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Leaders Letter 170 – Leadership Lessons With Jo Bird

Dear leaders, how has the start of September gone? Are you ramping up for Q4 or are you in the middle of reviewing what has happened this year? 

This week I am continuing the 5 questions theme by interviewing Jo Bird. 

So who is Jo?

  • Jo is the creative lead at Lounge (the underwear brand) 
  • Powerful creative, being responsible for a number of powerful campaigns 
  • Conference speaker (has spoken at TEDx watch below)
  • Authentic Social Media Leader – Jo is one of my go-to examples of how leaders can show up authentically on social media, particularly on LinkedIn. 

» Please do connect with Jo on her website or on LinkedIn. 

The Q&A 

Q1. You share some incredible pieces of advice and insights with your connections and followers on LinkedIn, What’s the most valuable piece of advice you would give anyone progressing on their leadership journey? 

Ask yourself: ‘why do I want to be a leader?’

A lot of people are chasing a job title so that they feel better about themselves. 
Or to gain respect. 
Or to challenge themselves in their own career. 
But the ‘me, me, me’ approach is a big fail at the first hurdle. It can also be incredibly disruptive to your team in the long-term. Trust me… I’ve had those bosses!

Being a great leader is about serving other people. It’s about standing in the shadows and applauding your team while they’re in the spotlight. It’s about empowering others to be their best selves. It’s about inspiring the team to reach a shared goal, together.

So, my advice would be to ask yourself why you want to do it. 

And then go from there.

Q2. The creative industry is likely going to experience big shifts with AI, what are the three pieces of advice you give fellow leaders on how to navigate the upcoming changes? 

  1. Be curious. You need to ask questions, do research and speak to industry professionals in order to make discoveries, learn and then subsequently inspire your team to also explore new technology, too.
  2. Be open-minded. Technology might not be your forte, or newness might feel uncomfortable, but great leaders do not stand still. 
  3. Be honest. It’s ok if you don’t have all the answers. AI will continue to develop at a rapid rate, which can feel overwhelming. If you are uncertain in any way, your team will appreciate your honesty.

Q3. You’ve given big conference talks, including a TEDX talk. Do you have three tips for other leaders who want to deliver brilliant presentations to their peers or at larger conferences? 

  1. Record yourself. Honestly. Self-awareness is the BEST tactic for developing as a speaker. Once you get over the ‘cringe’, you’ll start to notice your bad habits. ‘Ums’ and ‘ars’, awkward body language, lack of charisma. Only then can you start to practice.
  2. Practice! It’s true that preparation prevents p*ss poor performance! Do your research to make sure your presentation is air tight. And then rehearse in front of a mirror as many times as you can. When you feel like you can deliver the talk without looking at your notes, you’ll be so much more confident on stage.
  3. Treat it like a conversation. People think that being a presenter means being a robot or foghorn. It’s the opposite. The best, most captivating presenters are the ones who have built the courage to be themselves on stage. Like they’re speaking to a friend. To include their quirks, charisma and invite the audience in to their conversation.

Watch Jo’s Tedx video here

Q4. You’ve been a creative lead at both Lounge and Gymshark, both influential and culture-based brands, how do you inspire your teams when every campaign is expected to make a direct impact on the business? 

I have a few techniques that are working really well at the moment:

  1. Empowerment: I believe that creatives need to feel trusted, inspired and enabled to do their best work. For them, it can feel exhausting to constantly share their true, emotive, creative selves at work when pitching ideas. Especially if not all ideas are received well. So, they really need a leader who creates a safe space and continually champions them. Someone who ‘has their back.’
  2. Lead by example: I like to get my hands dirty, do great work and make it known to my team. If they are inspired by me – both inside and outside of the business – then they are more likely to respect my instructions as a leader.
  3. Communication: I am a high communicator. I am as transparent as I can be with my team. If there are business updates, if they have concerns, if they need more direction. I will speak to them as much as I can to make sure they feel supported and included. If they understand the bigger business goals, they are more likely to perform well.
  4. Humility: Working for rocketship brands means that the leaders can’t possibly know everything. The brands are growing at such a rapid rate, the leaders are learning and figuring things out all the time. So, I like to show a lot of humility. To leave ego at the door and encourage a ‘let’s learn this together’ attitude.

Q5. What’s the best piece of career advice you would give to C-suite leaders who don’t quite understand the power of creative (teams) or it’s just not landing right with them currently? 

I would quote Ed Catmull, the co-founder of Pixar. In his book Creativity Inc he said: 

“You’ll never stumble upon the unexpected if you stick only to the familiar.”

Creatives are the most curious kind of employee. We’re the ones who like to turn left when everyone else turns right. We’re the ones who thrive in problems and strive to break patterns. 

I don’t think creatives should take over the boardroom (we’d spend all the money on games machines and slides in the office), but I 100% think creatives should be in the decision-making room.

We see the world differently. And that is what every business needs in order to stay relevant, stay inspiring and stay profitable.

(And if that didn’t work, I’d probably just hit them with a research study like: 70% of companies that engage with creativity had above-average total returns to shareholders – McKinsey & Company.)

I think you’ll agree Jo offered some incredible tips and you can apply them this week. 

This week’s focus action is to ensure you embrace your creativity and ensure you enable your team to integrate creativity into their work. 

Have a great week if you haven’t subscribed you will miss out on with the big question you need to answer: 
Which Do You Need, A Refresh, A Reset, A Reboot Or A Restart? 

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

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Leaders Letter 169 – Leadership Lessons & 5 Questions With Industry Leader & Coach Joe Scarboro

Dear leaders, this week I have a leader joining us who I can only describe as the nicest and smartest leader I have had the pleasure to get to know and have enjoyed a number of coffees with. 

Joe has worked across the C-Suite (holding both COO & CFO roles), been a successful founder who sold his company, led many others and now is coaching other C-Suite leaders. 

This week’s 5 questions are packed full of gems from Joe and I know you’ll get huge value from this.

Connect with Joe On LinkedIn

Joe Scarboro 5 Questions 

Q1/ You have a unique background where you’ve been a leader across the full spectrum, from Chair, COO, CFO and including being a founder. What are the three main leadership lessons you learned from operating across the C-suite? 

