Leaders Letter 205 - Take Inspiration From How Other Companies Tackle Problems & Rethink Issues
How Amazon, YouTube, Stripe, Spotify & Pinterest Break The Norm
Dear leaders, you may have noticed I have a small yet positive obsession with understanding how other companies operate, how they rethink issues, and how they problem-solve.
Many customers and coaching clients mention this when I offer to share alternative methods.
So, here are some of my favourite ways for other companies to tackle problems and rethink issues, with hyperlinks included to explain more.
» Happily hit reply with your favourite
24 Working Styles & Problem-Solving Techniques To Be Inspired By
Amazon’s Paper Cut Teams - teams designed to fix smaller issues so they aren’t overlooked. When you have a Growth team focused on Product features this is a critical team to ensure you sweep up those annoying Product issues.
Amazon’s Memo Culture - writing a six-page memo in their S-Team (exec team meetings), it is narrative-driven, everyone reads before the meeting commences and can challenge where you are and how you propose to move forward with purpose away from a presenter-led PowerPoint.
Amazon’s Internal Press Release - having ran Product teams and business lines one of the biggest issues is allowing the company to understand product rollouts and prepare everyone to the same level of understanding. Amazon’s internal press release is smart and easy to implement. I strongly recommend if your Product Managers just tells the company something live, this is the approach to make them more effective in comms.
37Signals - Their only method of communication is through their own software basecamp and ensuring threaded discussions are in written format. Basecamp and other brands under the umbrella have few meetings and being deliberate in written communications ensures it is well-thought-through for the writer and the audience.
37Signals - Guide to writing and principles are all shared, their guide to making decisions is straightforward for all employees and open to new employees. I highly recommend introducing a similar guide internally. I am a firm believer that writing will be the critical form of comms for the next decade
Pixar Plussing - Pixar is in a business where everything has to be great for everyone (from Grandparents, Parents and kids) they have a working style called Plussing where they accept critiques from anyone and discuss how to improve the movie.
Disney Imagineering - Imagineers is the creative engine from a small group that Walt Disney implemented towards the start of Disney, to make the impossible possible.
CEO Reverse Mentorship - I first heard of the successful use of reverse mentorship from a friend who was at a large sports brand and was remotely reverse-mentoring her CEO. It gives the CEO inside access to the company with a good match and enables priceless exposure to the CEO for the mentee.
One trick I recommend is having it over coffee (in person does have some advantages) and lasting 30-45 minutes. The reverse mentor must be strong and speak up well.My Decision Doc - My favourite tool to recommend and roll out with clients is a company-wide decision document that acts as the canonical document to help understand decisions, when, why and how they were made. Easy to create, roll out and keep updated.
Stripe’s Former COO Claire Hughes Johnson Offsite Planning - Claire Hughes Johnson’s book is brilliant, not just for COOs and CEOs but a book to help organise and connect many teams. Claire’s approach to offsites is brilliant, I particularly like her approach to “forming, storming, norming, and performing:.
Shopify Bursts - a deep and immersive way to work together. Shopify bursts help the whole company get closer together by redesigning outcomes
YouTube’s $100 Voting - This is something I have heard a few companies use, including Reid Hoffman (the LinkedIn founder), offering each person connected to voting for important decisions to metaphorically use when voting/investing on what's the most important action or choice. A good question to pose to fellow senior leaders would be, where would you invest your $100 in big projects?
Think BIG, act small by when framework - This framework is something else I recommend when company-wide goals and frameworks like OKRs struggle. This framework is used by many businesses, however, it has not got the same widespread notoriety. Think (1) the 3-5 big company wide goals, the 3-5 tactical projects you are going to do and by when you are going to do them by.
» Simple wins over complicated every single time!Pre-Mortems - A famous approach shared in HBR and used in well-known fintech brands (including Stripe) use to plan and review their upcoming projects as if they failed so they can ensure they improve performance. I suggest a BAR (before action review which is borrowed from the military) to do the same but take learnings from previous missions and projects
Pinterest’s OKR Pyramid - OKRs are often a real mess and a full-time job to manage as a management or exec team Pinterest uses quant and qual OKRs and has a methodology to manage and keep on top of OKRs and KRs.
