Proven Tactics to 10x Your Impact as a Leader | David Kline (ex-Bridgewater)

My experience, leaders who don't delegate, it usually starts from, like, they're afraid of something, like they're, you know, losing their position in their craft, and so there. So sometimes people won't delegate because of the fear of being less connected to the craft or making themselves obsolete. Some people won't delegate because they're afraid the people they delegate to won't do it as well. And that mistake could lead to either bad things for the employee or bad thing for you. The manager overseeing the employee. There's, like, first place just to get over these gear, because a lot of them are. They are true in the near term, but they are holding you back in the medium to long term. If you don't get over these fears, you never really actually become a manager.

My guest today is David Klein. David worked directly with Ray Dalio at Bridgewater and spent over 20 years leading teams. We spoke about his journey from leader to solopreneur, how to manage up well, and how to delegate and help other people grow. David has taught over 800 leaders through his management course, so I'm thrilled that he's sharing his insights here for free. If you enjoy our conversation, please like and subscribe to support this podcast. All right, so thanks so much for doing this with me. I really appreciate it. So let's talk about your, I guess, corporate career first. Right. So before doing this, you spent two decades leading teams at Bridgewater and Moody's and other companies. And I remember, like, just like a. A couple years ago, I read Ray Dalio's book Principles, and, like, it was kind of like one of my favorite books. So I'm just curious, like, what kind of things did you learn working at Bridgewater, like, in terms of the culture and stuff? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I was, you know, I was fortunate enough to spend 10 years there, and a couple of them I worked directly for. Right. At some level, it's hard to summarize, like, things you've learned over a decade in, like, a single sentence. His book the Principles is very much about this idea of first principles thinking. Right. Like, learning the timeless truths that are unique to your own journey and then applying them. And so of all the ones I think that each shared that I've taken away with, and I'm like, oh, in reflection, what have had, what's had the most impact on my career and on my life? I would say it's the principle of you can have anything you want, not everything, which is, you know, to some degree, a clever way of saying that you need to focus. But A lot of times I think people are unwilling to sort of see that through. Right. Sort of. You know, and we're experiencing that very acutely in our creator journey. Right. Like, my wife and I do this together. We refer to ourselves as duo Preneurs. We have a live course. Right. So every time we teach a live course, we're not building a digital product or we're not writing the next newsletter. We choose to write a newsletter. We're not, you know, engaging with our customers, et cetera. And so there's a real, real relentless focus for us on keeping the name thing because there's so many interesting shiny objects right now. You know, should we be chasing AI? Should we be, you know, leaning in direction? So that was just a fallback to that principle that came from, I don't know, keep the main thing. The main thing, like Bridgewater got to be the world's largest hedge fund, really, with two main products. The great reminder to sort of have lived that and now sort of try to keep reapplying it in my world. Got it.

Yeah. Like, even working the different tech companies. Yeah. There's always literally chase latest trend, whether it's like audio crypto or like now AI. And usually it doesn't work out if it's like too separate from your core basis. So, yeah, that's the biggest. No.

So I think a real tension in that. There's a lot of stories. Like you took Airbnb as being the pandemic when they were right, they were going to start an airline and they had all these different initiatives and they came back to the core. These are what's happened to them since. And then you have tons of business when you go back in time and like the Hewlett packards and the 3Ms. That started in business, a business and they pivoted to become a, like, wildly successful business in a totally different line. And like, you can imagine being in the seat of a founder and saying, like, which world am I in? Am I in the world that I have to shrink back to only the thing that works or am I on the wrong track and I need that pivot? So I'm empathetic for people trying to figure out that problem. Yeah.

I don't think there's like a playbook. It's like hard choices that you have to make. Yeah.

I'd love to figure out how to write it. There was.

Yeah. So, so, like. So, yeah. So after Bridgewater or like just kind of walk me through your thought process and journey transitioning from this full time Role to kind of working for a software with your wife. Like, why did you do this? And like, how do you do this?