Broadly, these sit within the huge topic of “people”.

Having the right people on board is vital – whether that’s the one Co-Founder that you start with or your employees, board or management as you grow. It’s closely linked with purpose, as your values and how you recruit will define your people. Making people mistakes is costly though and this is amplified in the early stages and also when making senior hires at most stages. The downsides are mitigated as you grow, as bad hires have less of an impact, but I’d strongly advise against the temptation to get *someone* in a role sooner, rather than the right person in the role a little later. This is particularly common after a fundraise and during a stage of rapid growth. Creating a robust and well thought out hiring process will serve you well here.

The next tip would be on self awareness. As a leader, you need to be able understand your biases and tendencies in order to make better decisions. For example, acknowledging that you’re bad at delegation because “That’s not how I would do it” (and that makes you uncomfortable) allows you to begin to accept that someone else might not do it the same way, but will still likely get it done (caveated with the above of hiring the right people!). Self awareness needs constant attention though, it’s much easier said than done!

Lastly, I’d go with understanding when to listen to customers and when not to. There are a huge number of examples of successful companies on both sides of that argument, so it’s not as if one way is right and the other isn’t. Understanding how customers interact with your product or service and how they feel about it is generally always important, but if you’re doing something new (be that a totally new product concept, or a new feature) you may be better served by starting with your vision, with a clearly defined purpose for it and working from there.

Q2/ You are coaching across the C-suite, what are the current elements of leadership that are coming up in your coaching that could help leaders to improve their own organisations? 

I see systems thinking and second order effects often not always being given the consideration they need. Leaders deal with a number of issues at the same time, often under a lot of pressure and they operate to solve those issues quickly and effectively. In doing so, they can easily miss fully considering the impact of those decisions on a variety of other areas of their business and beyond. 

A classic challenge of this type is formulating sales comp. Solving for maximisation of incentive (and therefore sales) may seem the right way to go, but there are a lot of other considerations. 

  • What will the impact be on the non-sales team? 
  • Do you make it confidential so as to minimise the impact? 
  • Does making it confidential align with company values? 
  • Will it erode trust within the non-sales team? 
  • Are there mitigating measures you can put in place? 

If you make it transparent, how do you otherwise incentivise the non-sales team members? Of course, you can disappear into this type of thinking and emerge with a huge number of variables and no answers, so the key is to go to an appropriate level of depth for each decision. Having an appropriate heuristic for assessing decisions in this way really helps here, be that something simple like the important/urgent matrix, or something more specialised to the business.

Q3/ You recently took over hosting dinners for Tom Blomfield (the Monzo founder & GoCardless co-founder) from Series A to Series C, are there any themes that are coming that would help leaders understand how to handle today’s demands? 

The startup investing landscape has changed more so in the last twelve months than in the last decade. With the exception of certain areas (AI etc) attitudes to risk have changed, “available funds” are much less available and there’s a push towards profitability that just hasn’t existed for a long time.

This has fundamentally changed most businesses’ strategies. In some cases what was a 5+ year path to profitability now needs to be on a 2 year trajectory because there’s no guarantee that growth funds will be available.

That’s a lot of change to deal with in a short space of time. It’s given rise to a number of themes around hiring, product pricing, unit economics and a lot more besides. Whilst these attitudes are likely to change again, it’s not looking to be any time soon, so these are big issues that need strong consideration from founders and boards.

Q4/ Apart from the mass move to AI, are there any other important moves that you feel all companies will be making in the future? 

I find it hard to apply generic thinking to companies, as every one I have worked in has been different, you need to dig into the nuance and context in order to be able to provide appropriate advice. AI for example, should *everyone* be implementing AI? No. I don’t believe they should. Should everyone be looking at how it impacts their business? Absolutely, but that also goes for a number of areas. It’s more about remembering to lift your head up and consider the fundamentals and macro environment rather than being swept along by the latest hype or making specific moves because “everyone else” is.

One trend that I hope I see come in, is the removal of shareholder value being the de facto, priority number one of a company. There’s already a groundswell of companies changing their charters or otherwise operating with a wider pool of considerations, but I believe we’ll see an expansion of statutory reporting to encompass an element of this too. It’s been happening for years already (see corporate ESG reporting), but I believe there’s a strong chance this thinking will be brought into other areas of legislation too (employment law, consumer protection etc).

Q5/ What was your favourite leadership moment of your career?

There have been many, but most involve helping people. 

As a leadership team in one of my companies, we felt a particular employee wasn’t learning and growing to their potential, but we had no resources internally to help. We were a small company and whilst they were junior in their position, there was no one with more experience than them. We approached them and suggested it was time they moved to a different company, they resisted, but we pushed them forward (and out!). We believed that we were doing the right thing and thankfully we turned out to be right. The employee left, had no trouble finding a new role (including a 50% salary increase) and their career has since taken off!

This was packed full of insight and actionable tips, I am sure you will have a lot to think about this week.

So this week’s focus item is to re-read Joe’s brilliant answers and see where you can apply his lessons. 

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

Thanks, 

Danny Denhard

Read the other 5 questions about leadership interviews 

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Leaders Letter 168 – The 5 Simple Questions To Ask This Week To Improve Prioritisation & Performance

Ask Better Questions & More Often To Improve Work & Performance

Dear leaders, this week I am introducing 5 questions to clarify situations and remove ambiguity.  

These questions are basically my frequently asked questions from the last three months, the questions come from recent conversations, coaching sessions and helping leaders with personal development questions from expert calls.  

