Hello and welcome (back) to Growth Path, where we discuss skills to help you grow in your career & life.

Today we are going to talk about how to build trust. As the foundation for all relationships, trust is essential for high-performing teams (and organizations). People in trusting relationships communicate more easily, collaborate more effectively, and work more efficiently. They have fewer conflicts, experience a greater sense of meaning in their work, and get more done with less. There is no such thing as too much trust.

For this episode, we are trying something a little different. Because there is so much to cover, rather than cramming it all into one long piece, we broke it into four parts. Each is about 10-15 minutes long, and together they create a series. 

The first episode (this one) covers definitions of trust, why it’s so important, and some principles for building it. In the following episodes, we talk about How to Build Trust with Oneself (Part II), Building Trust with Others (Part III), and The Trusting Team (Part IV). They will be released in the next couple of days. 

Whether you are a new manager, a seasoned executive, or simply looking to collaborate more seamlessly with your colleagues, building trust-based relationships can make your work (& life) operate much more smoothly.  We hope that you find this series helpful. 

Alright, let’s dive in.

~ Michelle

Hope this email finds you well! 

For those of you who listened to “How to Prioritize,” – do you have any feedback you’d like to share? The next episode, “How to Build Trust,” is in production with a similar format. Given the new research-oriented approach, we’d love to know your thoughts!

The primary questions are:

1. Have you found the content helpful yet? 

2. Any favorite parts?

3. What could have been better? 

To share your reactions or ideas, please respond to this email, comment below, or book a zoom to discuss.  

Thank you, and have a great weekend! 

~ Michelle

Leave a comment

Hi everybody,

Welcome (back) to Growth Path, where we discuss professional development & tools to help you grow in your career & life.

In this episode, we are going to talk about How to Prioritize. This is an important topic for personal and professional growth because if you don’t prioritize the right things, you will waste time, energy & resources pursuing activities that don’t matter or give you the results you want. Worse, if you are a manager and aren’t strong in prioritization, your team will work on too many different projects - ultimately leading to duplication and poor decisions. Teams that aren’t clear on their priorities often inch along without seeing results. They additionally have a hard time collaborating with others, and often suffer from a lack of momentum, which leads to poor morale and burnout.

The most successful people & teams all have one thing in common - they are highly skilled at prioritization. They allocate their time and energy effectively toward the things that matter most. They get more done, and they do more with less.

For this session, I decided to try something a little different. While usually, on Growth Path, we have guest speakers join to share their wisdom, there are too many incredible insights on this topic from too many people to limit it to just one guest speaker. For that reason, I am structuring this episode more like a research report. The primary sources are top books on business, management, leadership, and personal effectiveness (e.g., The Effective Engineer, High Output Management, and the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People). I also reference writings by some of the greatest operators & thought leaders in business (e.g., Ben Horowitz, Michael Porter, and Andy Grove). The goal was to find overlap in their recommended principles, framework, and tactics for effective prioritization. My intention in this episode is to share with you the highlights and key takeaways of what I have learned.

This episode has three parts. The first focuses on principles - some of the highest-level foundations or beliefs on prioritization (e.g., “Begin with the end in mind,” “First things first,” and the compounding nature of prioritization. The second section digs into popular frameworks and structures (e.g., the Eisenhower Matrix, Pareto Principle, and Priority Codes.) The third section centers on tips, tricks & tactics for prioritization - along with a few examples of how they can be used. We wrap with some inspirational quotes.

Attached to this audio episode is something new called the “Learn More Document”. There, you will find timestamps, notes & key takeaways, reflection & discussion questions, and links to books, videos & articles for further study. Whether you are learning on your own, with a friend, or with your team - these should help you dig deeper into the topic and reflect on how you can improve your skillsets around prioritization.

I so hope that you find this useful. If you have any feedback or ideas, please don’t hesitate to email, or leave a comment below.

Have a great rest of your week!

~ Michelle

→ Link to Learn More Document ←

—

🙋‍♂️ Want to learn more? Check out the Table of Contents.

📧 Want to join Growth Path? Subscribe here.

✏️ Have feedback or questions? Email us.

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• ⏱️ Timestamps

• 📓 Notes & Key Takeaways

• 🗣️ Discussion & Reflection Questions

• 📚 Further Study & Resources

⏱️ Timestamps 

Introduction (0:00)

Principles: 

• Begin with the end in mind (03:24)

• First things first (05:33)

• On strategy (08:27)

• Compounding nature of prioritization (10:58)

Frameworks & Structures: 

• The Eisenhower Matrix (12:05)

• Pareto Pri…

Read more

Hi everybody -

Our guest for this coaching session is Nir Eyal.

Nir is a highly acclaimed writer, speaker, lecturer, consultant, and teacher focused on the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. He has co-founded and sold two tech companies and has written two bestselling books - Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products & Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life.

In this session, we discuss the subject of his most recent book - how to become indistractable. Nir starts by explaining why he cares so deeply about this topic and felt it was worth spending five years writing a book on it. He talks about why abstinence from technology does not work and walks us through what he calls the "Indistractable Model" - a framework for understanding how internal triggers (and negative emotions) lead us away from the things we want to accomplish in our lives. We talk about the importance of self-compassion, how motivation and the desire to escape discomfort impact focus, and tips and tricks for managing uncomfortable emotions like boredom and negativity. We wrap with a discussion on time management and how to create an indistractable workplace, team, and company culture.

If you are looking for ways to improve your focus - or that of your team, this is the session for you!

Let’s dive in.

