#724:  Claire Hughes Johnson — How to Take Responsibility for Your Life, Create Rules That Work, Stop Being a Victim, Set Strong Boundaries, and More

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Optimal minimal.
At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. And I'll do personal questions. No, it is seemingly.
a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal mental skeleton.
So
Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs, this is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is always my job to deconstruct world class performers to tease out the habits, routines, lessons learned, et cetera, that you can apply.
And holy cow.
This one delivers a lot of tactical practical advice that you can use. I took pages
and pages of notes that I am still reviewing.
Multiple times a week.
It is very actionable. My guest is Claire Hughes Johnson.
Claire currently serves as a corporate officer and advisor for Stripe, a global technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet. If you've bought just about anything online,
Chances are at some point or another.
you have used Stripe or if you've sold something. Claire previously served as Stripe's chief operating officer, COO, from 2014 to 2021, helping grow the company from fewer than two hundred employees to more than six thousand.
employees. At various times, she led business operations, sales, marketing, customer support, risk, real estate, and all of the people functions, including recruiting and HR. And if you think that sounds completely impossible and crazy,
You are right. It does sound completely impossible, and she explains how she managed to spin so many plates.
at once at such a high level. Prior to Stripe, Clear spent 10 years at Google leading a number of business teams, including overseeing aspects of Gmail,
Google apps and ultimately consumer operations, as well as serving as a vice president for AdWords online sales and operations, Google offers, and Google self-driving.
Car project.
So she has a very diversified background and is high, highly adaptable. Her book, which I recommend, is Scaling People.
Tactics for management and company building. We get into a lot of nitty-gritty details. You're not gonna want to miss this one. So you can find Claire on Twitter at C Hughes Johnson, C H U G H E S Johnson. And uh this one.
is very detailed, folks.
We get into a lot of nitty gritty.
that you can use. So without further ado, please enjoy a very fun, a very wide ranging, and a very actionable conversation with Claire Hughes Johnson.

Claire. Thank you so much for making the time.
I'm so glad to be here, Tim. Thank you for having me on.
And we were talking briefly about how
one thing that you've observed. I'm just joshing here, of course. A lot of cool people go to Brown. I want to ask about somebody else who seems pretty cool, who I'm not sure went to Brown or not, but that is Fred Kaufman.
And I guess he is the origin of your second favorite operating principle, perhaps? Say the thing you cannot say. I just
Love this. Say the thing you think you cannot. Oh. Yeah. There we go. That's actually such a critical distinction, right? That is such a critical distinction. I simplified it. That probably tells you a lot. We could psychoanalyze that later. But say the thing.
You think you cannot say.
Listeners with a bit of context.
as to what this means and why it is important.
I laid out and I had to think about this for myself, uh, four operating principles.
For me as a leader and a person, and I shared them with others, because I think actually everybody should authentically come up with their own.
But this one.
The first one.
about self awareness is is the one I probably talk about the most with with everyone and myself. But the second one is say the thing you think you cannot say. That's why I started with the second one. Yeah. Yeah. Because you'cause no one asked me about now. And I
It's a lesson that
I've learned and I think there's a journey that
people go on with this lesson, so we can share about that, but I've certainly gone on the journey. And the person
Who is probably one of the most pivotal to me.
Stepping from
Square one, which is we often just don't say the thing. We just don't say it, was Fred Kaufman.
And Fred
Was
I'm gonna get some of this wrong, but as I understand it, he was an accountant by training.
He became a professor at MIT. He was teaching accounting.
He grew up in Argentina, by the way. I don't think he went to Brown. And he
had some sort of life revelation.
That he was not
living with the true dimensions of his being and his values.
And what he needed to do was stop teaching accounting.
And
Become a leadership coach and advisor.
And he
Wrote this book Conscious Business, which I recommend.
I don't recommend a lot of business books, I'm just gonna be perfectly honest, Tim. I often read the beginning of business books and then I never finish them. But Conscious Business, I have read all of it. And he formed this firm.
Called excellent at the time.
that Cheryl Sandberg hired at Google.
So Fred and his team come in to start working with Cheryl Sandberg's organization, of which I was a member of
Management and then leadership, but initially I was sort of one of the senior managers, like not anyone.
Particularly special.
And to Cheryl's great credit, cause not a lot of companies at the stage Google is out were investing two, three days of management training and leadership training. Like we all went through these three sixty assessments, they gave us these report outs, and then they put us in these
Boot camps with Fred and his team. Just for a snapshot in time, when you say at that scale, what was the status of Google at that time, roughly?
I joined Google in May of two thousand four and it was maybe around
eighteen hundred
People
I mean, there's a lot of contractors, I'm gonna be honest, but I think in terms of full time employees, and it was, by the way, for me the biggest place I'd ever worked. So I was like, This place is huge. And then just fast forward, I left Google in twenty fourteen and it was like almost sixty thousand people. So whoa. So
I would say that the excellent engagement with Cheryl and her teams was probably
I joined right before the IPO, which was in August of oh four. And then in O five, I would say, is when we had so you know, Google actually was doubling every year, though. So it's probably three to four thousand, you know. But Google
had gone public, but was still
maturing and establishing, especially on the sort of investment in management and organizational skills. But Cheryl, of course, ahead of her time on things like that.
was making the investment and had the budget, that was a benefit of Google, is we certainly had nice margins, Tim, that we could spend on management training.
And so we did this boot camp with Axelin, but
One of the things that
Fred has a he has some really great frameworks. He has one about being a victim versus being a player, but one of his frameworks is how do you take what he calls your left hand column?
So you and I are talking right now, say we're having a conversation in the workplace. Our brain is always
operating in the background.
And it's often thinking some things about the conversation, about the person, about sometimes it's thinking, what should I be doing? What do I want to have
for dinner, you know, but we have this
Ongoing monologue in our brain.
And the left hand column
With respect to look, it's about our conversation.
Fred was really pushing us as a group. He's like, How do you? He'd say, Detoxify, can't do his accent. Detoxify the left hand column and actually say it.
Like say the thing.
And then he'd go through these exercises. And so this was sort of a light bulb for me, which is like really about giving hard feedback. At that time, I was in management training.
But what I've come to learn
Is not only is say the thing you think you cannot say, certainly about giving feedback and being more direct in your management conversations, but I actually think it's a
Really?
Tremendous leadership skill.
Which is to get in a room and I don't care if I'm in charge of the team or I'm just a
Person on a board. I'm on some boards now. And we're sitting there.
And there's often an unspoken thing.
You've been there. You've been in the like Tim, you seem like someone who would actually put the thing on the table. Like I think you and I are Sometimes to my detriment, but yes. Well I think I need help. And this is where I'm gonna ask you if you could give an example. It could be hypothetical or real. Yeah.
Uh
This type of
Experience and also the detoxifying.
Yeah. How do you detoxify? The like gentrifying your inner language so that
You don't sound like a complete asshole.
Right. And I think I mean the short answer is you gotta ask some stuff as a question often to to stop yourself from making a big judgment. But Tim, yeah, I think what I pick up in you and from listening to you is
You're willing to take some risks. And so I think this is really about risk taking and saying something that you're not sure you should say, but
You're gonna put it out there. And then the question is how do you do it?
with as much finesse as possible so that you don't end up having blowback, which
Believe me, I've sometimes said the thing
I think I cannot say and had people look at me like
Oh my goodness.
But most of the time I'm reading the room right.
Here's an example, which is I mean, just classic, more of a business example, but it certainly happens in my personal life too.
So we went through various business planning types of
tactics at stripe, but one of them we were using for a while was your classic quarterly business review. You have teams come in, we've given them a template and we say, please fill out these things. Let's see your data, let's see where you are versus your goals, what's your strategy, what's your plan.
Write this memo. We're all gonna read the memo and then we're gonna have this discussion about how you're doing.
And often teams come in and they want more resources or they want us to solve something or decide something. And we're of course saying like well it's actually you, you're supposed to be deciding and solving. But it's a discussion with the executive team.
And I'm sitting in one of these reviews
With
A team that's primarily working on an area of the product.
So it's product and engineering leaders. It's not my part of the org that I run, but I'm invited to be there and I like to be there. I like to be close to the product.
And I'm listening to the discussion.
And it starts to become incredibly clear to me that the team
Is
Feeling
defensive or blocked or angry. I couldn't quite tell what it was.
that there's another team doing some similar work.
And
By the way, if you've read any Jack Welch stuff, he actually had this tactic as a leader where he'd put two teams on the same problem and sort of like get them to compete.
These tiger teams, that was not Stripe's tactic. I just want to be clear. We were not interested. We never had enough people. There's no way we would put engineers on the same believe me. So it was mystifying. And I think by the way, I could hear it because I wasn't in the room super close to the material.
This wasn't my part of the org. I hadn't heard about the details of some of these projects until this meeting. I'm reading the document, I'm listening to them talk.
And I just said
Can I just
Ask if there's something we're not talking about here.
And they're all looking at me'cause I rarely like poke in on certain moments with respect to like what's our product roadmap.
And is there something we're not talking about?
And everyone looks at me and I said
I feel like
You're really concerned about this other team, what they're building or what they're up to.
Are you concerned? And initially, no, no, no. I mean, you know, it's fine. It's fine. Like they've got this thing they're doing that it's cl I said, Well, is it
Do you think it's the same thing? Is that what I'm hearing? And I just started to ask.
A bunch of questions of the leader of the discussion.
And I said, Well, should that team be in the room right now? Should we
Have a meeting with both of you.
Because
Feels like there's asymmetrical information and that you all
Don't feel confident.
in what they're building.
And that you're either dependent on them or competing with them with what you're building.
And they were like
Maybe. We don't have the right people in the room to have a conversation about the problem.
And so we sort of stopped it and said, Let's go do that.
To the credit of the rest of the people in the room. But as we left, one of the engineers who was sitting on the sort of periphery walked up to me on the stairs and he was like, That was refreshing.
But why I'm bringing it up is
To me, that was a moment of leadership.
Which by the way, you don't have to be a VP or a COO to do that.
The leadership is to say I am observing a thing.
that people are clearly not saying and are uncomfortable and is actually
Seems to me like a bad practice.
Happening.
And I am gonna just
call like I'm gonna ask, is this going on? Am I seeing this correctly?
And it's gonna change the whole trajectory of the meeting.
And the conversation and maybe of the team and their work. It did result in some de duping.
Ultimately. But I think that's what I mean by say the thing.
Yeah.
Duping meaning having people working on less similar
Overlapping Venn diagrams of responsibilities.
Exactly. And I think really what it was is they both had a part of their team that was sort of doing the same thing and they were feeling dependent on each other.
It was almost like a yin yang, and they like didn't have the whole picture. And I was like, all right, someone needs to have the whole thing under their control. So it was almost duplicate plus dependency.
Which is sort of worse. Sounds like a recipe for lots of headaches. Exactly. But there's also, Tim, I'm sure you can picture an example.
In a personal situation. Where you know you take a risk, you know, with a friend and you say
Hey, have you uh
Told your husband that you feel that way.
So the detoxifying
No.
In any of these examples is
In your mind.
You're having a judgment. We're always judging. The brain looks for shortcuts.
We know this.
I'm judging and I'm like, Oh, I'm convinced that they're pissed at this other team, or I'm convinced my friend and her husband are having problems and I'm gonna solve'em. But like to detoxify it, you have to sort of
Float above yourself and say
It is not gonna be productive for me to open my mouth and issue a judgment on another person.
Or someone else's work product. Yeah, people take that really well.
Yeah, exactly.
People super don't like that.
So what can I do? What can I say?
And my
Feeling is it's usually a question.
That
Opens the aperture.
of the conversation there but keeps them in a mode of
Curiosity, openness. How can I ask?
And the problem and the art here, and this is why you have to practice it and it's uncomfortable is
Sometimes it's
You say something too general. You're like, Is there something you're not telling me?
That's not gonna work,'cause that's gonna make them think, Wait a minute, is there some like paranoid thing?
So it has to be more like
You can use the words. I'm hearing a concern.
about the work of this other team.
Say more.
Are you concerned?
And I'm all about hypotheses. I love
Management by hypothesis, which is like I think this is happening. I'm gonna name it. I'm gonna name the hypothesis I have. And then I want you to validate it or by the way, fight with me.
Say to me, No, no, no, I have data to the contrary.
And I'm happy to revise my hypothesis.
But if you don't state it.
You're not gonna get anywhere.
We're gonna come back to
What people might perceive as uncomfortable conversations.
And I wanna ask.
Later. We're gonna take a side quest for a minute. About
Giving feedback to direct reports.
Because a lot of people who listen to this.
or who are watching this have smaller teams.
And
My experience is that often people who are good at having these direct conversations in a personal context or a business context are sometimes
compartmentalized in their capability in the sense that they're very good, for instance.
I think I'm better on the personal side than I am
In the business side, specifically when it is team members of mine employees. If it's with contractors or joint venture partners, I can do that.
For whatever reason, I think it's probably we can also do
years of psychotherapy on this, but a fear of someone say abruptly quitting.
or something, if I don't deliver the message properly, whereas I'm not worried about my friend quitting our friendship.
They might get pissed and put me on ice for a week and give me the silent treatment, but it's not gonna be a forever thing.
So I want to come back to that, but before we go there.
I want to come back for a second.
Q.
Fred Kaufman and victim versus player. Can you explain what this is?
I love this one because I think it's so simplifying and clarifying.
Really about
Are you managing someone or interacting with someone who
has agency.
Takes responsibility.