  1. For when meetings and performance aren’t flowing:
    Ask: What context am I/are we missing? 
    Why: Simple questions and stopping poor meetings to gain realignment are critical 
  2. For when you need deeper feedback loops:
    Ask: What is your analysis here?
    Why: It is critical it is not first opinions or thoughts. The analysis framing allows people to dive into issues and create compelling arguments for both sides. 
  3. For when ruthless prioritisation is required:
    Ask: If we were to stop this activity today what negative impact would it have? 
    Why: Most people default to more and have a bias for doing more, being ruthless and clearly calling out tasks will reduce strain and cognitive load on teams. 
  4. For when to understand output at a greater level:
    Ask: what is x’s performance like over the last nine months? 
    Why: Results are often too binary. Performance allows you to understand the wider impact and uncover the deeper actions and decisions taken. 
  5. For when to understand performance and productivity: 
    Ask: What expectations do you have for this project? And how are you prioritising your tasks within this project? 
    Why: When performance is struggling and when team members feel stretched autopilot kicks in and many team members just start, very often understanding the required steps are missed out and prioritises these tasks are overlooked and underappreciated. 

This week’s focus action is to ask these 5 questions when required and move your business forward with smarter questions and reduce the bias for more and have an eye for prioritised (aka smarter) work. 

Have a good week and land in your inbox next week,

Danny Denhard

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Leaders Letter 166 – The No Passengers Principle

It Is Time To Remove The Passengers From Your Business

Dear leaders, if I said no passengers within your team what would I be referring to? 

A passenger (to me) is someone who always sits back, does just about enough and doesn’t strive to push their work forward or importantly improve the company’s status quo.

Passengers are in every business, in almost every team and are often hidden away by a lack of people management (managers this is on you, if you catch the early onset of passengers you can address it, if stays after six months it’s hard to reset) performers or by performances from their colleagues. 

Having Potential & Good Is Different To A Passenger 

I believe you can have brilliant performers who can take their foot off the gas from time to time and can have a lot on to keep up their high standards, however, allowing long-term mediocrity is going to have a hugely negative impact. 

Middle managers have a hard job and motivating passengers can be almost impossible. It’s critical in management and leadership you know who’s adding value and whos detracting from it. This is where you can proactively score performance and output and then address them regularly. 

Blending quant and qual with real work examples is critical to influencing, improving performance or replacing passengers.  

Passenger True Impact 

Passengers are often hindering your department’s performance, they are coasting, and passengers often rub off in the wrong way and then bring on others for their ride and it can then spill over into other members of the team. Remember team members mimic behaviours especially hard and high performers who feel they are being taken advantage of. 

Why A No-Passenger Principle? 

Principles are what people can get behind, and agree on and they can lead behaviours. 

Long-time readers will know I am a huge supporter of principles, I have: 

Principles Over Pointers 

When you look to create your principles or look at revisiting your principles (it’s annual planning for most larger companies in August), you should question what you really need and what makes the business better and why no passengers are critical to reset expectations and drive the business forward at every given opportunity.  

Principles are written up, formalised, put up in the office and shared so frequently the whole company should be able to repeat on request without any effort or hesitation. Being a pointer isn’t enough and this is when HR will likely have to be called in to help when principles are there to support managers and colleagues. 

This week’s focus action is to consider adding a no-passenger principle to your business and being clear on what behaviours work within your business and which behaviours will not be accepted. 

Have a great week ahead,

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

Read the last 3 weeks newsletters

Leaders Letter 165 – Energy Control
Leaders Letter 164 – Discover How to Make Company-Wide Feedback Proactive and Effective Now!
Leaders Letters 163 – 3 Priceless Quotes
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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 165 – Energy Control

Dear leaders, we are entering into the period of the year when we need a real break, and many counting down to holiday/vacation. 

We are hitting the breaking point and a rest is what you need and the doctor likely ordered. 

In my coaching and workshops, I have numerous recommendations and a theme of recommendations I supply towards summer and into the autumn/fall session:  

  • Mid-year burnout 
  • How to control your energy 
  • How to leverage knowing your energy levels 
  • Understanding how your department members gain energy and lose energy 
  • How your team leads are motivated 
  • And where everyone’s energy levels are 

Here is how I break energy down further 

Ramp Up For Important Meetings 

  • I am a person who is full of energy in the morning but mid-afternoon I have a harder time doing my best work, I attempt to book important meetings earlier in the day and restrict my caffeine intake to coincide with the most important meetings 
  • I have been known to get hangary, which means I need to eat fairly regularly and need energy from the food to help me post lunch. Knowing which foods provide you energy and which reduce energy, it will be important to improving your output and being present in meetings and when making important decisions 
  • I ramp up with caffeine, I ramp up with preparation for the meetings and often I will walk to bring up the heart rate and help you to think more clearly. 

Energy Matching 

  • As a coach you are either supposed to bring the energy and take levels higher or match the person you are coaching. Very often I will match coaching clients’ energy to ensure it aligns with how they feel and then raise if they need to take part in more specific skill drills 
  • Many video-based meetings can feel like a slog, there is a lot written about zoom fatigue and mirror anxiety but a small shift and delay can feel like a lot, it is important to call this out and match the energy or call it out to try and ensure everyone is equally invested (hard I know but in trust-based organisations, this is not a too far removed)
  • Walk-and-talk meetings are often a great way to energy match and equal the conversation. Walk-and-talk meetings are often an easy way to remove any tension and matching strides is a simple way to energy match 

Energy Zapping 

  • We have all been in meetings or when working in the office and someone’s negative demeanour or negative attitude wipes out the team’s energy, it is important to learn what zaps your energy and who can zap your energy.
  • Being able to talk to your colleague with negative energy can be challenging, if you can discuss this, please do directly, if not attempt to help them recognise they might not be helping the collective (seek HR help required) 
  • When you are sat in a bad meeting you can feel frustrated and see your energy level deplete, MRS aka meeting recovery syndrome is an essential area which many are unaware of and do not control by scoring and reflecting on the quality of the meeting. Ensure poor meetings and frustrating meetings are addressed and you personally make personal reviews and notes on meetings that create MRS. This is where I recommend conducting a calendar auditand being ruthless in owning your time and energy levels.  

