Amp It Up by Frank Slootman
Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity
Part 1 — Amping Up
Chapter 1 — Introduction — The Power of Amping Up
Organizations have considerable room to improve their performance without making expensive changes to their talent, structure, or fundamental business model
5 key steps in the Amp It Up process:
1. Raise your standards
Steve Jobs was only inspired by “insanely great”
Come back when you are bursting with excitement and whatever you’re proposing
2. Align your people
3. Sharpen your focus
Work on fewer things and prioritize hard
What are we not going to do?
What are the consequences of not doing something?
If you can only do one thing for the rest of the year, and nothing else, what would it be and why?
“Priority” should be a singular word. The moment you have many priorities, you actually have none
Good leadership requires a never-ending process of boiling things down to their essentials
4. Pick up the pace
Leaders set the pace
Good performers crave a culture of energy
5. Transform your strategy
Transforming your strategy will require you to widen the aperture of your thinking about the business model, to reach new and bigger markets
Chapter 2 — My Journey from Teenage Toilet Cleaner to Serial CEO
Do everything we can to the best of our abilities
Marathons are 99% training and 1% racing
Increase people's sense of ownership so they will act as owners
There are times you need to check your own views at the door and bet on the conviction of others
Focus on recruiting great talent
Part 2 — Raise Your Standards
Chapter 3 — Make Your Organization Mission Driven
A clear and compelling sense of mission has been one of the essential keys to our consistent success and growth
Being mission-driven helped our people become motivated, focused, impatient, and passionate — maybe even a bit zealous
Being mission-driven makes your working life not just more productive but also more fun
Three criteria for a great mission:
1. Big
Snowflakes' current mission is to immobilize the world's data by building the world's greatest data and applications platform, not just of the cloud era, but in the history of computing
Data Domain’s mission was to put tape automation out of existence as a data backup and recovery platform and replace it with ultra-efficient, high-speed disks and networks
Our mantra was “Tape sucks”
Twos mantra: “Forgetting things sucks”
ServiceNow’s mission was to become the new global standard for IT service and operations management to make life better for every IT person in the country, if not the world
2. Clear
The more defined and intense the mission, the easier it will be for everyone to focus on it
A great mission helps prevent distractions that dilute everyone’s focus
If you turn your time and attention to the latest shiny object, regardless of how little it has to do with your mission, you are on the path to trouble
3. Not about money
Our companies had a true purpose of bringing good things to the world and improving the lives of our customers and employees, not just exceeding Wall Streets quarterly expectations or other financial targets
Our people were counting on me because the company’s fate could have a profound effect on their futures
Time is not our friend. Time introduces risks, such as new entrants. The faster we separate from the competition, the more likely we are to succeed
Urgency is a mindset that can be learned if it doesn’t come to you naturally. You can embrace the discomfort that comes with moving faster instead of avoiding it
Filter everything through the lens of your mission. Will this help us reach our mission faster? What else can we do to move closer to the mission and get there quicker? Until the mission is fulfilled, I will never be fully satisfied with the status quo
It’s not easy to live with the constant angst that we might not be doing enough. It would be more fun to do victory laps and pat everyone on the back, but in the end, we will all be better off because of our intensely vigilant posture toward our mission
Don’t listen to what leaders say — watch what they do
Chapter 4 — Declare War on Your Competitors and on Incrementalism
The definition of victory is “breaking the enemy’s will to fight” — Sun Tzu in The Art of War
Stealing some of your competition's best talent is the best evidence that a company is in serious trouble and is losing its will to fight
Incrementalism, marginal improvements on the status quo, is merely a lack of audacity and boldness
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” — Theodore Roosevelts “The Man in the Arena” speech
Attacking markets that have weak, unpopular incumbents is infinitely easier than chasing strong, popular occupants. Customers do not easily part with products that do the job for them. You need massive, not marginal differentiation, or they will simply filter you out as noise
Folks prefer narratives that make them feel safe, however, removed from reality those narratives might be
Chapter 5 — Put Execution Ahead of Strategy
No strategy is better than its execution
Strategy can’t be mastered until you know how to execute well
A strong product will generate escape velocity and find its market, even with a mediocre sales team. But even a great sales team cannot fix or compensate for product problems
“Consultants are people who borrow your watch, tell you what time it is, and then keep the watch.”
