Ben Williams: preference

Transcript context

…This is a big topic. I have a lot of thoughts here based on what I've seen work well and also not so well. I think I can broadly bucket things here into maybe three main topics. So the first would be people and process. The second would be strategy, and the third would be data. Now they're all related and they all have to be working well to be effective in growth. Starting with people maybe touch the first element there in terms of balance teams, you've got to have those balance teams with diversity and ability to create great ideas, but also ability to execute. So that's the first thing. But still on the topic of people, I have this kind of mental model, that potential that at its core is unbounded, but that a bunch of things situationally prevent people from fulfilling their potential. It might be how they're thinking about something. It might be organizational. It might be in relationships with coworkers or in broader team dynamics. It might be in them not even being in the right role even. So fundamentally I think it's the role of managers and leaders to help them identify those things and work with them to find ways to thrive and grow. And I've seen this have particular significance in a growth org where people are just naturally less good fit. Now that doesn't mean that they're not amazing talented humans. It just means they aren't going to do their best work in a growth context. So when you're starting a growth team, you'll often be doing so with internal moves. So this can be something that's maybe a little bit easier to miss than with external candidates where you are likely testing for those things explicitly during the hiring process. I'll share an example with developers. So the devs that really thrive in a growth context are the ones that are motivated by moving quickly, iterating to create measurable impact. They're not attached to their work. They embrace imperfection as part of the process. They happily discard their code, their ideas even. They're curious and they're always looking for ways to be closer to their users. Now those are the folks that generally make great growth engineers and I've also known incredible engineers that are most motivated when they're working on really deep technical challenges and love the process as much as the outcome. And they've struggled in growth. Of course it's never that simple in reality. There's nobody who's really at either extremity of that spectrum. But it's really important to try to answer the question, can this person do their best work in this environment? So I think that's a really key part of it. And yeah, you need to also make sure they're well equipped from a kind of skills and knowledge perspective as well. So they need the right skills and knowledge to be able to do their best work in the context of your growth process. So the ideal state is that every growth team member has common vocabulary. They're comfortable with the growth process. nowledge to be able to do their best work in the context of your growth process. So the ideal state is that every growth team member has common vocabulary. They're comfortable with the growth process. They can work well with data and experimentation platform. They understand the data. They have the right skills and mindset. Education I think plays a big part here. So we're big fans of Reforge, but we've also developed a bunch of internal programs to align and uplevel the teams. Something we learned, I think as an example, is the importance of starting simple and going deeper as the teams build experience. So for example, when it comes to experimentation, don't try at the beginning to introduce multivariate testing or concepts like sequential samplings and alternative evaluation approach. Teams are still trying to just dip their toes in that... This water, it's kind of a recipe for a lot of mistakes. So that would be some advice there. But people also need to be well aligned. I've talked about this actually on another podcast that I did recently. But what I mean by that is their execution needs to be aligned with an evolving growth strategy. The growth strategy needs to be aligned with and at the same time influence where the company's going. The growth strategy needs hooks into the product strategy and ideally there's some overlap and alignment of KPIs so that the growth teams and the core product teams are swimming in the same direction. The skills and experience in the team need to be aligned with the strategy. If you've got to focus on activation and acquisition, then someone who's a plans and pricing expert probably isn't the right set of skills at that point in time. But you also, leaders need to plan to ensure those skills are available as focus of the growth team inevitably shifts over time. But at the end of the day, I think everyone needs to be able to easily answer the question why they're there. Why the work they're doing is important. I don't know if it's too far off track here, but I have a vision and mission framework that I like to use that leads to I think, great simple statements of an imagined better future state and your role in getting there. So I can talk about that a little bit if it's a- Yeah, let's do it. That sounds too good to pass up.…

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