Energy Supplying 

  • Do you have someone within your team (first team or your own department) that whenever you chat or work with them – they boost your energy, they make you feel like you need to take action or can improve something just by spending a short amount of time with them? I can name five on the spot and often wish I could collaborate with them when low on energy. These energy givers are invaluable collaborators and ensuring you match their energy or give back is critical to a high-functioning and performing team 
  • As mentioned earlier, food and drink are vital areas of giving you energy. There are a number of ways you can incorporate this into meetings and working sessions, by providing healthy snacks (allergies to be remembered) and getting the opportunity to add a buffer to get a drink and/or snack (even a FIKA break) to manage levels and give you the energy 
  • Often with away days and strategic getaways you will actively see people’s energy drop and when they hit caffeine walls, most would then dive into the sugary treats and then have a large lunch, this would mean a real crash or slump after lunchtime. There are typically drinks and dinner in the evening the following day will be a write-off for many. It is important you understand this cycle and supply better snacks (fuel), book in breaks (powering through isn’t a smart default) and stop people just sitting around a boardroom table or a hotel’s basement conference room and getting out and stretching your legs, reduce cognitive boredom and improve your oxygen flow 
  • When you set the agendas and running orders you should consider what decisions are made and when and how the sessions can complement energy sources 
  • I used to hate looking at the agenda and knowing my annual strategy presentation or my business lines financial request was after 4 pm. This was knowing everyone would have low energy, and low attention and knowing that the most important decisions are made when people are more switched on and energy levels are higher (despite many late-night emails and chats most decisions are made in the workday apart from in crisis)

This week’s focus action is to understand how to control your energy, how to make other people aware of this and where you can tweak your offsites and workshops to be more energy aware. 

Have a great week and have great energy levels, 

Thanks,

Danny Denhard 

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Leaders Letter 164 – Discover How to Make Company-Wide Feedback Proactive and Effective Now!

‎Discover How to Make Company-Wide Feedback Proactive and Effective Now! - leaders letter 164.

Dear leaders, how frequently do you ask for and gather company-wide feedback? My guess is quarterly and it’s often just another task to complete.

As a department lead, you should look for feedback loops as often as possible. 

From

  • One to ones 
  • Skip meetings 
  • Team feedback 
  • Department feedback 
  • QBRs & Quarterly planning with the team 
  • Annual department planning 
  • BAR & AAR (before action reviews and after action reviews)
  • Your manager’s feedback (yes even CEOs have bosses) 

One of the hardest things to do as a leader is to make feedback actionable and take steps to improve. For most, you are never given a framework or a tool to keep track of and improve on the essential items of feedback from quarterly check-ins, your annual review and real-time feedback from colleagues. 

There is a free feedback model that I like broken down into: 

  • Advice 
  • Compliment 
  • Criticism 
  • Suggestion 

This framework helps you list out all feedback and decide if you need to take action or something you should take note of and evolve your approach over time. 

Battling Realtime Team & Department Feedback 

I bet you have also been in meetings where your team or department becomes under fire and the feedback is mostly lost or unactionable as it’s not recorded or part of a political game from other department leads. This isn’t helping the company, its venting and its hindering progress without formal examples.

Actionable Hint:

  • Always ask for this feedback in writing and ask for two to three examples of when the team or department have acted like this otherwise it’s likely reactionary to results or not getting the desired outcome. 
  • Create a centralised document and start attacking each piece of feedback (not opinion) and show how you are proactively leading from the front. This makes it clear to the team/department and company how seriously you are taking feedback.

Official tools like Workday struggle with helping department leads to know what to work on and if there are core learning and skills gaps. 

This is where there is a big jump (and no bridge) between individual feedback, departmental and company-wide feedback. Very often they are connected and you should learn by sharing knowledge and actions taken.

Company-Wide Feedback

When you’re a company you look for official feedback from all the company employees. 

Most ask a series of questions and the answers are anonymous. 

Some companies select an eNPS solution and have quant and qual feedback. 

There are a few issues that arise: 

  • A low number of responses – requires numerous chases from HR (and becomes disheartening)
  • Sending a survey to all staff members doesn’t work from an HR perspective. It is not personal to the recipient, it seems low importance and takes a long time versus finishing all of your important tasks.  Always being put off.
    Hint: Seeding and then nudging from the department lead is a better approach and easier to scale than mass sends from HR or the founder
  • There is a fundamental lack of trust in the “anonymity” of the surveys (having led software selection the majority are anonymous and aren’t actually sophisticated enough to offer this
  • eNPS often can confuse the company and without real management and insight it can seem daunting or unrealistic to make any change from a low score to a better score let alone a bigger score  
  • Most who complete the survey don’t trust the answers will be actioned and don’t see the steps (or the discussion) behind the feedback sessions and how it’s handled 

Most often these feedback surveys do not highlight the real issues or areas to celebrate in the company culture, it is often performance-based feedback and without more organic and frequent feedback companies will struggle to make a difference for the company or the people. 

Google Weekly Move 

I recently read that Google has moved from annual feedback to weekly feedback (surveying) and it makes me wonder, why and what is it actually achieving.

Is it a leadership initiative or is it an HR play or a PR response to the ongoing changes and headlines Google are receiving? 

I can’t see how this will add value and make any feedback actionable without deep connections and department (Product) to department (Marketing), company (Android) to company (Google Ads). 

With thousands of employees at different phases of being unhappy making changes will take a long time and the low-cost low effort will most likely always be selected to roll out. 

How to improve weekly feedback? I often suggest a company culture or culture community manager to help to shape and collaborate in company culture – the key is not to be reporting to HR and definitely not to be seen playing the game. Trust is critical.

Other Companies Feedback Cadence

I asked 50 C-suite leaders what their company-wide cadence was and the breakdown was:

  • Weekly – 2% 
  • Monthly – 44% 
  • Quarterly – 18% 
  • Annually – 36% 

When I asked those who replied with monthly as their answer, this changed from annually over the last 18 months, this shows there is either progress or reacting to the demands of hybrid work and forced return to the office. 

Feedback is a critical part of management and leadership, that’s obvious, however, what is less obvious is how we review data sources and ask for better feedback loops. 

  • When performance is high you will want to understand the drivers and what and how people are feeling 
  • When performance is down or a big event has taken place and there is a negative sentiment in the air – what can we learn from this 
  • When a core member of the team leaves or when mass layoffs happen what insights and nuggets do we have to garner from the company to improve the business holistically 

This week’s focus action is: Ask yourself and the leadership team:

  • How frequently do you ask for feedback?
  • How do you show the results and identity which areas you will be working on and the areas of concern you will be taking a longer-term view on?
  • How do we step up and ask for feedback formally in the good times and then in the low times and how are we proactive in showing we (the leadership team) want to improve the business and not just ask for more? 