~ Michelle

—> Notes, Key Takeaways & Discussion Questions 📓

⏱️ Timestamps

• Why focus on distraction? (03:55)

• What is the indistractable model? (09:55)

• On motivation & the desire to escape discomfort (17:28)

• On self-compassion (26:25)

• Tips & tricks to manage uncomfortable emotions (27:23)

• Time Management (33:01)

• Indistractable workplaces, teams & cultures (43:43)

📚Referenced & Further Study: 

• Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life by Nir Eyal 📗

• Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal 📗

• Schedule Maker/Google Sheet Template 

• Indistractable Bonus Content 

• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck, Ph.D. 📗

• Follow Nir on Twitter, LinkedIn, or his blog. 

🎧 Link to audio session here.

📓 Notes & Key Takeaways

Why focus on distraction? Why does "abstinence" from technology not work? 

• "Research is me-search" → Nir wanted to develop this skillset to be a better writer and father; tried getting rid of his phone and internet but still found himself distracted and decided to dig into the topic more deeply.

• Wanted to find a "tech-positive" approach to dealing with distraction 

• People have been complaining about distraction for over 2,500 years (e.g., Plato talked about the tendency to do things against our better interest) 

• We must differentiate between the proximal cause and root cause; Technology is not the "root cause" of distraction.

• 90% of the time we are distracted, the root cause is inside of us → call these internal triggers (which are often uncomfortable)

• Emotions we seek to escape lead to distraction. 

What is the indistractable model? 

• The opposite of distraction is not focus. It's traction. (Both end with the same six letters).

• Distraction is not something that happens to us - it's an action we take. 

• Traction is an action that pulls you toward what you said you were going to do. It comes from intent and includes things that move you closer to your values and help you become the kind of person you want to become. 

• Distraction (the opposite) pulls you further away from goals and becoming the person you want to become. 

• Moralizing and medicalizing distraction is not productive. The time you plan to waste is not wasted time. Enjoy those things without guilt. 

• The majority of distraction is not the things we think of (e.g., video games) but rather other forms of procrastination (e.g., cleaning up your desk or doing email). 

• Work-related tasks can be the most dangerous kind of distractions (e.g., slack, email) 

• Indistractable model: (1) must start with mastering the internal triggers; (2) make time for traction (can't call something a distraction if you don't know what it distracted you from); (3) hack back external triggers (many tips & tricks for this); (4) prevent distraction with pacts (pre-commitments) 

• Try to approach the model as a scientist (e.g., experimental) vs. drill sergeant (e.g., blame & shame) → the goal is to do all this for yourself, not for others or their judgment. 

On self-compassion: 

• Blamers & shamers: blamers blame things outside of themselves (e.g., Facebook); shamers take it on the inside (e.g., "something is wrong with me, I have undiagnosed ADHD") → shame spiral is uncomfortable internal trigger → leads to more distraction 

• Better to be a claimer → claimers claim responsibility not for how they feel (you cannot control urges b/c by the time you feel them, it's too late, you already felt it) → you claim responsibility for how you respond to the urge (hence the term "responsibility")

On motivation & the desire to escape discomfort: 

• Motivation: everything we do, even the pursuit of pleasurable sensations, is psychologically destabilizing → wanting, craving, desire – makes you feel uncomfortable, which drives you to get that thing that will make you feel good. 

• All human behavior is spurred by a desire to escape discomfort → time management = pain management.

• To become indistractable, we have to start with our feelings (not our phones)  

Tips & tricks to manage uncomfortable emotions:

• Feelings are like waves - they crest and subside → can help to wait for them to pass.

• 10-minute rule/" surf the urge": wait 10 minutes before indulging in desired distraction (e.g., going for a walk, cleaning the desk) 

• If you slip up, don't beat up on yourself; be kind to yourself (e.g., "this is what it feels like to get better at something") 

• Abstinence can backfire - we have a desire to rebel, even against ourselves; the 10-min rule can help with many things (e.g., weight management, smoking cessation)

• Over time you prove to yourself that you are not beholden to distractions, you can control your attention, and you are training yourself to do just that.  

• "A mistake repeated more than once is a decision" - Paulo Coelho → Distracted people do the same thing again and again, are choosing to be distracted 

• The antidote to impulsiveness is forethought - we simply have to plan ahead. 

• "Ego depletion" – a theory that people run out of willpower → turns out that this issue doesn't exist - it's not real. You do not run out of willpower. The only people who "run out" of willpower are the people who *think* that their willpower is limited. 

• Learned helplessness is the enemy of impulse control. We need to believe in our agency. 

Time Management: 

• "People are frugal in guarding their personal property, but as soon as it comes to squandering their time, they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy." - Seneca (Roman stoic philosopher)  

• The average American spends ~ five hrs/day watching screens. 

• You can always make more money. You can't make more time. 

• Very important to plan ahead, aka have an implementation intention → planning what you are going to do and when you will do it. 

• If you have a big open blank calendar, you can't say you got distracted because what did you get distracted from?

• To do list isn't enough. If you don't plan what you will do and when you will do it, you will always have items undone, which leads to guilt and feeling like you are failing → reinforces a self-image as someone who doesn't do what they say they're going to do—very negative impact on the psyche. 

• Don't measure yourself on how many boxes you check. 

• A better strategy: plan what you will do and then measure yourself if you did what you said you would, for as long as you planned, without distraction. 

• Helpful to take some time (e.g., 10 minutes) once per week (e.g., Sunday night or Friday afternoon) and plan out the following week. You can also use the time to review the past week and evaluate how much you adhered to your plan. Then make changes as desired (e.g., I prefer workouts in the afternoon vs. morning)

• The only rule - cannot change your schedule on the day. Once you make the schedule, you must stick to it. 

• "Limitations give us structure while nothingness torments us with the tyranny of choice."

• "If I know how you spend your time, then I know what might become of you." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• The schedule must align with your values - highly personal. 

• Reactive work vs. reflective work → easy to get stuck in reactive (e.g., emails, meetings, notifications); essential to carve out some portion of time for reflective work (e.g., time to think & be creative, plan ahead, move career forward) 

Indistractable workplaces, teams & cultures: 

• The most common distraction at work is other people, not technology.  