Yeah, yeah, it's a great question. So I would say the core pieces were one a little bit in my DNA. Like we always knew we would do it, we just didn't know when. And I really thought, you know, I graduated with an engineering degree. I thought, I'll get a couple years of business experience and start my business. And I kept waiting for the big idea. In two years, became 10, became 20 plus and. And probably the most unlocking piece was realizing that I was a reasonably good operator and that I didn't need to have an amazing idea that there's lots of lucrative, profitable businesses in the world that can just go be operated well. So the, I think that the aha moment was combining that realization that like, oh, what if we went and bought a business? Then we would have cash flow, then we would have a Runway. We don't need to have the big idea, but maybe we can evolve the thing we buy into that. And the other thing was more the career side. Right. Like I had been at Bridgewater 10 years. We moved people around a lot. Like if you were in leadership there, you sort of moved different departments. So I'd been the COO of a couple departments, I had met a couple departments and I sort of looked up one day and like, there's not another mission that I wanted to go take that I thought was going to be particularly additive. So when you put those two pieces together, it was time. And then the jury, your question of how we spent. We sort of had given ourselves a Runway. We said like, if we buy a business within a year, we should be okay. And so we had that year to explore. And I, we could put hires on all kinds of businesses, like an oil change franchise, lots of digital businesses. But the good, like we were using each of those explorations to sort of test what mattered to us. And we really wanted a relatively like high margin, low employee business that was portable. And so that was like a. We didn't want to have to like have a massive team.

Right.

Right away because we had never done this before. And like, I just, I would feel very beholden to like these people's livelihoods. Yeah, I'm okay to gamble with mine, but maybe I wasn't quite competent enough to gamble with somebody else's. The portable things seemed appealing to us as we, our kids get older and they will eventually go to off to college and can we. What could we be able to travel et Cetera. So we ended up buying a education review site where they looks at different courses on LinkedIn, learning, on Udemy, on Skillshare. A lot of our partners, we reviewed them and then if people use those reviews to go purchase, we get a small, you know, we get a small commission. Part of the logic of that was two things. One, we were seeing the rise of cohort based courses and so we thought, hey, we can grow this business to cover these live higher ticket courses. And then the other piece was eventually, could we have our own course content to drive traffic to you from that site? And so instead of getting a small commission, we get the entire fee. And those last two things sort of collided and we got to know the. Got to know Wes and Goggin at Maven went through the Maven accelerator and sort of tentatively offered a course on management, thinking we'd get, you know, eight or 10 people to come and that would offset the cost of building the course. And we had our first course. Our first cohort had a wait list of 150 people. We've now taught 10 total cohorts in year one, five of them on Maven, sort of open to everybody, five of them within companies. We're teaching cohorts of just that company's leadership teams. So anyways, it's been a, it's been a wild journey.

Yeah, that sounds amazing. I mean, management is like a skill that you kind of have to work hard to learn and like, it doesn't come naturally and most people are pretty crappy for first time managers.

Right.

So I'm really glad that you're kind of like teaching this and bringing it to the world. But like, why don't we talk more about that topic? I think, I guess like, why don't we start with like, if you were to define what management is in one phrase, like, what would that be?

Yeah, it's funny you described a lot of people as starting the craft in a, in a crappy way. Because if I were, if I were to sum it in one sentence, I'd say management is leadership done poorly. Just to expand on that. Right. The, a lot of the phrases people will think about with management will be like directing, controlling. It's very much about like, how do I get these people to do certain things on my timeline at my cost. Right. It's sort of born, I think the images a lot of people have is like born of the industrial age, like how do I run an assembly line? And I think that's not really management today, at least not effective management. That I see effective management, I see looks a lot more like leadership. Right. Like how do I empower people? How do I give them the resources they need to go do things that they're more capable of doing than I'm capable of doing? How do you inspire a team towards a common mission? Especially when that mission is knowledge work and sometimes you're in uncharted territory. You know what I mean? It's not just make another car, it's go like invent what a car can even be. We were talking about AI a bit, you know, like think about leading. Like you can't run that like a factory because you're sort of inventing the factory as you build it and think about the types of people you want to attract, how you'd like them to work together. And so that's why I think honestly like management is the entry point to becoming a leader. And management done excellently looks a lot like leadership.

