Make an impact, or brace for impact

Focus on which activities make the biggest difference

When functional leaders or ICs start to take the reins of specific functions from Founders, they want to show their impact immediately. Most will show incremental or inches of progress, aiming to track everything in their favorite tools and dashboards. Most of the time everything looks great, but what is most important as the Founder is to constantly validate which of these activities lead to the highest impact. Tracking is great but how are folks internalizing each of the things they’re tracking to inform how you’ll hit the ambitious board goals? First, it starts with sharing context on how you got here and why you’re headed in the direction you are. Then, it’s about building a clear directive on how you’ll track towards the most impactful outcomes. 

Creating high-level goals and lightweight OKRs doesn’t give folks the clarity on what is needed to reach your vision. Task lists typically make it worse since folks don’t want to be micromanaged and all they’re asking for is more direction from their leader (you). People want to show they’re putting in the work, but sometimes it isn’t the right work. Other times they’re doing too much and could probably be doing less and deepening their focus on high-impact activities. 

What happens if high impact and output aren't the focus?

• Missed revenue targets

• Drop in conversion rates

• Decrease in qualified leads

• Decline in user activation metrics

• Lost deals due to competitors shipping more and better features

• Shipping the wrong things

• Missed SLAs, leading to frustrated customers

• Increased churn

• Etc. 

There are a lot of great resources written on this, and the two I’ve found most useful are: 

• Lessons from Keith Rabois Essay 3: How to be an Effective Executive - Delian Asparouhov

  • The concepts in here are great, it references some of the best books, essays, and talks on the subject

• Doing the right thing > Doing things right - Mark Suster

  • Simple and concise, and references “top down thinking” that helps with creating clarity for CEOs to their teams and for their teams to create for their direct reports

Please share any other recommended resources on the topic!