• Essential to have the psychological safety to talk about the problem of distraction at work – the ability to speak about issues earnestly without fear of being fired.

• Must have a forum for discussing problems (e.g., slack channel, weekly meetings). 

• Management must show that they are paying attention and that employees are heard.

• Management must set an example - culture flows downhill. If bosses use devices in meetings and are distracted, so will their reports. 

• "Work hard & go home" - Neon sign at Slack cafeteria 

• Important to "manage up" - sit down with your boss for schedule syncing. Show a plan for the week, list things that don't fit well into the week, and work together to prioritize. 

• Much more than "just say no" – that is an unrealistic way to handle your manager. Better to align on priorities. 

• Managers want to know how their direct reports are spending their time. Aligning the schedule can help. 

📇 Key Terms: 

• Traction: doing something that you said you would do in advance 

• Distraction: doing something different than what you said you were going to do

• Internal triggers: desires to avoid discomfort 

• External triggers: distractions that come from outside (e.g., phone ringing, kids shouting)

• Pacts: a freely made decision that is designed and intended to bind oneself in the future

• Indistractable model: Nir's framework for showing the relationship between internal/external triggers and distraction/traction

• Implementation intention: planning what you will do and when you will do it. 

• Psychological safety: the belief that you won't be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes

• Managing up: when a direct report, through a positive relationship, can make the job of their supervisor easier

• Learned helplessness: belief that one is unable to control or change the situation, so they do not try — even when opportunities for change become available.

📚Referenced & Further Study: 

• Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life by Nir Eyal 📗

• Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal 📗

• Schedule Maker/Google Sheet Template 

• Indistractable Bonus Content 

• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck, Ph.D. 📗

• Follow Nir on Twitter, LinkedIn, or his blog. 

🗣️ Discussion Questions: 

1. What are your most significant sources of distraction? What internal triggers drive you towards them? 

2. Do you schedule your days ahead of time? If not, why not? If yes, what could you do better? 

3. If you could have greater traction towards any three things in your life, what would they be? How can you plan to ensure you are making progress and living up to your commitments? 

4. How does your calendar align with your values? Are there any priorities not getting sufficient time or attention? If so, how come? 

5. Is your company culture one of distraction? If yes, how so? What could be done to change that? 

6. Do you sync your schedule with your manager or direct reports? If not, why not? Do you think it could help to align priorities? 

7. Having listened to this session, what changes do you feel inspired to make, if any? 

Hello everybody!

Welcome (back) to Growth Path. Our guest for this coaching session is Catherine Stewart. Over the past decade, Catherine has held senior leadership roles in companies like McKinsey, Facebook, Random House, and Automatic, the company behind WordPress. Most recently, she was COO of Shippo, a shipping logistics company.

In this session, we…

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Notes & Key Takeaways 📝

What is negotiation? Why develop this skill set? 

• Negotiation is happening constantly but is often called something else. There is a temptation to think about bartering, bargaining, zero-sum games, and antagonistic or confrontational exchanges. But we are constantly negotiating – what we are going to do and how we are going to work together. Often we are not even negotiating for ourselves- we are negotiating for our friends, families, children, employees, etc. 

• Negotiation vs. persuasion: We are selling whenever we are trying to persuade someone else of our perspective and when that perspective has real-life consequences. Negotiation is a form of persuasion. 

• Persuasion & sales are interrelated. Sales are a part of our everyday life (e.g., fundraising for a company or applying to a school) – we are selling when we try to persuade someone else of our perspective, which has real-life consequences.  

• Negotiation is often misunderstood - can be seen as a zero-sum game about money; the perspective is that it’s a confrontation with a winner and loser where the two parties never see one another again → but a lot of negotiation is about creating *even more* value than either had before; often we negotiate with the same people again and again (vs. isolated one-off in a vacuum).

• Negotiation often marks the beginning of a long-term negotiation (e.g., for a job offer, you will be working with the same people afterward); you may renegotiate the terms over time, → defines the parameters of a relationship. 

Negotiating a job offer: 

• Early on, reflect on what is most important to you in a job. Often we focus on salary, but there are many important factors, for example, resources that will help you be successful (e.g., marketing budget, headcount, work location, flexibility, and travel requirements). 

• Before you join is when you have the most leverage. By asking for what you need in advance, you will set yourself up for success but also likely be happier in your role and less likely to leave. It’s in the best interest of both you and the company to create a situation where you will want to stay. 

• The job offer negotiation is a trust-building activity (e.g., “we’ve discussed what success looks like, and I think I need XYZ to achieve those outcomes”). 

Core principles: (subscribe to keep reading)

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About Growth Path:

Our mission is to help you grow and thrive. Our vision is to make professional development & self-improvement efficient & enjoyable. We do this by providing audio-first content on the topics that matter most.

• Episodes are ~30 minutes each.

• Some are structured as research reports; others are interviews with experts.

• All episodes are paired with a “Learn More Document” that includes notes, timestamps, a glossary, resources for further study & discussion questions.

• Some episodes are free. Episodes with a 🔒 are for paid subscribers only. To upgrade, subscribe here.

Available Now: 

Soft Skills:

1. How to Prioritize

2. How to Be Indistractable (Featuring Nir Eyal)

3. How to Listen (Actively) 🔒

4. How to Negotiate 🔒 (w/ Catherine Stewart)

5. How to Build Trust (Part I)

The First-Time Manager:

1. How to Win Candidates🔒 (w/ Catherine Stewart)

2. How to Onboard Remote Employees (w/ Catherine Stewart)

3. How to Give Critical Feedback🔒 (w/ Catherine Stewart)

4. How to Fire Someone with Humanity🔒 (w/ Catherine Stewart)

5. How to Have a 1:1 (In Production)

Coming Soon: 

• How to Develop Relationships (Remotely) 

• How to Motivate & Influence Others

• How to Have a Difficult Conversation

Have a request? Please leave a comment!