Yeah, I love the definition because that means that anyone can be a leader. If you don't manage anybody, you can like cross on people together and just get something done. Yeah, I love that.

I think it's well said.

Yeah. So I guess why don't we start from the bottom. So let's talk about managing upwards. If you're just like a regular employee like IC and you know, you want to build a great relationship with your boss and your skip level, like what are some kind of do's and don'ts of doing that.

Yeah. Well I'll give you one do and one don't. Why don't we start from there and then we can stand on either however you want. So I'd say the do is pass the boundary of your job. Yeah, like the I, it's one of the, it's like my current pet peeve as I read more and more things on social media where people are. It's the foundation of quiet quitting. You know, this idea of like draw a very clear boundary and leave. And I'm, I just think it's really short sighted, you know, like especially early in your career. It's a, it's an opportunity to grow. You want to go like collect as many experiences as you can. You want to interact with as many people as you can. You want to learn what you're great at and what you struggle with. You want to sort of wrestle with some of those struggles. And I think you're just slowing down that process by drawing a really hard boundary around yourself. And does that mean sometimes you work more hours or does that sometimes mean you're doing work that's not officially your job? Like, yes. Does that mean you'll grow faster, you'll add more value, you have more of those experiences? Absolutely. And do you run the risk in some small percentage of cases that like a company or the manager will take advantage of you? Like, yes, you do run that risk. But I just think it's a risk worth taking. So if I'm leaving, you do advice. It's like, just look for places you can add as much value as you can and don't worry about like whether they give you the title for it or it's in your job or not.

That's great advice. Yeah.

I would say the don't bucket. I would say something One of the CEOs I work for and then I've sort of passed down through time to my teams. It's just like, no surprises. Like, don't let me find out about something bad, a problem, a time you needed help from somebody else. Right. Like, I will, I promise that I will engage you in the most positive way. We will collaborate together. I just don't want to be surprised. And so I'd say, like, don't surprise your boss. You know, like, unless it's maybe, maybe for their birthday, maybe you can jump out of the room. But otherwise, like communicate transparently. If you have metrics about your role, you know, share them. When something bad comes up, just like go own it. It's fine. Like, we're, most of us are expecting you to make mistakes and we're still making them too. Like, management's a really hard craft and so we're going to be imperfect. We expect you to be imperfect. We can only help them on the things we know about.

How do you, I guess, help your boss empower you?

Right.

Like maybe just like a weekly one on one or like, what are some channels to like work with your boss to find the right opportunities outside of your job and not surprise him or her. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Hopefully, Emmett Day, hopefully your manager, the leader you work for, is actually having a one on one with you on a regular basis. Assuming that's the case, the mindset I would encourage people to walk into is that it's your meeting as the employee, not their meeting as the manager. Right. So you are the thing that I'll talk to the people I coach is like, you're the CEO of your own area. I borrowed that from one of my clients, but it's how he runs the teams. But he wants people to show up and say like, okay, in my. And this works for employees. This works for team leads. This works for managers. This works for people running division, which is simply, like, what are my goals? How is it going? Like, how am I doing in pursuit of my goals? And so that might BE metrics or OKRs. That could be you highlighting big wins and big losses. Like, if you're in sales, like, did you close a big account? Did you lose a big account? So add a goal. How's it going? And then no matter what, you're going to have problems, right? Like, you're. Maybe you're in. If we say in the sales mindset, maybe your sales script isn't good enough, or maybe you're getting a lot of initial calls, but you're not closing people, you know, like, well, what's the problem? Great. Do you know why you have the problem? And so what are you doing about it? Like, oh, I'm not closing enough people. So I'm going to our cop salesperson and having them review some of my calls. And then is that on track to get solved? And if you own your area in that way and you come to a meeting with me and say, like, these are my goals and how it's going, the problems and what I'm doing, et cetera, like, I'm going to have a lot of confidence. And now I get to be. I get to be your coach. I get to be the person who removes the obstacles. I can, like, support you. I can cheer you on when you get stuff right. There's a very different one on one model than the other way, which is like, it's my meeting as the boss. You're just showing up and saying, what do you know? What do you want to know is why I have to, like, poke and prod and ask questions. And it's putting a lot of weight on me to know the answers. And so I think if you're proactive in that way, that's how you make sure they know what's going on in your area. And you can use that same frame to say, like, hey, I'm grabbing onto this other goal. It's outside of my. It's outside of my day job. I think it's really important. They can always say, like, yes or no, or you can, you know, but most of the time, again, I think the great leaders are like, oh, my gosh, that's awesome. You're being proactive. Like, of course I want you to do that. That here's additional context you might need to know. Or here's a person elsewhere in My organization you should partner with, but I'd much rather be there where I'm sort of like orchestrating people who are already in motion than trying to, you know, create motion from nothing.