Introduces this framework, tells the story of
How young children
And he's the
I think he has six or seven children, by the way. But how young children
when something has happened that they know is bad.
Will not take responsibility. So they will say things like the coat is at school.

So not I left my coat at school. Right. The toy is broken.
You're like, Well, did you break it? You know. So he has this really disarming way of introducing this concept, which is we're all laughing, just like you and I. We're like, ha ha, the toy is broken. But then he's like, Okay, now let's talk about
If one of your direct reports came to you and said the report was not written
Yeah. And you're like the report that you were meant to write. But how it actually manifests is
You're supposed to write some report up or some summary of a meeting.
And you say, Oh, tell me where that is.
And the player says
Completely my fault.
I had planned to get it to you by five o'clock yesterday.
I prioritized this emergency that came up.
Didn't tell you. My bad.
Can we renegotiate? Can I get it to you at five o'clock today? And you're like
Fine. I wish you'd told me that you weren't gonna get it, but
The victim says, Let me tell you about that report.
Lucy owes me her notes.
And I can't finish it without Lucy. And Lucy, you know, is super slow at getting her notes and
I'm sorry.
I don't know when I'm gonna get it.
But that actually is pretty common. People are like well it's this other person that I'm depending on
And therefore I have no responsibility.
And they're a victim.
And they're gonna play the victim.
And I think that's a very hard person to coach.
How much do you have to select that in your hiring process versus coach people from one side to the other? Have you had much success or seen much success in moving people
From the victim side to the player side.
And that's a bit of a leading question by my tone, I guess.
I suspect there are a lot of instances where that's hard.
But
In the success cases.
What does that coaching process look like?
I've seen both.
I feel like with people who are earlier in their career, they're more
I'm all growth mindset, but they're a little more moldable.
And you can actually coach people out of this as like a way of operating.
If they're later in their career.
It's a little more ingrained and it's quite hard, especially because they tend to not be aware of it. Cause they've somehow been successful.
operating in that mode. And so they're kind of like, what are you saying?
You see leaders who and you know how they behave, Tim, is they say, Well, if it's not under my direct control
Then I am not responsible.
And so they become empire builders.
And some organizations let them get away with it. They're like, Sure, you can have all the infrastructure teams then. Like it becomes this weird failing upward problem where people say, Well, if I can control it, I'll take responsibility. If it's within my house.
Then I'll take responsibility so people satisfy that checkbox by giving them more and more resources. What a nightmare.
Exactly. And it becomes this weird expanded scope of this person who actually doesn't take responsibility. It's a pattern I've seen.
For people earlier in their career
The easiest coaching move you do, which I'm sure you've heard.
Or someone's done it to you, I've certainly had it done to me. They're saying, Lucy didn't send me her notes, and you're saying
What could you have done differently?
And you have to let uncomfortable silence then.
And some people will then
Say what do you mean? You know, like you're like, Oh my gosh. But some people will say
Well, I guess I
Could have
helped Lucy write the notes. So what I try to do is stay in the discomfort, which is hard, and just sort of like let's list out
A few things you could have done differently.
And not be judgmental, like not judge the things. Just say what it was. So you could have helped Lucy write the notes.
You could have
Set a deadline with her. That was ahead of your deadline. Right. Put a deadline in a sauna where people can actually see it.
You could use a productivity tool.
Where you could see
I love those tools'cause that's sunshine.
Sunshine is a great disinfectant, Tim. Like if everybody can see that Lucy has not done her action item, that is gonna help Lucy be more accountable. But the point is you come up with this list and the person
often it's like, wow, you're right. Really what you're they're kind of gonna have to admit to you is
They're being a little lazy.
They're not helping others do the work. They're not a good collaborator.
And that's what I sometimes do with someone who's like, you know, I've if this is a pattern, I say, You know, I see this pattern. Do you see this pattern?
where you're waiting for other people all the time. Tell me more about why you think that's happening.
Why are the people not delivering for you? And the question is like
Either it's because they haven't figured out how to do action items or accountability or be clear about deadlines or
Or there's someone people don't like to work with.
I always call it like going meta. Like you're looking from the balcony at the situation, which is a term from adaptive leadership. Are you on the balcony or are you on the dance floor?
And if you're on the balcony, you try to get the person up there with you, say, why do you have this pattern?
of people not helping you get your work done.
And then I think of it as going to the basement. I know this is I'm very visual person. So we look down and they sort of if they acknowledge it, they say, Yeah, I guess I see that.
And I say, well, let's talk about a few examples and we come up with some examples. Then we go down and we're in this scenario and I say, Let's do the five whys. I mean, everyone loves the five whys. I'm like, why do you think Lucy didn't send you the notes?
Well
She's not good at deadlines. Hm okay.
And then this is a a wonderful expression that I learned from some coach I had a million years ago.
Be that as it may, which is not normal English language, but I don't know, it worked. Sort of like
Be that as it may, okay, maybe Lucy's terrible at deadlines.
But why else?
Well, I didn't ask her
To get it to me at a specific time.
So maybe there's a thing, why else? You know, and you're sort of pushing them, and sometimes, not every time, they'll sort of say, Well, I don't know.
Lucy and I don't work that well together.
Uh huh.
And we're like, Oh, say more about that.
What do you think's going on?
And of course, by the way, your left hand column, Tim, is it's because Lucy doesn't like you.
Because you blame her for all of your missed deadlines, right?
But I can't say that, because that person is gonna go from learn to barely in learning mode. I'm trying to bring them along with me and they're gonna just shut down. And by the way, they may never admit that Lucy doesn't like them because they blame her for missed deadlines, but they're gonna realize that their manager, who's me.
Is not letting them off the hook.
If they can't get into an agency, a player mindset, I'm a responsible party.
For my work and others then
They are gonna be off my team. If I can't coach them out of it.
To your point.
There's two gaps that I think are really hard. One is people who can't stop being victims.
And the other gap I call it self awareness gap.
Where they think they are the best in the world.
I once worked with this B D person who was like, I can negotiate a deal better than anyone.
And
Talk about not being in a learning mindset. I'm like
Do you not think we should get any outside advice? I'm exaggerating a little bit, but really unaware that they had any.
Potential blind spot.
Or had never done a deal like this deal.
And I'm like, how are we gonna close this awareness gap because the people around you are saying you are not the best person to negotiate this deal. And I'm trying to hand it to someone else. And you're like, what? You have no one better than me. You know, and that's a very hard gap to close. Yeah, totally. And I promise we are gonna spend some time on self-awareness.
The book I've probably gift most to
My friends and house guests and so on in the last few years is actually
Very short book called Awareness by Anthony DeMello, which is outstanding. I need to read it again. I read it
Probably once or twice a year.
So we are gonna spend some time there. I'm kind of

of the dance floor, as it were, and tiptoing and side stepping on the balcony because I want to paint a picture of you also as a person, not just the concepts.
So we are gonna spend some time there. I'd also just as a side note.
If you decide to write another book, I think the toy is broken as the title, and then the subtitle could be like a high performer's guide to taking responsibility. Oh my God, so good. The toy is broken.
Tim, you're hired for my uh marketing team. I gotta tell you, we're not always the best at naming things at Sprite. So you're that I'm good at that's the one thing that I am good at. You're on the team. Congratulations. Thank you. It's a hell of a team. I'm in
My boss sucks. Oh wait, I'm my boss except terrible. Terrible.
You said you don't recommend a lot of business books, and I am gonna come back to Cheryl and excellent.
in a little bit, but
You don't recommend a lot of business books. Sometimes you read the introduction and you're like, That's enough. Thank you.
Let's talk about a non business book.
And that book is To the Lighthouse by Virginia Wolf.
What is your history with this book?
And why do you recommend it?
I love great literature. I think that's how I grew up.
My parents are both teachers. My
father was a high school English department chair and teacher and baseball coach. By the way, he would probably say he was a baseball coach and then he would say and a teacher. And my mom
Was a college professor for a long time.
And
I wish more people
Love literature.
Because I think how do you understand the human condition?
Literature is like the best shortcut to that.
in your life.
But
I think there are some authors for someone who becomes a student of literature
That sort of change their world view.
About really what's possible with writing?
So not just the book changes how they feel and think, but actually
The process.
Sort of like when you see a product. I think you love innovative products. You know, when you see something
And you're like that.
is going to change my life.
And so I think that to the lighthouse
represents. I mean, Virginia Wolf is a writer
That
resonated for me and I think if you understand
If you've also studied history and you think, Okay, she's writing some stuff.
And like
The early nineteen hundreds, nineteen twenties was
Not a lot of women publishing a lot.
In that
Time in Britain.
She gets herself into this writers collective with men and women. She also has relationships with men and women.
She's like pretty avant garde person.
But if you read a room of one's own, it's
Basically one of the
earliest feminist manifestos that
Exist?
And this is where I think, Tim, you're like me. I love people who are polymaths. You're like not just this amazing
Novelist, thank you, Virginia Wool. But you're also writing
Just your thoughts on things like
Women should have a robe of their own. I mean, actually figuratively, you know, not just literally
And I think that
She is fascinating. Her life is fascinating.
And I want to acknowledge not all of her personal views are great on some things, as that happens. I worry that
We've started to not study certain artists because they've said some things or or done some things which I would disagree with.
I think people think she was an anti Semite and it does appear that she said some very anti Semitic things in some of her writing.
I still think you should study Virginia Wolf.
And
I will own that as my position on her, but
I think to the lighthouse, most people would say is her most important novel.
I will be honest with you and say when I wrote my thesis in college.
I was gonna write it onto the lighthouse and then I actually decided
To write it on Mrs. Dalloway, which is another one of her novels, because I love the parallels.
From Mrs. Dalloway with a book called The Passion by Jeanette Winnerson. So Jeanette Winnerson is a female British writer.
More in the modern era.
who had broken through with a memoir
called Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, and then had published
this book, The Passion, and then a book called Sexing the Cherry. And she's she's published now several books, but Jeanette Winterston, I think, is a descendant, in my opinion, of Virginia Wolf. And I was like, I'm gonna
examine these two novels and I didn't choose to the lighthouse, but I will say that
And Two Light is not an easy read.
And I wanna own that also. I think it's very to Mrs. Dalloway, much more digestible, shorter book.
It has some repetition in it, some beautiful rhythm in the writing where you're like, Oh, and I'm coming back around in this circular way to the way the story sort of moves you to the lighthouse is like a dream state.
You feel like you're in a dream state. You're like the points of view are shifting.
Who's the real narrator here?
What is the story? There's not like you're not being driven by
Your classic plot or character driven story. It is much more internal. It's like John Wick.
In some sense. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I feel like the plot of John Wick is pretty clear. You know, I am going to take vengeance. Excuse me now. I'm going to come out of retirement and kill everyone. Oh, what a great work of art.
I'll be the first one to tell you I read a lot of mysteries and thrillers and and I like movies like that, actually. So I'm very multi-dimensional. But I think for To the Lighthouse
You find something new every time you read it. You think about life, death, the human condition
What is love? What is family? What does it mean to connect with other human beings? And there's something about the way the writing works. I mean, it's set in this island in Scotland and there's a lighthouse and they go out in the boat.
Like you literally feel like you're surfing.
In a boat.
Like that feeling when you're like I'm not really connected to
Firm land, but I'm in this inner sanctum of people's heads. So I think that it changed me because of the way it felt to read it.
Frankly, the themes are much more sophisticated than
My
Nineteen year old self.
probably could have handled. Like I should actually you just said you should read Awareness again. I should go read To the Lighthouse again because now that I am a mother and a wife of a certain age
Like this book is gonna resonate a lot more for me. But what's amazing is Virginia Woolf was never that.
She didn't have children and she unfortunately did kill herself. Like she had a lot of demons.
And actually the way that she killed herself.
Brutal. Right. Like when she filled her pockets with rocks and like drowned herself. You know, and I think that a lot of artists are tortured, but the fact that she could project into this
Mrs. Ramsey and this woman, this very maternal figure.
Was a sign of true art.
Artistry. Sorry, that was very long.
That's why I have a long podcast.