Leave a comment

Hi everybody, hope you are having a wonderful weekend! 

Our guest for this coaching session is a friend and former professor of mine, Frank Cespedes. Frank is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, where he teaches a variety of MBA and executive courses on Management, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, and Sales. Before joining the faculty, he worked at the strategy consulting firm Bain & Company and was Managing Partner at the Center for Executive Development.  An active investor, advisor, and board member, Frank is also a prolific writer. He’s written six books - mostly on sales (see links below) and dozens of articles for publications like Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fortune.  He has also written more than 40 case studies for Harvard. 

In this conversation, Frank and I dive into one of his favorite topics, sales management, as we discuss his latest book, Sales Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing. He shares with us the professional, intellectual, and practical reasons for focusing a career on sales, the challenges associated with learning & training, and how he believes selling is changing (or not changing) in an increasingly remote world. We discuss the challenging shift many salespeople make from individual contributor to management, the importance of creating a culture of excellence, and how integrating sales into the overall company strategy is mission-critical in driving performance. We wrap with a discussion of how buyer behavior is changing in an increasingly data-rich, omnichannel world and how that impacts the role salespeople must play.

If any of these topics appeal to you more than another, feel free to check the show notes below. You will find links to the Key Takeaways doc, as well as timestamps so that you can skip ahead to the relevant part.

I found this conversation absolutely fascinating, and I hope you will too.

Let's dive in!

~ Michelle 

📝 Link to Key Takeaways Doc 📝

⏱️ Timestamps:

• Why focus a career on sales? (5:28)

• On training, learning & development (09:59)

• Sales in a remote world (17:48)

• Sales management (22:20)

• Culture of excellence, performance management & strategy (27:31)

• Sales & the macroeconomic situation (36:46)

• What’s changing in sales (42:22)

• Parting words (47:56)

📚 Referenced & Further Study: 

• Sales Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing [Frank’s latest book]

• Preparing Sales for a Changing Economy: Part 1 (trainingindustry.com)

• Preparing Sales for a Changing Economy, Part 2: Getting More from Your Training Spending (trainingindustry.com)

• Frank’s author page on Amazon

• Frank’s bio

📝 Notes & Key Takeaways

Why focus a career on sales? [5:28]

• Three main reasons: professional, intellectual & practical 

• Professionally: Sales = the activities in a company for customer acquisition and retention; central to business management. Peter Drucker (management guru) famously said, “customer acquisition is the only revenue generating activity; ev…

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How to Onboard (Remote Employees)

By Catherine Stewart

📝Notes: 

Why is this an important competency?

• Onboarding is one of the more critical moments when you are introducing an employee to the company and the company to that employee to make sure they are set up for success.

• It is harder in a remote environment to onboard, and we are moving into a world where remote is not just common but often the default, and it's here to stay. 

• A remote environment complicates onboarding and requires much tighter processes for successful onboarding. 

What's the problem? 

• Managers struggle to ensure their teams build the right social connections early enough, meet the right people, and learn how things get done in the company.

• Onboarding typically is where you connect with colleagues, bond with the team, and get a feel for the company & culture → it is now often threatened. 

The goal of onboarding:

• Goal: Human and tight of a process as possible → make sure employees don't feel lonely and disconnected and drift in the wrong direction.

• New employees have a lot to learn: who the key players are and how things get done; they may also be new to the industry & tools used. 

• Managers must ensure they are set up to quickly learn as much as possible. 

How remote is different: 

• Typically natural interactions don't happen (e.g., shadow, observe, pop over to someone's desk) 

• Remote onboarding requires more communication and intentionality.

• Employees can struggle in a few ways, e.g., (1) in knowing who to meet, (2) may not know what is expected of them or how to prioritize their time; they don't know how they are doing b/c there is less non-verbal feedback; (3) more likely to veer off course b/c will take a longer time for their manager to notice 

• Many employees feel disconnected and lonely → identify if other employees live near them that you can introduce them; consider who might be social/good at slack who can become a buddy at work (e.g., "cultural warriors") 

Tactics to support onboarding:

• Overcommunication - everything in a single one-stop shop manual (prepare far in advance, ideally once they accept the offer, expect to spend at least a few hours on it) – projects, information, background reading (more detail below)

• Structural support with the team (e.g., first project paired with someone who has been at the company for a while) → creates incentives for them to help one another. It also generates natural information sharing. 

• Higher-than-typical velocity of check-ins and 1:1s (e.g., 2-3x/week for the first few weeks) 

• Shadow calls & meetings (to give guidance and feedback) → sets the stage for the future flow of feedback. 

• Ensure you understand their needs (e.g., training in Slack or Google docs) → can get support lined up if possible (e.g., training with HR) 

• Team connection → helpful to have a mix of team calls and 1:1s across the team. Ideally, have work-related reasons that tie the team together. Virtual coffee/beer is not the same as in-person. Good to have some sort of team meetup, even if just a few members. 

Onboarding Document - what to include: 

*Note: As you build your team, you can re-use portions of this document with future hires. It's helpful to invest time upfront. 

