The most effective founders treat people like volunteers by inspiring them and helping them understand how they personally gain from working hard towards the startup's success. They develop a shared vision and purpose among employees. This leadership style leads to higher employee agreement that the founder leads by inspiring people and gets others to feel they share the same vision. Treating people like volunteers is effective across countries, economies, and industries. It helps founders build a talent monopoly by understanding what attracts and motivates the best people.
This document summarizes the key findings of a study on diversity and inclusion in tech startups. The study surveyed 680 founders from nine countries. It found that while 72% of founders believe diversity is important, only 12% have achieved diversity in their technical roles (termed "Diversity Leaders"). Diversity Leaders standardize hiring practices, provide training and benefits, and implement policies to reduce bias. The top benefits of diversity cited were enhancing innovation, improving problem-solving, and greater access to talent. Although 92% of founders are familiar with unconscious bias, only 45% take steps to reduce it such as discussing it with staff.
Emotional intelligence - What it is and how you tools to help you get results...Ankit Patel
Presentation on what is Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and how you can help improve your emotional intelligence. It covers tools to help and explains why it's important to be emotionally intelligent. The end as examples of companies using emotional intelligence to get results for their companies.
The transition from management consulting to industryDominic Moore
The document summarizes research from interviews with 19 professionals who transitioned from management consulting to industry roles. Some key findings include: 1) Consultants are often seeking their next opportunity from early in their careers and view consulting as a stepping stone. 2) Perceived better work-life balance is a major pull factor to industry while the relentless pace is a push from consulting. 3) Consultants utilize alumni networks, search firms, clients, and desk research to find new roles. 4) Consultants fear a lack of expertise and red tape in corporations but the biggest challenge is actually learning how to drive change. 5) While no regrets, consultants miss the resources of consulting firms but would probably not return to consulting roles.
The document discusses various topics related to leadership including:
1. The key difference between leadership and management is that leadership involves influencing and guiding others while management focuses on maintaining existing systems and structures.
2. Effective leadership requires traits like vision, passion, integrity, trust, and courage. It is also important for leaders to inspire motivation in their teams.
3. Younger generations like Gen X and Gen Y value challenges, opportunities for growth, collaboration, and using the latest technology. Leaders need to adapt their styles to engage these generations.
Here is the presentation that l delivered at the York DECA #ConquerYourImpossible event today. What a great event managed by the future leaders of our industries.
This document summarizes a presentation on leadership and management in an agile world. It discusses how the role of management has changed due to increased business volatility and the need for agility. Traditional management theories are over 100 years old and may not be suited for today's environment where the only constant is change. Agile approaches emphasize collaboration, continuous learning, and empowering self-managed teams. The presentation examines different leadership styles and how to create a culture supportive of agility through practices like sharing power, decentralizing decision-making, coaching teams, and focusing on customer value over compliance.
This document summarizes the key findings of a study on diversity and inclusion in tech startups. The study surveyed 680 founders from nine countries. It found that while 72% of founders believe diversity is important, only 12% have achieved diversity in their technical roles (termed "Diversity Leaders"). Diversity Leaders standardize hiring practices, provide training and benefits, and implement policies to reduce bias. The top benefits of diversity cited were enhancing innovation, improving problem-solving, and greater access to talent. Although 92% of founders are familiar with unconscious bias, only 45% take steps to reduce it such as discussing it with staff.
Emotional intelligence - What it is and how you tools to help you get results...Ankit Patel
Presentation on what is Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and how you can help improve your emotional intelligence. It covers tools to help and explains why it's important to be emotionally intelligent. The end as examples of companies using emotional intelligence to get results for their companies.
The transition from management consulting to industryDominic Moore
The document summarizes research from interviews with 19 professionals who transitioned from management consulting to industry roles. Some key findings include: 1) Consultants are often seeking their next opportunity from early in their careers and view consulting as a stepping stone. 2) Perceived better work-life balance is a major pull factor to industry while the relentless pace is a push from consulting. 3) Consultants utilize alumni networks, search firms, clients, and desk research to find new roles. 4) Consultants fear a lack of expertise and red tape in corporations but the biggest challenge is actually learning how to drive change. 5) While no regrets, consultants miss the resources of consulting firms but would probably not return to consulting roles.
The document discusses various topics related to leadership including:
1. The key difference between leadership and management is that leadership involves influencing and guiding others while management focuses on maintaining existing systems and structures.
2. Effective leadership requires traits like vision, passion, integrity, trust, and courage. It is also important for leaders to inspire motivation in their teams.
3. Younger generations like Gen X and Gen Y value challenges, opportunities for growth, collaboration, and using the latest technology. Leaders need to adapt their styles to engage these generations.
Here is the presentation that l delivered at the York DECA #ConquerYourImpossible event today. What a great event managed by the future leaders of our industries.
This document summarizes a presentation on leadership and management in an agile world. It discusses how the role of management has changed due to increased business volatility and the need for agility. Traditional management theories are over 100 years old and may not be suited for today's environment where the only constant is change. Agile approaches emphasize collaboration, continuous learning, and empowering self-managed teams. The presentation examines different leadership styles and how to create a culture supportive of agility through practices like sharing power, decentralizing decision-making, coaching teams, and focusing on customer value over compliance.
Technology Venture Assessment - Thomas TriumphThomas Triumph
Initial thoughts on assessing technology ventures proposed to an incubator:
1) A structured evaluation process is necessary to improve accuracy in predicting success and yield higher returns, even with just one additional successful venture. 2) The document outlines several strategies for evaluating new ventures, including embracing both quantitative and qualitative factors, exploring all sides of opportunities, and using outside experts. 3) Key metrics for assessment are identified across categories like market potential, technical feasibility, competition, and return on investment. Weighted scoring of ventures allows comparison.
The document discusses a meta-analysis of 45 studies comparing the leadership styles of men and women. It found that women tended to use a transformational leadership style more than men, which involves empowering and mentoring employees. This style has been shown to produce better employee performance and organizational effectiveness. Women also rewarded good employee performance more than men, which is the only aspect of transactional leadership linked to positive outcomes. Overall, the study indicates that women may be somewhat better leaders than men for today's world.
This document summarizes a presentation given at the Women's Insurance Networking Group meeting on November 18, 2014. It introduces the two speakers, Deborah Knupp and Shelli Greenslade, and their backgrounds. The presentation then covered topics like data on the lack of women in leadership positions, how women are not being groomed for top roles, examples of progress and challenges, and four things women can do to develop as leaders including getting feedback, strengthening their network, learning how to lead through change, and finding their authentic boldness through effective self-advocacy. The document provides details on developing personal brands and projecting confidence. It concludes with a roundtable discussion and thanks to attendees.
Serial entrepreneurs create multiple successful businesses that employ others. This document analyzes the traits of serial entrepreneurs in three areas: attitudes, behaviors, and professional skills. It finds that serial entrepreneurs highly value profit/usefulness (utilitarian attitude) and knowledge (theoretical attitude). Their behaviors include being very competitive, trusting, and rule-breaking. They exhibit above-average mastery in skills like leadership, goal-orientation, and persuasion. The document concludes that serial entrepreneurs have the right attributes and focus from a young age to succeed in building multiple businesses.
The document discusses five common barriers to innovation: inadequate funding, risk avoidance, organizational "silos", time commitments, and incorrect measures of success. It provides questions to consider for each barrier and potential strategies to overcome them, such as leveraging networks, prototyping ideas quickly, and developing new measures of success beyond financial metrics alone. Overcoming these barriers requires understanding stakeholders, managing risks, and freeing up time for innovative work.