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So I'm not gonna let it go. I'm gonna continue to chew on this bone a little bit. And for the record, I actually love John Wick. But I don't wanna dwell on John Wick.
I was gonna say first if you like Dream State
Evoking novels, the one that
blew my mind and nine out of ten people hate this book, so it's a very strong caveat, but it's Little Big by John Crowley, who's actually a poet by training. It is so
Unbelievably good. You have to
slog through the first hundred and fifty pages, but beyond that it's absolutely stunning.
So what are the reasons to read fiction aside from the
is I think you put it earlier, the insight into the human condition. If you're trying to get someone to take that first bite of the forbidden apple of fiction, are there any other
Points that you would make?
How do you build empathy?
How do you understand everybody has a story?
mean you've traveled a lot, Tim. But a lot of people
You and I both know haven't traveled the world. They haven't been to that many countries. You want to go to another country.
find a great novel that's been translated from that country and read it and like you will understand that country in a way that no travel guide will ever give you, in my opinion.
So I think it's a very cheap way
And there's also to build like emotional
Intelligence?
I've worked now in tech
companies for over twenty years.
And
When you sort of get to certain levels of responsibility with management and leadership.
You could be technically the smartest person in the room, but if you have no emotional intelligence or dimensionality in contemplating emotional states.
You are gonna struggle.
You are gonna struggle to lead.
And so when I say understand the human condition, I don't just mean like I'm reading a book and I understand, wow, that's how it might feel to be in a divorce, or that's how it might feel to lose your child, or you know, I'm saying
No, you yourself as the reader, if the book is really good, start to feel the feelings.
You start to feel like oh I lost a child.
Emotional exercise
It's hard. It's either happening to you
So you're going through an emotional
situation in your own life, which is hard, but doesn't happen every day to most people.
Or you're gonna get
Emotional exercise from
In my experience, a lot of people get it from film.
They get it from video content.
short form video gives you like a dopamine hit in my opinion, but not an actual
Deep story emotional resonant hit. We think we're getting it when we see
Oh, that dog fell through the ice and then that guy rescued the dog and you're sort of like crying and you're so happy, but like in a thirty second YouTube video, like no, that's not an emotional arc.
That's just I like to see people rescue animals who are drowning. But like no, I really want
I think it's a serious film.
It's maybe it's John Wick. John Wick might be a way to detoxify your left eye.
I said to my friend who'd seen it before, I was like, If they touch that dog, I'm gonna lose it. And he just stays silent, and I was like, Oh no, here it comes. Uh oh. Yeah, anyway.
Anyway, point is
I think it's emotional workout.
Literature, great films.
Yeah. The other thing I would say is
Fiction is often much more efficient and elegant in delivering truths.
than non fiction.
And that's speaking as someone who is a militant.
nonfiction purist for
decades. And I really wish I'd start earlier with reading very, very high quality
Fiction.
So what was your gateway fiction? What got you? I'm so glad to hear you're a convert.
Uh gateway fiction, I mean, I would say that early on I was an avid
fiction reader. So as a kid.
There were books like The Never Ending Story.
And then later Dune, for instance, science fiction, Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein.
Which were
Also
Very condensed thought experiments. This is part of the reason why I like sci-fi.
Quite a lot. So for folks who are
male also female, but if they're male tech
on the spectrum over performers, I'll usually steer them to say Ted Chang.
Short stories like Exhalation is his second collection.
Then I stopped for a long time because it was time to get serious and follow the rules and be a business guy and so on and so forth. So I read all the nonfiction stuff. And then I would say
Later on.
Now that I'm reflecting on it, because I'm trying to pinpoint and maybe it's because you seeded me with the Argentina. I used to live in Argentina for about nine months in two thousand four. And
In an effort this is gonna sound ridiculous to people who
or familiar with his work, but I wanted to read fiction in an effort to get better at Spanish. So I found side by side Jorge Luis Borges.
Which is incredibly challenging in Spanish, I will say right up front. But that ethereal
Kind of magic.
Realism.
Yes.
fever dream type of conjuring that he was able to accomplish
was
Intoxicating to me because it's effectively
Mind control, right? Like language on some level.
is mind control.
If you said to me, like what's the other to the lighthouse, I would say a hundred years of solitude.
Gabrielle Garcia Marquez and my introduction to magical realism.
And what's interesting is you g went to this'cause a lot of guys I talked to, they're like Neil Stevenson, three body problem. Like it's like there's a sci-fi dune is always in there.
contact, you know, like whatever, you depends on when they were born. Sure. But like you get this sort of sci fi. But what you just did I love, which is
Where else is there sci-fi? In a lot of Latin American literature. Isabella Yende.
Orquez. Yeah. And that's where like maybe the genders can meet, which is like
Really emotional, gripping, multi-era stories, but really wild stuff.
Yes. It's like Dream State is happening. Totally. And you're wondering, like, are were they on drugs? Like what what's happening here? Of course they were on drugs.
Love that you went there.
Because I think it's
when you're pushing the sci fi into like a different realm.
It's magical realism.
The most creative people I know, this includes business for sure. The most creative, if they're the most creative deal makers, they read and consume very widely. They're not going to this huge buffet and always eating the shredded carrots. Okay, fine, like shredd carrots. Yeah, they're healthy for you, easy to eat. I get it.
There's a whole buffet.
And they end up being able to connect
disparate fields and ideas in a way that end up being
Ultimately.
incredibly interesting and sometimes very profitable. And I would say who was it?
He worked with Daniel Kahneman. I'm gonna say Amos Tversky, something like that.
But he said
Something along the lines of researchers waste years not being able to waste hours. I'm butchering the quote.
But it's like if you feel so rushed.
That you cannot read a short fiction book.
That is a symptom of a much larger problem.
I would say.
And so proving to yourself, like creating the slack in the system to do that.
Has its own benefits.
Fiction conversation check. We believe in it. Yeah, we believe. We believe. All right. So let's come back.
Two
I'm gonna take a further not digression because this is just a natural conversation, but we are gonna come back to feedback for direct reports, but I feel like we need a smoother off ramp. So what might make a nice off ramp from the fiction is something that is highly, highly, highly personal and non fiction, and that is a working with me document.
So I wanna ask about
questions that you might answer in a working with me document. You could explain what a working with me document is.
And there are a number that come to mind that I have in front of me here, but perhaps you could just give a little bit of context on what a working with me document is.
And
How it is helpful.
A working with me document is basically trying to write your own user manual.
And I don't think you have to be a people manager.
But I've come to believe it's a best practice if you are gonna be managing people.
to do your best to write a user manual to working with you.
The idea came to me actually, I was moderating a panel at Google
Google had then evolved to a point where it's trying to celebrate management. So we've done this great manager award.
And I was the moderator interviewing the great managers that we'd selected across several teams in front of this big room of people at Google.
And I asked them, you know, you ask, what are some practices that you think have really benefited you as a manager? And one of the panelists said, Well, I copied this thing that oars, and this is oars hul's hole, who's a long
many, many decades at Google. I think he's only retiring like now, who worked in infrastructure and building the servers and the like a lot of
What really
makes your Google results come very quickly. You can think of course. And then at Google Cloud a lot of work. But
He wrote a user manual.
And this person described it and then they went on to say they wrote one and they shared it with their team and their team's response. And I was like, I should write one. Like here I am moderating this great manager panel. I haven't done this.
So like any good learner, I go back and I sort of like bang out this document. I mean, this is the thing that's the most interesting to me in this maybe anti-growth mindset, but this was probably, I don't know.
Two thousand nine, two thousand eight, whatever, it was like many years ago.
I bang out this document.
And I call it the unauthorized guide because I don't work for me. So I invited comment. I said, for those who actually have had me as a manager, like please tell me how.
On base I am or not.
And then I gave it actually I had the time had this really amazing
woman who had been a manager in my organization and then she went on maternity leave and came back and asked to be my assistant.
She said, I want to change sort of I think I could
be kind of a chief of staff to you and she was very talented and we got very close and she worked for me for like
At least half my career at Google. And I was like, Maeve, read this. Am I anywhere near like am I on base here? You know, she was actually, uh, she's Irish, which is a theme somehow in my life. Like I really bond with the Irish. And she said, Well, I feel like at the end.
You know, you don't even acknowledge that you like good crack.
And Crack, which I'm saying wrong in Irish, is like sort of
Fun joke humor. Yeah. She's like, you know, your meetings She said, I've never been in a meeting with you.
Where we didn't laugh.
At least once.
That's the kind of thing, by the way, that you don't know because you're never not in a meeting with you.
Right. And so I was like, Oh, that was super helpful, but I feel embarrassed that I'm like, I said, Am I saying I'm funny? She's like, No, you like a good laugh. It's true, I'm not particularly that funny, but I really enjoy humor. Anyway, so we added a section at the end.
But she said, No, I think this is pretty good. I think you should send it to the team and see what they think.
But what's amazing, Tim, is that document has not changed markedly.
Yeah.
Since two thousand nine or whatever it was. Like two thousand nine. It has not changed very much.
And we can decide how we feel about that. But I think it's a great exercise in self-awareness. It's a great exercise in also sort of thinking about, okay, when I have to make a decision. So to your point, what kind of content is there? Some of it's very tactical. It's like how do I like
What communication channels work best for me? So how to use our one on one versus
send me a slack versus a text versus call me. In today's world, you know that. Like I literally have people
that I work with actually I think you know, I work with Patrick and John Collison.
The Stripe co-founders. Of course. They contact me on every channel. Like How is it that you're texting me, WhatsApping me, calling me, slacking me
rarely emailing me. Actually emailing is probably like the least interesting channel to them. So you give guidance like what are the best channels, like how to use our one on one, but also things like how do I tend to make decisions?
So if you're coming to me for a decision.
Here's what you can expect.
If it's this kind of decision, how long will I need, what kind of data might I like like I have a section in my doc which is
I tend to be intuitive, so I've taken a lot of different personality assessments and I actually don't really spike in a lot of areas, but I spike as highly intuitive, meaning
You come to me with something I
Intuitively have an opinion. I'm like, oh, I think this is gonna be the right thing to do. Or I think I say I'm intuitive, and then I write dot dot dot. Don't worry, but data driven.
So I'll tell you my intuition.
And then I'll say you bring me data, so we either can validate it or you tell me your intuition, but let's get some data so I don't just get out there and start.
operating without
Any basis.
But I think that
You're trying to reflect that, but I think it's important to reflect that. Like, for example, in my first version, one thing that did change when my team read it was.
I said
I'm not a my
By the way, every manager's like, I'm not a micromanager. It's like a common everyone's like, Well, don't worry, I'm not a micromanager. Unfortunately, a lot of us are.
And I said, I'm not a micromanager. I will delegate. I will trust you, but if I'm concerned, you're gonna know and I'll get more involved. Right. And so I thought I was being pretty honest. Like when I do get involved, we should have a conversation because it means I'm having an issue with trust, which means I'm not sure I'm happy with the product.
So this guy who worked for me, he said I'm not sure
that you're accurate about this. And I said, Well, are you saying I'm a micromanager?
And he said, Well, there was this one thing, and he named this project that I had delegated to him.
And he's like, Then you proceeded to show up.
In every meeting.
Read every document.
B in the spreadsheet.
And that was
to me felt pretty micromanagey. I was like, Yeah, I bet it did feel that way.
I said, I did that because that project was the first time it was like a sales compensation scheme. I was like, that's the first time I'd ever built one.
And I was really like wanted to learn.
And he said, Well, you never told me that.
So
As far as he was concerned, I showed up.
In every damn thing this poor guy had scheduled and he's supposed to be leading and he's supposed to make a recommendation to me. And I'm like
Reading all the same stuff, participating. I mean, I was I was looking back, I'm really embarrassed. I was like, I can't believe I didn't tell you because I had full confidence in this. He was probably, by the way, better positioned than I was to build this thing. And I was counting on him, but then I went and undermined him.
And so that's why, by the way, the working with me documents also helpful is because if you have a good relationship with people you work with.
They will tell you, yeah, you think you act this way, but you really don't. So then I had to add a section about sometimes when it feels like I'm micromanaging you, it's because I'm trying to learn. The first time I've ever done a thing, you are gonna see me hyper involved.
But what we should do is establish that ahead of time. And if I don't, please call me on it.
Anyway the point is yeah, the working with me document
became something I just shared today with anyone who starts to work with me closely. And what happens in high growth environments like Google.
And stripe is like your team changes a lot.
There's new people.
People's manager's change is hard. You don't
Love that, but like I've had people come to me and say, You're my fourth manager in a year. So what are you trying to do? You're trying to create a shortcut.
'Cause there's anxiety when we first work with someone.
Well, should I call you if I have some kind of crisis? When you're at night and Slack looks like you're available, should I slack you stuff or should I wait till the next morning or like you're looking for guidance, you're looking to read the person. I'm like, just tell them.
Tell them how to work with you.
And then that reduces the anxiety. And ideally they write their own manual.
And then you've both sort of shortcut some of the get to know you stuff so you can just jump right into working together.
This is something I wanted to explore because
Jumping, I suppose.
Two
Something you explore at some length in your book, which I definitely recommend people check out.
I underlined this a couple of times for myself because I still feel like
I have room to improve here and that is
Strive to make implicit structures and beliefs explicit. Make the implicit explicit.
And that shows up in so many different ways. It can manifest in so many different ways.
And I wanna stick with the working with me document for a minute. This first came to my attention because I had Dustin Moscowits.
on the podcast.
From
Facebook fame and then certainly of Sana. And he shared his working with me document. And I've since seen a few versions of this.
But I wanted to get your take on what might
be worth adding to this list of questions. Here are a few.
What do I want to be involved in?
When do I want to hear from you?
One you already mentioned. What are my preferred communication modes? What makes me impatient?
Are there other questions that you have found?
Helpful to address or

