This article was written by Ken Leaver who comes from a product & commercial background. He has founded multiple companies and held senior product positions at SEA tech companies like Lazada and Pomelo Fashion.
Ken runs his own agency that helps early stage companies execute faster and cheaper. Check out his linkedin at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenleaver/
Guest Author: Ken Leaver
I’m American and so I’ve naturally been following all the election stuff the past few months.
I was never really political before. At 47 years old, I had never voted in a US election. I didn’t care enough to.
In part because I’ve lived 22 of the last 23 years since 2001 outside of the US.
But I’d been feeling like my country was falling apart the past years and so I paid attention this time. As it seemed like we were at a very crucial point in our history and the direction we took now would impact the future of our nation a lot.
I listened to both sides intently. Particularly on all of the podcasts like Joe Rogan, etc.
I also listened to Elon talk as he got quite involved.
And I must say… that although I’ve been a democrat my entire adult life till now…. I’m excited for my country again. For our future.
Because I think we finally have some first principle thinkers back in the cockpit.
Some people who are going to question the status quo heavily and change the rules of the game.
Which is something I think I know a thing or two about now.
And so today I’m going to share some thoughts on this.
I’ve been inspired by how Elon Musk approaches things
Say what you want about Elon, but the dude is pretty incredible in terms of what he’s achieved. He didn’t just create another car company – he completely revolutionized the auto industry. Tesla is worth more than the next 10 auto companies combined.
Then there’s SpaceX, where he’s basically made NASA look like they’ve been running a lemonade stand. They’re launching rockets at a fraction of the cost and landing them back on Earth like it’s no big deal.
And when he took over Twitter (now X), he fired 80% (~6k) of the employees and somehow the platform actually works better and is more popular than ever. Most CEO’s would crap their pants at the thought of cutting that deep.
I can’t wait to see what he does next with the DOGE and the US government bureaucracy. It’s the first time I’m truly excited for my country (America) again in decades. Probably since I was a teen in the 90’s.
Like Elon, I like applying this ‘first principles thinking’ to how I work
This got me thinking – why do we accept all these “rules” about how companies should operate? Let’s question everything.
And in the process let’s have some fun and make the ‘traditional managers’ look like dinosaurs.
Do we really need recurring meetings? I haven’t had them for years now and I’m operating faster than ever. No more sitting through boring updates that could have been a comment on a task.
What should planning and strategy setting look like? I don’t need weeks of drawn out meetings and useless documents to align on direction. I create some tasks in Clickup, tag the right people, and let them comment with their input so that we align by a certain date. Done.
And do we really need these much sought after “A players” for everything? For most roles, B players are actually better. They’re more reliable, less likely to have massive egos, and they stick around longer. Sometimes good enough is actually… good enough.
I’ve also applied it to my own leadership
In my mind, I’ve essentially lit all the leadership books I’ve read the past couple decades on fire. You know the ones on – “how to be a charismatic leader” and all that bs.
Charisma? You’re barely going to see or talk to me directly. I don’t give inspirational speeches. I write clear tasks and respond to notifications.
Management layers? Zero. I manage up to 30-40 people directly through Clickup, and it works great.
I’m not trying to win playing by the old rules. I’ve created my own game, with my own rules, designed specifically around how I enjoy working.
And from what I’ve seen the past few years… I spin circles around most managers while whistling dixie and checking my Tiktok feed. lol
When you play your own game, it’s a lot more fun
This is the part that most people don’t get. When you create a system that’s optimized for how you naturally work, everything just flows better.
I’m good at being systematic and responding quickly to notifications. So I built a whole management system around that. And guess what? I love what I do every day now.
I don’t have to pretend to be some idealistic leader giving motivational speeches. I don’t have to sit through hours of meetings pretending to care about updates I could have read in 2 minutes.
I don’t have to think about politics and which relationships I need to cultivate more.
I took a torch to that shit. And I ain’t lookin’ back.
Closing thoughts
There is pretty much nothing about how I manage today that’s the same as how I managed pre-2021 (when I was a relatively trad’l manager).
No more 1-on-1’s. No more team meetings. No more traditional recruiting (I use mainly contractors). No more annual reviews. No more quarterly planning sessions.
I’ve completely changed the rules of the game. And I estimate I get 2-3x more done than I used to.
Plus, I enjoy every single day of work now a LOT more. There’s no more pretending to be something I’m not.
So my challenge to you is this – what rules are you following just because “that’s how it’s always been done”?
Maybe it’s time to throw out the rulebook and write your own.