Makes a lot of sense. Yeah. You should be kind of the driver seat of your own career, right? Make your manager out, like to do that. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. How do you ask for constructive feedback to improve or like being know, like assuming you have the growth mind mindset and you want to improve, like how do you ask people or your manager for this kind of feedback?

I, I think there's two modes and I use one very consistently and then one occasionally because I think the two modes are going to be kind of targeted. And then I'd say much more like open ended. So on the targeted for the folks that I would manage, they would have development plans, right, that we would say, okay, what's sort of the next thing we're driving to for your career? Right? Like is there a promotion? Is it an increase in compensation? Is it just sort of getting to be good at the job you're currently in? Is it becoming a manager? Like whatever it is, what are we building towards? And then we would look and say like, okay, what, what competencies are you lacking? Like what is the thing that's going to hold you back from getting to that? Like what do we need to have you demonstrate to other people? What do we need? What experiences do you need to have? We sort of would have that understanding of what was the next thing to work on and that became the focus of the development plan. And so that's where, you know, if, if I have a development plan for myself and I'm chasing a goal, I really want the most focus on whether or not I'm making progress on that specific item. Right? And so that's what I'm saying. Like that's the one. I would have high frequency. So I would really be reminding my boss of the thing that we are like talking about and saying like, hey, there were three things we did this week in service to this development area. Can you give me feedback on these three? Did it work? Did it not work? Was it better? Was it not better? I presented in that meeting, we were focusing on me being clearer and more articulate and more concise, yes or no, that kind of thing. So I think that would be, if I was going to put most of my effort, it would be that thing because you've got buy in from your boss, hopefully your peers, the people around you. So everyone's sort of Focused on it. You get them benefit of not only the feedback, but the fact that like, because they're paying attention, they're going to have the perception of you changing. Like one of the biggest challenges sometimes is people change but no one notices. And so that's another part you want if you're thinking about this in the context of your career. That's right. Something I might do like once a quarter or twice a year. Which is much more the open ended conversation of just like, how do I get better? You know what I mean? So instead of saying like, we've decided I'm doing this thing and this is like very targeted, it's much more, what am I missing? Show me my blind spots. There's a framework that's pretty common that a lot of people will use if they're not getting a great response from, you know, the people on their team or their peers or their boss. Which would just be, what should I keep doing, what should I stop doing and what should I start doing? Like, could you give me like give me one in each bucket? Like, what is the thing that is, you know, for the keep. It is the, it's the reason you would call me in for help. It is like my superpower. It's the thing that if I stopped doing it, my value would greatly go down. You know, stop doing would just be the thing that I do that's annoying or non collaborative or detracts value or you know, know, hurts people. And then start doing. It's probably going to look like that first bucket. It's probably going to look like the thing you're doing to build in the future. But it's like, what are the folks who are in a spot like I am, what do they do to add value and where am I not doing that? So how do, how would I start going in that direction?

I really like the advice about like focusing on one area. I think usually people are kind of insecure about what they need to improve on and they don't really tell their teammates that they're working on this, but they probably, the teammates probably realizes this anyway because if it's something you need to work on. So I kind of like your advice to explicitly call it out and be like, hey, I'm working on this, give me feedback.