CPA Congress Sydney 2015 - Day Three Wrap UpCPA Australia
Todd Sampson discussed how modern science has proven that the brain is plastic and can be improved at any age through various techniques like mental flexibility, forced adaption, memory techniques, meditation, and managing fear and emotions. Jacqui Clarke emphasized the importance of succession planning for long term business survival and reducing complexity to develop talent. Anastasia Clarke discussed how finance can support business strategy through investing capital, managing debt and equity, and ensuring policies are board approved.
STAT Part 3: Failure at CTO (anonymized) mindful action without performance o...David Denyer
This document discusses organizational resilience and introduces a five-part series on the Strategic Tensions Model for Organizational Resilience. The series will examine four approaches to organizational resilience - preventative control, mindful action, performance optimization, and adaptive innovation. This third article focuses on "mindful action" and uses an anonymized case study of a consulting and training organization (CTO) that failed due to overreliance on mindful action without also emphasizing performance optimization. The article describes key aspects of mindful action including decentralized structure, rapid response, and customized solutions, and notes potential blind spots when not balanced with other approaches.
The document summarizes the key findings of a survey about innovation during an economic recession. Some of the main findings are:
1) Innovation is seen as critical for business survival during the recession, as customer needs are constantly evolving. Most companies surveyed have increased their innovation efforts despite the economic downturn.
2) The most successful innovators have well-defined innovation processes for generating, evaluating, and prioritizing ideas. They also have strong executive support and a culture that engages employees in innovation.
3) Customer-driven innovation is especially important now as consumers cut spending. Surveyed companies are focusing on providing value to customers however they define it during the recession.
2014 state of global strategy and leadership survey report updatedmohammadtazam10
The document summarizes the key findings of the Palladium Group's 2014 Global State of Strategy and Leadership Survey. The survey found that most organizations believe changes in their business environment are intense and disruptive, and that their business models will be threatened. However, few organizations are adequately investing in strategy execution, strategic leadership, and innovation - which the survey indicates are critical for success. The survey involved over 1,266 organizations globally. It concluded that organizations understand the challenges they face but are largely unprepared to address them through stronger strategy execution and related capabilities.
This document summarizes a research study from 1994 that examined employee motivation at a UK defense systems manufacturer. The study aimed to understand motivation from the employees' perspective. A survey was administered to 51 employees across levels and departments. The results showed that while the company created a mostly positive work environment, employees gave very low scores for feelings of warmth and support from leadership. Further analysis revealed deep issues in how operators and engineers experienced leadership. The study highlights the importance of understanding employee perceptions in order to close gaps between reality and company goals/philosophy regarding culture and motivation.
How do you become a leader in the tech industry_.pdfAnil
Becoming a leader in the tech industry requires a combination of technical expertise, leadership skills, and a strategic mindset. Here are some steps you can take to position yourself as a leader in the tech industry
The document discusses innovation and how to build an innovative environment within an organization. It notes that people and corporate culture are the most important drivers of innovation, and that leaders play a key role by encouraging and modeling innovative behavior. It outlines a five-stage process for building an innovative environment that includes defining the type of innovation needed, connecting diverse groups of people, engaging employees, supporting innovation efforts, and measuring and motivating innovation.
Most businesses fail due to internal reasons like excessive debt or failure to change, rather than external factors. A common element of failed businesses is that they did not operate as an open organization. An open organization continuously imports information from its environment, uses it to design products/services that provide value to customers, and exports resulting products, services, and waste. Key elements of an open organization include a culture that shares information openly, diverse employees with a variety of experiences, and systems that support innovative behavior and equal access to information. While being open enables learning and adaptation, organizations must also innovate rather than just adapt and avoid becoming too reactive to avoid failure over time.
A Summary Of Findings & Respondent Verbatim Comments From A Recent Study Of Innovation Culture, Orientation, And Performance Inside Fortune 1000 Companies
This document discusses innovative HR practices. It begins by explaining how innovative practices build competencies, capabilities, and foster innovation. It then discusses the need for HR practices to change with trends like increased competition and technological change. It also covers topics like employee motivation, individual innovativeness, organizational citizenship behavior, and the role of the HR leader in bringing innovative ideas and practices to help develop employees and lead the organization successfully.
To serve or not to serve - there is no question for a leaderSteven Martin
This document discusses leadership styles and proposes that servant leadership is most effective. It begins by describing issues commonly seen in organizations with top-down leadership, such as lack of accountability, innovation and customer alignment. The author then discusses how servant leadership, where leaders prioritize serving their people, tends to have better results. Key aspects of servant leadership discussed include empowering teams, coaching others, and focusing on people's growth. Transitioning to this leadership style requires commitment, self-awareness, understanding others, and demonstrating servant leader characteristics incrementally. Overall the document advocates that servant leadership can improve organizational performance, productivity and employee satisfaction compared to traditional top-down management.
Is your organisation Innovative? Or Inept?ross harling
A simple 'litmus test' for assessing innovation capabilities. Why? Because most executives now recognise the competitive importance of innovation, or turning ideas into income. However few can measure where they stand in the innovation stakes or if they are heading in the right direction.
The webinar provided information on managing agile talent effectively. It discussed trends driving greater reliance on external talent, such as skills gaps and increased expertise availability globally. It outlined three approaches to agile talent and highlighted how to focus agile talent on building strategic capabilities. The webinar also reviewed key concerns with using external talent and provided a model for determining when to "rent" versus "own" talent. It stressed the importance of alignment across strategic, performance, relationship, and administrative dimensions. Finally, it offered a process for organizations to improve their management of agile talent.
At Techbox Square, in Singapore, we're not just creative web designers and developers, we're the driving force behind your brand identity. Contact us today.
Technology Venture Assessment - Thomas TriumphThomas Triumph
Initial thoughts on assessing technology ventures proposed to an incubator:
1) A structured evaluation process is necessary to improve accuracy in predicting success and yield higher returns, even with just one additional successful venture. 2) The document outlines several strategies for evaluating new ventures, including embracing both quantitative and qualitative factors, exploring all sides of opportunities, and using outside experts. 3) Key metrics for assessment are identified across categories like market potential, technical feasibility, competition, and return on investment. Weighted scoring of ventures allows comparison.
The document discusses a meta-analysis of 45 studies comparing the leadership styles of men and women. It found that women tended to use a transformational leadership style more than men, which involves empowering and mentoring employees. This style has been shown to produce better employee performance and organizational effectiveness. Women also rewarded good employee performance more than men, which is the only aspect of transactional leadership linked to positive outcomes. Overall, the study indicates that women may be somewhat better leaders than men for today's world.
This document summarizes a presentation given at the Women's Insurance Networking Group meeting on November 18, 2014. It introduces the two speakers, Deborah Knupp and Shelli Greenslade, and their backgrounds. The presentation then covered topics like data on the lack of women in leadership positions, how women are not being groomed for top roles, examples of progress and challenges, and four things women can do to develop as leaders including getting feedback, strengthening their network, learning how to lead through change, and finding their authentic boldness through effective self-advocacy. The document provides details on developing personal brands and projecting confidence. It concludes with a roundtable discussion and thanks to attendees.
