What Makes a Strong Startup CEO (Startup Mini-Series)

0:00 so over the years I learned the hard way that there

0:03 is a direct link between the founders leadership skills and the outcome

0:07 of their startups but the reality is that it's really two

0:10 different things there are the managerial skills being a good manager

0:13 and the leadership skills and these are two separate things

0:15 and the reality is that you've got to excel at both of them

0:18 if you want to get your startup to the right place so

0:20 the first part of being a great startup CEO is to be

0:24 a good manager in over the years I found a way

0:27 to represent what I think the startup CEO role is as a manager

0:32 and it includes a very simple cycle so this cycle basically

0:36 could be painted like this defining your strategy recruiting the team

0:43 that can execute it setting goals assisting where needed and monitoring

0:54 progress and basically this is the cycle that includes the CEOs

1:04 role as a manager and when you look at it defining

1:06 the strategy is basically the part in which you set the vector

1:10 in which your company is gonna run this is the first

1:13 thing you need to do once you define that vector the next

1:16 thing you need to do is recruit the best team they

1:19 can execute and run in this direction and build what you're

1:22 trying to build then you basically set goals these goals are

1:26 the goals that are going to make sure that the team is

1:29 running in the right direction and that everything is measurable because

1:32 if it's not measurable you can't manage it what you then do

1:36 is the CEO is your job is to continue assisting the team

1:40 as much as you can on their way so that whenever

1:43 they run into any kind of trouble or any problem they

1:45 can come to you or you can come to them and clear

1:48 the problem for them so that they continue running and then

1:50 you basically monitor progress when you finish this cycle you arrive

1:55 to a point of checking on yourself and now saying okay I'll

2:00 define my strategy now it's time to basically check it and see

2:04 that the strategy so holds and if I need to now

2:07 change the vector a little bit that's great I'll change the vector

2:10 a little bit the next thing I've looking at the team

2:12 and I'm saying now I need to verify that I still have

2:16 the best team and as we know as the company evolves

2:18 and grows and changes maybe not everybody that was great in the team

2:22 the beginning is still great as you need to verify

2:24 the team in terms of the goals you set them but now

2:29 you basically reset them to make sure that they're the right

2:32 goals and so and then you continue assisting you continue monitoring

2:36 and this cycle goes on on and on and on and if

2:39 in the past in large companies I used to think that you

2:43 need to run this cycle every quarter or so when I

2:46 think about start-up management today this is something that you need

2:49 to do almost weekly you need to constantly ask yourself do

2:52 I have the right strategy do I have the right people are

2:56 my goals pushing everybody in the right directions and vice versa

3:00 and so that's the role of the founder CEO as a manager

3:05 and that's super important right this is what you need to do

3:08 in order to make your company to run but that's not

3:10 enough actually if you just do that you're not very likely

3:13 to succeed because on top of it there is the leadership part

3:17 and the leadership part is different requires totally different set of skills

