SCALING YOUR LEADERSHIP
Your company is scaling.
Master the tools you need to scale your personal leadership with it.
You've been successful. Your group is growing, and fast. What's next? What do you need?
You need accelerators for yourself – you can’t just work more hours, or more intensely, you need to know how to scale – you need the accelerators that leaders in Silicon Valley have learned through experience, sweat and tears, and you need them now.
Scaling your leadership is an online course based on decades of experience managing and coaching leaders in growth companies - San Francisco and world wide.
This course teaches the tools and approaches that you need to scale. This isn’t theoretical. This is what I lived as an executive in twenty years of startups, and what I’ve coached hundreds of leaders through in the last half decade of massive tech company scaling in San Francisco.
THE JOB
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
The job is management and leadership. Forehand and backhand, yin and yang, energy and structure.
Your days jump from building spreadsheets, to presenting powerpoints, to emotional one on ones, to detailed, strategic technical discussions. You work with different personalities, in intense arguments and moments of sudden creativity. You work with models, forecasts, plans and budgets.
You are constantly juggling time, attention, mental models, emotional situations, relationship building and decision making. It gets intense. Your calendar is full, there isn't enough time to think.
Being conscious about what choices you are making and why you are making them is critical. Knowing when you are managing - juggling concepts, ideas and models - and when you are leading - working with emotion, stories and personal connection - is a critical skill.
ABOUT YOU
WHO YOU ARE
you are managing a team in a rapidly scaling company.
you know you want to build your craft as a manager, to master your work now, a year from now, and into the future.
you can see the stretches coming up as your job expands: more hiring, managing managers, more strategic thinking.
you want to learn, and fast!
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
the tools you need to scale yourself
how to master your time and attention, so you can think and work strategically
how setting guardrails and leading with trust becomes your superpower
how to not get stuck, putting off difficult conversations and decisions
how culture trumps process and how to build the culture you want deliberately
TIME AND ATTENTION
“It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?"
Your calendar is full, but you need time to think.
You know you need to plan, but you can't find the time, except maybe on the weekends or evenings. There are always more emails, slack messages and meetings: your calendar is a checkerboard of colored blocks from early morning Monday to late Friday.
I sympathize! I work through this with many of my clients, helping them with a set of simple changes to get control of their calendars, break out the time they need to think strategically and then actually use it.
In the course you will learn a simple prioritization model, but more importantly, how to use it, and the mindset change you need to be in charge of your time and attention, not have it be at the mercy of every suddenly urgent interruption that comes up.
Need to hire so you have time to work, but don't have time to hire? Yeah. We'll talk about that, too.
ABOUT ME
STARTUPS
I’m a leader, mentor and coach with over twenty years of experience in fast-moving software startups.
Three became successful public companies, and fourth sold for $250M+
My experience covers everything from being one of “three guys in a room” to an officer of a public company. (And a traveling surf bum, barely capable yoga student, skilled improv performer, and twenty-five year student of meditation).
I coach leaders of all kinds (CEOs, CTOs, Engineers, Sales, Marketing) in rapidly-growing tech companies in San Francisco and the Bay Area, from seed-size to “unicorns”.
TIME AND ATTENTION
“It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?"”
MY CLIENTS
A few of the terrific companies I have worked with recently, and some recommendations. You can see a longer list of companies and additional recommendations on the clients page.
DELEGATION AND TRUST
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
― Ernest Hemingway
Delegation is your super-power.
The more you can delegate, the more you can scale - it's pretty much that simple.
The most successful CEO I worked with had a clean desk and worked normal hours. His secret? He delegated quickly and completely, without hedging. It looked easy - it wasn't. He was able to communicate trust, correct quickly and something else.
In the course we will look at trust - what it is, why it is such a tricky issue (have you ever said "I don't trust you" in a conversation? how did it go?), and how to work with it.
And how to set the guardrails for your team at the right level, so you are neither micro-managing, nor giving direction that is too vague to be helpful.
THE COURSE
EIGHT WEEKS
The course is eight weeks of video instruction, reading, group coaching and practice.
Each week we will meet for a group coaching session to review and discuss the topic of the week. Prior to each session, you will have access to a video presentation on the topic, and suggested practice to experiment with and share with the group.
Between sessions, you can discuss and debug the work in cohort discussion channel.
GROUP COACHING
Management and leadership are different, and you need both.
The crucial job of a leader: providing clarity - the what, why and how of the work for the team.
Self-reflection on current skills.
PRACTICE
Management and leadership are different, and you need both.
The crucial job of a leader: providing clarity - the what, why and how of the work for the team.
Self-reflection on current skills.
COHORT
Management and leadership are different, and you need both.
The crucial job of a leader: providing clarity - the what, why and how of the work for the team.
Self-reflection on current skills.
DIFFICULT
SITUATIONS
“Difficult conversations do not just involve feelings, they are at their very core about feelings.”
― Douglas Stone
Something about difficult situations
The more you can delegate, the more you can scale - it's pretty much that simple.
The most successful CEO I worked with had a clean desk and worked normal hours. His secret? He delegated quickly and completely, without hedging. It looked easy - it wasn't. He was able to communicate trust, correct quickly and something else.
In the course we will look at trust - what it is, why it is such a tricky issue (have you ever said "I don't trust you" in a conversation? how did it go?), and how to work with it.
And how to set the guardrails for your team at the right level, so you are neither micro-managing, nor giving direction that is too vague to be helpful.
WORKSHOPS: THE SKILLSETS
One workshop per month (2-4 hours), on the following topics, for six months. Work continues between workshops with a mobile app facilitating homework, preparation and mentoring.
WEEK 1:
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
Management and leadership are different, and you need both.
The crucial job of a leader: providing clarity - the what, why and how of the work for the team.
Self-reflection on current skills.
WEEK 1:
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
Management and leadership are different, and you need both.
The crucial job of a leader: providing clarity - the what, why and how of the work for the team.
Self-reflection on current skills.
WEEK 1:
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
Management and leadership are different, and you need both.
The crucial job of a leader: providing clarity - the what, why and how of the work for the team.
Self-reflection on current skills.
WEEK 1:
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
Management and leadership are different, and you need both.
The crucial job of a leader: providing clarity - the what, why and how of the work for the team.
Self-reflection on current skills.
WEEK 1:
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
Management and leadership are different, and you need both.
The crucial job of a leader: providing clarity - the what, why and how of the work for the team.
Self-reflection on current skills.
Something about culture
— Somebody
CULTURE
WEEK 1:
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
Management and leadership are different, and you need both.
The crucial job of a leader: providing clarity - the what, why and how of the work for the team.
Self-reflection on current skills.
WEEK 1:
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
Management and leadership are different, and you need both.
The crucial job of a leader: providing clarity - the what, why and how of the work for the team.
Self-reflection on current skills.
WEEK 1:
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
Management and leadership are different, and you need both.
The crucial job of a leader: providing clarity - the what, why and how of the work for the team.
Self-reflection on current skills.
WEEK 1:
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
Management and leadership are different, and you need both.
The crucial job of a leader: providing clarity - the what, why and how of the work for the team.
Self-reflection on current skills.
WEEK 1:
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
Management and leadership are different, and you need both.
The crucial job of a leader: providing clarity - the what, why and how of the work for the team.
Self-reflection on current skills.