It is shocking how often startups fail because of the personality flaws and deep seated childhood traumas of their founders and execs.
Get therapy. Get exec coaching. Do inner work.
It will save you if you let it. You’ll solve problems now and prevent problems in the future.
At a certain size, the job of a founder switches from building a product to building a company. It drove me crazy for a while to not be building a product directly ... until I realized that for a founder, the company is the product.
Every founder has periods where they're stressed, full of doubt, overthinking stuff, going in the wrong direction, not sure what to do next, or just burnt out.
Having a great CEO coach can truly be the biggest game changer for you and your startup. This is a hill I'll die on.
In his book, @MichaelOvitz casually drops that KP had sent Bill Campbell to Seattle to fire Jeff Bezos as the CEO of Amazon.
After the meeting, Coach said it was a bad call and didn’t do it.
Imagine a future where he’d followed through with his marching orders...
You counseled so many. Your wisdom and warmth will be remembered. Rest in peace Bill Campbell.
If you’re a leader, get a coach! You owe it to your team/followers to be your very best self!
I’ve had the benefit of working w/ two of the world’s best leadership coaches @shaniospina & @coachgoldsmith.. Find yours!
Your team/followers will notice the difference!
~90% of startups fail
So being pessimistic/cynical about every new startup will get you a ~90% success rate
It doesn't mean you're smart.
all product people, this is a true gift from jeff bezos, please read and then re-read: bit.ly/2pv71Kh
This is why coaches are so valuable — they make feedback loops orders of magnitude tighter, and sometimes create some where there were none
“If as product managers, we continue to dictate every detail to our engineers, we’ll always be bogged down in the delivery details. By inviting your engineers to participate in discovery, you empower them to answer their own questions.” - @ttorres bit.ly/2RWk4Do #ux
Get an executive coach - if you’re a CEO or exec, you make decisions regularly that are worth 10x the cost of one. Multiplied by your team, that could be 1000x.
No elite athlete can get to that level without coaching. Why would that be different for operating in business?
2014: "I do not need Product Managers, I can run my company myself, I have the strategy."
2019: "How do I hire a CPO? I need them yesterday."
Founders realizing they can't do it all on their own, that Product Management is a career, and an important skill for the exec team. /2
How do we improve our professional performance in the face of complexity? My new 2017 @TEDTalks focuses on how coaching can make you better at what you do--from sports to music to surgery to delivering babies in rural health facilities in India. go.ted.com/atulgawande