Lenny Rachitsky: belief

Transcript context

…Yeah. I think explaining why we're doing this, why this benefits the business, what problem this is solving. Again, you can do a lot of this in a couple of sentences. And then I also like asking or stating what I need from the other person upfront. So saying, "Hey, we're here today because two weeks ago we were reviewing the product flow and realized that there were a couple of parts that were kind of confusing. So I took a stab at fixing those areas, rewriting the microcopy, and I want to present them to you today, see if you agree with these changes, and then we're going to roll them out. What I'm looking for from you is feedback on the changes and if you agree." So like that was like 15 seconds, right? Super fast. And then now we're all on the same page about why we're here. And you can listen more intently knowing that I'm looking for a certain kind of feedback. I would love to hear it that way. I think there's like an implication here that maybe is worth sharing of just, a lot of this is about communicating effectively to execs, which will make you communicate better to most people. But especially with folks up the ladder. They don't have a lot of time, they have a million things in their head. Maybe just share like why this is so important, like what the state of mind of a leader is that you need to kind of break through. Yeah. So I call it the yes, yes, yes, next, next, next mindset where if I'm listening to direct reports present something to me, very often I find myself thinking, "Got it. All right, yes, let's keep going." Right? And you know, on the other side of that, I've often presented to executives where I had a 15 slide deck and execs would do that and I'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like I have a whole sequence, I have a whole order, you know? And sometimes they would give me buy or make the decision by slide four, you know? And I'd be like, "Okay, well you know, slide 13, I want to show you this great graph I put together." Right? And what was really helpful for me was realizing that I should take the win. Okay, if five seconds already agreed, take the win and keep it moving, move on.…

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