Management - KeynesYouDigIt/Knowledge GitHub Wiki

• "Superbosses" are people in an industry that all the top people have worked for at some point. They do this by tearing down hierarchical barriers and aren't beholden to established processes, giving them wide access.
  • 84% of superbosses value potential over experience when hiring
  • 78% of superbosses stay in touch with former reports
• Don't fix culture- fix toxic processes, and you'll get a better culture as a result
• The "Return on Failure" is the value of your takeaways / your investment.
  • Amplify and share the knowledge of markets etc. you gain from your failures
  • Examine your "patterns of failure"
• A company you're looking to acquire for their tech or access to markets will cost so much that you'll lose your cost advantage. Focus on what you can uniquely bring to a company you're acquiring.
• Cold-call internal candidates about open positions to improve retention
• Job-hunting goes up around anniversaries, birthdays, and big social events like class reunions

Diversity

• Training needs to be voluntary. Mandatory training makes people resentful and reinforces bias.
• Testing hires encourages people to cherry-pick results, amplifying bias
• Performance reviews are easy to game, and only serve as a litigation shield
• Grievance systems make thingsi worse since it makes people think that broken systems are working when no one uses them
• For beliefs to change, experiences have to change
• Choice architecture: Mitigate bias by changing the environment and the data available

Things that work:

• Voluntary college recruitment
• Mentoring programs
• Working toward the same goal as equals
• Self-managed teams (cross-training), intermingling specialties
• Discussing decisions openly

Interviewing

• Same questions, same order, every time
• Score in real-time
• Be careful about job description language

How to Negotiate With a Liar

Original article

• Reciprocity principle: Reveal something of strategic relevance first
• People have a harder time negating a true statement than affirming a false one
• Look for dodges by writing your question and their answer
• Don't overstate confidentiality
• Have contingency clauses in contracts based on the veracity of what they say

The Neuroscience of Trust

Original article

• People are naturally inclined to trust each other, but don't always. Trust is influenced by oxytocin, which among other things reduces fear of strangers.
• Stress is an oxytocin inhibitor, which is why stressed out people can't work together

Levers On Trust

• Recongize excellence
  • Has the largest effect immediately after the fact, when it comes from peers, when it's tangible, unexpected, personal, and public
• Induce "challenge stress"
  • Difficult but achievable
  • Check in frequently and adjust goals if it's starting to appear unachievable
• Give people discretion in how they do their work
  • People earlier in their careers are often less constrained by "what usually works", which is a source of innovation
• Enable job crafting
  • Let people pick what they work on and who they work on it with
• Share information broadly
  • Let people know about the company's goals, strategies, and tactices ~daily
• Intentionally build relationships
  • Lunches, after-work parties, and other opportunities to develop relationships
• Facilitate whole-person growth
  • Continual growth
  • No performance reviews
  • "How can I help you get your next job?"
• Show vulnerability
  • Ask for help

The Stretch Goal Paradox

Original article

The organization that would benefit the most from stretch goals rarely do them, and the organizations for whom stretch goals are a poor fit often turn to them to generate breakthroughs.

A stretch goal has extreme difficulty and extreme novelty. For a company to be ready for a stretch goal, it should have recently achieved a success. Take bold, risky action when you're strong rather than weak. It should also have slack resources, which helps cushion losses and maximize experimentation. Stretch goals are great for organizations that are thriving, but complacent. If you're not ready for stretch goals, you might be better off pursuing small wins, small losses, or intentionally developing slack resources.

Getting Your Stars To Collaborate

Original article

• Star researchers often work on independent and undirected projects
  • This can also lead to competitive, rather than collaborative environments
• Give teams large incentives for collaboration, and create integrative tasks that authentically require collaboration
• Make goals and progress transparent, so people can monitor each other and help where they think they can
• Sell your stars on the idea by giving htem quantitative evidence that it works by prototyping
• Change star behavior by altering systems and structures rather than just compensation
• Have your stars come up with their own plans and metrics
• Help build your stars' collaborative skills
• If you can't be the change, point to it- find an accessible story of how something similar worked

Kick-Ass Customer Service

Original article

• 81% of customers across industries prefer self-service to talking to a person
• Live customer service costs $7 an interaction for a B2C company and $13 for a B2B company
• Today, customer service reps get increasingly hard cases that customers can't solve themselves, but they face poor training and high churn, all of which affects customer satisfaction and increases recruiting costs
• "Controllers" who take charge of the customer's situation widely outperform "Empathizers" who try to understand where the customer is coming from, despite being the type managers least want to hire
• 84% of customers just want a straightforward solution to their problem instead of an array of choices
• Invest in improving self-service tools
• Preempt repeat calls by anticipating what the next call might be and solving that too
• If an 8 hour window is unpalatable, try offering a 2 hour window in 3 days (it makes the immediate 8 hour window seem better)
• Job postings should focus less on looking for rule-following factory drones, and more on attracting knowledge workers who want to flex their expertise and have a personality. Deemphasize prior experience and play up the challenge.

Activity	What most reps do	What controllers do
Engaging the customer	Treat each customer in a consistent way, following a script: "First, I'd like to thank you for being a loyal customer. Now how can I help you today?	Customize the interaction to individual customer personalities and contexts.
Troubleshooting	Stick to prescribed checklists and steps: "First, we'll need to install the latest version of the software."	Identify what customers have already done on their own and skip ahead to the right next step for them: "Ok, if you've followed all the troubleshooting advice on the webiste, then you've obviously already installed the latest version of the software. Let's try something else."
Presenting solutions	Give customers a choice of resolution options: "You can mail your device back to us at this address, or you can bring it to one of our stores for a replacement."	Prescribe the fastest and easiest resolution path: "I don't see your device in stock at your local store. I'd recommend mailing us your old one-- you'll get a replacement a lot faster."
Resolving issues	Solve only the problem the customer called about: "Have I fully resolved your issue today?"	Anticipate and resolve additional potential problems: "Customers in your situation often end up facing a related issue. Let me tell you about that now so you won't have to call back later."