Building Better Boss: Qualities of a Leader

• Keurig was founded 29 years ago with the goal of changing the world one coffee cup at a time and is now a $16 billion enterprise that owns Dr Pepper/Snapple.
• CS 74 Ventures LLC invests in over 20 startups and commits at least 50% of its profits to charity, social causes, and sustainable initiatives.
• Strategy is a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a desired overall plan or action, doing it differently and better.
• Successful strategies involve the big picture, while successful tactics win battles in the short term, such as Sherman’s march to the sea which destroyed the South’s ability to fight the war.

Building Better Boss

• Possess a clear vision and strategy for the team.
• Assist employees in their career development.
• Express interest in each team member's success.
• Have the technical skills to advise the team effectively.
• Be a good communicator and listener.
• Serve as a good coach.
• Be productive and results-oriented.
• Empower the team and avoid micromanagement.

Leadership Styles

• Effective leaders come in different styles, like Steve Ballmer's energetic approach, Jack Welch's focus on people, and Haruka Nishimatsu's humble, hands-on style as CEO of Japan Airlines.
• General Colin Powell emphasizes that the essence of leadership is trust and selfless service to followers.

Business Success & Failure

• Not selling enough is the number one reason new business ventures fail.
• Converse All-Stars had to improve their product offering when other big sneaker brands emerged.
• Joe Girard overcame poverty and personal setbacks to become the number one big ticket salesperson, selling 13,001 cars by redefining customer intimacy.
• Joe Girard averaged 6 car sales a day and sent each prospect customer at least 12 cards a year.

Kinds of People

• People who make things happen.
• People who watch things happen.
• People who wonder what happened.

Strategic Decisions

• Importance of self-awareness as foundation for making strategic decisions in life and business.
• To achieve success, you must first understand your strengths, weaknesses, values, and goals.

Key Points for Clarity of Vision

• Should be specific, measurable, and aligned with values and passions.
• Understanding Your Identity-Ask deep questions about who you are, what you believe in, what drives you.
• Helps make decisions that are consistent with true self.
• Recognizing Your Strengths and Weaknesses-Conduct thorough assessment.
• Leverage strengths and mitigate weaknesses.
• Defining Your Values-Core values serve as compass for decision making.
• Setting Clear Goals-Goals should be broken into actionable steps that are realistic and attainable.

Entrepreneurial Skills

• Skills an entrepreneur needs: Self-awareness, strategic thinking, resilience and grit, adaptable, disciplined.
• Skills an intrapreneur needs: Thinks, works, possesses the urgency of, innovates like, and protects the brand like an entrepreneur.
• Act and think like owners.

Traits of a Company that Attract Intrapreneurs

• Execs comfortable taking calculated risk and encouraging creativity.
• Compensation plan incentivizes innovation.
• Executives play offense.
• Execs elevate potential stars (instead of holding them back).
• Execs seek out ideas from all layers of an org.
• Execs actively look for young talent to keep company vibrant and innovative.
• Blue Strategy/Blue Ocean: creating uncontested market space and making the competition irrelevant.
• Capitalize on a unique market opportunity with little to no competition instead of competing in highly crowded, competitive markets (red oceans).
• Instead of going broad, Patrick went narrow and made it so that new agents only had to get one license.
• Katie was an exec that shut down all of Patirck’s ideas.
• Katie was stubborn and unwilling to change, which ended up costing the company a few hundred million dollars because she was arrogant and thought that she was above everyone.
• To judge the success of an entrepreneur, look not only at the results but at the processes used to get them.

Strategy Quadrant

• Everyone gets judged by this.
• Every business has one of these, and if this isn’t constant, won’t experience exponential growth.
• Leadership Development-Make list of top people and start assessing them.
• As CEO, you will get judged by the types of leaders you develop.
• Operating System-Want to get to the point where your system is so well defined, this system is just a knob.
• Biz Dev & Sales-New partners, making sales partners better, building new partnerships.
• Only amateurs say they are overwhelmed.
• What you do has to do with when you do it.

Stages of Business

• Survival.
• Startup phase.
• Formulation: putting pieces together.
• Explosion.
• Plateau.