Serial entrepreneurs create multiple successful businesses that employ others. This document analyzes the traits of serial entrepreneurs in three areas: attitudes, behaviors, and professional skills. It finds that serial entrepreneurs highly value profit/usefulness (utilitarian attitude) and knowledge (theoretical attitude). Their behaviors include being very competitive, trusting, and rule-breaking. They exhibit above-average mastery in skills like leadership, goal-orientation, and persuasion. The document concludes that serial entrepreneurs have the right attributes and focus from a young age to succeed in building multiple businesses.
The document discusses five common barriers to innovation: inadequate funding, risk avoidance, organizational "silos", time commitments, and incorrect measures of success. It provides questions to consider for each barrier and potential strategies to overcome them, such as leveraging networks, prototyping ideas quickly, and developing new measures of success beyond financial metrics alone. Overcoming these barriers requires understanding stakeholders, managing risks, and freeing up time for innovative work.
CPA Congress Sydney 2015 - Day Three Wrap UpCPA Australia
Todd Sampson discussed how modern science has proven that the brain is plastic and can be improved at any age through various techniques like mental flexibility, forced adaption, memory techniques, meditation, and managing fear and emotions. Jacqui Clarke emphasized the importance of succession planning for long term business survival and reducing complexity to develop talent. Anastasia Clarke discussed how finance can support business strategy through investing capital, managing debt and equity, and ensuring policies are board approved.
STAT Part 3: Failure at CTO (anonymized) mindful action without performance o...David Denyer
This document discusses organizational resilience and introduces a five-part series on the Strategic Tensions Model for Organizational Resilience. The series will examine four approaches to organizational resilience - preventative control, mindful action, performance optimization, and adaptive innovation. This third article focuses on "mindful action" and uses an anonymized case study of a consulting and training organization (CTO) that failed due to overreliance on mindful action without also emphasizing performance optimization. The article describes key aspects of mindful action including decentralized structure, rapid response, and customized solutions, and notes potential blind spots when not balanced with other approaches.
The document summarizes the key findings of a survey about innovation during an economic recession. Some of the main findings are:
1) Innovation is seen as critical for business survival during the recession, as customer needs are constantly evolving. Most companies surveyed have increased their innovation efforts despite the economic downturn.
2) The most successful innovators have well-defined innovation processes for generating, evaluating, and prioritizing ideas. They also have strong executive support and a culture that engages employees in innovation.
3) Customer-driven innovation is especially important now as consumers cut spending. Surveyed companies are focusing on providing value to customers however they define it during the recession.
2014 state of global strategy and leadership survey report updatedmohammadtazam10
The document summarizes the key findings of the Palladium Group's 2014 Global State of Strategy and Leadership Survey. The survey found that most organizations believe changes in their business environment are intense and disruptive, and that their business models will be threatened. However, few organizations are adequately investing in strategy execution, strategic leadership, and innovation - which the survey indicates are critical for success. The survey involved over 1,266 organizations globally. It concluded that organizations understand the challenges they face but are largely unprepared to address them through stronger strategy execution and related capabilities.
This document summarizes a research study from 1994 that examined employee motivation at a UK defense systems manufacturer. The study aimed to understand motivation from the employees' perspective. A survey was administered to 51 employees across levels and departments. The results showed that while the company created a mostly positive work environment, employees gave very low scores for feelings of warmth and support from leadership. Further analysis revealed deep issues in how operators and engineers experienced leadership. The study highlights the importance of understanding employee perceptions in order to close gaps between reality and company goals/philosophy regarding culture and motivation.
How do you become a leader in the tech industry_.pdfAnil
Becoming a leader in the tech industry requires a combination of technical expertise, leadership skills, and a strategic mindset. Here are some steps you can take to position yourself as a leader in the tech industry
The document discusses innovation and how to build an innovative environment within an organization. It notes that people and corporate culture are the most important drivers of innovation, and that leaders play a key role by encouraging and modeling innovative behavior. It outlines a five-stage process for building an innovative environment that includes defining the type of innovation needed, connecting diverse groups of people, engaging employees, supporting innovation efforts, and measuring and motivating innovation.
Most businesses fail due to internal reasons like excessive debt or failure to change, rather than external factors. A common element of failed businesses is that they did not operate as an open organization. An open organization continuously imports information from its environment, uses it to design products/services that provide value to customers, and exports resulting products, services, and waste. Key elements of an open organization include a culture that shares information openly, diverse employees with a variety of experiences, and systems that support innovative behavior and equal access to information. While being open enables learning and adaptation, organizations must also innovate rather than just adapt and avoid becoming too reactive to avoid failure over time.
A Summary Of Findings & Respondent Verbatim Comments From A Recent Study Of Innovation Culture, Orientation, And Performance Inside Fortune 1000 Companies
This document discusses innovative HR practices. It begins by explaining how innovative practices build competencies, capabilities, and foster innovation. It then discusses the need for HR practices to change with trends like increased competition and technological change. It also covers topics like employee motivation, individual innovativeness, organizational citizenship behavior, and the role of the HR leader in bringing innovative ideas and practices to help develop employees and lead the organization successfully.
To serve or not to serve - there is no question for a leaderSteven Martin
This document discusses leadership styles and proposes that servant leadership is most effective. It begins by describing issues commonly seen in organizations with top-down leadership, such as lack of accountability, innovation and customer alignment. The author then discusses how servant leadership, where leaders prioritize serving their people, tends to have better results. Key aspects of servant leadership discussed include empowering teams, coaching others, and focusing on people's growth. Transitioning to this leadership style requires commitment, self-awareness, understanding others, and demonstrating servant leader characteristics incrementally. Overall the document advocates that servant leadership can improve organizational performance, productivity and employee satisfaction compared to traditional top-down management.
Is your organisation Innovative? Or Inept?ross harling
A simple 'litmus test' for assessing innovation capabilities. Why? Because most executives now recognise the competitive importance of innovation, or turning ideas into income. However few can measure where they stand in the innovation stakes or if they are heading in the right direction.
The webinar provided information on managing agile talent effectively. It discussed trends driving greater reliance on external talent, such as skills gaps and increased expertise availability globally. It outlined three approaches to agile talent and highlighted how to focus agile talent on building strategic capabilities. The webinar also reviewed key concerns with using external talent and provided a model for determining when to "rent" versus "own" talent. It stressed the importance of alignment across strategic, performance, relationship, and administrative dimensions. Finally, it offered a process for organizations to improve their management of agile talent.
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At Techbox Square, in Singapore, we're not just creative web designers and developers, we're the driving force behind your brand identity. Contact us today.
Recruiting in the Digital Age: A Social Media MasterclassLuanWise
In this masterclass, presented at the Global HR Summit on 5th June 2024, Luan Wise explored the essential features of social media platforms that support talent acquisition, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok.
LA HUG - Video Testimonials with Chynna Morgan - June 2024Lital Barkan
Have you ever heard that user-generated content or video testimonials can take your brand to the next level? We will explore how you can effectively use video testimonials to leverage and boost your sales, content strategy, and increase your CRM data.🤯
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Structural Design Process: Step-by-Step Guide for BuildingsChandresh Chudasama
The structural design process is explained: Follow our step-by-step guide to understand building design intricacies and ensure structural integrity. Learn how to build wonderful buildings with the help of our detailed information. Learn how to create structures with durability and reliability and also gain insights on ways of managing structures.
At Techbox Square, in Singapore, we're not just creative web designers and developers, we're the driving force behind your brand identity. Contact us today.