Worth including.
Having seen these letters, having crafted your own
Working with me document.
My working with me document.
was published in Elad Gill's book, High Growth Handbook, and went like a little bit viral, like viral for Claire, not for Tim Ferris. But like still I was like shocked at how many people
that I've never met had like seen it.
And I also got some criticisms on the interwebs.
It was like very egotistical in some way. It was sort of like here's how you
Make me happy.
Which I was like, Okay, that's like a totally fair criticism.
And not the intention.
By the way I'm like
highly empathetic i'm like i'm trying to reduce anxiety and help people feel comfortable
Being honest with me.
Whatever, but it I get it. It's it seems very self absorbed. So one of the things that that I'm reacting to is like
The question, I guess, if I were gonna phrase it as a question, it would be
How do I help you make
great decisions or how do you like to make decisions?
You know, but I think in my document I just sort of have headers, like decision making,'cause I'm not
That's why yours called it user manual, which is a very technical like an engineer is gonna be like, I'm gonna write a user manual to me, and I just called it working with me.
There's a section on what types of information do you like to see?
Because that's different than how do I want to be communicated with, and it's different than when should I get in touch with you, which is like, yeah, if there's a crisis, get in touch with me.
But there's something in mine.
Where I talk about the fact that if like someone on your team is having a major life event, I'd like to know about it. I'd like to send them a note. I'd like to
say I'm sorry or celebrate their child or you know, I think
What types of information do you like to have? I also get really explicit about things like
Email.
Protocols mean different things to people, especially in different generations. I'm sure you've seen this.
But
I used to work with someone who would send FYI.
And really, really feel strongly that you need to process that information and like
Have a response.
Whereas for me, I'm like if you send me FYI That means no response. That means for me. That means yeah, like I can read it later and it's interesting, but
I don't need to respond. And I'm like, I can't believe this, but I think I have to back to
I think you ask your guests a question of like if you were gonna have a billboard. Yeah. I think the fight for me and my billboard would be is it
Make the implicit explicit, or is it undermine the superstructure from within?
I'm not sure, but one of those one of those is my billboard. But the first one I think I get the first one. Making the implicit explicit is so valuable. By the way, so many a lot of people are like, I love that your book
is like so humanistic about people and how to care for I was like
Folks, my book is about getting results.
I do
appreciate other humans and I love working with them even though
Sometimes Patrick calls and I would be like, Oh my gosh, this is like
The hardest problem. And we'd go, Oh, if there were no humans involved, it'd be so much easier. But point is, I love humans and the human condition, but
I really am talking about how do you get results. And how do you get results? You get super clear and transparent about.
Anything implicit, you make it explicit and you're like clear, like this is a process we're gonna go through to get to this outcome. And what is the outcome we want?
Make it explicit. I mean, Tim, you, I think are the master of this.
What are we measuring? Why are we measuring it? How will we know if we won?
And I would add to that. And what process will we go through together to get there?
So that no one is guessing or reading the tea leaves or wondering why another team is doing the same project. Put it all on the table.
So that we can get to the end faster.
And frankly, more inclusively. And why do I care about inclusion?
Yes, inclusion is a good thing for people to feel better and included.
But actually because
If you've hired a bunch of smart people
And yet they don't feel included, they will not share their opinion.
And the reason you hired them is because they're smart people who bring diverse opinions. And if they won't say them, then you're like not really benefiting from all that work hiring them because you want a better outcome. This is all about results.
But I think it's a little windy to get there.
Sometimes.
Yeah, totally. Until you make it explicit.
I wanted to
piggyback off of your Irish pattern in life and recommend a short film that I think won an Oscar. I might be making that up, but it won some slew of fancy awards. And I watched it last night called An Irish Goodbye. It's about twenty two, twenty three minutes long. You can find it on Vimeo. I think you might be able to watch it on YouTube as well. It is
Hilarious and profound and outstanding, I think.
Based on the little that I feel like I've
Sort of felt out.
With our
Fiction Love Fest. I think you would really enjoy this. It is one of the better short films I've ever seen. It's really good. It's really, really good.
What is it? Little big
And Irish goodbye. Start with an Irish goodbye, because then you'll be like, wow, Tim really recommends good stuff. And then if you hate Little Big, at least I'll have some
Redemption.
Preemptively. Yeah, so it's like the amouse boosh before you try to chew on the
Fever dreams. And I I'd also say also I'd love a good Irish goodbye. I used to find it a little offensive, but now I uh now I'm like
Gosh, there's some real beauty in just disappearing. Oh, I do that all the time. I do it all the time.
So email
Policies. I had a request.
from Kevin Kelly recently, who's been on the podcast and is a close friend. Asked him if I could help him with anything. We're having a conversation. He said, Well I do have one request and it's not for him.
It's because he gets asked about it so much. He doesn't have any issues with email. But he's like, I want you to ask every one of your guests about
Email policies slash rules systems anything that they have
ended up using that they have found helpful. And I will say in advance, my
Assumption is that almost well, it's not my assumption. I've also run into this. Even though this podcast has some of the top performing people in the world of every discipline imaginable, they all claim to kind of
Suck at email, they're behind and it's hard. So I I understand that.
Being that as it may.
See? It's a beautiful change. There we go. See that as it may. Be that as it may.
You are still gonna have to answer this. Yep. Are there any sort of email policy systems, rules, implicit things that you make explicit that you found
Helpful?
I actually worked on Gmail right after it launched at Google and like you should think I would be like a power
Email.
organizer and I'm okay, but I'm not great.
But one thing that just stuck out in my mind as you brought this up is I had a good friend who was a
Executive at Genentech and she rose up with Genentech as it got big and she got more and more responsibility and she told me about this leadership training they put them in, Tim. Honestly, whenever I look at my inbox, I think of this training.
Where they gave them some
Thirty minutes, some window.
They gave them an inbox.
And they were like, You need to
Process all this.
And
kind of do the right things, right? Okay. And so in this inbox of like a hundred emails, whatever they have thirty minutes, you have to find there's like a massive legal issue, there's an HR violation, but it's like not in the headline of the subject of the email. Like a bunch of bombs in these messages. And you have to like
Open them, skim them.
decide and you have to come back to it, right?
Yeah. And I kind of was like feeling like Japanese game show. I'm like this
a show that people might want to watch. And I think there is a sector of people who might find that like really interesting to watch. So sometimes I look at my inbox and I'm like, oh my gosh
I have thirty minutes and I need to find all of the legal time bombs. But
One of the things that I think I'm very good at on email is it's a set of people
In my both professional and personal life.
Like they get opened immediately.
And I'll open it and if it's by the way, read FYI, I'll read it later. I really want to make sure I mean it's easy. Some of these people it's like easy. It's like your kids. By the way, my kids are teenagers. They never email me. So that's like easy. But you know, certainly if you're the COO of a company, even if you're not the COO anymore, if the founders of Stripe email me directly.
I'm gonna open the email pretty frickin' quickly just to make sure. Like you know, so it's sort of like your boss or but I do think that some people have a methodology which is
either LIFO or FIFO.
Last in first out, whatever you need. Yeah. And I
Think that that's tempting.
My husband does this a little bit, it bothers me. I'm like, You have cues, which is who is it from?
And is a group or is it in direct to you?
And
Use those cues to prioritize. And so if you only have thirty minutes.
You know where to start.
That's one of the things, and it is
a combination of the people and what's being sent to you directly.
So I think that's like a number one rule I have that I'm pretty actually good at.
So there's certain people who feel I'm very responsive on email because I we I am very responsive to them. Yeah. Uh I'm not maybe responsive to everyone as consistently.
The other is
I have this is it like more of a cheat.
But
You're an investor, I think, right? So I am I've invested in some companies.
And a lot of them send these investor newsletters or investor updates.
And of course I've
Because I do have some Gmail skills. I label them, I know there's a folder full of them, and I have every intention, Tim. Some on Friday. Like two hours. Yeah. I'm gonna read those investor updates. Okay. You know what?
That is not correct.
Sometimes when I'm on an airplane and I'm trapped, I like open and start reading them, but like I am not reading them
In a timely fashion.
And I'm sorry all the founders I've invested in. I'm sorry. I'm not reading
Your investor updates in a timely fashion. But what I've learned to do, and this goes back to making the implicit explicit, and also to another rule I have, which is.
strive to set expectations with people.
So now when I invest in a company
I say to them, I say, look, you may email me, I'll give you my email.
I said, I'll give you my cell phone. I'm quite good on text, but please don't abuse it. And if you want to WhatsApp me and not tech, whatever, either of those is gonna work. And then I say to them, I want you to know I really appreciate getting the investor updates. I will not read them in a timely fashion. I may not read them at all.
If you need something from me directly.
Like you need
Help me interview this person or I have a cra
You should get in touch with me directly.
Not as like at the end of an investor email it says please help us hire some more data scientists.
And cognitive load wise, I'm like phew.
Yeah.
I have been feeling so much guilt about not reading their by the way, they spend so much time on them and it's terrible sometimes. But
I no longer feel guilt.
I've told them you must contact me directly. Set expectation. But this is actually a management lesson, which is why not this goes back to the user manual or the working with Claire guide. Like why not tell people
I have this habit.
Of ignoring this kind of thing.
And if you need my attention, please
You have my permission. Please use it. Please text me even.
I mean, for these founders, they have my phone number. I'm like, if you need me, you can call me. But it's sort of a human lesson we learn over and over again, which is where like
dying inside that we're disappointing someone. And I'm like, no, just renegotiate.
The terms.
Of what expectations they should have of you.
How else does this renegotiating
Show up. This has become
It's embarrassing to say. But I'd say maybe in the last two years.
H