There's this paradox. I don't know if it has a name or not, but I've certainly experienced it. Which is the phenomenon you're describing is a hundred percent. It happens very often, right? Which is people think that they can hide their deficiencies and highlight their strengths. And in fact, people see you pretty clearly. They'll see both. One of the ways to remove the power is to just sort of call it out. Like people can't have power over you because of your hidden weakness if you're just owning it. Right. It's like no longer a speaker. Like the power comes from it being a secret. Once you're saying like, I'm excellent at this and I really struggle with this and here's how I deal with this thing. I struggle with people like it loses all of its power and then mostly people go to a motive, like, well, how do I help? Or maybe that's where I pitch in. Or that's the place where I compliment you and one plus one equals three.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. How about when it comes to like promotions, I think a lot of people, a lot of junior employees don't realize that a lot of times like your manager don't actually have power to promote you by themselves. So it's more like a committee. And like how do you, I guess, how do you build those relationships with the committee and how do you set yourself up well for a performance review or something?

Yeah, yeah. I have a lot of advice on this, but I'll try. I think the first place to start is you have to know the game that like what are the rules of the game at the company you're in?

Right.

And if you're in a 10 person startup, the rules are going to look very different than if you're at a 50,000 person firm. And so once you know the rules to your point, then like some of those rules might involve you who gets to make the choice. Right. Is it, does your boss have full autonomy? Like in a 10 person company, usually the boss has the full autonomy. Right? They own the place, they can just decide. In a 50,000 person company there's like they're going to be a process in that committee and double checks and like constraints and budget things. To your point, that's where you'd want to know like, okay, of the people who make the decision, like what are the inputs? And then like how do I influence those inputs? Like I worked at an organization where it was sort of the committee at a certain level. Right. Once you were above managing director, that was the group that came together to decide promotions. Okay, well then what's the thing I want to do? Do I want to have just my boss, you know, just the managing director directly above me, be the only person who knows me, has ever heard of me, or do I want Them majority of that room to know who I am.

Yeah.

And what are the things that I can do. This sort of ties back to going past your boundaries. Like can you get to know them a little bit? Can you help them in any way? I think a lot of times more. I think early career employees underprice just how valuable it is to these leaders. The types of usually technical capabilities that you have. It's like this massive asset like there almost every. I'm over 40 something so I can say this. Almost every 40 something person I know has something on their desk that is horribly manual that they don't know how to do any better. That I'm pretty sure the average like one month out of undergrad could automate in life. And that is hugely valuable. When you give this person back an hour or two hours or three hours of their time for something that you take for granted. It's like such an asymmetric way to like contribute value. And so I would just look for those, you know, like that I think it's a huge asset that people can leverage and they're like shy to do it. And I'm like no. Every time someone did that for me, I was like how can I help you?

Yeah.

And so anyways, I think that's a note process. Look for the people in that process as you said and then sort of in that development conversation with your boss, like tailor everything in support of that. And I guess the last thing. And I would say this to everybody on my team, I would like underscore for people who are underrepresented. Right. I'd say this for women, for minorities, et cetera, like make it clear as your goal. Like if you want to be promoted, like it can't be a secret if you are relying on it to be exclusively them noticing your value and your merit, you're going to be sadly disappointed. It doesn't even have to be. You don't have to advocate obnoxiously. But I think just being very clear about I'm in this current role. I have this aspiration to take on more. I would like to partner with you as my manager to do everything I can to have the highest probability to do that. It is a conversation I often felt like I shouldn't have to have. But you do because there's somebody else who also wants that who is having that conversation. So it's just a little bit of a nudge to say like be your. Be your own biggest advocate.

Yeah, I think sometimes it's definitely like a cultural thing where yeah. Some cultures are a little bit more like, oh, I'll just do my work and I'll get recognized. But I think in the US it doesn't really work that way.