Navigating the world of forex trading can be challenging, especially for beginners. To help you make an informed decision, we have comprehensively compared the best forex brokers in India for 2024. This article, reviewed by Top Forex Brokers Review, will cover featured award winners, the best forex brokers, featured offers, the best copy trading platforms, the best forex brokers for beginners, the best MetaTrader brokers, and recently updated reviews. We will focus on FP Markets, Black Bull, EightCap, IC Markets, and Octa.
The 10 Most Influential Leaders Guiding Corporate Evolution, 2024.pdfthesiliconleaders
In the recent edition, The 10 Most Influential Leaders Guiding Corporate Evolution, 2024, The Silicon Leaders magazine gladly features Dejan Štancer, President of the Global Chamber of Business Leaders (GCBL), along with other leaders.
Anny Serafina Love - Letter of Recommendation by Kellen Harkins, MS.AnnySerafinaLove
This letter, written by Kellen Harkins, Course Director at Full Sail University, commends Anny Love's exemplary performance in the Video Sharing Platforms class. It highlights her dedication, willingness to challenge herself, and exceptional skills in production, editing, and marketing across various video platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.
Understanding User Needs and Satisfying ThemAggregage
https://www.productmanagementtoday.com/frs/26903918/understanding-user-needs-and-satisfying-them
We know we want to create products which our customers find to be valuable. Whether we label it as customer-centric or product-led depends on how long we've been doing product management. There are three challenges we face when doing this. The obvious challenge is figuring out what our users need; the non-obvious challenges are in creating a shared understanding of those needs and in sensing if what we're doing is meeting those needs.
In this webinar, we won't focus on the research methods for discovering user-needs. We will focus on synthesis of the needs we discover, communication and alignment tools, and how we operationalize addressing those needs.
Industry expert Scott Sehlhorst will:
• Introduce a taxonomy for user goals with real world examples
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Introduction
The global retail industry has weathered numerous storms, with the financial crisis of 2008 serving as a poignant reminder of the sector's resilience and adaptability. However, as we navigate the complex landscape of 2024, retailers face a unique set of challenges that demand innovative strategies and a fundamental shift in mindset. This white paper contrasts the impact of the 2008 recession on the retail sector with the current headwinds retailers are grappling with, while offering a comprehensive roadmap for success in this new paradigm.
1. Proprietary + Confidential
The Effective
Founders
Project
Seven leadership strategies to overcome
the biggest risk to startup success
2. Proprietary + Confidential
Treat people like
volunteers
The best people are like volunteers
—they’ll work passionately for a
hard, meaningful mission. They
also have options. As the adage
goes, people leave bosses, not
companies. Create a talent
monopoly by understanding the
psychology of your employees.
TL;DR: Seven ways to become
a more effective founder
Invite disagreement
You want a conflict of ideas,
not personalities. Our data
suggests that founders
consistently undervalue
giving teams an opportunity
to voice their opinions, while
employees value it highly.
Encourage open team
dialogues early and often.
Preserve
interpersonal equity
Violated expectations are the
main source of conflict. The most
effective cofounders openly
discuss and document what they
expect from each other and
constantly check for interpersonal
equity—do both of you feel that
expectations are fair?
People issues are the biggest risk to
funded startups.
55% of startups fail because of people
problems, according to a study by Harvard,
Stanford, and University of Chicago researchers1
.
We put the most effective founders under a
microscope to understand their strengths
—and biggest potential blind spots.
Protect the team
from distractions
While founders are typically
seen as distracted by new
ideas, the best ones create
focus and clarity. Set clear
goals and priorities to build
momentum for your team,
which in turn fuels better
performance and morale.
Keep pace with expertise
Leaders need to know enough about each role to
hire the right people and help develop their team.
93% of the most effective founders have the
technical expertise to effectively manage the work.
Overcome discouragement
While most would expect self-confidence to grow
with time, our data suggests that the most effective
founders are not nearly as confident as the least
effective. Build a support system and know how to
ask for help in order to overcome doubt.
Minimize unnecessary
micromanagement
While data shows micromanaging can be helpful in
certain situations, the most effective leaders aim to
delegate work in order to scale both themselves
and their businesses. Our data suggests that
micromanaging can be a fatal flaw for CEOs.
1. Gompers, Paul A., William Gornall, Steven N.
Kaplan, and Ilya A. Strebulaev. "How Do Venture
Capitalists Make Decisions?" NBER Working Paper
Series, No. 22587, September 2016.
3. Startups have real—but solvable—people problems
Startup founders take many risks. Tech risk, market
risk, product risk, financial risk.
But there is one risk which research indicates may
pose the biggest threat of all to funded startups.
Often initially invisible to founders, the worry is
painfully felt once it is too late: people problems.
Founders consistently underestimate the
human-related issues that can destabilize startups.
As Sequoia Capital partner and former Google SVP
Bill Coughran once said: “Engineering is easy.
People are hard.”
The goal of this research is to provide actionable
advice for founders of all stages based on learnings
from high-potential startups across the world.
Through in-depth analysis, exhaustive research, and
thousands of hours spent with entrepreneurs around
the world, we hope to provide practical, universal tips
on how to recognize and correct the people
problems that pose the biggest risk to your startup’s
success.
This is not meant to be the final word
on what it takes to be an effective
leader. Each founder’s journey is
unique. Please take from this only
what helps you and your team.
3
5. People-related problems are the
biggest risk to funded startups
Most important factor that contributed to a startup failing
(Based on a large-scale survey of 885 venture capitalists around the world by
Harvard, Stanford, University of Chicago researchers Gompers et al, 2016)
5
Source: Gompers, Paul A., William Gornall, Steven N. Kaplan, and Ilya A. Strebulaev. "How Do Venture Capitalists Make Decisions?" NBER Working Paper Series, No. 22587, September 2016.
Notes: This study has been supported by several other studies, including one done several decades ago by Harvard and McKinsey & Co. researchers showing that an ineffective senior management
was the top reason for failure (65%). Why do startups fail? is a difficult question to answer rigorously. Many startup founders, advisors, VCs have talked about their theories about startup failure,
which are all anecdotal at best. At the time of the writing of this report, there are no controlled experiments that have been published that definitively answer this question.
Management team
Bad luck
Industry conditions
Business model
Timing
Technology
Board conflict
Capital market conditions
55%
10%
10%
9%
8%
3%
3%
3%
The leading people problems:
● Cofounder conflict
● Hiring and retaining talent
● Poor decision-making and
prioritization
● Reluctance to make tough
decisions on team members
6. We built one of the deepest and broadest
datasets on growth-stage1
founder capabilities
6
1. Most startups included in this study participated in one of Google Launchpad’s accelerators, most of whom are out of beta stage, with some market traction, and at a Series A + funding round.
Note: A more detailed discussion of our methodology can be found in the appendix.
founders/startup leaders in
our dataset and thousands
more reached through our
startup communities
900+
Egypt
Ghana
Kenya
Nigeria
South Africa
Tanzania
Uganda
Argentina
Brazil
Canada
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Haiti
Mexico
Puerto Rico
USA
Bangladesh
China
India
Indonesia
Israel
Japan
Turkey
Belarus
Belgium
Czech Republic
Estonia
France
Germany
Lithuania
Poland
Russia
Sweden
United Kingdom
Malaysia
Oman
Pakistan
Philippines
Singapore
Thailand
Vietnam
Asia and the Middle East
Africa Americas Europe
...in more than 40 countries...