Revelation for me in a sense because
I always thought about negotiating as the thing you did in the beginning.
And I got I think pretty good at that. And uh
At times though, I would have who knows, like maybe I've had two glasses of wine or I had too little sleep or whatever and I would agree to these things and then later I'd look at my calendar.
And my blood pressure would go up, you know, thirty points because I felt trapped by these commitments that I made when I was compromised or rushed or
lazy fill in the blank. And this renegotiating has become
An invisible option made visible for me in the last
Two years.
Could you talk a little bit more about how
You have used that in your life?
personal or professional, how that shows up. Like examples would be really helpful here so people can really get a grasp on it.
I'm having like almost a physical reaction to relating to you about this calendar. It's like your past self. I used to say, Oh my gosh, I just mailed myself a letter bomb. So one is of course we all strive to improve, which is
Do not make a decision in the moment about
A timer.
A commitment of resources or time.
Without trying to project your future self.
But of course we all do, because you're right, we're rushed, we're trying to be responsive, we're trying to move through our inbox.
By the way, because we've only got thirty minutes, or we might fail the corporate training test. Or the Japanese TV show. Don't want to come in last. Yeah. So one thing is trying to be better about projecting. And I also had a friend who's like a very kind of spiritually in touch person, and she said
When you're something is requested of you
She said
You need to sometimes listen for the quiet no.
Can you say that one more time?
So she said when something's requested of you
A person, I mean she's like sort of like sometimes your reaction is wow, yes, right? You've had this. I mean, hey, Tim Ferris.
Asked me to be on his podcast.
I was like yes, emphatically. That is
Something I want to do. That is easy. My future self is very happy to be my past and future selves are very happy to be here.
But often we get a request, you you have this experience and you're looking at it.
And she says, listen for the quiet no.
Because we are often feel like we have to say yes.
And her trick is
I know this wasn't the question you asked me, which I will answer, but her training These are really closely related. I'm so interested in this. Yeah.
I think they are.
Do not respond immediately. Because we often feel I mean, if you're someone who's prides yourself on being decisive and responsive and empathetic, as I do.
I feel like well they asked me to be on this panel at this important conference or whatever.
And I'm like
I've learned
That my response in fact should be
When do you need to know?
Whether or not I can be on this panel.
Or I'll even say, I need two weeks to get back to you.
about whether I can be on this panel because
If I don't give myself some space.
I will do yes instead of the quiet no.
Because I didn't give myself time to really think about is this my priority? Should I spend my time?
Oh my gosh, I have to fly to the city. Like you have to really think. So I think
When you are renegotiating, so I'm proud of you that you found this as a skill. And by the way, I have the same problem.
I had a delayed travel earlier this week.
And I was looking at my next day and I was thinking, Well, I am gonna get home, but I'm gonna get home at like now two in the morning.
And then I looked at and I was like, I should not even be doing that stuff. I was like, Why did I even agree to go into Boston and have lunch with this person and then talk to this other person? And so I was like
I am going to renegotiate those commitments. I don't even have to
say that I was delayed. So it's a good skill, but what I look for is a pattern.
a pattern of why am I renegotiating this stuff. It means I'm not making the right decision in the first place. So I listen for the quiet note.
But if I find myself renegotiating, it is often
About yeah, commitments I've made.
Commitments, especially of time.
My mom was a very talented apparently mathematician in college, and my mom went to Harvard while Radcliffe then, but
You know, I think it's pretty rare for a woman to be like
A star in the math apartment.
And she
Decided.
to go get her PhD in history.
And to major in history.
And
I said, Why did you switch? Why did you make the switch? And she said
I realized
That
There is a trade off that most people find themselves making between money and time.
And she said, I knew that if I
Prioritized math.
It would likely lead to a more lucrative career.
By the way, my mom was like
out there she was gonna work and she did and she was gonna have kids and work, but she was like it would lead to a more lucrative career.
But I would not have time.
So I decided to become, she became an academic, she got her PhD, she became a professor. And why? Because professors have more control over their time and they have the summers off.
And they have time to think and write, and that's what she knew she wanted.
Which by the way is pretty aware for like a nineteen or twenty year old.
To realize you're gonna trade money and time.
I think it's
Peter Thiel, who says like people don't value their time highly enough. They just like don't get.
Every hour is costing you something. And I've taken me so long to come to this point where I'm like, oh my gosh, I just threw away and said, sure, I'll meet with you to give you advice about that thing. And I'm like, oh.
So I've become less responsive on email.
Because I am
trying to stop myself from
mortgaging my time.
You may or may not have had the same
Experience, but
All right, here's an example. You're looking for concrete.
I have a woman who I
highly value personally in my life.
She's a founder.
And she asked me to be on her board.
By the way, to stop myself from saying yes to stuff, I make rules.
I made a rule. I was like, no more boards. I also have a rule about travel right now. I'm like my daughter's going to college soon.
No more travel unless it meets these criteria.
Because I want to be home. Of course she doesn't want to hang out with me, but I want to hang out with her. What are the criteria? Just out of curiosity.
Could be just a few examples.
Really important to stripe.
I still actually work part time for Stripe and they get bids on my time.
And if Stripe said the most important thing you can do for Stripe is go to
This happened to me recently. Go to Helsinki to slush.
To this conference, I was like, fine, I will do it. I will go to Helsinki for stripe. And by the way, I had a great time and I met a great number of founders and it was actually a blast. So it is it important to stripe.
Is it a personal connection that is meaningful to me?
that is asking of my time treasure talents.
My criteria is not to say yes to default, but it is to
Number one.
Is there a way I could do it that is less friction as in
Am I flying to California anyway?
Therefore, I can do that commitment if I bundle it. So can I control when it is?
And if I can control when it is and it's a personal connection that's meaningful to me, I will s make it happen, but it will not happen quickly.
But if it's not something I can control where and when it is, then I have a subset of criteria of like, but I often will say, like, could this thing maybe it's a conference, can I do this next year and get back to you later? So I can actually think
For a minute.
A lot of it is buying time.
But I have these rules about things because it stops me. So I said to her, I said, I have made a commitment to myself.
That I will not join another board.
And she
Because she's a talented founder, she's persistent, and she said, Why don't you just come and be an observer? Why don't you just come to tricky. I know, I know. Come to the board meeting, and then she
Told me why she really needed help in this particular moment. And there was a situation where having someone who was sort of a friendly, who was neutral in the room was going to be valuable.
So I said, Okay.
I will come, but I will not
Like I really want to set your expectations right back. I was like, I am not this is not gonna reel me in. I'm not gonna join the board.
And I did go and she actually convinced someone else. And the two of us went and we actually, I think, helped her through
A particular moment.
By being sort of
For participants.
But then she said, I'd like you to come to every bo you know, of course every board meeting and I said, I don't think I can commit to that.
But I can try when it's virtual and if it's in person.
I'm pretty sure I won't, but
You can invite me.
And
I went to a couple
I did.
Pretty well. And then I started to look at my calendar and I was like, I can't do this. I can't even take three, four hours.
And so I needed to renegotiate it.
There's a quote that I have in my book that
that people find I think the most compelling line in the book, and I keep having to remind them it is not my line.
Yeah, I know this problem. Where I'm like, No, no, no, no, don't attribute it to me. That was Mark Twain or whatever. Exactly, exactly.
The line is from
Ron Heifetz or Marty Linsky, these are the adaptive leadership guys who do the balcony and the dance floor analogy.
And it is leadership is disappointing people at a rate that they can absorb. Yeah.
I had that line.
Underlined. It's very catchy.'Cause it really makes you think, and it's kinda dark too. Yeah. What does that mean in like concrete terms?
Yeah. And then I'm not gonna let go of the renegotiating because I'm gonna come back to that. I want to ask you about phrasing and wording that you use, but
Let's talk about leadership and disappointed people.
Well, I think one of the ways that leaders disappoint people is their time.
You don't have unlimited time. You're the CEO of a company.
There's no way you're gonna be at all the things or do all the things.
But the key is how do you create
enough leadership buy in that people understand and also you get a little bit of
forgiveness when you're the CEO, I think. But
Leadership
Is disappointing people at a rate they can absorb.
To me is about
You know, management is very knowable. It's like how do I get from point A to point B? What people do I need? What's the scope? How are we gonna measure it? Here's the project plan, here's the milestones, here's the talents I need, and now I'm gonna deploy and delegate. And I think leadership is very unknowable.
Because it is
Essentially having a vision, an idea, a goal that you haven't even fulstood yourself.
Right? Often?
Yeah.
It's like we're gonna climb this mountain that no one has ever climbed before, by the way. And
You have to be really convincing to build followership. You're painting a picture of the top of that mountain, man. And it is awesome. And the climb is gonna be like really challenging, but really rewarding. And
you are gonna get on that journey with those people.
And
You are gonna be wrong about a lot of what you just said.
Right?
No, actually it wasn't as easy up the south face as we thought it was. Yes, we did actually need special equipment.
I mean
Come on, you don't even know how you're gonna get up there.
The analogy that's more concrete that I use is
I came into Stripe and look, it's a product that has people's money.
And you need to have good support experiences when something is wrong with any kind of payment. I'm expecting money, I'm trying to take money, I'm moving money.
There's a high expectation.
And Patrick is like
We need to build twenty four seven.
Global support.
We had really good ambitions. And by the way, I want to be clear.
One of the things that Stripe has as a value
is to be users first. It is always our most important operating principle.
It is actually deeply in the culture of the company.
So much so, Tim, that when the support team would get behind.
The entire company.
would stop and answer support.
Emails.
And so this was becoming an existential problem because we had to do engineering work and other work to build the company. But we were like ending up on Fridays.
before the weekend,'cause you want to get back to people quickly.
Answering support tickets.
By the way, you hit product market fit, you get traction. This is a
Super normal problem.
But it is not great'cause the product, like, is people's money. It's a quality problem, but it's a problem nonetheless. And so Patri is like look
We need to have this twenty four seven.
And I had to get up as a leader and say
I will build this.
And I had built similar things for Google. So I wasn't like completely describing a mountain I'd never seen.
But I certainly didn't join Google when it was only like a hundred and sixty people with twenty-one support people. And I was like, We are now going to do a set of things.
To solve this, and it took me a few years, and it's not perfect.
And it involved hiring very talented people. I don't get credit.
Uh
What we built.
But
I still look back on that and I say, I can't believe I declared that I would get it done and I didn't have a plan because I'm more of a manager. I'm more of like, I need to have a clear plan on how I'm gonna get this done. Instead, I was like, Yep, we're gonna have it.
Public announcement.
And I mean Patrick kinda pushed me there, but
I was like, this is uncomfortable. And I'll tell you, I did disappoint. Did I deliver it by the end of that year? Oh no, Tim.
I did not deliver it by the end of that first year. Like let's not kid ourselves. I disappointed, but I did figure out a way to do it.
And I think people followed me.
They kept following me, they kept believing we were gonna do it, which is some combination of me being authentic, I think, me being honest about where we were, me having a plan eventually, me demonstrating that it mattered, whatever. So I think that's what it means, is like you will not live up to everything you said, all the expectations of you.
With your time, with your ideas.
We're all humans.
We're not
Perfect.
And we're not
Fortune tellers. I'm not fortune tellers. So this ties into the
Regoti actually pretty well.
Species of renegotiating.
One was you gave an example very early on in the conversation when Lucy was getting thrown under the bus.
The dog ate my homework situation. And then we segue from that to
the player versus victim. And the player would say, You know what, you're right.
I committed to get this to you by five PM.
I didn't
And because this emergency popped up and I da da I didn't let you know, I should have let you know. How about five PM?
Tomorrow or whatever the example was.
Renegotiation. So in this particular example.
When it becomes clear to you that
By whatever deadline had been agreed, you were not going to be able to deliver what you were going to hope to deliver.
What does that conversation look like? I mean it's not exactly semiotics, but I know you like language and I know you consume a lot of language. So what is the language that you use to have that conversation, whether it's verbal or in email?
I think you made the connection and then you didn't finish making the connection, but it is so easy to sound like a victim.
when you are facing this kind of a situation. And if you're someone who prides themselves on being a player, on taking ownership,
And you've made this commitment and you're like, Oh my gosh, there's no way
I'm either coming to that meeting or delivering twenty four seven global support.
In six months. And so
What does it look like? I think what it looks like
The first
thing I did that was probably the smartest thing I did when I joined Stripe was
I
Listened and I didn't my first ninety days and I
talked to everybody and I heard sort of here's priorities, here's what people need, here's what need my attention.
And then I sat down with Patrick and I said, I'm hearing these four things
One of them was the support thing, by the way.
That really need my attention.
And I am gonna rank them.
And then I want you to see my ranking.
And I wanna agree on my level of priority. I said, because I can't make
meaningful progress on four things at once.
I can maybe keep
And I actually predicted
In that moment I said,'Cause we had to build sales, we had to build recruiting.
We had some internal
operational stuff that needed to be fixed. And then we had this support
Smoldering Fire.
And I said, I think I actually need to build sales and recruiting ahead of fixing support.
But I predict support is gonna implode within the next six months. And at that point you were COO.
Is that right? I was COO. Yeah.
I was actually hired as chief of business operations, and then I became we just swapped titles with someone else, but it's a long story. But yes, I was basically COO.
And remember, we're users first. This was a painful
Because we were also not getting back to sales leads though, Tim. I was like
You know, I just want to I'm also here to build some revenue. Like I'm here to build go to market and I'm here to deliver some revenue for this company. And I'm like, We have this other thing where we're not getting back to our prospects. And so it was a very Sophie's choice.
Kind of moment.
Honestly, oh, and then we couldn't hire people to build the company, so we couldn't get back to sales leads. This is normal, by the way, this happens, and especially for people like me coming into that kind of opportunity.
But what I
Loved about that conversation was Patrick was one first of all supportive. He was like, Great, this is good for us to talk out now.
And then he had to admit he's like, I can't believe I'm doing this.
But I agree.
You're not gonna fix support in the first six months.
We made an agreement and then by the way, Tim
Four months in.
Complete explosion.
And I was thinking in my head, thank goodness. This goes back to expectation setting. I'm like, thank goodness, I said out loud that I thought it was gonna explode. And then I mean, by the way, still terrible. I was still sad. I was like, oh my gosh, I had to go then put it at the top of the priority list, basically. But
I had at least four months to build some other things.
Point is, one is try to set the priorities align on them and
Set expectations ahead of time.
Even if you haven't done that, you're gonna reach a moment where you're like, There's no way we're getting to the top of this mountain.
And so
What you try to do is not come up and make a bunch of excuses.
So what I I think I did in those moments, we had written public goals in the company. We had plans. And I just want to be clear, none of the plans, this is where when you're working with founders.
Maybe this is a side what do you call them side quests. This is a little bit of a side quest. Love side quests. When you're working with founders.
People describe this reality distortion experience.
Which often is more that they
have a version of reality and they're like, No, no, no, we can ship the iPhone in five minutes or whatever, you know? And like everyone's like, Yes, Steve, yes we can. Right. There's another version of reality distortion I find, which is
You can fix that thing in five minutes. It's now a joke between Patrick and I because he'll be like, Yeah, we could just like code that up.
And I say, In five minutes, you know?
It's not five minutes. So
We had a consistent conflict where I would say to him
No, that mountain is not gonna be climbed by the end of this year.
I never actually said I was gonna build that thing by the end of the year, and he refused to hear it.
He was like, No, it really needs to be the goal.
This actually needs to be the goal. Be that as it may, Claire. Yeah, be that as it may, Claire, I'm making it your goal.
And I was like
Okay, under dress.
I am going to like take this goal.
And
Try to put some language in it.
I mean I'm gonna get a red, right? Whatever on your I mean, that doesn't feel good. This is the other thing.
It's beneficial to walk into a situation like that after some amount of career success, so that you have some amount of self-actualization. So I was like, luckily my whole identity is not tied up in this goal because I would have been destroyed. I would have really lost confidence. By the way, a lot of leaders
You hire into a startup environment end up losing confidence just because you're getting pummeled.
totally pommeled. And like you need to sort of be like, no, no, no. I have identity outside of the success of this moment. But I was like, all right, I'm gonna publicly get up in front of the company and have failed.
On the school, but
We disagree. We agreed to disagree that this is possible. What's also funny, though, is I was like, I think he really believed it was possible, and he's very smart.
And of course, then I'm going home. I'm like driving home at night. I'm like, has he ever built anything like this? No. Why am I even listening to But they they reality distort you into thinking, yes, it's completely possible. Like I don't know how I got fooled.
But what I did
sort of commit to myself is like I have to make meaningful progress. So what are some of the milestones we can point to? So what you do is you go in and you say, well,
I was not convinced this was the right goal, but I agreed to it.
Here are the milestones.
That I'm
Glad we hit. So you kind of don't forget to point out you've made progress. I think sometimes people get defend they're like, I don't want to be defensive, but you have to be like, look, it's like nothing happened.
And then you try to be data driven.
And what I think
Because this is where the context matters.
Stripe's founders and Stripe's culture is very learning oriented. Very, very more so than almost maybe any startup I've come across.
Yes.
At an early stage too.
Yes.
So think about the cultural context you're in.
What did we learn?
What did we not know and what did we learn?
Trying to get there.
On this goal. What did I learn? By the way, some of them are mistakes I made. And so try to be humble. Stripe is also very humble culture. Say,
Here's some things I thought I knew. By the way, I thought I did know. I was like, we were gonna outsource certain things.
that I thought was gonna be easier than it was, and that is true. And here's what I learned, here's what I thought, here's what the truth was, here's what I learned, here's now what we're gonna do differently.
And by the way, everyone's nodding in the room.
'Cause they're like, cool, cool. We had a plan, we tried it. I mean they're engineers, they know it like did not work the way we thought it was gonna work.
We're gonna try this other thing. So you basically do a retro post mortem, whatever you wanna call it.
Sort of publicly in front of everyone.
In the language they like speaking.
So the language stripe like speaking is
Learning
I made mistakes. What am I doing differently? What do I see next?
How are we gonna get there now? You know what I mean? Like it's I'm confident but humbled.
by this experience and I've learned a lot. And here's some data that shows we have made some progress. Cause I also people want to make sure like, are we actually know what we're doing. So that's what you do. And I think depends on your context and sort of what language do you speak.
So that is a big example. And that is
I think
A very effective way to
As a player offer a Mia Culpa in a way. Yeah.
Yeah. At that point then.
And this may be if this is gonna require a dissertation, then tell me and I can rejig. But
How did you decide to
scope the thing and then make a counter offer effectively. Or was that even your decision to make? I don't know. In terms of like, okay, we've learned these things. These were some assumptions.
And then leading into the kind of now what?
I won't do the dissertation version.
Tim, but I will tell you one bind I found myself in consistently that I'm sure you have also.
Is
It's a talent buy.
Which is
I can only do so many things at once, individually, me alone.
And I did feel like a victim, I'm gonna be honest, because I had been trying to hire someone. I had hired someone, they hadn't worked out.
Partly my fault, partly not my fault.
And I'm in a meeting.
This happened so many times. But I'm talking to Patrick and I'm like look
We know so and so didn't work out.
Here's what happened with that.
We now have face a choice, which is you have Claire as a resource, me alone.
Am I gonna go lead support directly?
Like am I gonna go start building this thing?
With all my most of my time.
And what is the opportunity cost of that? What is the trade off of me not leading sales, by the way, at that moment, which I was also leading? And this is where I fell into a trap because I had like a few too many needing to clone myself problems.
And this happens when you're growing quickly, but it's still I got into an egregious case of needing cloning. Then we're having a renegotiation conversation. Not even a reasonable case of needing cloning. No, it was egregious. It was egregious. There was one point where I mean I think it's important
People
Especially'cause they seem to think I have some like storied career. I'm like there was a moment where
I had taken a former colleague from Google who I was admittedly, I'll be honest, was trying to recruit to strike.
Out for a coffee. You're just gonna be a board observer. Just come once.
Yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly. And he and he says to me, he used to actually work for me and he knew how much I pride myself on m good management practices. And he asked me, How many direct reports do you have?
And I told him and he almost like I had to peel him off the ground. He's like, I can't believe you let that happen to you. He was like, What happened to the Claire Johnson? Then I know. I'm like, I know, I'm so sorry. Like I had so many direct reports. It was
A crime, I think peak. I think the peak I wanna say the peak to you was twenty three, but it might have been twenty seven, and I just like
lost control of I I really don't
Tim.
I didn't want to go a lot of one on ones. Didn't wanna go here. It's so many one on ones, and of course I do actually make one on ones happen.
So point is I got schooled by my former direct report for violating my own rules.
In the need for cloning.
But the point is the negotiation turns from
We're negotiating
you getting this massive goal done to
What's the cost of me getting that goal done for the other priorities?
And then you're making a joint decision. By the way, the outcome of that negotiation.
Could have been.
Let's not build out sales any further. Let's not keep internationalizing.
Let's not open new markets. Let's wait on those other things.
Because we decided you should just go and be the directly the head of support.
Honestly.
That was not where the conversation went. It was like, okay, what creative
ideas do we have to somehow do both.
'Cause we're reality distorting.
That's fine.
But actually, you know, you gotta push yourself.
And so I think in that exact moment if I'm
Remembering the scenario.
We talked about some talented people. I had hired some people into the org.
Who we're like, could we lean on them? Could we put some newer leaders, managers into the deep end and get them to take on more?
Of this plant.
And
In the end, that was part of the solution.
Which is let's take some risks with some people we have.
Give them more than they probably are ready for and see if they can swim.
Which I'm not always a fan of because I have seen people not make it out of the pool.
By the way, a lot of
young companies find themselves in that situation.
And if you have great hiring, which we did, I'm proud to say that.
Actually that's where opportunities and magic can happen for people. Like I'm gonna get
To build out the global support org. But anyway, so we ended up sort of compromising, but we weren't gonna trade off my other responsibilities.
And that became a more important discussion about how do I deploy
Anyone who's the CEO has gotta be thinking, Well who are my most important
resources and how am I deploying them against the most important priorities.
So take the negotiation up to that level would be my advice.
That's a great macro renegotiation example.
And we're not gonna stay on this forever, but I wanna spend a little little little more time on it. When you're renegotiating the next day.
So we're moving down to the micro here.
What language do you use? Like you have a meeting booked, you got a lunch booked in Boston, you got this, you got that, and the other thing. When you reach out to these folks, what do you say?
I think you want to
Again, be a player, not a victim, and you gotta take responsibility.
So
I think they're
is a version of saying
I don't love if it's the next day. That's rough. Yeah, it could be the next week too, right? It's just broadly speaking.
I do actually tend to look at my calendar at least a week ahead and sort of start renegotiating because I don't like to be the one who's like the morning of or the day before.
But
I think
You sort of
Own it.
Whether this is an email, it's probably an email, may might be a text, and you say
First of all, I am very sorry.
I know we had time tomorrow.
On the calendar.
I
I'm staring at a list of priorities and I've realized you're saying something that doesn't hopefully make them feel diminished. I mean, I often will tell them there's this thing.
I am on this board in the middle of a transaction and I have to be on a phone call for four hours tomorrow. And unfortunately, I think I need some time to prep.
I need some time to prep.
And I booked our lunch.
And it's not realistic. I'm not gonna be able to be present.
At that watch.
It's not great. I try to give like I'm probably over context people, but I think it
makes you more human. It's like look, I did this thing.
I'm sorry.
What if you don't have like a house fire to point to? What if you just look at it and you're like oh You're like you're not important. Yeah. I mean like you're like, Why did I agree to Why did I mail myself the letter bomb?
Yeah, the Ghost of Christmas past is coming to scratch on my door, and I'm realizing I don't want to moderate this panel in Tuscaloosa. No offense to Tuscaloosa, but you get the idea because I've got all this other stuff going on and I just don't want to spend the energy.
Yeah.
What do you do in a case like that? So
Again I try not to be the day before.
Sure. No, let's say you look out and you're like, Okay, this thing is in two weeks. I'm not doing this thing yeah.
So
My instinct is always to offer context and be a little bit vulnerable, which maybe is not
Expected. I think you also know there's a I think women will get judged more
For certain things.
And in particular, like not being conscientious is the thing that gets
A little more beaten into you.
is my feeling as a woman. And so you have to also
Watch out for creating some reputational issue.
That I think
maybe not everyone has to watch out for.
So maybe some of my
instinct to offer more information is to like try to avoid that hit.
But I've been saying to people recently actually
That I have
Reworked my personal priorities.
And the demands on my time are higher than I've actually seen in my professional life, which is true.
And I've realized that I cannot
Do a good job.
of some of the commitments I've made.
And
Unfortunately
I can't travel and be on this panel and be effective for you.
And this is where I feel sometimes I'm a little weak. I'll try to offer, I mean, I try to think, do I know anyone locally who could do this? I'll be like, I think I have an idea if you want an idea on someone who could sub in. Like I'll try to find some solution for them if I'm really leaving them in a lurch, right? Cause I don't love that.
But I kind of am just honest about like I can't
Do this well.
And I think you want
Someone at their best.
It's not gonna be my best.
Yeah.
That's good language. That's really good language.
I'm not gonna drag us back into the swamp of selling literature, but it's good language. That's that's good wordsmithing.
Right. Right. And I think you're showing look, I looked at priorities, I realized and also you're showing context, which is this is a true statement. I'm like, I have more demands on my time than I've ever had in my life.
And
I'm learning to h cope with it and I'm learning that that I can't perform at the level I'd like to perform.
And I don't want you to suffer for that.
You want to show respect for people.
They want a good panel. They want your best. You know, you're saying like
Please.
You have to trust me, I'm not gonna be great.
And they'll be disappointed.
One thing that I do think I think Cheryl's an example of this. There are people I've come to respect. They're the people who protect their time like demons, right? The other people I've come to respect are the people who are like
Very comfortable just saying no.
Like
You know what? No, I'm sorry, I can't do that.
My hope for myself, my future self is
I am not in the situation where I'm doing that renegotiation. Again, it goes back to
Being honest.
Taking time before you make the commitment.
To say no.
But it's also with investments. Like a lot of founders will be like, or even nonprofits, they come and they're like, I want to tell you about our organization. And you're like, Oh, that organization sounds amazing.
But then do you want to waste an hour of your time and their time learning about it when you realize
I don't have time to commit a lot to this organization. What they would rather have is one, no, it's not on my list of causes that I support.
Or by the way, two, I will give you X amount of money
You never have to meet with me. I don't actually have time.
But sounds good. Here's some money. Goodbye.
And they'll say, Well, can you make that commitment for multiple years in a row? Maybe, maybe not. But I think getting faster at like there's a pattern here, which is you want
My money and my time.
Am I willing to give any money or time?
Yes, no. If I'm willing to get a little bit
Just tell them and get out.
Don't have a dog and pony show about it.
Or investments. I just don't really invest in a lot of B to C. I'll just write back and say, This is not for me. I don't really do B to C.
Good luck. Yeah. And they're like, Thank you.
Because they didn't waste their time sending you a deck, sending you you know
Yeah, they're not chasing the Glengarry. And so you think you're being an empath.
By saying, Oh, let me hear your story. This is my trap.
My personal trap is I think I'm being an empath, giving them 30 minutes. Let me hear your story.
And in fact, the empathic thing to do is to say
I'm gonna do a probability assessment, the chance that I'm gonna invest slash make a donation.
Are sub five percent.
No.
No for you, no for me, and you don't have to
think about it ever again. You don't have to email me tomorrow and ask me again, right? Like they're gonna keep coming back.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
I love that. So glad I asked. And a great answer. Also very useful, useful answer. What are some other rules we are gonna back the car into the garage of self awareness? Because a lot of this
Pulls at the hem.
Uh
self awareness from a bunch of different directions. But you mentioned that there are certain rules you have because your kid is going off to college and
Therefore.
X, Y, and Z.
What are some of the other
Rules that you have for yourself.
Around what you will or will not do.
Well, I have a rule. This is more of just a self awareness.
I do get intuitive and I do jump to sort of judgments, conclusions, solutions quickly. So I have a rule.
Yeah.
Like especially if I'm in a position of leadership and I'm in a meeting and there's other people, instead of stating my opinion, I have to ask a question.
Because
If you're the senior person and you state your opinion, like the whole thing is over. Yeah, right.
Yes, Steve, we can ship it in five minutes. Uh-huh, exactly. Here's an iPhone.
So that's a rule. Could you give an example of what that would
Because you could also
Ask a question in a way that makes it clear
It's your strong opinion. Right. So what might that look like?
So what it looks like is they're kinda looking to you, you know, I think we need to X, and you're like looking at you and you say
I have a thought. I do. I'll share it.
But actually I'm interested in what you all think we should do.
Mm-hmm.
Got it. You know, like I wanna learn from your thought before I share mine, you know? And that's by the way the benefit of senior work is you can be like, No, I'm not gonna like I appreciate and refuse to answer your question. I'm not gonna perform right now. I will perform later.
Because I actually want you to participate. I'm often
now in a position of sort of coaching leaders.
And because I'm more of an operator, not a professional coach.
I have the same problem. I'll be like, Oh my God, this is obvious. Like, here's what you're gonna do. And then I think, No, no, no, no, no, no. So I'll say to them
Alright, give me the bones of the situation.
And then I'll start to tell them what I think and I'm like, no. And then I'll say, you know what?
And I totally commentate. I'm like a sports color commentator. I'm like, I was about to jump in.
And tell you exactly what I would do if I were you.
And they're at the edge of their seat because that's what they came for. Like that's what they want. And I say, We're not gonna learn from that.
What I want you to do is tell me your instinct.
What is it you think you're doing next? And I don't even say give me the whole answer. I'm like, what would you do next? Cause it's often a situation. There's an executive they think is underperforming, there's a team off the rails, whatever. I'm like, what are you gonna do next?
Then I get them talking.
And then I sort of get out from them. And I'll tell you, Tim, most of the time, I mean, there's a reason these people are leaders. Most of the time, they're like eighty percent of the way there. They're just not confident in their instinct.
And so my job is not to tell them what to do or how to do it. It is to build their confidence in their instinct. And then yeah, we can brainstorm the last 20%.
And I I mean it's just like
And this is a total digression, but good pedagogy, right? Like how do people learn?
People do not learn by being told answers.
We all know this, but yet we get some amount of experience in our life and we think, I'm gonna go tell some people some answers. No.
What you're gonna do if you're a good leader, good teacher
is you're gonna lead them through learning with you.
And they are gonna get to the answer and you are gonna celebrate them doing that.
But I cannot tell you how many times I myself have to
Create a rule.
To shut my own mouth.
Because I love helping people.
Luckily, I don't think it's the know it all version of this. I think it's the
I can help you. Oh my God, I see how to help you. And I just want to tell them the answer.
And I gotta