Yeah, well, does it? I'd be curious because I don't. I. I've managed teams in other countries, but they've been connected to US based organizations. Like, does it actually play out that way or do those people actually get recognized and promoted in a hundred percent meritocratic way? Or is there a different set of forces that lead to who gets promoted?

I don't know, but I think there's a balance. Like you said, you can't everyone on one be like, hey, when I'm gonna get promoted? You kind of have to just like indicate it and then like draft a plan, like worker manager, to do it. Yeah.

And to be fair, I wouldn't. I agree with you. And I think if your phrasing is when do I get promoted? You're having a bad conversation. Yeah, I think if you're having the. I think if you're saying, am I doing everything I can to make it easy for you to get me promoted? It's very different. You know, like you're allowing them to give you direction of how you can get better, how you can be more impactful. You're still saying the same thing, which is like, I would like to get promoted. I am willing to put in whatever effort it is to change, to take on more, et cetera, to get that without putting them into a spot where you're asking them to control something they don't actually control.

Yeah, exactly. Before we talk about like being a manager, I just want to real quick follow up on the point about like building relationships with the other people in the room. You know, these people are like pretty busy, right? They're like VPs. They're like, they have things on their mind. Like how do you even get them to know about you or like care about you? Like you mentioned, like trying to add some value, but like, how do you know what they want even?

I mean, it's going to vary company by company. So let me just give you a couple hopefully like germs of ideas that then someone can twist 30% to plug into their organization.

Yeah.

So I would look first. If I look at most companies at a certain level of management, these people will be active on social media somewhere. Partly they're building their personal brand, partly they might be using it to recruit. So like LinkedIn, Twitter, just sort of depends on your company and like what the medium is in Your world, but they're active, some of them. And so that's a very great place. Like, can you support what they're posting or can you comment on and can you introduce more things? There's just a little bit of. Can you go from being anonymous to them being aware of you? Right. I'm shocked by how often those comments turn into conversations. Those conversations turn into coffees. Those coffees turn into like you're working for this person all of a sudden. And they're like a. You can go outside your walls and sort of look there. I've heard other stories of people just doing clever things. Like, I, I've seen this in a couple companies where someone just started writing a newsletter about a component of their. A component of their company that people were trying to stay on top of. Right. So if I were a tech company right now that I wasn't in the AI space, but like, AI adjacent could be hugely valuable for someone to say, like, yeah, I keep, I spend three or four hours a week looking at all the AI news. I'm like, these are the 10 things you should be writing or you should be reading. I've like, curated it and now all of a sudden you've become this expert sending out things of value and shockingly, word of mouth. You know, all of a sudden your boss recommends it to the peers, recommends it to their peers, and you now have an internal brand by just repurposing something you already.

That's a really good point. Yeah, Maybe it's just like, yeah, it's almost like, you know, we're all talking about creators building personal brand outside, but they can build a personal brand inside too.

Just like the last module of our course is actually exactly that thing. Like this idea that you have a brand as a really, as any employee, that we're focusing on leaders, you have a brand as a leader whether you like it or not. And so the question we pose to them is like, are you being intentional about the brand you're trying to build? And then we connect it back to all the parts of the course, because of course, your brand is really just the sum of all those behaviors you're exhibiting in your one on ones. When you delegate work, when you set expectations, when you hire people, like, that's your brand. And so if you bring some attention to what it is you're trying to shape, you can then look back on all those pieces and say, like, are they designed to, like, have me show up the way that I'm in?

Yeah, it's like, what are the Three things that you want people to know you for. You know, it's like, yeah, so that, that's really good advice. Yeah, let's talk about. I don't want to spend time talking about being a manager. So I just finished talking about. I really love that thread you wrote about as a manager, how much should you delegate? And you basically answer was like you should dedicate everything. And I think that's something that's just kind of like a mindset shift that I think a lot of people don't realize. So how do you start delegating stuff that you're good at without screwing up the product or something? Like, how do you do this?