In the long run, you are much better off working on your own strategy
The chief executive officer must also act as the chief strategy officer
Part 3 — Align Your People and Culture
Chapter 6 — Hire Drivers, Not Passengers, and Get the Wrong People off the Bus
Passengers are people who don’t mind simply being carried along by the company’s momentum and offer little or no input. They can often diagnose and articulate a problem quite well, but they have no investment in solving it. They don’t do the heavy lifting, they avoid taking strong positions at the risk of being wrong about something. Passengers are largely dead weight and can be an insidious threat to your culture and performance
Drivers get their satisfaction from making things happen. They feel a strong sense of ownership for their projects and teams and demand high standards from both themselves and others. They exude energy, urgency, ambition, even boldness
Celebrate people who own their responsibilities, take and defend clear positions, argue for their preferred strategies, and seek to move the dial
Most of us fall somewhere in the middle. We need to ask more of ourselves so the answer to if we are a driver or a passenger becomes self-evident
If you can’t find the backbone to make necessary changes, you are holding everyone else back from reaching their full potential
Chapter 7 — Build a Strong Culture
The culture needs to serve the mission of the company
Data Domain codified their values in an acronym: R-E-C-I-P-E
Respect — always engage in a genuine manner. Be interested, be responsive, be helpful
Excellence — try to be great at everything you do
Customer — the center of everything. We don’t leave any of them behind, ever
Integrity — all of our stakeholders should believe what we say and trust our commitments
Performance — if you want to be a great company, you can’t give out free passes for mediocrity. Good enough is never good enough
Execution — focus more on execution and less on strategy
Keep your head down, trust your strategy, and focus on getting better and better at executing it
Culture happens when most of the organization is willing to defend and promote its values and call out deviations on a day-to-day basis
Chapter 8 — Teach Everyone to Go Direct and Built Mutual Trust
Many companies are plagued by good execution within individual silos but terrible execution across silos
Everyone has permission to speak to anybody inside the company, for any reason, regardless of role, rank, or function
Everyone needs to think of the company as one big team, not a series of competing smaller teams
The company will not succeed when everybody is preoccupied with their personal survival, not just the company’s
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni #book
5 dysfunctions of a team
1. Absence of trust
Teamwork is founded in vulnerability
2. Fear of conflict
Once trust is established, the team is unafraid of debate about ideas
3. Lack of commitment
The team must buy-in and commit to decisions despite initial disagreement
4. Avoidance of accountability
Teammates must hold each other accountable for group decisions and vision
5. Inattention to results
The team is focused on the success of the project and getting results
The basis of everything is trust
Trust can be earned by following through on your words and actions and being consistent with your narratives
Trust goes up when people see that we are self-aware of our own shortcomings and areas for improvement
An honest accounting of your failures will work much better than denying your failures and expecting people to ignore them. Of course, this strategy will only work for so long. Trust will shrivel up if you consistently fall short, even if you deliver a heartfelt mea culpa every time
To truly inspire trust, under promise and over deliver
In a high-trust team, people can call each other out without reservation for the good of the business without people getting defensive
Making mistakes is tolerable as long as you acknowledge it and seek to fully address the situation until you find the solution
Part 4 — Sharpen Your Focus
Chapter 9 — Put Analysis Before Solutions
It helps to slow down and critically examine situations and problems before settling in and explaining things, never mind a solution
Stay rational and set aside our biases and past experiences
If you find out you are wrong, correct immediately
Build a reputation as a rapid course corrector
You don’t need to be right all the time to succeed if you can admit quickly when you’re wrong
The analysis first — especially when someone’s future career is at stake
Chapter 10 — Align Incentives for Customer Success
A customer success department gives everyone else an incentive to stop worrying about how well our customers are thriving with our products and services
Customer satisfaction ultimately drives customer retention, word of mouth, profitability, and the long-term survival of the whole company
If your product is so bad that it requires an army of hand-holders, then apply extra resources to fix the product
Technical support should own customer issues and salespeople should own the customer relationship
Part 5 — Pick Up the Pace
Chapter 11 — Ramp Up Sales
Putting gasoline into a car's tank won’t matter if the engine isn’t working
Hiring salespeople won’t pay off until you’ve figured out your product, your market, your demand, and lead generation systems
Chapter 12 — Grow Fast or Die Slow
Investors will wonder why you aren’t plowing profits back into the business to grow
