Management For Startups Podcast

Finding Failures Early

When you're moving to a new role — be it as an individual contributor to a manager, or a manager to another part of the organisation — your move is often fraught with uncertainty.  This week, we talk about a method for increasing the odds of your success: seek out the people who have failed in similar situations, and ask for their stories. 

#34 The Two Things You Need To Be A Good Manager

Why is it that certain people can't seem to get better at management? Why are there so many bad managers out there?  A year or so ago, I came across the first plausible explanation for this observation, from Ben Horowitz, a VC with Andreesen Horowitz.  We take a look at why this framework seems plausible, and how to use it when it comes to evaluating management skills — be it yours or others. 

#33 Taking Care Of Yourself Before Taking Care of Others

In our last episode, we talked about transitioning from a physical workplace to a remote work configuration. This week's episode is about taking care of yourself before you take on the responsibility of taking care of others. This applies to managers who have to do one-on-ones, but it's also more generic. I keep thinking to the analogy of 'putting on your own oxygen masks' before you help the person next to you. We cover things to do to help reduce the mental weight of this trying period. - NYT's 7 Minute HIIT Workout

#32 Managing From Home

Many of us are stuck working from home this week, as the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps across the globe.  This week's episode is about managing your team from this position — especially if you're not used to working remotely. What should you do? What should you watch out for? We talk about three things to handle this transition.

#31 Beware Idea Bombs

Idea bombs, or founder bombs is the tendency for you to tell your subordinates about this great big idea you have, and then distract them from execution. In this episode, we explore three methods for resisting this nearly universal urge.  Links: Hiten Shah's My Billion Dollar Mistake (where he talks about 'Hiten bombs') MFS: The Positional Power Barrier, and the podcast episode on the same topic. Notes on One-on-Ones.