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.
Now Ken runs his own agency that helps early stage startups with content and traction called End Game.
Guest Author: Ken Leaver
I came up with the idea for this post on about Wednesday of this week when I was watching one of my favorite podcasts, “My First Million.”
And it was at this point in the video (click below) that Sam Parr says something like “it’s important to be loud. It’s important that everyone knows the cool stuff you are doing. You need to speak up and be louder so that you stick out in the company.”
And i’m immediately rolling my eyes and thinking… “No, I completely disagree. You build a culture like that and basically everyone competes to be loud. And all the people that are not good at that or don’t wanna play that game get frustrated and probably eventually leave.”
Then a bit further on Shaan Puri says “You’re really only rewarded for what people know about. If it’s not seen in a large company, it may as well not have existed.”
And I’m nodding my head… and literally start talking at my laptop screen…. “Yes! That is how most companies work. And that is why they suck! And I will help contribute to systems that destroy that way of thinking!”
Than Shaan goes on to say “A lot of people wish the world worked differently where it was purely based on merit and everything was equally visible. But that’s not reality.”
And at this point I’m literally yelling at the screen… “I am one of those people Shaan!! Hahaha But I am different in that I will help make it a reality! I see a world in twenty years where everything you guys just said is laughed at and scorned for having been such a stupid way of thinking.”
And so let’s begin 🙂
The reality today sucks
Most companies today work exactly the way that Shaan and Sam talk about.
I saw it my entire career. I’d do a ton of hard work but what I was recognized and rewarded for was often a small fraction of it.
And oftentimes what I was rewarded for wasn’t even the stuff that actually took the most effort or was truly hard.
For example in my first consulting job a long long time ago (like in the early 2000s)…. a small project I did which took very little time or effort ended up being perceived as a major success.
I didn’t see it as a major achievement at all. But it was soon what everybody was congratulating me on.
However, just prior to that i’d done a project that was hard as hell, which I was much more proud of but literally got like no credit for.
There were lots of late nights and weekends, etc. I busted my ass.
But my charismatic manager was extremely good at taking credit for all the hard work his team did. And so in the end when the project had a good outcome he benefitted greatly. Whereas the few of us in the team knew the reality that he hadn’t done that much at all.
Then later in my review meeting I almost wanted to kill him when he gave me a mediocre review and pointed out numerous areas where I could have improved. But in my head I was screaming at him… “Jack… you didn’t do shit!!!! If it wasn’t for me and my colleague yo’ ass would be toast!”
But that’s the reality of that system. The system that pervades most companies and teams today.
We have been taught that we need to ‘speak up’
There are hundreds of books that talk about how to succeed in the corporate world. And almost all of them echo what Sam and Shaan say.
That you need to speak up and be recognized for as much as you can. Because that is how you get ahead.
So the millions of people that read these books and hear this… act upon it.
And this in my view… results in a lot of shitty corporate cultures because the leadership often reflects this mindset.
It is the people that were best at showcasing themselves… that got ahead. Perhaps sometimes they were actually the most competent, but in many cases I bet you they were not.
But lets stop to think about it….why would we want systems where the people who are best at ‘speaking up’ become our leaders if they are not the most competent?
What if they are poor strategists and are poorly organized? If they become the leader of the company or a large division… is that a good thing?
No. Whatever they are managing will probably suffer. I’ve seen it a shitload of times.
I see a brighter future with a different approach
The way I operate teams today violates this traditional system in every way possible. I intentionally created it to do so:
[Traditional way]
In most companies a person good at relationships has a lot of leverage because they put together their network and this has a kind of compounding effect as time goes on in that organization.
[My way]
In my system we almost try to avoid relationships.
There are no team meetings, no 1-1’s, no social gatherings.
Rather relationships are developed by sticking to the system and helping each other out.So relationships still get constructed…. but almost purely on the basis of how competent you are at your job.
And in my experience over the last few years… this ends up being a far healthier culture because you don’t have cliques, and thus you have less politics.
[Traditional way]
In most companies you are only rewarded for what people ‘see’ and this ends up being a small percentage of what you did.
[My way]
In my system literally everything is a task.
And if you do a review… you can pretty quickly create a Clickup report of literally everything you did and make a case for your performance.
So it becomes less about how well you communicated this to a wider audience, and more purely a function of how much good shit you did.
[Traditional way]
In most teams you are rewarded for speaking up.
[My way]
Well in our system we have almost no meetings.
So the only speaking up you will be doing is via your tasks and comments on tasks.
And I find written form is a far more democratic medium than spoken, where a person’s voice and personality often play a much more influential role than substance.
[Traditional way]
In most companies…. charisma will often supercede things like project management in deciding who moves up.
[My way]
In my system, charisma is almost not rewarded at all.
Because we rarely verbally talk to each other.The only place you will be able to demonstrate your ‘charisma’ is by how well you get your shit done.
Ken’s chat with a ‘traditional’ CEO
Awhile back I was talking to a guy that owns & runs a tech company of a couple hundred people that loses money for close to a decade.
And I was telling him a bit about my system and inferring that he might want to try some of the concepts.
But he was very confident in his way of doing things and said something like “Ken.. it sounds like you are a very good project manager, but…” and then he went on to explain his philosophy on running the company.
A company which (cough cough) had pretty much flatlined revenue-wise and was leaking cash ever since it began (ie. ~10 years ago).
And I thought to myself, “What do you think being a CEO is?”
I think the best leaders & CEO’s are great ‘project managers’
To me… running a company successfully comes down to these two simple things:
- Iterating on your stategy till you find product market fit
- While executing as quickly, cheaply, and effectively as you can
That is it.
And so if you dissect this.. the first part (ie. strategy) should not take much of your time because you should not be changing it that often.
I run a venture now where we perhaps spend 30-60 minutes per week discussing strategy (all in written form on Clickup tasks). That is it. And that is typically all you need.
The rest of the time is ALL ABOUT EXECUTION. And for me… solid execution = extremely solid project management.
It’s knowing that when you decide to do something… that the shit gets done fast and cost effectively.
Let’s change the world together 🙂