Yeah.
So one rule is like yeah, I make a travel rule. Another rule I make
is as I already told you, which is don't say yes immediately.
It has to be very rare for me to say yes immediately.
And as a pleaser, that's very hard.
To be like, No, I'm sorry, I have to get back to you next week.
How often do you say I have to get back to you next week versus
I'm not sure. Can you get back to me next week?
Versus
In other words, like where does the ball fall?
In whose court.
Good feedback for me, Tim, and I take it. Thank you. Now I think that is actually
A really good tactic that I don't do enough of is to say
I think this is unlikely.
That I'm gonna be able to do this.
I'm willing to consider it, but what I'd like you to do is go look at your other options.
And if you're, you know, not finding something, feel free to get back to me.
by the end of the month and I will consider it. But it's you know, like basically telegraphing, like I kinda wanna try to help you, but I can't. You got to go to your plan B.
I'm not gonna be your keynote speaker. And that's a great feedback. I think that's a good
Maybe even it's just if you find yourself doing that, you should be asking yourself, Why isn't just not a no? It's a no.
Yeah.
It's a no for me. It's a no.
Tim, right? But maybe it's a way to trial yourself into realizing
Oh, this is a no. This is the training wheels.
Yeah. I like your idea, which is like put the ball in their court.
Maybe again it's back to some donation request or something like
N this is not for me now. Feel free to get in touch in the future.
A lot of those people might just not ever.
And I mean sorry for them'cause they're not persistent, but
Is that being a player is that being a player enough? I don't know.
Yeah, hitting the snooze button can lead to like a delayed twenty four car pile up later.
In my experience. Right. Good analogy. I was chatting with a friend of mine about this because I'm fascinated by rules.
for folks who handle a lot of inbound of any type.
And
His rule for
The
Charitable stuff specifically, like Oh, here's my GoFundMe or this or this. He's like, Well look
He's done very, very well professionally. And he's like, Okay, look, if it's a friend and it's
Basically any cause that's not going to entail reputational risk. If it's like Ah my buddy's doing a th climbing kilomangero for prostate cancer and he's has a gofundme, they'll basically give five K to anything side unseen.
Because the universe of possible
acquaintances or friends who's going to come to them with that is pretty limited. But the rule is like five K that's it. That's our rule. And then for anything large, it's just like we
focus on this and this and this and outside of that we are not.
involved. That's it. Yeah. No, I think that is so powerful. That would be another rule is like
For something that's a major commitment of my time or my resources.
Someone said to me it's
Time
Treasure talent.
But there's another one that's like
Testimony.
Ooh, okay.
So time, treasures, treasure, capital, talent, and testimony. And testimony is interesting, right? Cause you could, Tim, care about something that you can't give time to. And you could say, if you need a quote from me, again. Now we're like in this weird rarefied air where someone might want to quote from
Probably not me. But I I think that
That's another thing you could do. But the thing that for any of those categories, you need some criteria.
Yeah.
You know, some people it's about climate. If it's not related to climate and working on the climate crisis, it's a no.
And I think those people actually make more friends than I probably make,'cause I'm like, I'm not sure. That sounds so important.
Just to
Ask uh
Clarifying.