This won’t improve everything in the near term but in the mid to long term, this approach is going to reshape how feedback is seen, heard and actioned within your business.

Have a great week and if you have feedback let me know below.

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

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Leaders Letters 163 – 3 Priceless Quotes

The 3 Quotes I Often Think Of & Revisit When Creating Strategy & Hosting Workshops

Dear Leaders, with it being the last stretch in July it means two things:
(1) seasonality (for most) it is the summer slow down
and
(2) it’s prep and away day season with most mid and large businesses likely running their annual planning cycle and then re-forecast cycle (basically the hardest cycle we go through as leaders).

(» If you are going through AOP or LRP here are a number of free resources)

In most of my workshop sessions, I have a stack of quotes to share, most business owners look for well-known CEOs when sharing quotes, it’s an inspiration and ego play.

The go-to quote that is used by most consultants is (which admittedly I love and use myself) –

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”
— Henry Ford.

Here are my three favourite quotes I share, they come from:

  • Google co-founder Larry Page suggests they are competing with competitors by serving them organically
  • Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg’s understanding of why his competitors own the wider eco-system is a significant strategic risk
  • Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos reminds us that tactics are temporary, strategy is ten years aka the longest term for Amazon, unlikely for most others.

“On the Internet, competition is one click away.”
— Larry Page (Google Co-Founder)

Why is it important?

  • Google traditionally serves their customers by serving organic listings and ads against core keywords searched and users’ behaviours on & across their products
  • Google’s approach was one of the smartest moves in business history, to make money from other people’s data, crawl their sites, then rank and importantly create a moat around this by serving intent-based ads (remember their motto – don’t be evil) and knowing switching costs will limit us moving from good free services and better paid for services (like Google Suite)
  • And then charging their competitors to appear in their search results aka the click away (for years we have called it downstream) in mind. What I call —
    Make Money From Your Data Moat With Your Competition Click In Mind. If you ask any CMO or CFO, the one thing they truly hate paying for is brand terms and others bidding on them…

“Our biggest competitor by far is iMessage,” 

“In important countries like the U.S. where the iPhone is strong, Apple bundles iMessage as a default texting app and it’s still ahead,”— Mark Zuckerberg (Meta Founder)

Why is this important?

  • Knowing your enemy (competitor) is critical in business, most struggle to not fixate on their competitor’s activities. Meta and Apple are still in business battles over the App Stores, associated charges, mass personalised data collection via product usage, the open vs closed web.
    Tim Cook Vs Mark Zuckerberg is going to be decades-long battle
  • One of the smart moves reducing their friction was their acquisition of WhatsApp (in 2014) and Instagram (in 2012) – it still couldn’t easily compete with iMessage groups and sharing in private, and how content from their properties was to show up was out of their control
  • Facebook knew via their famous Growth Department (including its current CMO Alex Schultz and famed VC Chamath Palihapitiya and many others holding influential roles) they needed to hit external mass and share across the primary messaging app iMessage to drive more adoption and to serve better ads you’ll click and buy from
  • Facebook’s big issue is still others own their destiny with the sharing of Meta content (think Facebook, Instagram, Threads posts) across other networks and platforms and their app downloads are being controlled by app stores and search engine algorithms this is costly, particularly across their vast user groups
  • What Facebook did was to unbundle Facebook and push ahead with messaging across all of their platforms and focus on the different jobs to be done on each network. Facebook still struggles with the dominance of iMessage in the US market

Long-Term Thinking & Planning Wins

“Be strategically patient, tactically impatient.”

— Jeff Bezos (Amazon founder)

Why is this important?

  • Amazon has been the long-term first company for the last two decades, with Jeff Bezos telling investors repeatedly about their long-term approach since 2003 and hinting their investors should share the same view
  • Amazon are constantly sticking to their ten-year plan and smartly tactically they have to be flexible and on rare occasions, reactive (Covid and mass industry changes). Amazon has accelerated their tactics and rolled out Prime Day in response to competitors and had record years since its launch
  • Jeff Bezos also famously said “Your Margin Is My Opportunity” when quizzed on their low-price prime pillar. This has made Amazon the trusted place of convenience
  • Andy Jassy (the current CEO) has helped to evolve the company into a more efficient business aka day 2 while doubling down on customer-centric what I dub prime expectations. Amazon adding to their famous flywheel has been critical to customer retention and signing up net new customers.

Quotes in isolation can be great in workshops and conference talks, however, the context behind the quotes and insights that are shared are vitally important and can drive change within businesses by understanding the thought processes.

This week’s focus action is to understand how you can think about competition and think differently, consider how you can over-serve your customer by adding mutually beneficial services and understand how partnering with competitors with services they can’t refuse to use (Amazon also does this (alongside Google & Facebook) with ads and with their logistical offerings.

Have a great week ahead!

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

Other Essential Resources To Read Today

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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 162 – Threads Strategy Breakdown

Dear leaders, are you one of the 100m users who flocked to threads over the last couple of weeks? 

I am and I must confess, I am not so convinced about the product and its lacklustre product features…yet.

I suspect you have heard it at least mentioned within your business, from the employees using it and as likely from your Marketing or Growth team with the race to get the account and find if you are relevant within the evolving app culture. 

This week I am going to breakdown one of Focus’ core offerings strategy and break down Treads, what it is, why it launched and why it is different, how Meta has thought about the landscape and how they’ve used this launch (smartly or not I’ll let you decide) to misdirect some of its recent failures. 