1. Prioritized list of who the new hire should meet with and why (next level here includes scheduling these meetings in advance of Day 1); 

2. (If possible) list of people who live nearby who they could meet

3. List of slack groups to join and how to engage with each (e.g., which ones to pay most attention to vs. which ones are more for social/passive monitoring) 

4. Links to the doc for 1:1s (so they can drop in questions as they come up during onboarding) 

5. Key reading & context for why it matters (e.g., company OKRs, strategy, board docs, past projects) 

6. Link to doc describing the first project (including scope, who they will be working with, and what success looks like) 

7. FAQs: names of people on exec team (or board if applicable for their role); common challenges specific to the company culture and how to handle them (sometimes better for a conversation); date of first performance review, what process will look like and if they'll qualify for a pay increase; the cadence of feedback/PDs (professional development conversations) 

Team integration:

• Best to have a new team norms conversation each time a new member joins 

• Team norms doc: can include things like preferred methods of communication, working hours, personality type (e.g., Myers Briggs or Enneagram) 

• Can share as a manager what is essential to you (e.g., ideal advanced notice for a planned vacation, expectations around working hours/facetime) 

Final words of wisdom:

• As a manager, it's important to think about how you can give your employees what they need to succeed (e.g., quick wins, visibility, coverage)  

💬 Discussion Questions:

1. Think back to a time when you started a job

   • How did you feel in the days leading up to your first day? Did you have contact with your manager or the company? How did the contact (or lack thereof) make you feel? 

   • In the first few days after starting, what did your manager do that helped you feel more comfortable? Inspired? 

   • What do you wish you had received that you didn’t? 

   • When did you feel fully “onboarded” or “ramped”? Looking back, is there anything your manager could have done to help you ramp & integrate faster? 

2. When onboarding a new hire, what should be the goal(s)? How do you know if you have succeeded? 

3. What can you do to make onboarding a more scalable and easy-to-replicate process? How can you leverage resources that already exist? Is there anything you can share from your onboarding process with other managers? 

4. Will you have any new hires starting in the next six months? If so, what is your plan to onboard them?

✏️ Did we miss something? Any other tips or tricks you’d like to share? Leave a comment below.

Leave a comment

“Very important people have told me that they prefer good listeners to good talkers, but the ability to listen seems rarer than almost any other good trait. And not only important personages crave a good listener, but ordinary folk do too.”  - Dale Carnegie. How to Win Friends and Influence People

“I had listened intently. I had listened because I was genuinely interested. And he felt it. Naturally that pleased him. That kind of listening is one of the highest compliments we can pay anyone. “Few human beings,” wrote Jack Woodford in Strangers in Love, “few human beings are proof against the implied flattery of rapt attention.” - Dale Carnegie. How to Win Friends and Influence People 

📝 Notes: 

What is active listening? 

• Active listening means letting the other person know that he or she has been heard. You do this by involving yourself in the conversation, making clarifying statements, asking questions, summarizing what you have heard, and using appropriate visual and vocal cues. The best listeners are active ones. 

• More specifically it has three aspects: 

  1. Cognitive: paying attention to the information (explicit & implicit) - comprehending and integrating the information 

  2. Emotional - staying calm and compassionate, managing emotional reactions (e.g., annoyance, boredom) 

  3. Behavioral - conveying interest and comprehension verbally and nonverbally

• Why is this hard? → Gap between comprehension and speaking - most people speak 80-120 words per minute - but many people can comprehend at a higher rate → even up to 1000 words per minute! So there is a 900 word per minute gap - easy to tune out and think of other things and then check back in. But you will inherently miss something - so you must *actively* listen - not easy, especially for fast thinkers. 

Why listen? 

• Will keep you from talking too much - which can give you a reputation for being a know it all - nobody likes that 

• Learn a lot - what is going on, gain insights and information 

• Build connection & rapport (aka friendship) – required for any conversation – people like being around good listeners - everybody wants to feel heard - a very basic part of human needs is to feel respected, liked, and appreciated 

• Build trust & makes people feel good - people want to be heard, recognized → “I commit to being a person to whom others can express themselves with candor.” 

• Can de-escalate a dicey situation - “The chronic kicker, even the most violent critic, will frequently soften and be subdued in the presence of a patient, sympathetic listener—a listener who will be silent while the irate fault-finder dilates like a king cobra and spews the poison out of his system.” - Dale Carnegie. 

  1. “When this candor is met with curiosity and deep listening “Tell me more about that thought. I’m curious to know what you think,” amazing breakthroughs of insight and innovation often occur. – 15 commitments 

• “He had wanted merely a friendly, sympathetic listener to whom he could unburden himself. That’s what we all want when we are in trouble. That is frequently all the irritated customer wants, and the dissatisfied employee or the hurt friend. -Dale Carnegie.  

• Shows respect for people’s ideas, experience and opinions: “one of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.” - Bryant McGill 

• Ultimately, it will make you a great manager. As HBR writes, “employers who fail to listen and thoughtfully respond to their people’s concerns will see great turnover” 

How to do it? 

Don’ts: 

1. Talk too much - even if you think your own voice is the most beautiful sound in the world - if you are talking, you aren’t listening! Also you run the risk of boring people and alienating them as well 

2. Interrupt, contradict → it’s distracting and irritating for the other person, makes them want to end the conversation (or leave altogether) 

   1. “If you want to know how to make people shun you and laugh at you behind your back and even despise you, here is the recipe: Never listen to anyone for long. Talk incessantly about yourself. If you have an idea while the other person is talking, don’t wait for him or her to finish: bust right in and interrupt in the middle of a sentence.” - Carnegie

3. Respond with mere silence → the person may wonder if you are paying attention - better to show that you are listening 

4. When you finally talk, turn the conversation back to yourself – you should instead continue the other person’s line of communication 

5. Do other things while listening - nothing is worse than sharing something with someone that matters to you only to hear their clicking away on a keyboard or phone - and then say “sorry what were you saying?” → if you need to attend to something urgent, say “I’m so sorry but will you hold that thought for a moment? I have something urgent that just came across my desk” 

6. Think about what you will say next - you are then not listening: 

   1. “many people fail to make a favorable impression because they don’t listen attentively. “They have been so much concerned with what they are going to say next that they do not keep their ears open. - Dale Carnegie.  

