Molly Graham: recommendation

Transcript context

…Indonesia and that would add to your MAU number but it would not add to your engagement number and it was very clear for the entire time that I was there that engagement was the most important thing. Acquiring users that were going to use the site all the time, that's what drives revenue, it's also what drove the heart of that site. So, if you had to prioritize something, you prioritized engagement, that goal won in the fight. The third I'll say is, I call it the explain it to me like I'm five goal, but an intern that started on Monday should be able to look at your goals and understand them and, if they can't, then you are failing because they are not a communication tool that's effective. You have to be able to understand the goals, you have to explain the acronyms, you have to have numbers that make sense to average people, otherwise, again, it fails as a communication tool. The fourth one is ... Actually, I stole a phrase from Claire Hughes Johnson who you've had on your podcast but wrote a book called Scaling People and in it she says this sentence that I love which is strategy should hurt. And my role used to be set non-goals, basically, make it as clear what you're not going to do as what you are going to do but strategy should hurt is a much better way to explain it to people which is, if you're not making trade-offs that are painful, you are not actually helping people prioritize their time. Because the nature of work is that people will show up every day and do something and either you are very clear with them about what the priorities are or they're going to prioritize for you because they're going to choose what they work on every day. And we see this so much with founders where they can't cut things off the list, they just have to have the 10 goals and I'm like, "Cool. Six of these goals are not going to get done so either you pick which four it is or other people are going to pick for you." So, strategy should hurt. If your goal setting process is not painful, then you're not prioritizing heavily enough. Okay, ready? We're on number five. This is more of an organizational point but it's really important for the waterline model too which is that one goal has one owner. You have a number, that number has a name next to it. If you cannot do that work, you haven't done the most important work to actually make sure that these goals get accomplished. And it's organizational work and it's very painful because sometimes it feels like, oh, this person can own it or this, maybe they'll just own it together, two people owning a goal is no one owning a goal. One person owns the goal, who is it? It's not you as the CEO, it's someone that works for you so one goal, one owner. And then the last, which is the hardest, is that goals by themselves are not enough. I've spent a lot of time with founders that are like, "I did it. I set the goals. Why not working? I don't understand." And I'm like, "What did you do after you set the goals?" And they're like, "I don't know, I set the goals." Goals ... James Clear who wrote Atomic Habits has this really lovely sentence which is winners and losers have the same goal. ter you set the goals?" And they're like, "I don't know, I set the goals." Goals ... James Clear who wrote Atomic Habits has this really lovely sentence which is winners and losers have the same goal. Goals by themself are not enough, you have to have a process by which you follow up on the goals and you hold people accountable to the goals and you learn from the goals because so much of goal setting, particularly if you're earlier in building your company, is about learning from trying to do something. You set a goal, can we do it, how hard is it to move this number, that is the ... You might be wrong all the time but you're learning what it takes to move the number. So, setting the goal by itself, not enough, you have to build a process in the system to actually learn from the goal. Wow. This list is ... There's so much power in this list, it's such a succinct-…

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