A good take on a difficult working styleCoda’s Two-Way Write-Ups - Holding team members accountable and having structure is key to Coda’s way of working. Their two-way write-ups force people to show they have read updates and structure feedback with automation connecting their actions.
A very smart way of approaching a problem we all face, accountability and ownership.Emmitt Shear (Twitch Co-Founder) 1-2-1s - 1-2-1’s either work well or don’t, more often don’t, Emmett has a system he has shared that helps frame 1-2-1’s FYI, DO X DO YOU APPROVE, I'M THINKING THROUGH A, B, C. When many company leads struggle with keeping up and connecting with their leadership, this 1-2-1 approach is something that can be copied and replicated from large to small businesses
Mikel Arteta’s (Arsenal) Principles - If you are a football or soccer fan Mikel’s name should mean something, Mikel Arteta is the Arsenal manager and is highly regarded as a deep tactical manager rethinking an old rigid system and someone who goes over and above to prepare his players. Mikel has many principles that guide the club from a song he found and co-selected with fans and players to principles he shares at every game. 3x Principles from a recent game was recently leaked in the British press
Twilio Founder’s People Values Not Product Values - Communicating your people’s values and being clear about people's values or your product values. Often leadership teams pick people's values, communicate them and don’t make them stick, making your people's values stick and ensuring everyone can recite them is imperative. Borrow this if you’re struggling to land new agreed-upon values (like Twilio found out the hard way)
Use Of Slogans - Lulu Cheng Meservey is a highly trusted PR leader, operating at brands like Activision Blizzard, and Substack and is now a board member at Stripe. Lulu has some great ideas to rethink PR including use of Slogans and how important slogans are internally and externally. Slogans can be seen as cringey if half-hearted but ensuring you provide a slogan that people get behind and won’t forget is one of the best internal and external levers to pull. Lulu went on a podcast appearance spree about a year ago and well worth listening to many
Shareholder Letters As Internal Compass Letters - Stripe, Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway all write brilliant annual shareholder letters, these in fact help shape the future of the business and act as an internal compass. Bob Iger the Disney CEO also suggests you should manage your company by press release (committing to your words by actioning what you say you will). Something I recommend is writing a letter guiding the strategy for your business. All the decks and emails will blend together unless you have one space you save and people know to return to. Make the internal letter count.
Exec Briefing Document - This is another approach I developed more recently, a two-page document created by heads of and department leads to brief the exec team of important work projects, updates and things to be aware of. This works best in companies that have hierarchical approach and those who are divisional.
This approach isn’t solely for the exec team but is at a high level to reduce noise and increase confidence. I recommend this approach where middle management struggles to show value or is struggling to put across what their teams are doing and increase trust in leadership teams. This also works cross-functionally as there will be no hiding places and clearly reminds everyone of the owner of the project and the deliverables.Growth Requirement Doc - A template I share when I work with companies is a new Growth requirement document (GRD), I tweak slightly with each company to ensure it fits or in some cases deliberately conflicts with how it’s always been done. Think of a growth requirement doc as a way to plan work, align teams and encourage connection around core upcoming product features and builds
Power Half Hours - Lastly, one of my favourite ways of addressing issues and problems internally, especially between people and often managers and their team members is power half hours, where you act as the intermediary and ask the questions that aren’t being asked or won’t be and align the team or cross-functional teams. The person running power half-hours has to have high trust with both sides and have the respect to understand management is hard.
Do you have any methods I should know about? Please hit reply and let me know if you have any that would help others and I’ll happily share with the other Leaders.
With everything happening in the political space, this week has to focus around your leadership and leading through change here.
Have a good week and I’ll land in your inbox next week.
Thanks,
Danny Denhard
PS — If there are any specific topics you would like me to cover or questions you would like me to answer please hit reply email me directly leaders@dannydenhard.com