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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Dan Martell
Read between
February 17 - February 20, 2023
When you design your week, put in the important tasks first.
not just work-related activities. I include everything in my Perfect Week—lunch breaks, interviews, time for deep work, date night. By the end, my day looks stacked.
batch tasks into categories, enabling you to stay focused and avoiding changing location or environments.
One of my rules, for instance, is that anyone on my team can spend up to $500 to fix a problem without getting permission. For the CEOs who run my companies, they can spend up to $5,000.
(The other piece of the rule is, they must tell me about the expense at our next meeting.)
In less than an hour, he gives her all the direction she needs to execute any difficult one-offs.
Over time, this list of one-offs has slimmed down significantly as she’s learned to mimic his responses and decisions. That’s the level of expectation I have for my administrative assistant: that she can clone my responses to most situations without involving me.
Over time, my administrative assistant learns how and why I make decisions.
As we build a relationship, I’m able to hand over more and more tasks to her because she knows how I operate.
Hack 4: The 1:3:1 Rule
Before staff were allowed to ask for Brad’s help, they had to verbally define a singular, narrow problem (not bring up dozens of tangential issues). Next, they had to consider and offer three realistic paths to overcoming that problem. Finally, they had to give Brad their single recommendation from the three options.
Define the one problem that needs to be solved. 3 Offer three viable solutions. 1 Make one suggestion from that list of possible solutions.
Brad was training his direct reports to think creatively and empowering them to make decisions on their own.
“When it comes to hiring, I have one simple rule. I can’t work with you until I work with you.”
A few other popular personality tests are the Kolbe-A, the DISC test, and the Myers-Briggs.
Here’s an example of a real test project I’ve given to one of my assistants: “Send a thoughtful gift to Kyle at Proposify.”
Once I know who I want to hire (after the test project), my mindset switches over.
your company has a lot to offer: promotional opportunities, a paycheck, friends, community, personal growth, professional growth, network enhancement, résumé building, and a lifelong career.
If you want to sell the future, you need to find out what your top candidate wants, then ensure you’re aligned in that endeavor.
I usually ask something like, “Where do you want to be in five years?” This gives me a clear idea of whether I can help them achieve what they want with my current business. If they’re after a certain title, does their potential role have upward mobility? If they’re after a certain pay scale, what would it take to get them there? If they have other aspirational dreams, like living in a certain location or spending time with family, will this role help or hurt those dreams?
“Adam, if you need help, I’ll cancel meetings, brainstorm, do whatever’s necessary to support you. However, ultimately, this is why I hired you,”
What I did with Adam was simple: I transferred the ownership of the solution back onto Adam.
Blanchard calls these types of situations “other people’s monkeys.”
aren’t accidentally taking on other people’s monkeys (problems or projects).
That’s the basis of transformational leadership: start with the premise that this isn’t your job, it’s theirs. You shouldn’t be telling them how to do it because it’s their role, and they own it.
Transactional Management Versus Transformational Leadership Nine out of ten entrepreneurs get trapped in the vicious circle of what I call transactional management: they tell people what to do, then check that they did it,
Then I read High Output Management by Andy Grove.
Once you change the way you lead, leaders under you will change the way they lead.
It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do. —Steve Jobs
With transformational leadership, you stop leading by telling someone how to do something and instead tell them what needs to get done. You set the outcomes, and you put the onus of responsibility on them.
“Bethany, please spell-check blog posts before they go out” becomes “Bethany, the blog posts must always be error free.”
“Danielle, all employees need to take a class on the new GDPR updates” becomes “Danielle, we must be GDPR compliant.”
“James, you need to make more sales calls” becomes “James, you need to hit one hundred thousand dollars in sa...
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“Maloney, increase the menu prices” becomes “Maloney, we need to make ten percent more per square foot in ev...
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When the solution is theirs, they’re more likely to be excited about it and champion that decision and ensure its implementation is completed.
Once you set the outcome instead of telling your employees “how,” they start talking about results, not tasks. They begin offering their energy, not just their skills. They start asking themselves, Is there a better way?
When you lead through the outcomes you want to see in your company, you are not in charge of the solution.
Every person in your company needs a similar measurement.
each team or member needs one number they can directly impact.
Give everyone a number, and watch the score go up.
If you want to have a high-performance team, learn how to coach successfully.
Leaders know how to pull the best out of someone. They can see potential and make it a reality. Without the coaches, many of the greatest names in sports wouldn’t have achieved what they did.
You’re setting the goalpost and letting them do most of the work to get there.
when you see something that is holding them back—an Achilles’ heel or a large mistake—you do want to step in, help them overcome the obstacle, and keep them moving forward.
In transactional management, you’re micromanaging every decision. In transformational leadership, you’re helping your teammates make better decisions in the long run.
As a transformational leader, describe the outcome, offer a metric, and coach to success.
automation expert,
No Feedback = No Productivity
producing high-energy results? Then ensure that feedback is flowing freely.
A lack of two-way communication and feedback can become a culture cancer and spread throughout the entire organization, causing major issues.