3:21 much softer skills it is less mechanic and it's much tougher

3:24 to achieve and without it it's going to be very difficult

3:27 for you to get your people to get your company to where

3:30 you want it to go and so the way I look

3:33 at it the leadership part is kind of orbiting the management part

3:38 that is basically if I need to summit to bring it down

3:41 to three things it revolves around people vision and culture and just

3:51 like we can look at this cycle for the managerial part

3:55 we have a similar cycle for the leadership part and as I

4:04 said leadership is tougher than just management it is mostly tougher

4:09 because unlike everything that you do on the management side leadership is

4:14 tough to pass on by just speaking it mostly depends on how

4:19 you behave it depends on this example that you set yourself

4:23 and if you're not going to behave based on the same

4:28 values that you want your company to be run by it's not

4:31 gonna work and that's why the beginning of any part of leadership

4:36 is behaving yourself the way you want your people to behave

4:41 and so the first thing in leadership is people and when

4:47 I talk about leading people we can talk about that for hours

4:50 but there are three things that I would like to stress

4:52 today the first one is hiring the second one is caring

4:58 and the third one is listening and when we talk about

5:04 hiring hiring is maybe the only place where in a start-up I'm

5:09 willing to sacrifice speed for results and this is because especially

5:13 the young startup the DNA of the people that you bring in is

5:17 a critical part of the culture building and if you bring

5:21 somebody that has a great CV that does all the right

5:23 things that you need but comes with a toxic DNA you're

5:27 basically not just gonna lose that person later on but you're going

5:31 to start inflicting the wrong DNA into your team which will

5:35 have a horrible effect on your company later on and so hiring

5:39 is the first thing and making sure that the people that you're

5:42 recruiting into your company have the right DNA once you bring

5:45 the right people and you need to lead them maybe

5:49 the one thing that I've found that is the most important thing

5:51 in start-up leadership and actually every

5:54 company leadership is caring this sounds

5:57 the beauty so tarik what's the what's caring connected to leadership

6:01 but the reality is that it all starts from caring when

6:04 you care for your employees they care about their job they care

6:08 about their employees they care about their colleagues and so by caring

6:11 by truly caring which is tough to fake you're creating this cycle

6:16 in which eventually your entire company will be much better

6:19 and people will care for each other and so once you recruited

6:22 the best people you care for them and that's where the magic

6:25 starts and then the third thing is listening what's the point

6:29 of recruiting the best people and letting them work if you don't

6:32 listen to them and our listening basically has two parts the first

6:35 part is simply being there you cannot listen to people if

6:40 you don't meet them enough you cannot listen to people you don't

6:43 have meetings with them you cannot listen to people if you

6:45 don't have face time with them and many times all of us

6:48 are in such a rush that all these meetings are getting

6:51 cancelled and so don't cancel them if you don't spend time

6:54 with your people they're never gonna be able to listen to them

6:57 but even then when you're with them one of the mistakes

7:00 I used to do as a CEO years ago I would go

7:04 into a meeting and say okay the here's our problem this is

7:06 what I think and guess what how easy is it

7:09 for people to then challenge what you're saying when you're the CEO

7:12 and you just say to this so people just not and you

7:15 basically lost the entire impact of everybody sharing their opinions and so

7:20 listening is not just about being with them it's also about

7:23 letting them speak and then even speak before you say what

7:26 you think and so the first part of leadership is about

7:30 people hire the right people with the right DNA care about them

7:35 to ensure that they care about their job and about the rest

7:38 of the company and listen to them by being with them

7:41 and by letting them speak and letting them say what they

7:43 think this is the core and the first part of leadership

7:47 as a CEO once we have the people in place and they're

7:52 caring and you're listening to them the next part is the vision

7:55 of the company and that basically if I need to break it

7:59 down that comes down to finding your why repeating it and verifying

8:06 that people know it let's explain that so I think you've

8:10 all know the concept of finding your companies why why do

8:14 you do the things you do and there's a founder CEO

8:17 most of us think about that why in the context of customers

8:21 right if I find my why my customers will like my products

8:24 more they will know what we're doing why we're doing it

8:26 you think about it in the context of investors if I

8:30 can express my why properly I'm gonna raise a lot of money

8:33 but the reality is that the place where your why is

8:35 the most critical is with the people that work with you

8:38 in your company and this is because working in a start-up is

8:41 really difficult many hours usually you're not getting paid that much and it's

