made 70% good to great decisions. 

In some cases, you may have made quick and less well-thought-through or informed decisions that (may) negatively impact you or the company. If it’s under 10% you’re likely doing a good job. 

The trick is to know – hindsight is a wonderful thing and to add notes to say this was in play or this wasn’t. Remember those guardrails I talk about often, this is where your guardrails will be important to keep note of and understand how to move when required and how to incorporate them in the future. 

Templated Help

The decision document (my free template for sharing the most important decisions and how you got to them and how to ask clarifying questions) is just one way to be able to review your decisions of the last year(s) and then revisit how well you did and where you can optimise decisions for the future. 

Without sharing with your leadership and management team and importantly reviewing how are you going to move forward as a business and let it positively spread throughout your business? Async coaching is something many do not talk about but can be priceless with the right approach. 

This week’s action item for you is to book a slot in your calendar to create a decision document and a problem wiki, review the last big 5-10 decisions and revisit the most important problems and the actions you took over the last year and add real detailed commentary to what, why, who and how you tackled these problems. If you then open this up and share internally you will offer a chance for those around you to learn and grow out the problem-solving muscle. 

Have a great week and I’ll land in your inbox next Monday morning with an extra special leaders letters. 

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 185 – Free Metrics Masterclass From Jeff Bezos

Dear leaders, I have an ongoing loathing of bad metrics. 

Whenever I speak to companies the first thing that is often brought up is performance and then, their associated metric(s). 

My dilemma; is how quickly I tell companies they have bad metrics and often how rotten their OKRs (or equivalent systems) are. 

You will have heard me rant about noise vs signal many times in Leaders Letters. 

Many professionals allow noisy metrics to: 

  • Influence their decision-making process 
  • Confirm their biases 
  • Misunderstand what of the noise is driving significance and which signals are contributing to success or leading to failure. 

Usage Vs Chrun Metrics: In an app company I worked with, the big obsession was usage metrics, there was no metric for successful usage, just if they were a DAU (daily active users), a WAU, or a MAU. 

Churn was almost exclusively ignored. Yes ignored, retention and churn was not something they ever looked at, let alone discussed. 

Imagine if the user opened the app and most days they had a bad experience with the app and ended up using your competitor. 

An example would be Google Maps providing a bad experience and users churned after a couple of uses over to Apple Maps and their daily trips and memories (maps products aren’t just A-to-B products, they help you plan and live important memories) they were arranged and guided by Apple Maps. 

Yes, this does happen and is happening more frequently. 

What I have learnt over the last 22 years is metrics can be good and bad, and the worst metrics are often what senior people obsess over and distress others over. 

Enter Jeff Bezos And His Unknowing 3-Minute Metrics Masterclass On Lex Fridmans Podcast: 

  • Why metrics are mostly good but not great
  • Why metrics can become outdated and mislead companies and their leadership teams (this is common, many ELTs and SLTs never revisit original metrics and understand what I call the metric decay)
  • Why metrics are often just proxies 
  • How the world shifts and metrics do not (and many do not proactively change)
  • Why old metrics are often why day 2 companies struggle  (a day 2 explained by Jeff is “Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.”)

Watch The Masterclass 

» Scroll down to the bottom of this newsletter for the transcript

This 2-Minute Exchange Is Critical

“The proxy for truth. Let’s say in this case it’s a proxy for customer happiness, but that metric is not actually customer happiness. It’s a proxy for customer happiness. The person who invented the metric understood that connection. Five years later, a kind of inertia can set in and you forget the truth behind why you were watching that metric in the first place. And the world shifts a little and now that proxy isn’t as valuable as it used to be or it’s missing something. And you have to be on alert for that. You have to know, “Okay, I don’t really care about this metric. I care about customer happiness and this metric is worth putting energy into and following and improving and scrutinizing, only in so much as it actually affects customer happiness.”

And so, you’ve got to constantly be on guard and it’s very, very common. This is a nuanced problem. It’s very common, especially in large companies, that they’re managing to metrics that they don’t really understand. They don’t really know why they exist, and the world may have shifted out from under them a little and the metrics are no longer as relevant as they were when somebody 10 years earlier invented the metric.”

The whole podcast is a business masterclass and something you will want to grab your caffeinated drinks of choice and your notebook or notes app and take copious notes to action. 

More, Cheaper, Free & Stagnation

We live in a world of choice, cheaper products, more competition than ever before and in many companies they allow poor leadership and bad metrics to stagnate. 