7. Apply a listening filter: 

   1. DIAGNOSE: “The problem with your manager is…” 

   2. CORRECT: “This isn’t really an operations issue, this is a strategy problem.”

   3. AVOID CONFLICT: “I’m sure that they didn’t mean that; I’m sure you can work it out”

   4. DEFEND: “Are you suggesting that I did something wrong?” 

Do’s: 

1. Listen often!  Many new managers have the mistaken idea that the minute they are promoted everyone is going to hang on every word they say. That is the wrong approach. The more they listen, the more successful they will be. How much listening is enough? As a starting point, make sure that you are doing at least twice as much listening as talking.  - The First-Time Manager 

2. “You have two ears, two eyes, one mouth” → use them in proportion 

3. Control your thoughts (e.g., discussing a problem with an employee, other thoughts may enter your mind) – if you are particularly bothered by one you may want to stop the conversation - you can say “give me a moment to get this thought out of my mind so I can fully focus on what you’re saying” – then write it down and get back to active listening - this will ensure you are fully present and not accidentally sending a nonverbal message that you are distracted 

4. Listen with your mind, not just your ears - (aka pay attention) 

5. Listen to what the person is feeling as they speak - find the core desire behind the content; Listen to the three centers of intelligence - head center (words, thoughts & beliefs), – can repeat back to ensure you accurately heard them; heart center (emotions being expressed directly or indirectly) – look at tone of voice, facial expressions, breath; gut/instinctive center 

6. Use appropriate signals at the right time - don’t “uh huh” rush them - take a pause, say “uh-hm, “right”, “that makes sense”, “interesting”, “why do you think that she said that?”, “why did you feel that way”, “say more?”, “tell me more?” “I see what you mean” – you can also nod, keep eye contact (don’t stare too hard), smile (shows you are enjoying the conversation) – can also repeat back a few words (e.g., “and then you tore up the paper - wow”) – gives you some time to pause and think about how to respond 

7. Ask questions - ensures you understand and prompts for more detail 

8. Restating - “the height of active listening” (first time manager) – shows you were engaged and it reduces the chance you were mistaken in your understanding – (e.g., “let me make sure I understand what you’re saying” - “If I am hearing this correctly, you ___” or “what I’m hearing is X” — ABC – “is that right?” – shows you understand and value what the person is saying → but note, this can increase emotional friction and mental load - only use this if you really need to check comprehension and say “I’m going to put this in my own words” (HBR) 

9. Make sure that your tone, words & body language match up - if you say “well THAT’S interesting” in a nasty tone, you will be doing more damage than good 

10. Minimize distractions - itchy outfit, hot, noisy environment, interruptions – if you are preoccupied try to remove the distractions and take time to re-center – additionally, if you are anticipating a difficult conversation - take time to get into a calm headspace so you can focus  (e.g., block some time before to do breathing or go for a walk)

11. If you aren’t fully present, be upfront (e.g., if you are sick, tired, distracted) 

12. Stay grounded - if you feel agitated, and anxious to respond, try some deep breathing (be subtle though as deep sighs can make you look bored) 

13. Allow yourself to view this as a skill - if it doesn't come naturally, role play/practice - eventually it will become second nature 

14. Be patient - with yourself and your partner in conversation! We can all become better listeners. If you are struggling with this skillset, give yourself a break! 

✅ Tactical next steps: 

1. If you think you listen actively (consciously) ask some people you work with (or are close to) if they feel comfortable being candid and open with you

2. You could also ask for feedback on your listening skills

3. Think about your listening skills at work and in your personal life - do they differ? How do you listen to your best friends? Your boss? Your teammates? Your direct reports? 

4. Observe other people in their listening. Who do you know who is a great listener? What makes them so great at listening? Consider giving them a compliment! Everybody wants to be a great listener. 

🗣 Extra quotes: 

• “A man who met Freud described his manner of listening: “It struck me so forcibly that I shall never forget him. He had qualities which I had never seen in any other man. Never had I seen such concentrated attention. There was none of that piercing ‘soul penetrating gaze’ business. His eyes were mild and genial. His voice was low and kind. His gestures were few. But the attention he gave me, his appreciation of what I said, even when I said it badly, was extraordinary. You’ve no idea what it meant to be listened to like that.” - Dale Carnegie 

• “So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments. - Dale Carnegie.  

• One of the greatest gifts we give one another is to listen deeply to what the other person most wants. - The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: 

🎓 Further Study: 

• How to Be a Better Listener [NY Times]

• How to Become a Better Listener [Harvard Business Review]

• The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership

• The First Time Manager 

• How to Win Friends & Influence People

Hello! Welcome to Growth Path.

So what is Growth Path? 

We're a new startup that produces audio courses for professional development. Our first course is Management Level 1. 

Why management? Well, for one thing, we all have to do it. Whether you're managing your own life and schedule, a tough job, a busy household, or a small team, we are all constantly ma…

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Featuring Jesse Hunt

📝 Notes: 

Introduction: 

• It can be unnerving to put yourself out there to ask for business, money, time.

• Many posts & blogs say, "do this, don't do that," but cold outreach can be exciting, creative, and effective. 

• It's important to learn the basics: what is a cold email, how do they work, and what are some different frameworks. 

Content, Copy & Packaging: 

• Think of a beautiful letter (e.g., hand-written, pretty color) → earns the right to take up 30 seconds of your day. 

• Similarly, with email, the packaging is the subject line – and many people discount it.

• The subject line is like a welcome mat --> helps the recipient feel more comfortable and engaged with what you are positioning. 

• A poorly crafted subject line (e.g., "Re: ____") is more likely to go to spam. It also annoys people. Don't trick your recipients into opening an email → nobody likes to feel tricked; taking shortcuts with underhanded tactics won't work in the long term. 

• Buyers buy with emotion and justify with rationale. 