The Threads TLDR

  • App only (threads.net prompts you to download the app) 
  • Threads is an extension of Instagram – it connects to your Instagram account and supplies you with an @ with a specific number you joined 
  • Threads are built into the Instagram platform enabling micro-updates (500 characters)  
  • Updates can be shared publicly or privately (you set when you sign up) 
  • It has limited features and is by all accounts an MVP 
  • A curated feed that does not allow users to select just those they followed (a lesson from their previous growth days that the feed has to be incredibly valuable) 
  • As a platform, it wants to sit away from news and not be known as a news outlet like Twitter (this will be harder for Threads as this is what people use microblogging platforms for) 
  • There were no ads for a week (Hulu were exclusively the first)
  • Think of a really lightweight Twitter 
Mark Zuckerberg’s tweet poking fun at Elon Musk on Threads launch

Strategy Smarts 

  • Record Breaking – Leveraging the user numbers across the Meta portfolio (Facebook 2.9b MAUs, WhatsApp 2.2b, Instagram 2b MAUs) is driving record user creation and download numbers was incredibly smart and knowing how difficult being an audience can be this was strategic smart and savvy.
  • Organic – TikTok spent over $2b to gain a record number of downloads, user accounts and drive retention through advertising efforts, this has been largely organic channels and knowing they gain mass attention from the tech press and mainstream media
  • New & Alternative – An alternative method to always posting videos and the perfect picture on your native Instagram feed and threads allows users to have something to say and create a new space to be different or be more you. Twitter usage has dropped and it was prime time to release new. We might see Meta allow this to fly too close to the sun and crash quickly after the engagement levels drop. If you follow a number of friends, not media outlets and personalities the updates have already dropped (falling foul of the deliberate full feed of random content)
  • Creating FOMO – creating FOMO around a new product to remove time spent on other apps is intelligent in a market full of attention and time-based apps (while many were enjoying JOMO (joy of missing out) was happening on Twitter)
  • Algorithmic Driven Feeds – Something that Meta got right with Instagram and Facebook was flipping the feed from chronological feed to algorithmic-driven feeds with affinity signals and then learning from a superior product in TikTok. TikTok took algorithmic-driven content to another level and then evolved into an entertainment engine from anyone showing in a feed created for you versus just from people you were connected to. This shows how the internet went from and where it is now, with numerous apps driving entertainment for “free” with us as the product aka being sold to by advertising and subscription models.
    Meta has tweaked their approach to offer similar features and has helped to drive engagement and usage. 
  • Acquire Or Copy – When you hit Meta’s size and scale you cannot easily acquire a competitor or new entrance in the market due to anti-competitive laws and measures. Meta is famous for using Snap, iMessage, Telegram (chat and group platform) and TikTok features in its brand’s umbrella and roll directly into their apps. This is another example of Meta and their leadership team embracing the Microsoft approach to strategy, copying key features and killing others with distribution within their own ecosystem (think recently with Teams fighting with Slack and Teams winning the professional chat app battle)
  • Meta Huge Scale = Controllable Narratives – By releasing a new product it starts to remove narratives away from other platforms and helps to control mass narratives and then how they communicate (we will see exec and media companies exclusively updating and using threads)
  • Big Army Big Battles – Fighting for time and attention from Twitter and importantly against TikTok – this isn’t widely discussed but new products reduce the usage of other platforms while users work out the new platform, the etiquette and the culture of the new app/platform 
  • Hitting Other Apps That Have Potentially Run Their Course – Twitter is struggling to stay relevant (other platforms in the same category as Twitter such as newer players Mastodon and Bluesky), and BeReal was effectively killed off by Instagram and TikTok being inspired by their USP and rolling in a product feature and then usage dies off. This is a smart tactical move(s) for these big platforms horrible for BeReal and similar apps and services that are easily copied 
  • Data Collection – This is the most controversial piece here, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp all collect a large number of data points on their users and use it to inform their next series of decisions. This is well known and although this has caused a large number of headlines, court cases and investigations, it hasn’t stopped Meta from releasing a new app with a new set of data collection and a way to connect users into cohorts 
Threads announcing record-breaking weekend, no more official numbers since

Meta Misses & Misdirections  

  • The Metaverse – Meta invested multiple billions in a new metaverse (the company re-branded around) and it hit its stock price and confidence in Mark Zuckerberg’s leadership 
  • AI Struggles – Meta has struggled to have any breakout with their AI tools and while rivals are making bigger steps in the perceived AI battle – we should never count out Meta but their very slow approach it’s likely hindering them from an investor’s perspective 
  • App Store – Facebook wants to become a marketplace for others and an app store alternative, allowing users to download apps directly from their potential version of an app store. This is the play Mark Zuckerberg has wanted to lead on since his earnings call back in 2018 —  “Our biggest competitor by far is iMessage,” “In important countries like the U.S. where the iPhone is strong, Apple bundles iMessage as a default texting app and it’s still ahead,” 
  • Hits & Misses – Despite the Meta brand’s dominance, Instagram and Facebook apps have had a number of product feature misses, including audio and creator funds. Can Threads be a hit or will it be a miss and popularity nose dive like a clubhouse or more recently BeReal.  
  • Creators Only? Instagram threw itself into the creator economy and has struggled with making its shop feature and shopping experiences work – Facebook has also struggled with shopping away from ads – for now, that works, however, in the near future Meta brands will struggle with stuffing more ad units 
  • WhatsApp Controvisal Usage – WhatsApp is a behemoth, it has however struggled with governments (and Taliban) using its platform and having their messages leaked or released – despite its e2e encryption this will have a negative impact (despite all of the convenience and free use via data packages) 
  • 80:20 rule: Apart from on WhatsApp Meta’s properties have a 20% creator role and 80% viewer role (consume content but don’t create) – this will likely also become the norm on Threads. Will their growth teams be able to break this and can their feed be important enough to fill the boredom slots that other apps do already?  
  • Mark Zuckerberg vs Elon Musk – A supposed MMA fight and spat really has taken a leaf out of the music beef (between rappers) playbook to pull attendance away and be part of multiple conversations. This may have seen fun but is a waste of time and effort  
  • Step Out – With many elections coming up, Meta has now built a new (currently) mostly completely organic product that shouldn’t influence the election 

Having worked in a space where Facebook entered with a bang, you prepare for their growth engine and its huge breadth of users and ability to cross-sell to hurt you, interestingly, in two businesses I was in or across this didn’t materially hinder or hurt us. With the right prep for the teams and a reminder of why we were different and to focus on our journey, we drove the business forward. I am not sure Elon and Twitter have the same sort of defence. 