Like financial resources.
Things of that type. Testimony. Okay, like endorsing something or
Some version of that.
By the way, a version of that might be like, Can I introduce you to someone and endorse you? You know, like Yeah, totally.
What is talent? I mean, I understand the word, but I think of talent as if they're utilizing your talent, wouldn't that kind of fall into the time bucket or is it a separate thing?
You know, I had a similar question because this was a friend of mine who was like facilitating this workshop with people trying to think about what their criteria were for like what what am I gonna spend my time on.
I think that
The version of it
Is
You say to someone, I agree with you, like I can't really deploy my particular talent without putting some time in.
But
The example was say you are very good at some specific thing and the thing takes you
Less than thirty minutes. They're like, all right, I don't want you to join my board.
But can you read this?
Press release.
And tell me is it good or not?
I think it's like, you know what, I can't give you my time, I can't join a board, I can't commit to a regular meeting.
It's almost what I say to some of the founders I work with. I'm like, don't expect me to read the newsletter and
Try to volunteer for all the things you need.
But if you think my particular talent
It's going to be useful.
And here's what it often looks like, Tim, is
They send me profiles of people they're thinking of hiring.
And I give them a five minute Claire assessment.
And so that is my time, but I don't get on the phone. I'm just like, here's the questions. Usually how it comes back because I'm all about questions is
Here's the
three to five questions I'd have about this background.
If I'm you and I'm hiring for this role
Why did they move around five times? Why did they stop doing that job?
I would just give them
interview questions and then I would
back away. So you're right. It takes me a minute.
You probably have a version of that.
I've heard people like text you with very specific
Which supplement should I take, or which you know, should I intermittent fast. Yeah, I think probably can like
You could probably like text back this one, no.
This one, you know, that's probably still time and you probably should count how much time it is, but it's a way to stay time. Right. You already know the answer. You have the talent. You don't have to go do extra work and you can answer quickly.
Quick add on.
Because I realize you've you've done so much hiring.
And develop so much talent. I'm so curious.
How you spot bad apples or illicit
negative feedback or infer negative feedback when in the US it is so incredibly difficult.
To get
Honest.
negative feedback from anyone because they're so concerned about liability.
You're talking about like references. Yes, references. Exactly.
The non dissertation answer is
One.
People have trouble giving hard feedback. People have trouble asking this question, which is
I think it a question you just ask, which is like, is this someone in the top twenty percent of people you've ever worked with?
And then they say yes, you say top ten.
And then if they say yes, oh, so is it top five?
'Cause what happens is when people are asked for a very specific quantifiable ranking of something, they don't like lying.
And so
What I think happens is we're not comfortable asking for ranking questions sometimes about humans, and I don't love them actually in most contexts. But in this case, I'm like, I'm gonna pin you down on how good this person really is.
And
How they handle
And you could go just to top five.
But I think that's the short answer. I think the other answer is
you say to someone, you put them again in the role of you say, look
I'm gonna be their manager. You are their manager.
What's the thing I could do that's most important to help them?
That's a good question.
And
People will say some very revealing things.'Cause all of a sudden they're back.
Being the manager of the person. And they're like, Well
I'll tell them to really be more truthful when things are off the rails. You're like
What? Yeah.
And then you'll sort of get going, you're like, Tell me a situation where you had to use that advice. Like what you know, anyway.
So those are two. One very specific
Pin them down in one a little more tricky.
So good. Oh deft.
Very, very elegant.
All right. As promised. The garage of self awareness. I that is the very strained analogy that I used.
And tell me if this ties in. And I'm curious.
What good answers to this question might be.
But I do want to talk about self awareness, so we can go into it however you would like.
'Cause it's sort of the foundational
layer for everything that is built upon it, or it seems that way to me. Yep.
That's my hypothesis. Yeah. So
So actually I was gonna ask you about the question when have you seen me do my best and worst work, but we can come back to that. We can come back to that. I'm gonna bookmark that. Maybe we'll get to it, maybe we won't. But
How should people think about self-awareness? And I'm just going to share something.
Yeah.
homework and you can certainly fact check this, but I I thought it was quite

And think of an interview with you. So this is, you know, if you're not self aware, how would you know? That's a hell of a question. It's kinda like
Yeah, the tree falling in the forest. No one to hear it kind of question.
Here are some telltale signs. You consistently get feedback that you disagree with. This doesn't mean the feedback is correct, but it does mean how others perceive you differs from how you perceive yourself. Interesting.
I added the interesting.
You often feel frustrated and annoyed because you don't agree with your team's direction or decisions. You feel drained at the end of a work day and can't pinpoint why. You can't describe what kinds of work you do and don't enjoy doing.
So that's setting the table or maybe just piquing people's curiosity. How would you suggest people think about self awareness?
Why is this important?
In the worlds in which you operate.
I spent a lot of time thinking about how do you get results through through people, through teams. Like I'm not actually the one building the product, so I gotta do it through
Kind of brute force human
brain power and human time and
I think that most people who think that way start with the individuals you're managing or the team or the organization.
And my argument is where you started this section of the garage is it's the foundation
is self awareness. It actually has to start with you.
You're not gonna get great results.
from the people around you until you understand yourself.
And
I mean I think it there's some obvious reasons why, which is like look
I alone can't move the mountain, but
I need you and I need to compliment myself. How am I gonna compliment myself?
With other capabilities and skills.
If I don't understand what I'm bringing to the table.
By the way, a lot of people think they're the director in every scene. No, you're not. You're often an extra. And it just knowing that will make you more effective. So that's a side piece of advice for you. But a lot of self-awareness building to me, a lot of these
work style assessments you can take are just trying to help you figure out your defaults.
Like right to my default setting.
A lot of them are asking you, you know, are you more introverted or extroverted?
So you're talking about I guess for maybe lack of a better descriptor almost like personality typing tests like Myers Briggs. Myers Briggs
Disc, Enneagram. I mean, there's discovery insights, there's the Hogan assessment, like whatever. There's that's like a hundred and seventy questions. Like there's a r all these different there's the big five personality test. There's a lot of strengths finder, it goes on and on. Strength finder, good one.
Like there's so many. To me they all boil down to on one axis.
Let's call it the horizontal axis. You've got are you more introverted or extroted?
And the litmus test is sort of
Introts think to talk and extroverts talk to think. So where do you fall on that continuum?
And then the other
thing is the vertical axis, which is are you more task oriented or people oriented, which by the way doesn't mean you can't get a task done.
And my litmus test for this is like if someone comes to you with like a massive problem in some organization.
Is the first thing you think of the first task that has to get done, or oh my God, the people?
And it's just what do you lead with?
For me, I'll be like, Oh my gosh, someone's getting fired.
Which is sort of a task and a person answer, but
You're you're kind of anyway, but but I would say sorry, I'm being very negative today. But I would say
It sort of boils down then and then you think, okay, what quadrant am I in? Am I a more extroted task oriented type person?
Or extroverted people. By the way, a lot of extroverted people oriented people are excellent at sales. Makes sense. Their default is
I love getting stuff done, talking to you.
Like that's yay, be a sale. And then you've got your introverted task oriented people. Where do a lot of those people work?
Tim, do you think introverted task oriented people?
Engineering.
Programming. Engineering Finance.
Finance.
I do not, you know, need to talk to you to finish this model.
Right. Like in fact, you often do, and I know that. And so that's the other thing is you have to be really careful not to stereotype with any of this and not to generalize. But I think it helps any human frameworks are useful for a reason, which is
I am comfortable sort of saying, Okay, where can I place myself?
In these quadrants. And then what does that mean? My default setting is, and by the way, the people around me have different default settings.
One of my big this is such a dumb tactical lesson, but I'm one of those people where if I trust who I'm meeting with,
I don't need the agenda ahead of time.
I'll be like, let's meet and then at the very beginning of the meeting.
Bang out the agenda, make sure we know we're gonna get done. I still like to run it well, but I'm kind of loose with the prep.
I have people who've worked for me who are like
Frozen if they're like I don't have time to think ahead of this meeting what we're gonna talk about.
And I'm thinking there's something wrong with them. I'm like, well come on, we trust each other, we've worked together.
We're just gonna spitball about this.
They're like no.
I had to learn that there are humans in the world.
who if they don't have time to think before a meeting.
will not be effective in the meeting and will be uncomfortable.
'Cause my water is really different than that.
Really different.
But you if you're trying to create an environment that's conducive
to different styles, different defaults.
You gotta be aware of your own.
And then realize and I have to operate
Aware of others.
Because I want that meeting to be really effective.
And I've got to email, you know, Richard the day before and tell him we're gonna spitball ideas for this new marketing campaign.
That's what it all boils down to. But it's really cultivating awareness, but starting at home.
In the sense of the Start at home and then start to map the other people. Guinea pig is always in the cage right next to you in that case, right? It's just easier to some games a little easier to study. Coming back to the personality test for a second.
Or these are the
Not sure if that's the right way to categorize them. Myers breaks disc anything. Work style assessments. There we go. Work style assessments. If you could only choose one or two that have been most helpful to you personally.
What would you choose?
I would say
There's one that's called
I think if you just Google it's insights discovery.
Which is sort of
To me, more effective than Myers Briggs. Myers Briggs has a lot of interpretive work you have to do on your results. Like understand what sensing is. Understand what the decision making process of a sensing judger or whatever. Insights map to you more and they have some shading and colors, but it's sort of like more straightforward.
That is one I'm a fan of. The other is more of a simple one.
But Patrick Collins, obviously who
I've worked with I think I brought him around.
He felt like these things are like horoscopes. He's like, they're just gonna give you a report and it's gonna sound like a plausible prediction of you. And I said, I get it. I get the skepticism. And I really do, by the way, for anyone
And actually I think there's value in getting a horoscope.
How does it actually make me feel? Like do I agree with it or not? What am I really? Like it actually is part of a process, in my opinion. Yeah, as as a prompt, like a Rorsha prompt. It's a prompt. And how you react to it is interesting, right? Like you're like, I really, yes, I am finding love this year. You know? You know, or am I not? But but so point is
He then did some research and there is the big five personality test is very simple.
It's available for free online, as far as I can tell or I've seen
And it's just these five factors like neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness.

preneurial comfort with ambiguity, like whatever, and you can tell a lot.
From well, one, the research supports that they're pretty indicative of certain
human behaviors.
You and I have had a lot of conversations in this
Discussion about things like
Saying yes too easily.
But if you're like very high agreeableness and very high conscientiousness.
Guess what? You're gonna end up
Committing to too much stuff.
Yeah, for sure. And so
When I'm saying, Oh, I'm jealous of those people who protect their time, you know what? They're pretty comfortable being disagreeable.
They're pretty comfortable being like, no.
Or frankly, cancelling at the last minute.
Saying sorry, I don't have time today for you.
And if they're not very conscientious, they're like, I don't even feel bad.
But by the way, I no judgment.
A lot of
Found.
are really good about being like, look, I'm doing the most important thing that I gotta be doing today.
And I'm the operator. I'm like, Oh, but we made a bunch of commitments and we made a plan and we gotta stick to that plan, right? And that meeting of those styles is very powerful. That's why
You want a diverse team.
But
Anyway, I I would say those two.
Yeah, Patrick is endlessly fascinating. He's been on the show. Probably a couple years ago, but
Boy oh boy does that man read. He really he is a voracious consumer of knowledge. He is. He puts the rest of us to shame. You know what though, Tim? He's never I bet he's never seen John Wick.

