How to lead in tough times: Ethan Evans, Dave Kline, and Molly Graham
Video recording in partnership with Maven
Leading in Tough Times: Insights for 2024 and Beyond (video recording)
On December 8, 2023 I moderated a panel with:
Dave Kline (former Head of Recruiting & Operations at Bridgewater Associates)
Molly Graham (former COO of Lambda School, former Meta, former Google, and author of ‘Give Away Your Legos’ and Other Commandments for Scaling Startups)
Here are a few key takeaways.
On making tough decisions and lessons learned.
Be decisive. Force yourself as a leader to act early and not wait.
Do not let pain make the decision for you, especially when it comes to layoffs. It leads to the wrong decision. For example, you want it to be a 30% layoff but it needs to be a 50% layoff. Do one deep cut, if you do 3 cuts you lose trust.
The worst thing you can do as a leader is lie. People always know.
Work from first principles and be clear on what is a “Finance-based RIF” (pure numbers) vs “Business-led RIF” (business needs).
In moments of chaos and crisis, communication frequency is important. Be upfront that you can never control nor commit to a future layoff or promotion, instead, be clear on where you stand now, what you are trying to make happen, and what you can do.
Be direct. Be caring. Be helpful.
Balancing the long-term mission vs short-term outcomes.
Strategy should hurt. Look for the hard places to say no and say no.
Fire unprofitable clients by raising prices.
Focus infrastructure on what you need today and be careful about making successes feel like failures due to over ambitious goals.
Reducing compensation across the board as an alternative to layoffs.
It’s never enough. Don’t do it.
This is kicking a problem down the road that will turn into bigger pain.
Lightbulb moments.
Molly: Direct is kind.
Dave: The best leaders will ask if they are first on the layoff list. That is the difference between a manager vs a leader.
Ethan: Impact. People think work is impact, impact is delivering results.
This panel was in partnership with Maven, where I host my live online class “How to Breakthrough to Executive”.
Share this article if you found it helpful and let me know your takeaways in the comments.
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Level Up is a newsletter from retired Amazon Vice President Ethan Evans that breaks down how he succeeded and how you can get to the next level.
Thank you, very insightful and timely content!