High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups From 10 to 10,000 People

by Elad Gil

You should start to add skip-level meetings as one way to stay in touch with the broader organization. As companies scale, the CEO often starts to lose touch with what is happening in the company. Information starts to get filtered by middle managers or hires from big companies, who view their job in part as shielding the CEO from “unimportant” information. The problem is that they may wind up shielding you from ideas that you consider quite important to know. In a skip-level meeting, you meet with employees who work for your reports or are further down in the organizational chart. Often extremely bright junior people may have their fingers on the pulse of the market, or may be alert to key new ideas or information. You’ll benefit from hearing from them, and these promising people will also benefit from learning how you think about your company, product, market, and culture. Skip-level meetings help you: Create open lines of communication. Identify and nurture new talent. Get new ideas from people at the front lines of the company.