I have been in a handful of incredible QBRs (quarterly business reviews) and AOPs (annual operating planning), I have also been in some time and energy-draining QBRs and AOPs which many would have paid to leave. 

  • In the best, we discussed the metrics, the actual signals creating real business impact and the actions we were taking forward and the optimisations we would make. 
  • At the worst, we never discussed what the signals were telling us, what the missing links were and how we would truly fix the rot, despite many of us attempting to force the change many executives are happy for BAU and status quo. 

I cannot imagine Jeff Bezos allowing Amazon, Blue Origin or The Washington Post to have bad meetings, QBRs or AOP cycles and not taking competitors seriously and focusing the rest of the exec team around positively obsessing over the customer. 

This week’s focus action is for you to review your metrics, understand which are working to improve your business, which are there just because they always have been there, which are actually limiting your company and the metrics that are negatively impacting you and your business. 

Have a great last week and get in touch if you would like to

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

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The Transcript (source)

Jeff Bezos

(01:24:36) Well, I’ll talk about… Because I think it’s the one that is maybe in some ways the hardest to understand, is the skeptical view of proxies. One of the things that happens in business, probably anything where you have an ongoing program and something is underway for a number of years, is you develop certain things that you’re managing to. The typical case would be a metric, and that metric isn’t the real underlying thing. And so maybe the metric is efficiency metric around customer contacts per unit sold or something like. If you sell a million units, how many customer contacts do you get or how many returns do you get? And so on and so on.

(01:25:30) And so what happens is a little bit of a kind of inertia sets in where somebody a long time ago invented that metric and they invented that metric, they decided, “We need to watch for customer returns per unit sold as an important metric.” But they had a reason why they chose that metric, the person who invented that metric and decided it was worth watching. And then fast-forward five years, that metric is the proxy.

Lex Fridman

(01:26:02) The proxy for truth, I guess.

Jeff Bezos

(01:26:04) The proxy for truth. Let’s say in this case it’s a proxy for customer happiness, but that metric is not actually customer happiness. It’s a proxy for customer happiness. The person who invented the metric understood that connection. Five years later, a kind of inertia can set in and you forget the truth behind why you were watching that metric in the first place. And the world shifts a little and now that proxy isn’t as valuable as it used to be or it’s missing something. And you have to be on alert for that. You have to know, “Okay, I don’t really care about this metric. I care about customer happiness and this metric is worth putting energy into and following and improving and scrutinizing, only in so much as it actually affects customer happiness.”

(01:27:03) And so you’ve got to constantly be on guard and it’s very, very common. This is a nuanced problem. It’s very common, especially in large companies, that they’re managing to metrics that they don’t really understand. They don’t really know why they exist, and the world may have shifted out from under them a little and the metrics are no longer as relevant as they were when somebody 10 years earlier invented the metric.

Lex Fridman

(01:27:29) That is a nuance, but that’s a big problem. Right?

Jeff Bezos

(01:27:33) It’s a huge problem.

Lex Fridman

(01:27:34) There’s something so compelling to have a nice metric to try to optimize.

Jeff Bezos

(01:27:38) Yes. And by the way, you do need metrics.

Lex Fridman

(01:27:41) Yes, you do.

Jeff Bezos

(01:27:41) You can’t ignore them. Want them, but you just have to be constantly on guard. This is a way to slip into day two thinking would be to manage your business to metrics that you don’t really understand and you’re not really sure why they were invented in the first place, and you’re not sure they’re still as relevant as they used to be.

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Leaders Letter 183 – The Future Of Work With Megan Witherspoon

Dear Leaders, recently I asked the previous 5 questions contributors who I should interview for the next round and this week’s guest Megan was recommended twice. 

So I knew I needed to invite Megan to the newsletter. Meet Megan (Witherspoon), Megan is the Vice President of Communications at Altria. Megan handles internal and external comms and is an industry leader, helping one of the largest brands in her space create clear and concise communications. Megan also leads ESG and offers a great way of improving the success of ESG. 

Megan has worked fully remotely for over a year and has a number of great recommendations for anyone in leadership to follow if seriously considering a fully remote role. 

The 5 Questions

Q. You handle internal and external comms, what are the most important 5 elements of comms you teach most regularly to leaders you work with?