...with a focus on CEOs and CTOs
CEOs
CTOs
Operations
Product Management
Finance
Others
(incl. Sales & Marketing, People)
39%
21%
7%
6%
3%
24%
Breakdown of primary roles of founders/leaders in dataset
7. average number of
evaluators per subject
7.1
230,000+
33
founder impressions included in this analysis
leadership capabilities
assessed
Through a multi-rater feedback tool,
we asked cofounders, employees,
investors, and advisors to weigh in
7
Note: A more detailed discussion of our methodology can be found in the appendix.
8. 8
We studied the most and least effective founders in our dataset
Learn more about our methodology and how we overcome survivor bias and halo effect.
What do the most effective founders do well that the
least effective don’t?
This comparative analysis is meant to overcome survivor bias—the tendency to look at
successful entrepreneurs and assume that what they do makes them successful—
without checking if those that failed did exactly the same yet failed anyway.
Most effective founders
Leadership effectiveness in our dataset relies on reported perceptions of effectiveness by evaluators. Evaluators included cofounders/peers and direct reports.Subjects
without this well-rounded evaluation and with less than four evaluations are removed from this analysis. Three questions were asked to establish a founder’s overall
effectiveness - “Is a leader I would recommend others to work with”, “Is the kind of leader that others should aspire to become”, “Overall, is a very effective leader”.
Least effective founders
12. The most effective founders...
12
1. Treat people like volunteers
% of evaluators that agree or strongly agree
Get others to feel they share
the same vision or purpose
95%
48% 2x
Lead by inspiring people
91%
41% 2.2x
Help the team understand what
they personally gain by working
hard towards the success of the
startup
86%
45% 1.9x
Most effective founders
Least effective founders Note: The idea behind treating people like volunteers is credited to Peter Drucker, one of the most
influential thinkers and writers on the subject of management theory and practice.
Researchers have investigated
the impact of charismatic/
transformational leadership
versus more task-oriented,
transactional-style of leadership.
These studies suggest that
transformational leadership
leads to positive performance
outcomes such as productivity,
task persistence, work
satisfaction, among others.
13. This leadership style is universally important across countries and
industries
13
1. Treat people like volunteers
Developed economies
(USA, Canada, Singapore,
Japan, France, etc.)
89%
50% 1.8x
91%
41% 2.2x
93%
30% 3.1x
Most effective founders Least effective founders
Breakdown by economy and vertical types
(% of evaluators that agree or strongly agree)
Emerging ecosystems
(India, Indonesia, Brazil, Nigeria,
South Africa, etc.)
Operations-dominant
tech verticals
(eCommerce, ridesharing,
food, logistics, agriculture, real
estate, etc.)
91%
45% 2x
Engineering-dominant
tech verticals
(Health, life sciences, IoT,
finance, ads, gaming, energy,
comms/social, robotics etc.)
14. Build a talent monopoly by understanding what attracts the
best people and motivates them to excel (true of fresh
grads as well as experienced, world-class talent)
● Good talent are drawn to a hard, meaningful mission.
The best people want to work on hard problems that matter.
● Great work is a result of discretionary effort.
Productivity is unlocked when people work passionately and are given
space to pursue their goals.
● Paying a person’s salary doesn’t excuse poor behavior.
There is absolutely no excuse for being disrespectful or disingenuous.
● Good people have options.
They don’t need to work for you. People leave bosses, not companies.
1. Treat people like volunteers
14
15. David Velez
Founder of Nubank, the largest financial technology bank
in Latin America
Do something that most people think is hard.
When you tell someone what you’re starting, their
reaction should be, “Are you sure you want to
do that? That’s too hard.”
If you try something easy, there will be five other
companies doing the same thing two months later.
But if you try something that’s difficult at first,
everything gets much easier as soon as you make
it through those initial challenges. Competition will
be lower, because everyone else thought it was
too hard. Recruiting good people will be easier,
because good people like doing hard things.
15
16. Before you give that
inspirational speech,
consider that you might
not be the best one to do it.
This study by Adam Grant and
colleagues tested the impact
of various motivational
approaches on team
productivity.
When the leader described
the impact of the work to the team...
Outsource
inspiration
When the leader invited a user to describe
the impact in a five-minute session...
No effect No effect
Increase in
persistence
Increase in
productivity
Increase in
persistence
(one month after)
Increase in
productivity
(one month after)
+171%
+142%
1. Treat people like volunteers
16
Source: Grant, A.M., Campbell, E.M., Chen, G.Y., Cottone, K., Lapedis, D., & Lee, K. (2007). Impact and the art of motivation maintenance: The effects of contact with
beneficiaries on persistence behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 103, 53-67.
17. Proprietary + Confidential
17
Three sources of
motivation
Head
Some are motivated by the
intellectual challenge to solve a
user need with technology—but
can become discouraged when
the problem proves to be
unsolvable or unchallenging.
Heart
Others are motivated by a passion
for a the specific industry or a
commitment to target users.
They can lose steam when when
the problem becomes irrelevant
or the solution incremental.
Wallet
Others are motivated by the
financial wallet or even a social
wallet—social status, title, access
to important people, association
with one’s tribe. They may feel less
invested when exit plans seem
unlikely or status/access shrink.
17
Craft the work in a
way that lets them
achieve these
personal goals
19. Proprietary + Confidential
42%
Most effective founders are seen to…
(% of evaluators that agree or strongly agree)
Invest their time in what really
drives success for the business
96%
68% 1.4x
Keep the team focused on
priority deliverables/objectives
93%
67% 1.4x
Most effective founders
Least effective founders
CEOs are easily
distracted
42% are seen by their
teams as distracted by
new ideas or projects.
2. Protect the team from distractions
20. Proprietary + Confidential
To build a team that does amazing work,
engineer for positive momentum
Inspires with exciting,
hard, meaningful goals
(95% fav*)
Clearly communicates
expectations
(86% fav*)
Keeps team focused
on priorities
(93% fav*)
Achieves high-quality
results through the team
(95% fav*)
Creates momentum and builds team morale
*fav = favorable, % of evaluators agreeing the most effective founders do this well.
2. Protect the team from distractions
20
21. Proprietary + Confidential
Kevin Aluwi
Co-founder and CEO of Gojek, one of Southeast Asia’s
largest on-demand, multi-service platforms
(Go Figure by GOJEK podcast, published April 29, 2019)
We launched our app in January 2015 with 40-50
employees; now we have more than 3,000. The
knowledge of how to scale was missing and
we made a lot of mistakes as a result. One
particularly problematic area was communicating
our mission and the top priorities of the company.
We should have done this when we had 100
employees. Keeping 100 people focused is
already a challenge, and now we have thousands
of people across multiple countries.
22. Proprietary + Confidential
1. An idea popularized by Robert Sutton, Professor at Stanford University. Learn more here.
Be mindful of executive
magnification1
Employees can misinterpret a passing
suggestion, minor critique, or random
pie-in-the-sky idea as a serious
dictate from the boss. Communicate
carefully, and check if employees
understand correctly.
22
Protect
their time
Create project “burial
rites” to redirect focus
Clearly demarcate the close of an effort,
project, or initiative with a post-mortem
discussion or a note of gratitude to
collaborators. Or consider an annual ritual
of X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory: as
part of Dia De Los Muertos celebrations,
Xers burn their “dead” projects on a
symbolic funeral pyre.
Plan for recovery
Take time to recover at the end of
a sprint of activity. A team meal,
mental health day, or a small
token of appreciation allows
people to breathe and
recuperate.