When to personalize vs. not:

• It's common to "tier your accounts" --> to determine which accounts could have a high yield (opportunities created).

• For some accounts, you will target specific individuals with a high level of customization. Other accounts and individuals go into a "batch & blast" process (less customized but still familiar). 

Subject lines

• Ideal to do a personalized email subject line whenever possible (e.g., "Wouldn't it be great if you could clone [former top employee name]?")

• Review the person's footprint (e.g., blog, bio) and include a reference in the subject line or email. 

• Typical open rates: depends on the campaign and situation —> hard to generalize.

What to do if someone isn't responding:

• Show empathy (e.g., "I'm guessing you're slammed right now.”)

• Keep it short (so you don't annoy them). 

• Ask a question they can respond to quickly if interested (e.g., "any thoughts here?"). 

• Change the subject line of the email thread mid-communication (e.g., "Given up?") followed with a concise email (e.g., "Have you given up on this project?") → nobody likes to give up. 

Body of the email  

• Keep the body of the email short → If you write a long email, you ask for a time commitment before you've earned the right to ask for their time. 

• Test the emails on yourself first (e.g., to see how many scrolls it requires on the phone). 

• 3x3 research: in three minutes, you should be able to find three pieces of relevant information about a contact or account (e.g., recent funding, hire, product release) → try to get that research into the email. 

• Know to whom you are selling (e.g., only use sales jargon with people in sales). 

• The tone should be respectful, personal, and authentic (senior leaders get dozens of emails daily - they can sniff out BS). 

Emails vs. Calls: 

• Know your strengths and weaknesses - "sales is a brutal sport - need to know what you are good at" – if you are great at talking to people, you may do better on calls. If you are a strong writer, you may do better on emails. 

• Split testing/AB Testing: may do 50 cold calls and 50 emails and compare the yield. 

• Introverts do very well in sales - don't assume you need to be extroverted.

How to avoid burnout: 

• Cold outreach can be exhausting, lonely & filled with rejection. 

• Even the best reps face more rejection than acceptance. 

• Stay close to your manager. Let them know when you feel overburdened or need a break → that is what the team is for. 

• Try to make it fun - even if people say no, find the relevant information. 

Common mistakes

• Pitch slapping - connecting with someone & immediately afterward pitching a product or service → scorched-earth tactic and sloppy; bad for sales community in general. 

• Taking too long to get to the point → don't talk too much about yourself. Just explain how you are going to help the buyer solve a problem.

• Don't use an overly formal tone; okay to use conjunctions. 

Interest-focused CTAs & Empathy

• Your call-to-action (aka CTA) matters.

• An interest-focused CTA (e.g., "are you interested in meeting?") tends to perform better than a time-focused CTA (e.g., "can I have 15 minutes of your time?"). Time is finite & interest is infinite. 

• Better to come from a "consultative" approach vs. "I want to talk to you." Try to present something valuable to the buyer (e.g., "are you interested in solving those problems"?). It's a subtle difference and makes it about the other person.

• Empathy is a core skill set in sales. Avoid using personal pronouns like "I" and "me." It makes it about you, not the buyer. 

📇 Glossary: 

• Tiering your accounts: determining which accounts could have a high yield. 

• Yield: opportunities created, meetings set out of the outreach set 

• Split testing (aka A/B Testing): a controlled experiment aimed at improving a specific metric

• 3x3 research: three minutes for three relevant pieces of research 

• Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): the type of company or customer who would most benefit from your product or service 

• CISO: Chief Information Security Officer 

• Pitch slapping: a near-instant sales pitch for a product before the need or a connection is established

• Scorched-earth tactic: a last-ditch attempt 

📇 Further Study:

• A Guide to Cold Emailing [HBR Blog]

• 7 Cold Email Stats To Write Killer Cold Emails [Gong Blog]

• How to Write Cold Emails That Always Get Responses [Hubspot YouTube 📺]

• The Ins & Outs of Cold Emailing That Delivers Results [Hubspot blog] 

• From building AWS to crafting the best cold emails by Manny Medina [Podcast]

• Cold Email Wizard (Course & Twitter Account) 

• Other Tips & Tricks [Twitter post from Michelle]

• Cold Email [Wikipedia]

Did we miss something? Have a great tip or trick about cold emails? Please leave a comment below! 👇

Leave a comment

In this session, taught by Catherine Stewart, we cover how to fire someone with dignity & humanity. Here are the topics we cover:

• Why firing an important skill for managers to develop

• Different reasons people are fired

• Pre-work for firing in case of underperformance

• How to prepare & what to expect for the firing

• What to do if someone becomes emotional

• Firing for cause

• Layoffs

📝 Notes: 

Why is firing an important skill for managers to develop? 

• Most managers struggle with first firing (and often, all firing). 

• Letting someone go kindly, humanely, and with respect is in the best interest of the employee, the company, and the manager. 

• The world is small - the people you fire will carry their impression of you and the firing into the future (where they may be potential partners, references for new hires, etc.)

Different reasons people are fired: 

1. With cause: violated the terms of their employment (e.g., HR violation, breach of confidentiality)

2. Without cause: usually related to underperformance 

3. Layoffs (e.g., different strategic direction or budget cuts) 

Pre-work for firing in case of underperformance: 

• Touch base with the HR and/or legal department to understand the legal environment. It can vary by state, city, county, and country (e.g., "Gardening Leave" in the UK).

• Communicate clearly with the employee over weeks/months the expectations & document the communications & issues (e.g., in a performance improvement plan aka PIP) → this mitigates the risk of a lawsuit. 

• Ensure you know what you are offering the employee (e.g., assistance finding a new role).

• Align with the HR and/or legal department on the checklist of logistical items (e.g., when is the last paycheck, health insurance coverage (COBRA), internal messaging, separation agreement, and general release of claims.)

