Weekly Bookmarks
93rd Edition – November 15, 2020
Based on my experience, I believe that you are not engaged to your job – you’re engaged to the people you work with.
John Garrett
1. What’s Your And?
What do you love doing outside of work? More importantly, do you know the outside interests of your colleagues? How about all of the business leaders where you work?
I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with John Garrett this past week who is a former PwC accountant turned comedian, and he is now a speaker and consultant where he helps businesses build better workplace cultures. His new book is, What’s Your And? and I recommend this 5-star book without any hesitation.
You can listen to John on this week’s podcast.
2. One More Reason to Focus on Culture
I confess that I tend to be a strategy-first CFO and people second. That sounds terrible. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about people – I do. But my focus is always on what needs to be done right now. Am I alone?
Thankfully, John in his book What’s Your And? reminds his readers about the percentage he wants to round up to 100%.
When Tom Rath was researching his book Vital Friends, “96% of the people surveyed who had three close friends at work were more satisfied with their lives.” I was floored by this insight.
John goes on to write that we as business and financial leaders need to allow space and time at work for creating these human connections.
3. On Scaling Yourself
The VSCO creative channel is 30-plus million subscribers strong. When the founder Joel Flory hired his first VP of people to help scale the team, he was taken back when she said, “Let’s start with you.”
Flory subsequently underwent a 360 feedback review which went so badly, he went home and curled up in a ball because he struggled with the negative input. Ultimately, he worked on his mindset and now teaches the following to help others to scale themselves –
- work on yourself
- figure out your focus
- figure out the most important things required at work
- read a lot
- find advisors and seek advice
- don’t focus on culture fits but culture adds
If you are a CEO or start-up founder, this is a great video where Flory talks about what he learned in scaling himself.
4. These Are Big Growth Numbers
DoorDash plans to go public by continuing its investment in its leading food delivery app in the U.S. Their 2-year growth is staggering:
2018 – $291 million
2019 – $885 million
Like most tech startups, they are far from profitability by losing $207 and $668 million in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
What’s your prediction? Will DoorDash crack the code of making money, unlike Uber with its high valuation and continuing losses?
5. CEOs, Goals, and Fantasy Football
When I was interviewing John Garrett, he mentioned Bob Lung who is a CFO who passed his CPA exam years ago. Annually, he writes fantasy football guides for players who want to improve their draft process each year. One of Bob’s basic tenets is to find players who will give you the best chance at scoring consistently from week to week.
Bingo! That’s the objective for any business leader, minimizing variation. There’s nothing wrong with the goal-setting process of shooting for a number. But what if you miss the mark? Is that failure? What if the business improved? What if the variation was minimized through new and better processes?
A picture is worth a thousand words. Here’s what we’re shooting for along any business journey –
Thank You For Reading. Thank you for making this a successful newsletter.
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Always be learning.
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