22
Tactics to keep
your team focused
24. Proprietary + Confidential
Some situations call for micromanagement—but not all
Focus on... The details of the work Big-picture goals
Get work done via... Close observation and direction,
engaged problem-solving
Autonomy and trusting the team to pull
you in as necessary
Best when... New teams that need more initial
guidance, ambiguous goals,
high-coordination or high-stakes work
Highly-capable teams, clear goals and
metrics, cyclical or low variabile work
When misused... Teams feel constricted and depend on
the manager to resolve challenges,
often leading to declining morale
Teams feel directionless and conflicts
among peers remain unsurfaced and
unresolved—morale also declines
Micromanagers Macromanagers
3. Know when to micromanage
25. Proprietary + Confidential
Our data suggests micromanaging is a bigger
derailer for CEOs than other functional leaders
3. Know when to micromanage
Ops, product,
finance, sales/
marketing, etc.
CTOs
Micromanaging
as
a
predictor
of
ineffectiveness
CEOs
25
26. Proprietary + Confidential
3. Know when to micromanage
But make it a goal to minimize unnecessary
micromanagement so you can scale yourself
Time spent
scaling yourself
and the business
You’ll spend most of your
time instructing and
monitoring your team
Time spent
micromanaging
You’ll manage outcomes
with pre-agreed review
milestones
26
How you spend your time:
27. Proprietary + Confidential
Kasia Dorsey
Founder, Yosh.AI, a conversational
commerce voice platform based in
Warsaw, Poland
When you find yourself micromanaging too
often, try spending that time sharing the big
picture. When they really understand how their
work fits in, they make better decisions and
micromanagement becomes less necessary.
Photo to
go here
28. Proprietary + Confidential
Should you micromanage a project? Check this list first
Are you clear about which goals to pursue?
Confident that we have the
right metrics
How interdependent is the work of the team?
How capable is the team to make good
decisions and operate independently?
How much trust is there to resolve
conflicts among peers?
How geographically dispersed is the team?
How much deadline pressure exists,
requiring quick decision making?
How critical is the product/feature/project?
Work is highly modular,
repetitive, independent
Highly skilled with good
judgment
Almost no escalations are
brought up
Team is local
High, with frequent release
cycles (e.g., consumer
software)
Unclear about the metrics of
success, learning required
Collaboration required is
high
Novice, with no track record
in good judgment
Frequent escalations and
deadlocks
Team is in multiple sites/
time zones
Extreme, with once a year
release cycles (e.g.,
hardware or enterprise)
Allow team to self-manage if you
assess them to lean more to this side
Manage more closely if you assess
your team to lean more to this side
3. Know when to micromanage
Not a criteria
29. Proprietary + Confidential
29
If the team is
over-reliant on you...
...refrain from sharing your point of
view right away. Instead, ask:
“What have you thought of doing?”
Acknowledge where their instincts
are well-calibrated, and over time
they’ll build their confidence to call
the decisions themselves.
Actions to
consider
Set the destination, but
have them lay out
the path
Come to your weekly standup saying
something along the lines of: “We need
to achieve these 5 things this
week/month/quarter. Figure out what
sequence makes sense.”
Have set check-ins
If goals are clear, agree on when to
check-in at the beginning of the
work. Without this, the team will be
unsure of what you expect, and
you’ll feel uneasy about waiting for
the output. If you check-in without a
pre-agreed time, the team may feel
like you don’t trust them.
Minimize
unnecessary
micromanagement
31. Proprietary + Confidential
How important is it for founders to invite disagreement?
We got mixed reactions
4. Invite disagreement
...would consider “inviting disagreement” as important to being an effective leader.
When we asked
their cofounders
and employees...
42%
3%
When we asked
founders themselves...
31
32. Proprietary + Confidential
4. Invite disagreement
Yet we know from our data that effective
founders consistently invite disagreement
Values the perspectives of
others, even if they are
different from their own
91%
57% 1.6x
Invites others to disagree
79%
43% 1.8x
Most effective founders
Least effective founders
32
Important note: You want a conflict of
ideas, not personalities—but inviting
disagreement where trust doesn’t
exist will devolve into chaos. Make sure
your team feels comfortable voicing
opinions without worrying about
bruised egos or retaliation.
33. Proprietary + Confidential
Anil Sabharwal
VP of Product Management and founder of Google Photos,
Google’s 9th (and most recent) billion-user product
Debate. Argue. Get into it. The best
results come from passionate,
constructive, positive contention.
Encourage it. Even force it. But know
it requires a foundation of trust,
honesty and respect. If you don’t
have that, you just get pure
contention, and that ain’t good.
34. Proprietary + Confidential
34
4. Invite disagreement
In an experiment conducted by
researchers from Kellogg and
Stanford business schools,
respondents were put in socially
diverse and non-diverse teams. At
the end of the performance task,
they were asked to predict how
well they did as a team.
Socially diverse groups took more
time and effort to debate their
opinions and disagree, but
ultimately realized more significant
performance gains.
Though it might not
always feel that way,
disagreement amongst
diverse teams actually
leads to more effective
outcomes
34
Note: The study defines social similarity based on race, gender, country of origin, social circle.
Source: Phillips, K. W., et al (2009). Is the pain worth the gain? The advantages and liabilities of agreeing with socially distinct newcomers.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 336-350.
Socially diverse
Socially similar
Perceived effectiveness
Socially diverse
Socially similar
Actual performance
35. Proprietary + Confidential
...compared to partnerships with
acquaintances or previous
coworkers. Family/friends are
more likely to shy away from
sensitive conversations because
of the high cost to the
relationship if it blows up—which
ironically makes it much more
likely for exactly that to happen.
Cofounders that were
first family or friends
often shy away from
disagreement because
of the cost to the
relationship—which
makes them the least
stable business
partnerships...
35
4. Invite disagreement
Acquaintances Previous colleagues
More stable partnerships
Family and friends
Less stable partnerships
Damage if
relationship
blows up
Likelihood of
having sensitive
discussions
Source: Wasserman, N. (2012). The founder's dilemmas: Anticipating and avoiding the pitfalls that can sink a startup. Princeton University Press.
Each additional friend/family member in the founding team increases the likelihood of a
cofounder leaving by almost 30%.
Important note: Passive aggression is a more insidious
threat to a business partnership than visible displays of
anger. Gossip and unspoken frustration erode at the
team’s commitment to each other and the work.
Instead, find a way to talk about uncomfortable and
inconvenient topics so the issues are put into words,
allowing you to hit reset and clarify expectations.
36. Proprietary + Confidential
36
Actions to
consider
Anticipate sources
of disagreement
In FoundersLab, we ask cofounders
to discuss these 25 Tough
Questions early and often. Set aside
an afternoon to discuss answers to
these with your cofounders.
Talk about the
“elephant in the room”
Tackle issues head-on by asking each
employee to anonymously write down what
they consider to be the issues that everyone
is aware of but no one wants to talk about.
Collect the sheets, and listen to what the
team has to say. Consider the pre-mortem at
the start of an initiative to
anticipate challenges.
Beat groupthink*
with
the 2-minute hack
At the start of a meeting, ask team
members to write their position down
before discussing a decision that needs
to be made. Then give each person
uninterrupted time to share their
opinion. Without this step, the risk of the
first view anchoring the group is high.