Whatever you think of Meta, there are always numerous lessons we can and should take away, from their aggressive tactics to their ability to engage and retain users and drive more ads into their ecosystem while glueing the user data together. It is the modern-day company that has navigated numerous issues and continues to be stronger for users and advertisers. 

This week’s focus item is to: learn from how Meta leveraged its own ecosystem and a weakening market to drive a record-breaking app that may or may not keep its mass appeal… 

Have a great week! 

Thanks,

Danny Denhard 

More Strategy Resources To Help You

>> Strategy Is Baking A Better Cake

>> WTF is strategy (really)

>> The Difference Between Mission, Vision, Strategy & Tactics

>> The Strategy Cheatsheet

If you want to know more about Focus strategy work and how to review your strategy in our Strategy Audit, get in touch below

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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 161 – 5 Questions With Dave Cairns The #digitalhomad

Dear leaders, this week I have a brand new and special “5 questions with” series. This leadership newsletter is with futurist, SPaaS (Space-As-A-Service) and the creator of the #digitalhomad Dave Cairns. 

Dave recently started to work from anywhere (despite being an Office Leasing Agent) and is sharing his flex journey blending work and parent through a mix of video, written and audio content. 

I was introduced to Dave by the previous 5 questions with Caleb Parker and we have had some enlightening conversations and know he will inspire you to think about workspaces and work environments differently.

Dave is a brilliant thinker, he is prolific on LinkedIn and really shares his knowledge and insights. If you are an exec looking to see how to leverage LinkedIn to add value to your audience and customers Dave is a great example.  

The Q&A 

Q1: You used to be a professional poker player, how did being a top poker player help with your career and leadership style?

Poker is an interesting game. It’s the only pursuit I’ve encountered whereby it’s expected that you’ll be lied to. Ironically, there’s a lot of honesty in this dynamic; you can almost breathe a sigh of relief in that the baseline expectation is some form of deception. 

Conversely, in our professional lives we are always having to suss out whether or not we are being deceived by our colleagues, bosses or clients.

Having a background in poker has allowed me to apply my knowledge of zero sum games (in poker, your win is always someone else’s loss) to win-win(-win) outcomes.

Having a deep understanding of deception and self-interest allows one to evaluate bringing two or more parties together in non-linear ways. 

Q2: What are your top three recommendations for companies trying to get the most out of “hybrid” work? 

If you think culture = the office – start by reconsidering as “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” – Suzuki Roshi

Check out Dave’s insightful prediction from last year and his excellent thoughts on the topic shared on LinkedIn.

Increasingly, one of your most common employee avatars will resemble that of a “corporate freelancer” – an employee who desires the job security and values being on a team but wants to behave with the flexibility of a digital nomad/freelancer.

Beta test workplace strategies that embody unbundling work from a central office model and instead seek to create a network effect for your employees when it comes to where they work – both physically and digitally (in a digital capacity – explore virtual worlds that make up an aspect of what we define as the Metaverse)
Read Dave’s supporting metaverse LinkedIn post

Future of Work strategy must be built around the understanding that: both employees and employers must be able to reserve the right to change their minds. For employees, their life circumstances will change which will equate to ever-changing workplace needs.

For employers, long-term office leasing as primary strategy never made sense in the first place as no business can predict where they will be in 5-10 years time, yet their real estate is fixed and leased long.

Employers will continue to be at the mercy of destabilizing forces like de-globalization and climate change – they will quite literally need to be able to pick up and move “houses” (good thing their employees all have homes!). 

Q3: You are an active member of helping companies enable better working environments, most recently you entered the metaverse and help companies with your expertise and answered Q&A.
What have you learnt by sharing your ideas regularly across LinkedIn and embracing different technology platforms?   

The way I see it, there are only advantages to exploring your own mind and sharing it with the world. And the same goes with novel technologies. It’s for these reasons that I publish content daily and that I explore new ways of connecting to & collaborating such as virtual worlds. 

If I write something stupid it’ll be forgotten tomorrow but if I write nothing I’ll miss the opportunity to keep getting to know my own mind. And if it turns out the metaverse is in fact “dead”, I’ll have lost nothing as I’ll have engaged with all kinds of new people along the way and will have valuable skills/perspectives BECAUSE I was curious. 

Q4: You are a huge advocate of Space as a Service (#SPaaS) – how do you see this really shaping the future of work? 

Over the last few years I’ve often said that there is NO office “amenity” more valuable than the choice to go there or not. I firmly believe this to be true as what is more valuable than autonomy? Autonomy provides us with the agency to decide where and with whom we belong. If I’m right, companies who compete for the next “warm body” to sit in their seat will get increasingly competitive.

It’s no longer just corporate executives that are consumers of the workplace. Whether they like it or not, their employees have been granted that same privilege. Accordingly, these newfound consumers will align with certain brands and not others, and will need different types of products/services.

The only words I can think of to describe this movement are Space-as-a-Service.

Q5: You started the #digitalhomad hashtag on LinkedIn to let people follow your journey and updates – how do you think your approach to LinkedIn can help business leaders from around the world to become more authentic across social media? 

After I left poker, I spent 8.5 years living in a state of cognitive dissonance. Even though I make a living from the office, I’ve NEVER romanticized it and in fact a lot of office culture just doesn’t work for me (I suspect I have ADHD and am trying to get assessed). 

For many years prior to Covid, I made content on LinkedIn but it wasn’t authentic. I was making videos and shit about how to sublease your office and relocate without having to pay double rent. While stuff like that matters to some of my customers, I wasn’t at all passionate about these subjects. 

I thank Covid for creating the space for me to access a former version of myself, a digitally nomadic online poker player. By accessing this guy once more I was able to start to poke holes in not just the office market, but the culture. In doing this, I’ve been on a journey of getting closer and closer to my authentic self. It’s brought me closer to all the change agents out there and has gotten me more deeply aligned with the types of customers I want to work with.

Saying what I think has also gotten me into a lot of trouble but I wouldn’t change it for the world.

You can’t put a price on authenticity – you win and so do the people you care about. 