So we have that. We have that going for us. We do. One zero Ferris Callson. Yeah. Put Wick on the scoreboard. Yeah. We were actually in a meeting and he said something about Greg Popovich, and two of us looked at each other and we're like
Do you really know who Greg Pavich is?

It was like amazing because Patrick also is not super up on
Sports, popular culture. You know, we all have our strengths.
Popovich also incredible. Somebody I would love to have on the show at some point. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well that's why he knew. So going to the kind of black belts of No. I'm wondering if there are people who stand out outside of the Collinsons.
As people who are
sort of paragons of no. People who are really good at
Saying no or defending their time where you're like wow, that person's really good at like keeping their eye on the one
Puck that matters.
Anybody come to mind?
Well, I mentioned you, I think Cheryl's very good at getting back, being very accessible and fast and sort of decisive, like no.
efficient. She's very efficient. And and sometimes that efficiency is a no, right?
I mean my
Version of it is someone who I think
is least doing it carefully with others.
Others like feelings. Like I I think that I don't love the person who has an assistant, for example, who cancels everything.

No, there's a model here, Tim. You've seen it where they agree to everything and then they have a clean up crew. Super cool. They have a clean up crew.
Like the wolf from Pulp Fiction, they send it out to like do the dirty work.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think what's happening is I'm doing left hand column filtering names of people right now in my mind where I'm like, nope, can't mention them because I think they actually have a cleanup crew. They use the cleanup crew. They use the cleanup crew. Like there aren't that many who seem I mean, I think you have some good
I think it's in four hour work week. You have some good models of pushing people
On
Not just being busy, but being productive.
There's some engineering leaders I worked with at Google.
Who
I thought was very bold, but it of course makes sense. They would look
At what were we planning in a meeting?
They be like mm.
I don't need to be here. Or this meeting doesn't seem important.

You know, and to me those are paragons of no though,'cause it was very open, very direct.
Very honest. It was like I see what you're trying to do with this one hour.
And I am not giving you my hour.
Why can't more people just
Call it.
You know? Yeah.
Uncomfortable.
There's a finance guy that I'm on a board with and he'll be like, What are we w trying to accomplish?
in this and how long do we need?
And like he'll set his
I'm here for that objective and I'm only here for this long.
And I admire it.
Because he's like, Don't be chatting away about other stuff. I wanna be productive, not just
Exactly. So just because you mentioned
The board. Why no more boards?
Just the thinking behind it.
I think there are different motivations for being on boards. I don't know if you are serve on boards and No, I've I basically from the beginning I have a number of friends who have policies that they won't join any more boards and I took that as a an indicator. And so I've only done advising, I've never been on boards. Yeah.
So I would say there's a sector of the world that feels it is a service.
And I do think it's a valuable service, by the way. I serve on some boards with some people who are like Jedi Master board members. And I'm like, wow, you are serving these companies because you are like awesome at governance and
Proxy statements.
politics and you like get it, you know. But I think there's a service
Motivation.
There's a motivation that has to do with maybe a personal like CEO really trusts you.
You wanna help them, like that's mostly what happens with me. I'm like, I wanna be there for that person.
But it is a big commitment.
And if you're someone who's realized that
Time is your most precious resource.
Which is my mom realized somehow when she was nineteen, but I did not.
Boards can stomp all over your calendar.
They can just say, You know what?
All day Friday.
Someone just up made an acquisition offer.
And you're like, Goodbye. You realize like you think you're controlling your time.
Because they don't meet that often, but no, no, no, no.
So really what I've decided is I need to like go on a board diet and then rebuild I'm not gonna say no.
ever like I'm never doing it again. But I've realized the bar has to be like extremely
High.
I mean, I'm on the board one of my favorite boards and I would do it forever. I don't know if I'm adding that much value, but is the Atlantic.
Which is private, so it's easier. But the quality of the people involved
We're doing the business brain stuff, but there's also like you get to meet these amazing writers and you get to be part of exchange of ideas about the future of democracy.
Yes, you know, that's enriching me.
That's the other thing is making sure there's an exchange in the board of your learning, you're getting enriched.
They're benefiting. And I don't think it's easy to always get that balance right. And so
You just have to be careful. I think you just have to be and I I I think I just
Didn't realize
The level of
commitment, not just time, but sort of to do it well.
I mean it goes back to renegotiating. So what I'm doing is I'm saying no more boards until I've renegotiated some of my current commitments.
And then we'll see. That's also a very powerful language right there.
Categorically I'm saying no I have a policy of saying no to X until I've
A, B, and C.
That's right. Done deal. And by the way, people can't argue with that because they're like that does sound like a very sane thing to do.
But I have
A lot of appreciation more than I did before of
Folks who do this in service. Governance matters, right? It matters.
For institutions, not just companies. And it should be done well.
But gosh, it's a big commitment.
Be careful with those big commitments, folks. They sneak up on you. Anything that has multiple years attached to it.
Yeah. Oh boy. It's kind of like the the scope creep.
time evaporating version of the best business model of all time, which is being a venture capitalist, where you have these like stacked funds.
That's great if you're taking your two and twenty.
But if it's
a commitment of your time over multiple years and then they start to stack and oh my God, then you're like twenty seven snow layers deep in the avalanche of time requests.
That's right. That's right. And you get like a ten year horizon.
Yeah.
I mean at minimum.
And that is
Like seems exciting at the beginning and then
Then you stack another ten and another ten and you're like, Wait a minute.
All of a sudden I'm like sixty five years old.
And you know.
Anyway, I I think it's
Yes, some funds have closed and hopeful you've done well. But you got made commitments before those things happened to another set of them.
Yeah. So it's like a rolling avalanche. It is not the avalanche is not ending.
Do not say yes right away, folks.
Yeah.
Especially to multi year commitments. That's probably the headline. That and the toy is broken.
I'm telling you, that's your next book. I really think it could do well.
I I have to ask this because it's of acute interest for me personally, also because it might help me individually, but also with employees of mine. Managing high performers.
How do you get
Extraordinary output from extraordinary people without burning them out or letting them burn themselves out.
If I was like, what are the pantheon of management lessons? So one of them is you gotta manage different people differently. Another
Pantheon lesson is
Spend disproportionate amount of time with your high performers because
Instead, what we all do is get all of our time sucked by the folks who are struggling.
And then we don't invest in the high performers. And then they're either burning themselves out or finding a new opportunity because they're not realizing they're high performers and benefiting, or they know they are and they're not getting investment. And they're like, I'm gonna go get investment somewhere else.
So number one is how do you manage them is you make sure that they are a priority of yours, even though they are perfectly good on their own, which is the sort of dilemma, right? Like how do I help them?
In my book I steal I mean I don't steal, I
Credit, I source a lot of frameworks. The book Skilling People, Tactics for Management and Company Building. Oh yes, thank you. Just to throw it in there.
So there are a lot of QR codes. You can scan and look at the sites where I reference a lot of materials and books, Conscious Business, Fred Kaufman's in there.
One framework I think I mean, as far as I can tell, I made up myself was a top talent framework, which is
Again, I try to like simplify things, but
I think high performers fall into two categories.
And I call them pushers and pullers.
And so the pusher
is the one who's like, give me more, give me more. They're often wanting to get more comp too, but they're like, I want recognition, I want responsibility, I want scope, I want to move the needle, I'm high impact. They're very impatient
With themselves, with other people. They can be a little high friction for the team'cause they're like
Going for it, grabbing it, grabbing it.
But you know, it's fun'cause you load'em up and they're just like carrying the whole thing up the hill without you. But they can be
Tough my main coaching often ends up with them is
Saying
Until I believe that the people working with you
Love working with you.
I don't think you're succeeding.
And they're like what'cause they're all keeping score.
But they're keeping score in the sort of
Maybe early in his life, Tim Ferriss version? I don't know. Oh no, that's a fair assessment.
I mean I think I am a
For sure.
As an entrepreneur for sure, and that I've learned how that can be a liability.
It can be a huge superpower and it can be a huge liability.
Right. And your job is to sort of like I say, you know, giving direct feedback is holding up a mirror and just being like here's
The beauty of you, and here's the liability part. And if you can't show me that you can work on the liability part.
I can't keep
Loading you up.
Because
In the case of the pusher
Yeah, they might burn themselves out, but they actually like burn out the people around them. So that's the pusher.
So
The polar, it's funny, this happened to me in a couple of conversations I've had is
I'm usually being interviewed by someone who's like the pusher and I'm the polar, but anyway, I'm the polar.
is um someone who
No complaints. You load them up.
And they're like, Yep.
Yep, I got it. But they're not asking for it. They're not grabbing it. They're not pushing, but they're highly competent. They're very organized. They're very consistent, reliable, and they have good judgment. And you're like, okay, I know that person won't screw that up. I know that person will get the people to the party and the, you know, whatever it is.
And you just start loading them.
And they don't renegotiate. They don't
Know how to say no.
And then they explode. Like they basically implode or explode.
With past employees.
Yep, and there's some like I went through a period of my own development where I was like I think of it as my martyr period.
Yeah.
I literally
I don't know who I thought I was bartering myself for, like everyone else. I like I would be doing all this stuff for my colleagues, for my team, and I was like, no one appreciates, like I don't know, and I
Eventually had a really good open conversation with a guy, not my boss, who worked with me and he's like
Did I ask you to take that on? Like you just started running that project or you run our planning process or like did someone ask you? And I'm like, well, no, no one was doing it. So I'm doing it.
It was like hm and he's like, and why do you feel like you have to do that? I was martyring myself for nothing. Like I think martyrs at least are celebrating like a god. I was like
sacrificing myself on the altar of
Someone didn't do the work, so I'll do it. It was very bad. Very bad.
And I was resenting the hell out of my colleagues. For sure. I'm like, does I mean this happens in relationships. I mean, it's like the who's gonna take out the garbage thing.
I designated myself the garbage collector for like a whole set of things, partly because I thought it was that was part of my job, but still it was not good.
Not good. Anyway, the polar will implode.
Slash explode.
And you might not be able to save them if it gets too far. So your job with them is like, look.
Let's work on delegation skills. Let's work on saying no. Let's work on boundary. Like look at me, let's work on rules, boundaries. How do you not be the person carrying everything and doing three jobs?
And I think that
Once you know those two archetypes, you can sort of look for the signs of them and then you can think, well, what's their classic development area? And then your job is to be all over them on that development area.
Because they will
Collapse if you don't.
Get them to see that part of their job.
Like the pusher, especially part of your job is to stop creating friction for everyone.
And like for me, I really started to take exercise seriously when I decided
It's part of my job to be like a better leader. I need to get a certain amount of exercise and now I will make time for it.
And I think a lot of these types are like, I'm gonna do everything to win these pushers, and you're like, you know what?
Part of winning.
It's like avoiding a Pyrrhic victory, avoiding one where everyone wins but dies on the field, right? Like that. And and they're like, Oh. Well then how do I do that? Cause it doesn't come naturally to them. They're like, How do I
And then they'll say, I don't want to work with low performers. And this is the problem. They're so good.
Yeah.
I mean now we're going deeper on this. They're so good.
Yeah.
You can't quite say back to them.
No, those people are the same as you.
So instead you're like
Yeah, okay, we all have different strengths and weaknesses.
What I feel like you're doing is not even appreciating what anyone else is bringing to the table. Why do you think that is?
And it's like they don't
stay up all night like I do getting the thing done. You're like, no, they don't.
And I actually don't think
Sometimes you should stay up all night getting the thing done.
But what do they do well?
And then you get them turn to think about assets.
You're like, How can you use that asset to get the things done? And they're like
Hm. But they really don't think that way'cause it's all on their own shoulders.
Takes practice. Like so many things.
Clear.
This has been a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much. I've had so much fun. I've taken copious notes. I'm gonna be following up on a million side quests, as we called them.
But important side quests. I've taken notes of phrasing that you've used, all sorts of things. So I am looking forward to actually digging into my homework. I will not stay up all night for the record. I'm trying to also help first, sort of foundational along with the awareness, having the vehicle to do the things you want to do. Your book, which I highly recommend to folks, is
Incredibly tactical, scaling people, tactics for management and company building, tons of templates.
Tons of frameworks, lots of specifics that you can apply immediately. People can find you.
Correct me if I'm getting this wrong, but on Twitter at C Hughes Johnson.
We'll link to LinkedIn as well. Are there any other websites or anything else that you'd like to point people to?
the Stripe Press website you can find scaling people and you can find actually I did interviews with a bunch of leaders that there's
Digital only content, which we can give you all the link.
to that.
But no, thank you, Tim. This has been wide ranging, as promised, and stimulating. And I've got some recommendations I'm walking away with. So thank you.
Thank you so much, Claire. And for everybody listening, we will link to everything in the show notes. This will be
Encyclopedic.
And you can find that at Tim.blog slash podcast. And you just search for Claire and this will pop right up and you'll find everything that we discussed.
And until next time, be a little bit kinder than is necessary, not only to others, but also to yourself.
And as always, thanks for tuning in.
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