8:46 a roller coaster emotionally and the only reason why people stay committed

8:50 is because they have a wide that they believe in and so

8:54 when you clarify and crystallizer why it's not just for the outside

8:59 world it's not just for investors it is predominantly first

9:03 and foremost for your team for your employees for your managers

9:06 they need to know and connect to your wine if you don't

9:09 know your why it's very difficult to wake up in the morning

9:12 and again and again do it whatever you need to do

9:14 because it's just emotionally tiring and so you've got to understand

9:19 your wife so crystallizer why and then you've got to repeat

9:22 it again and again and again and many people make the mistake

9:24 of thinking I just said it a month ago we had

9:28 an O hand meeting and I presented the company's wine strategy

9:31 everybody knows it it's gotta be that simple right I mean I've

9:34 showed it people are smart I recruited the best people it can't

9:38 be that they did not understand well maybe they did but it's

9:41 very difficult to remember it's very difficult to absorb things change

9:44 you as the CEO make constantly think that everybody knows everything

9:48 but not everybody knows everything and as long as people don't know

9:52 that why you're gonna have leadership issues and so repeat your why

9:56 a lot more than what you intuitively think you need

10:00 to repeat it what's the right frequency once a week not too

10:03 much once every meeting and repeating it also okay in a tough

10:06 period make sure that you repeat it enough and then once

10:11 you repeat it enough you've got a verify that people actually

10:14 know this one of my one of my favorite things to do

10:17 to CEO sometimes is that I ask them are you sure

10:19 that everybody knows their strategy

10:20 of course everybody knows the company's strategy

10:23 are you sure that everybody knows what's the why of the company

10:26 of course I just said it last week in the meeting

10:28 great can we call a bunch of people and check

10:31 and then when you call people in and you ask them what's

10:34 the company's why what's the strategy where are we heading or even

10:37 more than that what are you working on now and could

10:40 you explain to me how that relates to the why of the company

10:44 how that relates to what we're trying to achieve you're shocked

10:48 at what small percent of people can actually explain that never

10:53 let yourself get in that position because these people that can't explain

10:56 it these people that don't feel that what they do relates

11:00 to the companies why they're never gonna contribute the most they can

11:03 and they're very likely to not stay with you for a long

11:05 time so always remember crystallizer one for the team repeated as much

11:11 as you need and verify that everybody knows it and everybody

11:14 knows how what they're doing relates to that big y and big

11:17 vision and so the last part after you've got your people

11:20 and you have your vision that everybody knows is basically setting

11:24 up the right culture now of course this is the whole

11:26 topic of its own and we could talk for hours about

11:28 that but or bring up a few points around culture so

11:31 the first one is collaboration the second one is transparency the third one

11:39 is self-awareness and the fourth one is optimism and these are like

11:46 four cornerstones of what I always try to put into my companies

11:50 to make sure that we have the right culture now they're

11:53 there other lists and there's tons of other things to talk

11:55 about that but these are like four cornerstones and if you

11:58 got these four rites you're likely to have a good building block

12:01 for your culture so let's start with collaboration so collaboration basically

12:05 is all about creating an organization where people work together now clearly

12:10 that the you know the cliche is that you've got to build

12:12 an organization well one plus one equals more than two but it

12:15 really is so any an organization that is collaborative by design

12:19 where the culture the norm is that you work with others

12:23 you cooperate you always look at any problem as something that you

12:27 can contribute to that creates a much stronger organization that go

12:31 to solve problem much faster and in general be a faster

12:35 organization and so collaboration is really critical part and the way

12:39 to deal with it is that whenever you see anybody behaving against

12:43 that value of collaboration you've really got to act hard on it

12:46 because people will only believe that that is a core value

12:49 if they will see that whenever there's no collaboration you're basically coming

12:54 in and immediately telling everybody look if you're not going to collaborate

12:58 that's not going to work and so this is really critical

13:00 collaboration the second thing is transparency and so in order for you

13:05 to know what's happening in order for you to be able

13:06 to create the right culture and the right management in the company

13:09 you need to know what's happening you need to have transparency

13:12 people need to be able to share with you people need

13:15 to be able to tell you the truth they need to tell

13:16 you what they're fearing they need to tell you the problems

13:19 they need to tell you what's not working well and then

13:21 the last thing of you do despite all of these things

13:25 that I said before you've got to be up to this you've

13:26 got to be optimist because being in a start-up is so difficult

13:30 emotionally every day a new competitor arises the large companies are doing

13:34 something you know Google's releasing a product that's close to your product

13:37 you don't know what's gonna happen fundraising it's tough it

13:39 is an emotional roller coaster to work in a start-up and so

13:43 if you're not optimistic and if this optimism is not part

13:46 of the culture of the company where we believe that we

13:48 can do it we believe that our when we know that logically

13:51 many startups fail but we truly believe that we're gonna succeed if

13:55 you cannot put this into the minds and hearts of your people

13:57 it's gonna be very difficult for them to wake up every

14:00 morning and work as harder than seriously as you want them

14:03 to and so as I said there's tons more to talk about

14:06 leadership but for me the cores of leadership around these management cycles

14:11 is to handle the people hiring them caring and listening to make

14:16 sure they've got your vision your Y and that everybody knows

14:18 it and everybody constantly hears it again and again and then

14:22 to create the right culture which

14:24 includes collaboration transparency and not complacent

14:27 self-aware organization and an optimist one when I ran companies over

14:32 the years and this is also what I tell founders that I

14:34 invest in I kept asking myself almost every day am i

14:38 just managing or am I also leading am i taking my team

14:42 to where they ought to be am i leading by example

14:46 and the days where these answers were yes for a good days

14:49 and these were the days where I could see the impact

14:51 I was making as a start-up CEO and the days where several

14:54 we were knows I knew that I was slowing down my startup

14:57 and I was slowing down my team instead of helping them

14:59 and sorry try to be better the next day and so

15:02 remember to ask yourself these questions am I only managing or also

15:06 leading am i taking my team to where they oughta be

15:09 the place where maybe they won't want to go on their own

15:12 but I can take them and am I really leading by example

15:16 make sure that you're there and your starter post succeed [Music]