» A huge thanks to Dave for answering these questions so transparently and offering his unique insight.

With the way the new world of work is shaping up, David is definitely a thought leader and I highly recommend following or connecting with Dave on LinkedIn. When I re-boot Fixing the broken world of work podcast, Dave will be the first guest I interview. 

Have a great week ahead and this week’s focus action is to rethink how you will look to work and leverage space differently. 

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

Read The Other 5 Questions Series 

Categories
Leaders Letter Newsletter Leadership

Leaders Letter 160 – 10 Of The Best Ways To Improve “Team” Subculture

Dear leaders, In recent weeks I have shared insights into how to think about your team, management and leadership levels and how to connect to those around you. 

In a recent presentation to a C-suite, I suggested that they were confusing everyone: how? They had:  

  • C-Suite – CEO, COO etc 
  • Leadership Team – C + SVPs
  • Management Team – Department Leads + HR 
  • Next Gen Team – The Heads of 
  • They also had an X-team for good measure too – that was their executive team and advisors in a big group who mostly spoke about the numbers and performance (very similar to the C-Suite) 

The difference for most is a title and how they are tiered internally. 

For others it is how they represent the company, which teams they might serve and who is the first team, this first team principle is something that has been around in management training for years, it’s the team you spend the most time with and who you often operate alongside most. 

If you are on the C-suite your team is 99% of the time, the C-Suite team or if named differently the Senior Leadership Team. 

If you are a department lead, your team is most likely the team you manage. 

When you are senior and trusted you will likely be across numerous teams and that’s when your time is precious you need to understand which team is your primary and which is your secondary and so on.  

I am a big believer in there are actually numerous cultures within organisations, there is one but they are influenced by the ongoing micro cultures of your company. I tend to refer to these mirco cultures as sub-cultures, each team or unit of people are big influencers on the wider company culture, big decisions do change how the people within your company operate and will impact how they perform. 

I have been in challenging times when the most senior leadership team is in dispute or has long-term conflict and it really impacts those around them, underneath them and can creep into one-to-ones and departmental meetings. This is where seasoned operators use and abuse their political intelligence and sends the wrong waves through the organisation.  

Team Subculture Advice

I’m usually asked for specific details of how I’ve helped my teams in the past so here are ten common recommendations I make to clients today.  

Leadership Team Level 

  1. All Company Stand-Ups – These are optional standups for the whole company to attend; this included weekly performance and revenue numbers, it included top-level information of what we discussed at the leadership team meeting (to allow the team to understand how we are tackling issues, discussing the future and where we see opportunities etc) and our actions and we invited anyone to ask questions and present their take. 
  2. Friday Stand Down – as a leadership team, we were all relatively new to each other. We had an informal debrief every Friday afternoon before we left and it was what we needed to blow off steam, have a laugh and connect on a personal/professional level. In most leadership teams you rarely have a chance to laugh and it’s incredibly important you find your mutual humour zone and what is acceptable within your team. 
  3. Meeting Captains – there’s nothing more annoying if you are that person who always takes notes, I introduced a rotating meeting captain who would lead meetings and be responsible for agendas, action points and notes, it was a way to share respect and responsibilities and not just be on the “leader” to lead meetings. 
  4. Extra / Management Fika – a coffee and a snack together following the Swedish tradition. Fika worked well with leaders who don’t work together often or have less of a personal connection. Fika can work well and can work remotely – it’s worth exploring how you can introduce time blocking to encourage Fika. 

Management Team Level 

  1. Onboarding – Very often you will work with people on the MT who is new to the company or new to the management team; they very often need onboarding to the management team, they need to understand how this management team works and what success is for them on the management team. Onboarding is essential and almost always overlooked – I created the onboarding flow and a cheat sheet alongside a record of important items we had discussed recently and how we made and got to decisions. 
  2. Decision Documents – I have recommended a number of times on leaders letters; the decision document helps the company to understand how decisions were made, how, who and why. It’s an invaluable tool for transparency and takes minutes to update and share with the org. This is an open document everyone has access to. 
  3. Up-and-comers lunches – a virtual or in-person lunch where up-and-comers within the business could be taken for lunch and discuss the company, and get to know senior execs. This isn’t just for the up-and-comer it is for the leaders to get to know their colleagues and understand how the level or two below are operating and understand any concerns they may have.    

D Team Level 

  1. Reverse Mentorship – Mentorship isn’t always senior mentoring the “junior”. Reverse mentorship is the smart way to help spread knowledge and insights across the business. It is a way for less senior members or discipline experts to help more senior people understand how the company is operating lower down, understand the discipline and learn from internal experts. Be mindful of the time and how many reverse mentorship sessions you have or enable.
    There is an upcoming leaders letter around your 160 hours of work per month and making the most out of time management.   
  2. Champions Presentations – Champions are experts in their field, aka subject matter specialists (Super ICs as it has been referred to recently) who go into management and leadership meetings and present rather than the Department lead. This is important for exposure to the environment, training on what is expected and tolerated in these meetings and giving the Champion the opportunity to connect with senior leadership. Historically this may have been seen as Departmental management not to present on the behaviour of your team, however, empowering your team members and bringing in champions will improve how important tactical layers are thought through and delivered on (alongside being a time-saving exercise). 
  3. Cross Champions Training – this was something that I rolled out as long as 14 years ago. Inviting international colleagues to the U.K. and having a few days going through plans, learnings we came across and sharing knowledge whether that’s day-to-day essential cross champions like excel training, latest tools to use and how to use them to one example was someone was a popular external keynote speaker and provided speaking training to the department. 

This week’s focus item is to implement the most applicable pieces of advice, I always strongly recommend rolling out a decision document, champions presentations and meeting captains for the quickest impact and lowest effort. 

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

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

Five Other Essential Company Culture Must Reads

Leaders Letter 159 – The Company Number 2
Leaders Letter 153 – Critical Distance & The Power Of Creating Space
Leaders Letter 145 – Career Care & Showing You Want More For Your Team Members
Leaders Letter 125 – Company Culture Lessons From Apple, Burberry, Google, And Uber
The Best Company Culture Books To Read