Simon Sinek - If You Don’t Understand People, You Don’t Understand Business

• When we are surrounded by people who we believe what we believe, trust emerges.
• More willing to take risks, experiment, explore with confidence that if we fail will pick us back up-We are not good by ourselves.
• Surround yourself with people who can do what you can’t do. Your gut feeling is not scalable → this is an issue.
• We don’t trust everyone, we trust people in our community, but we have to know what to look for.
• Every decision we make in our lives or for our organizations is a piece of communication → shows what we believe.

Why authenticity matters

• Because we actually have to say and do the things we believe.
• The things we say and do are symbols of who we are.
• We look for these symbols in others to find others who believe what we believe.
• If not authentic, we won’t be able to actually form bonds.
• Tiger woods ex.
• If you say and do what you believe, you will attract people who believe what you believe and The entire process of asking others who we should be is inauthentic.
• We surround ourselves with the people and products and brands that say something about who we are.
• When we find people who believe what we believe, we are drawn to them because our survival depends on it.
• People don’t feel fulfilled with their jobs because they do not help others.
• Generosity = doing something for someone else without ever expecting something in return.
• Feels good so that we can continue to form bonds with others and 100% of customers and employees are people.
• We are social animals, and our survival depends on our ability to connect with one another.
• Can’t form trust without human interaction.
• Showed up because they had a common set of values.
• Make it about them and not about you.
• Crew members of the other boat save the crew member from the other boat business is About People, Not Just Numbers: Companies often focus on metrics and strategies but forget that business success ultimately depends on understanding and inspiring people.
• Biology Drives Human Behavior: Connects leadership and decision-making to how the brain works, particularly the limbic system, which governs emotions and decision-making, helping leaders connect with their teams and customers.
• Trust and Safety are Essential for Success: People perform best in environments where they feel safe and valued, therefore, leaders must foster trust, empathy, and a sense of belonging within organizations.
• Golden Circle = Why, How, What: Successful leaders and companies communicate from the inside out starting with "Why" (purpose), then "How" (process), and finally "What" (product or service).

Processing

• Processing is the ability to make effective decisions based on access to information at hand with the highest odds in your favor.
• Is about subjecting every difficult choice, problem, or opportunity you face to rigorous metal analysis.
• Processing is about playing out strategies, seeing the hidden consequences, and sequencing a series of moves to permanently solve problems.

The importance of “I”

• Take responsibility.
• Great processors use I and examine their role in problems while poor processors blame others and play victim.
• ITR → investment, time, return.
• Every master, both in chess and business, learns more from studying the moves that led to losses than the one that led to victory.

How to solve for X

• A methodology for effective decision making.
• X represents the unknown variable in any problem; finding X means identifying the root cause of an issue.
• While X is unknown, it is not unknowable.

Simon Sinek: Why Leaders Eat Last

• At the end of his talk, he discussed a TV show called Deadliest Catch.
• Simon talked about 4 chemicals of the brain.
  • Endorphins (One of the selfish chemicals).
  • Mask physical pain (i.e. runner’s high).
  • Cortisol (The stress chemical).
  • Dopamine (Another selfish chemical).
  • Reward chemicals for accomplishment (i.e. crossing items off to-do lists).
  • Oxytocin (The Trust/Love Chemical).
  • Generated from physical touch and acts of human generosity.
  • Seratonnin (The leadership chemical).
  • Reinforces relationship with caregivers and those they protect.
• Demonstrates ultimate leadership.
• Shows how trust and safety enable extraordinary actions.
• Develop a strategy to get there.
• Find your "why" - it will change your life.

Move 2: Master the Ability to Reason

• "Processing is the ability to make effective decisions based on access to information at hand with the highest odds in your favor."
• Life is always happening - how you process it defines you.
• ITR: Investment, Time, Return.
• Ask lots of questions.
• Only interested in truth.
• Be curious.
• Prevent more than solve.
• Good negotiators.
• Find the right levers to beat established competitors.
• Use social media as a key marketing tool.
• Do homework before every major meeting.
• Communication
• Definition: "The transfer and understanding of meaning"
• Intuitive decisions based on feelings, experience, and judgment.

Goals and Planning

• Strategic plan of action vs. operational plan.
• Long-term plans (3+ years) vs. short-term plans.
• Specific, measurable, achievable, and compatible.
• Specific.
• Measurable.
• Achievable.
• Compatible.

Team Building & Culture

• Creating a principles-based culture.
• Recommendations include purpose statement followed by a background with SMAC statement.
• Then suggest easy next steps in discussion/explanation section followed by key benefits.