Invite disagreement
—without being
disagreeable
*Groupthink = when the opinion of the group is unconsciously anchored by the first one shared, or the one shared by the person with the most power
in the group. Both individuals are mostly likely not the one with the best information or greatest expertise."
38. Unmet expectations cause the majority of cofounder conflict.
Our data suggests that many founders keep track of their
cofounder’s duties, but have a major blindspot when it comes
to their own
38
5. Preserve interpersonal equity
When founders are evaluating themselves,
they equate effective leadership with only
1 of 33 capabilities
Effective leadership is only about
inspiring the team
Note: In this analysis, we look at the strength of correlation between each of the 33 leadership capabilities and overall effectiveness ratings. When the factor of correlation (r squared) is greater than
.50, we would consider this as strongly correlated. In this analysis, only 1 of 33 capabilities were strongly correlated to overall effectiveness on the self-evaluation data of founders. But 17 of 33
capabilities when looking at evaluation data of cofounders on the subject. We see a similar asymmetry if we looked at both moderately and strongly correlated capabilities to overall effectiveness
(12 capabilities correlate moderately with effectiveness on self-evaluation, as opposed to 33 on evaluation data of cofounders).
But when they evaluate other cofounders, they
equate effective leadership with
17 of 33 capabilities
Effective leadership is about inspiring the
team, collaborating effectively, mentoring
others, staying focused, etc.
39. The expectation asymmetry leads to
a breakdown in the cofounding team
39
5. Preserve interpersonal equity
Founder has a minimalist
definition of their
leadership role
Bigger, implicit
expectations placed
on the founder by
cofounders
Founder does not meet
implicit expectations,
inevitably
Cofounders don't feel
the partnership
is fair
40. 40
Proprietary + Confidential
It’s easy to make assumptions about your
cofounder’s knowledge, skills, and
commitment. A non-technical cofounder
will often assume that the technical
cofounder knows everything about how to
build the product. It's easy to assume that the
business cofounder knows how to get access
to all
the resources the business will need.
It’s been incredibly useful for us to uncover
and discuss our expectations, then one by
one confirm or discard them.
Folake Owodunni
Cofounder of Emergency Response Africa, a healthcare
technology company that is changing how medical
emergencies are managed in Africa
41. 5. Preserve interpersonal equity
5. Preserve interpersonal equity
Regularly check on your cofounding team’s
“interpersonal equity”
Check for interpersonal equity by asking yourself and your cofounders:
How satisfied am I with what I contribute as compared to what
my cofounders contribute?
How satisfied am I with what I receive as compared to what
my cofounders receive?
How fair do I feel this partnership is overall?
41
42. Proprietary + Confidential
*Pro tip: You can use a similar User Guide for your c-levels and middle managers.
Use the Founder’s User
Guide to clarify
expectations
The Founder’s User Guide was created
to minimize conflict and has been used
by hundreds of founders to clarify
expectations. Block off a Friday
afternoon to write and discuss your
User Guides*.
42
Actions to
consider
Monitor
interpersonal equity
Periodically ask your cofounders how
they feel about the division of
responsibilities. If it’s not a 10 out of 10,
then talk about what needs to change (in
what is given or received). Some
questions to help can be found in
section 3.2 of the Founder’s User Guide.
Discuss hypothetical
break-up scenarios
More popularly known as a
pre-mortem, ask each member of the
cofounding team, “If our startup failed
hypothetically due to cofounder
conflict, what might those conflicts be?
How do we mitigate them from
happening?” Some questions to help
can be found in section 3.3 of the
Founder’s User Guide.
Discuss and
document
expectations
44. Proprietary + Confidential
Having enough expertise allows leaders to...
6. Keep pace with expertise
93%
93% of the most effective
founders have the
technical expertise (e.g.
coding, closing sales
deals, finance) to
effectively manage
the work
Identify opportunities to
develop people's skills/career
(e.g. projects, mentors, training)
84%
46% 1.8x
Invest time and effort in
developing the skills of others
79%
43% 1.8x
Most effective founders
Least effective founders
45. Proprietary + Confidential
Jewel Burks,
Head of Google for Startups U.S. and
founder of Partpic (acquired by
Amazon in 2016)
You have to figure out how you’re going to
leverage the new technology that’s in front of
you. You can hire for some of that expertise,
but you also need some technical depth to
know who to hire and how to shape the
product. Seek out mentors and meet people
working on deeply technical problems.
46. Proprietary + Confidential
Know enough to know
what skills to hire for
Do every role once. It will give you
some data as to what kind of skills
you need to find. It also gives you a
sense of how long things will take,
and ask the right questions to know
if your team is on |the right track.
46
Keep up with
expertise
Source mentors for your
team from your network
Ask trusted experts in your network to
offer guidance and expertise to your
team, especially when you’re out of your
depth. When there is great chemistry
with a mentor, even a monthly
30-minute call can be invaluable.
Be selective of
startup events
While networking is important, not all
startup events are helpful or relevant to
all founders. Carefully choose which
meetups and conferences you attend
based on your startup stage, industry,
and needs to maximize your time and
to connect with the right people.
Do your
homework to
stay ahead of
your industry
48. Proprietary + Confidential
7. Overcome discouragement
*Self-evaluation looks at the delta between a founder’s self-rating and the rating they get from others. Only founders with at least 4 ratings from cofounders and
employees are included in this analysis. Over-confident implies self-ratings are higher than ratings by others.
**Overall effectiveness is based on the evaluation from cofounders and employees.
Self-evaluation*
Effectiveness quartile**
Under-
confident
Over-
confident
The data showing that
more effective founders are
actually less self-confident
in their abilities
What most people
tend to expect -- your
self-confidence grows
as you get better
Bottom Second Third Top
While most founders expect to gain self-confidence along with
experience, data suggests that more effective founders are actually less
confident—and more prone to discouragement—than the least effective
48
49. Proprietary + Confidential
7. Overcome discouragement
Source: Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated
self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121. Image is a stylized representation of the Dunning-Kruger Effect found in
Poundstone, W. (2017). Head in the cloud: Why knowing things still matters when facts are so easy to look up. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
Confidence
Experience/Skill
0%
100%
Discouragement can come as
you begin to learn and realize
how far you are from being
skilled. Discouragement is a
signal of growth!
Know nothing Expert
This type of personal humility or underconfidence has been
studied extensively as the “Dunning-Kruger effect”
Confidence increases, but never to the
same level as when people are
incompetent. One common assumption
to flag: experts tend to wrongly assume
that others can reach a similar skill level
just as they were once amateurs.
Confidence is highest among the least competent.
Two gaps keep people in this place:
● Lack of skill keeps them from avoiding mistakes
● Inability to recognize and fix a mistake
49
51. Proprietary + Confidential
7. Overcome discouragement
Catastrophizing
When you disproportionately
react to a disappointment,
turning it into a bigger issue
than it need to be.
Discouragement and underconfidence
can warp reality and mental responses
in a number of ways
Over-externalizing
When you blame external
factors for everything, even
when you *did* contribute to
the eventual outcome.
Overgeneralizing
When you assume this period
of discouragement is just the
latest in a future of ongoing
discouragement.
Over-personalizing
When you blame yourself for
everything—even situations
outside of your control.
51
52. Proprietary + Confidential
Effective founders use three important strategies to overcome discouragement:
focus on the positive, disclose weaknesses, and seek help
See the positive in people,
situations, and events more
often than the negative
93%
59% 1.6x
Be honest about own
strengths and weaknesses
89%
61% 1.5x
Ask for help in
challenging situations
88%
55% 1.6x
Most effective founders
Least effective founders
7. Overcome discouragement
Most effective founders are seen to...