General and administrative expenses can be as much as 20% in the early going, but drop below 10% of revenues as the business scales up
For a business to break out and reach escape velocity, it needs a ton of differentiation and to profoundly upset and disrupt the status quo
When in doubt, push the growth model to set a more ambitious target
If possible, always own your distribution rather than delegate it to a third party. Nobody cares about selling your product more than you
Chapter 13 — Stay Scrappy as You Scale Up
3 main phases of a company’s development
1. The Embryonic Company
Seed capital is applied to assess the feasibility of an idea, followed by subsequent rounds of funding to build the initial product
The CEO job is more or less a part-time position for someone who is also the leader of a key function such as technology or operations
Everyone is working, not managing
2. The Formative Company
There is enough product to begin testing the market
The goal is to find out if you really have a viable product or merely a technology in search of a problem to solve
You have to make huge decisions about how to price, position, sell, and promote your product
Trying to double or triple down on spending to cross the chasm from a narrow niche audience to a large and sustainable customer base is a recipe for disaster
If you feel overwhelmed by customers virtually ripping the product from your hands, you need to adjust to the next stage of development
3. The Scaled-Up Company
Growth at all costs
Any company that stays scrappy, at any size, will constantly be eliminating non-essentials of all sorts
Part 6 — Transform Your Strategy
Chapter 14 — Materialize Your Opportunities
Attack weakness, not strength
Either create a cost advantage or neutralize someone else’s
It’s much easier to attack an existing market than create a new one
The definition of crossing the chasm is building a beachhead of satisfied early adopters, who can then be used as examples to reassure late adopters
You have to make an irrefutable case that your new solution is both safe and cost-effective. That’s when the broader market will become accessible to your pitch
Build the whole product or solve the whole problem as fast as you can
Bet on the correct enabling technologies
Chapter 15 — Open the Aperture — The Data Domain Growth Strategy
Continue to expand into new markets
Chapter 16 — Swing for the Fences — The Snowflake Growth Strategy
If you wait to make a strategic shift until it becomes overwhelmingly evident, you may be too late
Anticipating how markets will evolve is absolutely essential
Snowflake became associated with a recognizable segment of the market so customers understood what it was trying to do but it’s brand identity confined the company’s market opportunities
Running a company is like playing a hand in poker. You may or may not be dealt good cards, but what matters is understanding the potential of the cards you were dealt
The sooner you lay the groundwork for expanding into new markets, the easier challenges will be
Part 7 — The Amped-Up Leader
Chapter 17 — Amp Up Your Career
Develop your career through education, training, and experience
You don’t just need to be qualified, you need to be more qualified than anyone else
Grad students are much less attractive than people who can point to a record of tangible achievements at a company
Avoid having a series of short-tenured jobs on your resume, especially if you can’t name specific accomplishments at each one
Speak credibly and insightfully, in detail, about your experiences, no matter how disappointing they were
Aptitude matters most. Your God-given talents
It’s impressive when people are self-aware and confident enough to candidly discuss their weaknesses
An energetic, engaging personality goes a long way in the workplace
Startups need hard drivers, passionate leaders, goal-oriented and achievement focused personalities
A big red flag is a sense of entitlement. Seek low maintenance, low drama personalities. Strong task ownership, a sense of urgency, and a “no excuses” mentality
An efficient, get to the point writing style will help you at every stage
Use stories to convey messages to small groups and audiences. Stories are easy to digest, fun to tell, and often what the audience remembers most clearly
Never read text bullets verbatim from a PowerPoint — that’s the fastest way to lose everyone’s attention
Chapter 18 — Just for CEOs — Dealing with Founders and Boards
It’s easier to find a start-up founder with good ideas than an operator to execute those ideas to their fullest potential
A non-founder CEO needs to tread lightly at first
Always speak and act with deference toward the founders
Your mission is to win, not to achieve popularity
Share credit as much as possible with the founders. Never lose sight that success takes a village
A good board leaves the strategy and operations of the business to the CEO
You are not there to make friends or get a gold star for obeying orders; you are there to win
Lead the board. Never go into a board meeting, tee up a topic, and ask them what they think. Instead, prep carefully with your team in advance, and then go in and tell them what you think
Chapter 19 — Conclusion — Great Leaders Have Great Outcomes
If you persevere over long periods of time, if you focus intensely on delivering value for customers, and if you build a disciplined culture for your employees, it will pay off in the long run
It’s hard to beat any leader who combines great resolve, persistence, mission focus, and clarity about what is and is not important
#SharedFromTwos ✌️
