The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell
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Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle
Notes
Research shows that when people feel like they are part of a supportive community at work, they are more engaged with their jobs and more productive. Conversely, a lack of community is a leading factor in job burnout…“you have demanded respect, rather than having it accrue to you. You need to project humility, a selflessness, that projects that you care about the company and about people.”
5 words on a whiteboard have a structure for 1:1s, and take the time to prepare for them, as they are the best way to help people be more effective and to grow.
The throne behind the round table – the manager’s job is to run a decision-making process that ensures all perspectives get heard and considered, and, if necessary, to break ties and make the decision.
Bill told the poor product manager, if you ever tell an engineer at Intuit which features you want, I’m going to throw you out on the street. You tell them what problem the consumer has. You give them context on who the consumer is. Then let them figure out the features. They will provide you with a far better solution than you’ll ever get by telling them what to build.
…trust means people feel safe to be vulnerable…the best teams are the ones with the most psychological safety. And that starts with trust.
“A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, who has you see what you don’t want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be.”…good coach doesn’t hide the stuff that’s hard to talk about—in fact, a good coach will draw this out. He or she gets at the hard stuff.
Bill would look for those same characteristics he looked for in candidates: smarts, hard work, integrity, grit.
Identify the biggest problem, the “elephant in the room,” bring it front and center, and tackle it first.
Ask about their lives outside of work, understand their families, and when things get rough, show up.