My experience with people who don't like leaders who don't delegate, it usually starts from like they're afraid of something. They're afraid of losing their sort of position in their craft. I mean a lot of your readers are, are going to be tech focused, right? Like a lot of the software developers I worked with were like very proud of like how good they were at software development. And all of a sudden they were going to lose their identity. They're going to get too far away from the core craft and they were going to have to go do this management thing. And so there's, so sometimes people won't delegate because of the fear of being less connected to the craft or making themselves obsolete. Some people won't delegate because they're afraid the people they delegate to won't do it as well. Like and that mistake could lead to either bad things for the employee or bad things for you as the manager overseeing the employee. There's lots of, there's like first place is just to get over these fears because a lot of them are, they are true in the near term, but they are holding you back in the medium to long term. Right. That your whole job is to get like the right people doing the right work in a high levered way. And so if you don't get over these fears, you're, you never really actually become a manager. So then if I were doing it, I would actually step further back than even where you started, which is like not how do you get them to start taking the critical things that you're good at? I would start with actually things easier, much easier than that one. Things that are lower risk. Right. So things that might be on your team where you're in charge. Right. It's not going to be like touching other parts of the organization. It's not going to touch customers. You can delegate that work pretty freely because you're the ultimately the person who decides whether to react or overreact.

Makes sense.

Also, things that have like, like the experiment tag on them. Like every company has skunk works, beta projects, just things that by nature of the type of work they are, the brand they have, are expected to go poorly. You can delegate those as well because again, they have more risk baked into them. So I'm starting there on the work side and on the people side, I'm starting with things I'm not good at. Like, don't take something that you have a superpower in and give that away. Take the things that you struggle with, you never get to. You constantly put off and find someone who's very different than you on your team and give it to them. Like they'll be excited, right? Like their growth. Your grind turns into their growth. And so I try to move that work first. Then once I've got like the stuff that I'm not good at, but they are, and I've got these like more experimental internal work, then I start to move towards the critical things and start giving away the things that I'm best at. The reason I sort of lead off with like delegating everything is because it's aspirational. You know what I mean? Like, even as you're delegating, you then probably have more space to think more strategically to have more impact up. That inevitably means your team is going to get more back, you know, so now you're going to have more on your play to then delegate. But usually the mistake people make will be to delegate too late, not too soon. Hire competent people, Empower them, right? Give it to them. They usually won't screw it up. If anything, many of them will do it better than you were doing it.

Yeah, it might be pleasantly surprised more often than not. Yeah, it's usually, I think from my experience, it's usually easier to get someone else trying to fill your gaps and trying to improve your gaps yourself because it's just hard for people to change. So you can find that person on your team who can is actually really good at what you're not good at.

That.

That's pretty amazing. Yeah.

And again, put the underscore on why you want to hire diverse complementary teams. Right? Because everybody is exactly the same and you don't get any of that benefit. If people, like you said, are very different in what they're capable of, what they've experienced, their points of view, you end up with a much more resilient, agile version.

So I guess just one more question on the management side, you have a team. Some people are doing an awesome job and some people are underperforming. How do you kind of balance your time between these people? Or maybe, like I, I guess going back to the previous question, maybe the underperformers just don't have the right job. Maybe they can do something very well in something else. You know, how do you. Yeah, how do you manage that?

I think there's like two questions. So let me pull them apart. I can answer them. They're connected, but we answer them separately. There's a part of where should you put your time? Your high performers or your low performers? And then there is, well, how do you deal with your low performers? And again, put the underscore on why you want to hire diverse complementary teams, right? Because everybody is exactly the same. You don't get any of that benefit. If people, like you said, are very different in what they're capable of, what they've experienced, their points of view, you end up with a much more resilient, agile version.

So I guess just one more question. On the management side, you have a team. Some people are doing an awesome job and some people are underperforming. How do you balance your time between. These people are maybe like, I, I guess going back to the previous question, maybe the underperformers just don't have the right job. Maybe they can do something very wrong in something else. You know, how do you. Yeah, how do you manage that?

