ArchiveFM

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk

378: Brad Feld: 378: Brad Feld - How To Collect Amazing People, Question Your Biases, & Build Community

Duration
50m
Broadcast on
09 Aug 2020
Audio Format
other

Text LEARNERS to 44222

IG/Twitter: @RyanHawk12

Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com

#378: Brad Feld

Notes:

  • Excellence:
    • Honesty - Clear view of what's going on with self and others
      • Transparency/Authenticity is overused
    • Confirmed process of learning - Hypothesis, clarity of though around experimentation
  • Advice to a new manager:
    • Ask a lot of questions
    • REALLY LISTEN - Engage in conversations... Don't just try to get the right answer
    • We have endless biases
      • "People defend their biases instead of questioning their biases." --> Have a curious mind.
  • Curiosity:
    • His parents gave him positive feedback for being inquisitive... An exploration of new ideas. Brad loves to read and takes a digital sabbath every Saturday.
    • Approach new ideas with a Buddhist philosophy --> Let go of assumptions. Approach each topic with a beginner's mind.
  • A founder who is an explorer -- "Don't get stuck as an investor by constantly asking questions. You need to want to deeply understand someone. It goes both ways. Literal answers aren't enough."
  • The role of the founder is "to collect people." → Mentor side, peer side, employee side, customer side.
    • Engage with people. Create a 'bi-directional' connection. This has shifted over time for Brad. Think #GiveFirst
  • Life partner - Amy... They are equals. It's important to acknowledge that. They almost split up after 10 years because Brad's words were not matching his actions.
    • "YOUR WORDS MUST MATCH YOUR ACTIONS.'
    • Prioritize what's important and then follow through. If it's important to you to spend time with your spouse, then do it.
    • Brad and Amy had to learn how to fight...
    • When their 13 year old dog died, it was devastating. Amy and Brad deal with tragedy differently. It's important to understand that it's OK for your spouse to deal with grief differently than you do.
  • Key Parts to building community:
    • The people in charge must be leaders
    • Must have a long term commitment --> 20 years+
    • Inclusive of anyone who wants to engage
    • Have events that engage people
  • Complex systems to how communities evolve --Complicated systems has more steps.
  • Goal setting - They tend to be too rigid. The time component can be a problem.
    • Brad prefers raid iteration. Better to have a hypothesis. If the hypothesis fails, learn it.
    • Eric Ries - Lean Startup
      • Rapid experimentation - Rapid learning is better
    • Vast majority of goals you set are not right in the future
  • Writing - "When I write, I learn." Force yourself to write it down. Put it in public. Have an open mind to feedback.
    • "People get stuck in dogma when they don't write things down. They don't know why they believe in it."
    • You can't do this quickly. People don't feel like they have time to think. That's a problem.
  • The role of selling: Selling is crucial. You are selling all the time. Sales is a noble profession. Acknowledge it. Develop the skills to do it well. Everyone works in sales.

Having a goal and then saying if you met the goal, you're good, if you didn't meet the goal, you're bad. In a lot of ways, self-limiting, unless the goal is correct. And this is the challenge is that the vast majority of goals that you set on day one for sometime in the future, 30 days from now, 90 days from now, a year from now. In three or four days, you realize the goal is wrong. If you don't change the goal when you realize the goal is wrong and you're just spending time going after the wrong thing. We are opening up applications to our learning leader circle. We do this once per year. Think back to the great conversation I had with the legendary Jim Collins episode 216. He said, "Ryan, before you get too caught up in your why, in your what, you need to be very intentional about your who. Who will be your friends? Who will be your mentor? Who will you help? Who will you choose to surround yourself with?" That will be the single greatest determining factor in your long-term success. Think about that. I'd ask you the same question. Who are you choosing to surround yourself with to help you grow, to push you, to challenge you, and to be there when you need help? This is a chance to surround yourself with other growth oriented leaders looking to challenge themselves and grow to become more effective both personally and professionally. We've added specific curriculum elements so that by the end of the year, you'll have tangible outcomes to measure your growth and be a more effective leader. These groups are intentionally curated and kept small. In time and again, the thing that people say they love most about these groups is the relationships they're able to build with one another very quickly. If you'd like to apply, go to learningleaderscircle.com. That's learningleaderscircle.com to apply.
Welcome to the Learning Leaders Show presented by Brixie and Meyer. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 44222 in order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world. I believe Mindful Monday updates. What I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about. Also give you more details about how my book, Welcome to Management, will help you become a more effective leader. Text learners to 44222. Now on tonight's featured leader is Brad Feld, an early stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. He's a writer and speaker on the topics of venture capital investing and entrepreneurship. He's written a number of books as part of the Startup Revolution series and writes blogs at Fell Dots and Venture Deals. His latest book is titled The Startup Community Way. A few of the topics we discussed. The problem with traditional goal setting practices and how you can do better. And then three critical pieces of advice for new managers. And I think these apply to experienced ones as well. And then the four keys to building an excellent community. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Brad Feld. Brad, it's so good to have you here on the Learning Leaders Show. Welcome. Thanks for having me. I am curious from your perspective. You've been a member of many boards. You've surrounded yourself with some of the most impressive leaders in the world. And I'm curious from your perspective, what have you found to be some of the commonalities among leaders who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time? A couple of things. First and foremost, I would put honesty. Just real clear view, both honest of what's going on, external honesty, but also internal honesty about oneself and one's own sense of where they're at. I think words like transparency and authenticity now are way overused is to be meaningless. This continuous process of learning, though, is incredibly powerful, whether it's learning about a particular thing about a particular system about things outside one's own experience, or about oneself. And approaching problems, not from the frame of reference of, I know the answer, but from the perspective of, I'm interested in having with the group of people, I'm with hypotheses, testing them together and iterating through it. So sort of this clarity of thought around experimentation and learning, rather than the continuous need to have the answer or be absolute. Love it. Can you even count how many boards you've been a part of? Hundreds. Hundreds. Maybe, maybe, maybe, you know, more than 500 less than 1,000 probably over my whole career. That's wild. So when you think about that aspect of it, you have got, you have had the pleasure of experiencing many different styles of management. And I know it's probably dependent upon the industry and the current time you were on the board for those companies. But are there a few people, and if you don't want to name people, but are there a few key learnings that really jump out as to when you meet with perhaps a new founder or a new leader? Because there are a lot of new leaders listening, Brad, perhaps they're not a founding a company, but they work within a business. What key pieces of advice would you have you gathered that you would pass along to them as they begin this leadership slash management journey? Ask a lot of questions.

Transcription truncated.