How to prepare & what to expect for the firing: 

• It will be challenging, but don't let that get in the way of being direct and doing it swiftly.

• More direct = kinder. 

• Schedule it in person if possible—next best video, then phone. Ideally, schedule it soon to avoid dragging it on, which can be anxiety-inducing. 

• If performance-related, it will be the culmination of an ongoing conversation that has been happening for weeks or months → there should be no new information; they will understand how you got there.

• Be sensitive to emotions - there will be many. The person being fired may feel that their identity is threatened, and they may feel shame or financial anxiety for themselves and their family.

• You may also feel many emotions such as disappointment, guilt, self-recrimination, and even betrayal (especially if you hired them). 

• Do not debate. Use a kind tone of voice, and don't be aggressive. Use a tone of respect and empathy paired with direct language. The conversation should be clear & easy with no opportunity for misinterpretation. They should feel cared for. 

• If at all possible, call out the positive and what you will miss and what you appreciate about the employee and their achievements. 

• Communicate the path forward - the transition plan, severance (if applicable), and what the next few weeks will look like (e.g., 1:1 frequency, paperwork, separation agreement and release of claims, COBRA, what will happen with their options, parting gesture such as goodbye drinks. 

• Follow up afterward with a written summary in consultation with HR and/or the legal department (it can be hard to digest everything in the conversation, and helpful to have a paper trail to mitigate risk). 

What to do if someone becomes emotional:

• Very common for intense feelings of negativity (e.g., anger, shame, sadness, crying) --> Listen and understand that this is human and natural; try to create an environment where they feel comfortable sharing feelings with you, and ensure they feel heard and understood. 

• If for underperformance, acknowledge how you could have done better and listen to their feedback → you can learn a lot from upward feedback regarding how things could have gone better. 

Firing for cause: 

• An employee let go for cause (e.g., sexual harassment, breach of confidentiality) will typically require more involvement with HR or Legal (and they may lead the process themselves.)

• Sometimes there may be a need for a discovery process (e.g., interviewing people about the incident, reviewing documentation such as Slack messages and emails).

• For the termination itself, HR may attend.

• The employee may need to be "walked out the door" to ensure they don't download confidential materials or do anything potentially vindictive. 

• The process will depend on circumstances and company policy.

Layoffs: 

• Usually, there's a standard severance package (may be a formula for the number of years or months or seniority). Work with HR and find out what is standard for the company.

• Best to communicate to everybody on the same day to ensure that people hear the information as quickly as possible from you rather than from other team members. 

• Ensure those who remain know the cuts are over & they have a place at the company. This makes it more likely you will retain top performers. 

• If you have the capability, help the laid-off employees find their next job (e.g., put them in touch with recruiters, reach out to hiring managers, serve as a reference) 

📇 Glossary:

• HR Violation/HRV: violation of the terms of employment

• Performance Improvement Plan (aka PIP): a tool that provides employees with performance deficiencies the opportunity to succeed

• Cause: terminated due to HR violation and/or broken policies or laws

• General release of claims form: waives the right to sue the company down the road [note that it won't be binding unless the company has paid consideration to the employee, such as severance]

• Garden(ing) leave: the employee does not work while remaining on the payroll 

• Discovery process: period to obtain evidence

• "Walked out the door": a more formal termination process that typically involves revoking access to digital files (aka "a box and an escort") 

📇 Further Study:

• Firing with Compassion (HBR) 

• Fair, Square & Legal: Safe Hiring, Managing & Firing Practices to Keep You & Your Company Out of Court

• For Your Improvement, Korn Ferry

💬 Discussion Questions:

1. Have you worked alongside someone who you felt should be let go? 

• If so, describe the situation. What was the person's role on the team? Why did you think that termination was merited?

• How did this employee’s behavior or performance affect the rest of the team? 

• How did the situation ultimately resolve? 

• If you had been this person's manager, what would you have done differently? 

2. If you knew you had to terminate a direct report *tomorrow*, how would you feel? 

• What fears or concerns might you have as you prepare for the conversation? 

• How would your feelings change if you considered this direct report to be a friend? 

• How do you think the news may affect your direct report, both emotionally and practically? 

• What might you do to help your report adjust to the news? How can you help them cleanly transition out of the company, and find their next job?

Note: The information provided on this website does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available on this site are for general informational purposes only. Information on this website may not constitute the most up-to-date legal or other information. This website contains links to other third-party websites. Such links are only for the convenience of the reader, user or browser; we do not recommend or endorse the contents of the third-party sites.

📝 Notes

Why is it so important to be skilled at giving critical feedback? 

• It's essential if you're going to work well together over the longer term. 

• Need to ensure everyone understands standards; getting continuous feedback enables the team to hit goals and keep improving as individuals.

How can new managers develop their skills in this area? 

• Remember that you don't always have all the information; ensure you don't have a misinterpretation of the context for any observed behaviors. 

• Provide feedback immediately (or at least very soon) after noticing the behavior (also ensures if you have misinformation, it is cleared up quickly) 

• Give critical feedback in private (avoids embarrassment or awkwardness) 

• Ask the recipient how they think things went - it gives them a chance to provide full context.

• Describe what you saw & the impact (e.g., how it influenced the meeting and the person's credibility, etc.). 

• Talk about how you would avoid the situation in the future and how you would do it differently (both manager & direct report); how can you as a manager help the person stay accountable to commitments and allow them to practice skill sets. 

• Pair negative feedback with positive feedback & recognition; see the situation holistically - pull out what did work and what the person did well (but don't fabricate it) 

*Note: We recommend you listen if possible. The notes are meant to be used as a refresher after listening.

How to Win Candidates 🙌

Featuring Catherine Stewart.

🎙 Notes from the Conversation:

Why is it important to be great at winning candid…

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