  1. Be “in the know”– You have to know what’s going on in order to know what’s most important to communicate. This means deeply understanding the industry and business, staying up-to-date with what’s happening around the company, keeping a pulse on how employees are feeling and what they need, understanding evolving external perspectives and expectations, etc. Our communicators are some of the most “tuned in” people in the company.
  2. Drive strategic clarity – People are pulled in many directions all the time, balancing competing priorities and resource demands. Communications are critical for driving strategic clarity and focusing people on the most important things they need to know/feel/do. If you’re not clear what the business priorities are and why, you’re lost from the start.
  3. Less really is more – Gone are the days of “spray and pray” – sharing the same communication multiple times across multiple platforms in hopes that one breaks through. People don’t have the time or patience for it, the noise is deafening, and we will quickly be tuned out. It’s far better to know our audience and be targeted and deliberate – delivering the right message to the right person in the right time/place. And keep it short and simple. Word economy wins.
  4. Credibility takes years to establish and minutes to tarnish – Our words must always align with our actions. Our “inside voice” needs to match our “outside voice.” Our executives are the faces and voices for the company, so we must influence, shape, and protect them. And we should never try to re-write history – it’s already in the record, and no one will be fooled.
  5. Corporate speak kills – Jargon, acronyms, and business buzzwords are rampant. Different functions seem to speak their own languages (have you ever heard an engineer try to talk to a marketer?). Good communicators are translators – making sense out of the nonsense so that everyone can understand the message. But in order to be good translators, they need to understand the work and be good business partners and consultants.

Q. You grew up as a competitive swimmer, how has this shown up in your professional career?

Competitive swimming taught me so many lessons that are valuable in business. It taught me self-discipline and grit. It taught me time-management, teamwork, and how to be a good role model. It showed me that big dreams can come true with enough passion and persistence. It taught me how to lose gracefully, and that winning is a team effort. It showed me what a “coach” really means. And it gave me my first experience with burnout, which taught me to really listen to my mind and body and take better care of myself.

Q. You recently celebrated a year in a small mountain town in Colorado where you are one of the only fully remote team members, what are the 3 most essential areas to get right when allowing fully remote in the modern hybrid workforce?

  1. Be intentional about connecting. I believe relationship-building and networking can be just as effective (and in some ways more effective) in a remote environment as in-person. But it requires intentionality. We can no longer rely on happenstance encounters in the hallway or at the coffee bar, or surface-level chit-chat in the cafeteria (and really, how effective was that, anyway?). We need to dedicate time and create space to connect in a purposeful and meaningful way with people outside of our immediate work group.
  2. Flexibility requires flexibility. Today I have far more flexibility and control over my time than I ever had before. My quality of life is vastly improved. But flexibility requires flexibility. Because I live in a different time zone than most of my colleagues, I sometimes take 6 am meetings. Because I’m fully remote, I travel more for important meetings and events. I sometimes need to give up a little of my flexibility to meet the flexibility needs of others. It’s a give-and-take.
  3. Be present. It can be easy in the virtual world to recede into the background – to multitask during meetings, turn off the camera, avoid the team chit-chat on Teams/Slack, or neglect personal connections. But we can (and must) continue to be fully present even when not physically present. Turn on the camera. Speak up. Be engaged in the conversation. Make yourself available. Show up.

Q. ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) has come under the wrath of criticism in recent months, you lead ESG strategy, what can companies do more to ensure ESG is manageable and can keep their company accountable for positive change?

ESG is not a “bad word,” but it has been badly misused and abused. The best way to avoid internal and external criticism around ESG is to stay focused, clearly articulate the business benefits, and avoid exaggerations. Narrow in on the specific aspects of ESG that are most critical to address based on your particular company or industry (by conducting a materiality assessment, for example), with the long-term sustainability of the business in mind. We can’t do everything at once, or we risk doing none of them very well. We also can’t do one thing extremely well while neglecting other important areas. Know the issues that matter most, go deep on those, and clearly articulate the business value of the work.

Q. You are a leader who frequently discusses the future of work, what themes do you think we will be discussing in a year’s time when reshaping businesses to succeed?

I have a feeling a year from now we’ll still be talking about the impacts of remote work, the success or failure of return-to-office mandates and the pros/cons of various structured hybrid models. Hopefully, by then, we’ll be basing those conversations more on real-world data versus speculation and bias. Conversations about a 4-day work week will likely continue to grow, and we’ll be talking a lot about how AI is reshaping businesses, including when and how people work.

» Please go and connect with Megan on LinkedIn

This week’s focus item is to be in the know as Megan recommends, understand how you can find out critical information and be a driver of transparency. Consider how you could roll out my decision document template within your business. 

Have a great week and thanks for reading again this week. 

Thanks,

Danny Denhard