(% of evaluators that agree or strongly agree)
52
53. Proprietary + Confidential
53
Actions to
consider
Build “no-bullshit”
relationships
Create a circle of trust with fellow
founders outside of your industry to
have honest, no-ego conversations.
Listen when they say you’re being
too hard on yourself, or when you’re
simply wrong.
Confidence ≠
competence
Confidence is the unspoken
currency in decision-making.
Foster a team culture that
prioritizes strong opinions weakly
held, rather than weak opinions
strongly held.
Help someone else
Mentor someone earlier in their
founding journey. This not only
helps you get out of your own
mental ruts, but it also provides
a chance to reflect on how far
you’ve come and how much
you’ve gained.
53
Overcoming
discouragement
54. Thank you for reading!
Any questions? Reach out to:
martingonzalez@google.com
Our deepest gratitude...
...to all those who took time to review our
early drafts and gave such thoughtful
feedback to take this work to the next level:
Ruchita Agrawal
Greg Albrecht
Alap Bharadwaj
Malika Cantor
Ana Figueroa
Marcelo Furtado
Kate Gray
Mario Guajardo
Claudy Jules, PhD
Allan Kajimoto
Dana Landis, PhD
Ben Mathes
Tony McGaharan
Kerry O’Shea
Annamaria Pino
Annika Stephan
Lucero Tagle
Andy Young
56. Startups have people problems | Appendix
Our methodology – How we gathered data on founders
Founders are assessed on 36 leadership behaviors
● We assessed founders and executives using a tool that’s commonly known as a multi-rater feedback tool or a
360 degree feedback tool
● The tool was created through a review of academic literature in the field of entrepreneurship, consultation with
professors in some of the world’s top business schools, and insights from research on great leadership at Google
● Each of the 36 leadership behaviors are rated on a 5-point Likert scale from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly
disagree’. All questions were optional
● Each subject was asked to identify cofounders, employees, board members, advisors to provide an evaluation.
Subjects were also asked to evaluate themselves
● The feedback tool was available in 8 languages. Translations were done by professional translators and
underwent a light touch linguistic validation process
● On average, each founder/executive received 7 evaluations
● To counter the halo effect, where likeability influences someone’s perceived effectiveness, and to ensure a
well-rounded view on the subjects being evaluated, we’ve discarded from the analysis subjects without both
peer/cofounders and direct reports among the evaluators and subjects with less than 4 evaluations
How we measured leadership effectiveness
● Leadership effectiveness in our dataset relies on reported perceptions of effectiveness by evaluators. Three
questions were asked to establish a leader’s overall effectiveness -- “Is a leader I would recommend others to
work with”, “Is the kind of leader that others should aspire to become”, “Overall, is a very effective leader”
● Evaluations like these rely on subjective, perceptual data and will therefore have some amount of noise. The best
in class approach in defining effectiveness involves collecting observations on the leader and business metrics
as proxy for effectiveness (e.g. employee departures, startup valuation, profit and loss statements, user growth).
That approach has its own set of issues: disclosure at the pre-IPO stage is limited and even if shared, metrics of
business growth would be subject to a wide range of internal and external factors, making attributions difficult to
draw
● Some studies have suggested that certain leadership attributes predict up to 39% of a company’s profitability.
But the researchers are quick to say more needs to be done to establish attribution
Overcoming survivor bias
● Studies that claim to have an insight into
what the best leaders or founders do often
suffer from survivor bias -- when one looks
at success cases and assume what they did
is what led to their success, without
checking if the failure cases had similar
features and failed anyway
● Our dataset includes both effective and
ineffective founders. To overcome survivor
bias, we compare what the best do well that
the worst don’t do so well. If the best and
worst are doing the same, even if the best
are doing it really well, our analysis would
rule it out as an explanation of success
Correlational methods
● Despite all the care we put into the analysis,
this data is correlational at best
● We augment the report with experimental
studies to help establish causation
57. Proprietary + Confidential
Internal only. External release forthcoming.
Our methodology: leadership behaviors
we assessed
Collaborates effectively
Great collaboration involves listening,
asking questions, and inviting others
to disagree with the founder’s point
of view. Collaborative leaders
encourage teamwork and model it by
showing respect, remaining calm in
stressful situations, and actively
resolving conflict.
Develop others
Developing others benefits both the business and
the team. It starts with knowing the personal
aspirations of people, investing the time in
coaching and mentoring, and most importantly,
giving regular, timely and actionable feedback.
Get things done
Running an engine that gets stuff
done entails clear
communication of performance
expectations and an ability to
hold people accountable to
them. It’s critical to demonstrate
understanding of the challenges
and work closely with the team
when necessary, but also know
when to step back.
Perseveres and
focuses
How well do founders
handle setbacks? Are they
transparent with their
cofounders/team about
strengths and
weaknesses? Do they ask
for help? Are they
focused on the right
priorities and careful
about distractions?
Absorbs uncertainty
Effective leaders listen for
signals in the market and pivot
quickly when unexpected
events arise. They work
effectively with imperfect and
incomplete data.
Startups have people problems | Appendix
Inspires commitment
This isn’t just about having a compelling,
visionary pitch deck. Are founders able to
unlock people’s motivation? Are they able to
get others to feel they share in the vision and
glory that comes with working on the startup?
58. Startups have people problems | Appendix
About the Authors
Martin Gonzalez
Martin Gonzalez is the Global Organization Development Lead for Google’s
Compute Business (think Chrome, Android, Pixel, Nest, Fitbit, AI/Machine
Learning/Quantum Computing research groups). He works with Google’s senior
leaders to shape their team’s culture, grow their people and build cool things
that matter. He’s part of the faculty of the Google School for Leaders and has
been a frequent guest lecturer at MBA programs at INSEAD, Stanford, Wharton
and London Business School.
He is also the creator of Google for Startup’s PeopleLab, an effort to take what
Google has learned about developing people and culture to startups around the
world. He has run leadership courses and mentored thousands of tech startup
founders, from seed stage to unicorn, across more than 40 countries in the
Americas, Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Martin holds two master’s degrees in leadership studies and behavioral science
from Columbia University and the London School of Economics. He’s lived and
worked in New York, Jakarta, Singapore, Taipei and Manila where he
is originally from. Today, he lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife
and three kids.
59. Startups have people problems | Appendix
About the Authors
Josh Yellin
Josh is a cofounder of Google’s global startup acceleration program. During his
time with Launchpad, Josh led the growth of Launchpad Accelerator into a global
program focused in 8 locations. The program partnered closely with 300 of the
foremost growth-stage startups across the world.
Additionally, upon seeing the broad-sweeping global need for stronger
management and leadership among the world’s top startups, Josh cofounded
PeopleLab with Martin Gonzalez in 2015. Since its inception, Josh has facilitated
leadership workshops with hundreds of founders in several cities around the world
and has mentored many startups on various people and operations topics.
Today, Josh is a Chief of Staff in Google Research.
Prior to joining Google, Josh grew up in Chicago, spent a few years as an outdoor
guide in Montana and Alaska, led operations for the largest startup community in
Silicon Valley, and co-founded Urban Rivers, an environmentally-focused nonprofit.
Josh studied biology at the University of Illinois and business at the Wharton
School. At the moment, Josh lives in San Francisco but finds as much time as he
can for camping outside the city.