I think there's like two questions. So let me pull them apart. I can answer them. They're connected, but we answer them separately. There's a part of, where should you put your time? Your high performers or your low performers? And then there is, well, how do you deal with your low performers? On the first question, I would say I screwed this up. I had this backwards. I put way too much time early on into my low performers at the expense of my high performers. And if you just sort of step back from that on like a math perspective, it's a terrible trade off, right? If your low performers are producing at like 50% of an average employee and your highest performers, and they tend to be, it tends to not be linear. Like, sometimes those high performers are like 2x, right? If I help this 50% person get 10% better, I've now got a 55% person. If I helped my 2x person, you know, get 10% better, I now have two and a half. Yeah, right. So you're like, just like pure logic would tell you every minute, in theory should be going to the high performers. And yet because they're underperforming, they're often causing you problems. They're often most demanding. You know, it's. If you even flip it. So I think anything you can do in a disciplined way to make sure that you are continuing to invest in your high performers is a much better return. So just skip my mistake and do that. Makes sense.

Yep.

That said that you do have low performers. It's inevitable. Like, and it can be people who change. It can be that you didn't get the job. Right. There are lots of good reasons why the way that I try to work for the low performers is to move from what I would say are me causing the problem to then it being about them. And so what I mean by me causing the problem is like, I think of my responsibility as a leader, when I bring somebody into a role is like, I need to make sure that they have everything they need to succeed. Do they have the support, the access, the connection, the passwords, this hardware and software? Like, there's lots of things that people need to be set up. Do they have the access to me to get guidance? Do they have. Are they collaborating well with their peers? There's lots of pieces where when I would go in and try to help people who are struggling in other areas and you'd find out that like, the manager hadn't given them, like, all the tools to succeed.

Yeah.

And you're, well, how can you expect them to do the job? Like, you've literally, like, sent them out into the wild with no provisions. And so that's where I, I would try to start in that way and sort of work through all of that. It has two benefits. One, it usually works like, usually you've hired good people and giving them everything they need. That is actually the problem. And two, if it's not, you've removed those excuses. Like, a lot of frustrating conversations. When we get over to, like, a person who can't do the job or doesn't want to do the job, they will point back to the environment or point back to the lack of support. And so if I've gone through this in a diligent way and I brought and I've included them, I've eliminated that set of conversations. So now we're just down to two remaining reasons. Right. And they're both about them. One is desire and then one is ability. Right. One is one's will. Excuses. Like, a lot of frustrating conversations. When we get over to, like, a person who can't do the job or doesn't want to do the job, they will point back to the environment or point back to the lack of support. And so if I've gone through this in a diligent way and I've brought and I've included them, I've eliminated that set of conversations. So now we're just down to two remaining reasons, right? And they're both about them. One is desire and then one is ability. Right? One is will and one is skill. And the will conversation is the harder conversation. But I try to have it first because if they don't want to do the job, if they don't want to close the gap, if they don't want to get better, then the last conversation about ability is a waste of time. You know what I mean? I can't convince you to get better at your job. You have to want to. And so we try to have that conversation. And then if they do, you know, we have those people who, like, they really wanted their earnest, their, their trial and wanted skill. And the will conversation is the harder conversation. But I try to have it first time harder. Sometimes they'll show up as staying late. It'll show up as like, like they'll be frustrated because they're putting in so much effort and still not getting their result. And if I feel good that we've gone through the other three buckets and that's where we are at some point, it's just not, you know, that this is your B player, A player thing. And I believe everybody is an A player in the right context. It doesn't mean that's your context. It doesn't even mean your company has that context to offer. But if we can't get them to like, because if they don't want to do the job, if they don't want to close the gap, if they don't want to get better, yeah, then the last conversation about abilities is a waste of time. You know what I mean? I can't convince you to get better at your job. You have to want to. And so we try to have that conversation. And then if they do, you know, we have those people who, like, they really wanted their earnest. They're. They're trying hard. They're. Sometimes they'll show up as staying late. It'll show up as like, like they'll be frustrated because they're putting in so much effort and still not getting their result. And if I feel good that we've gone through the other three buckets and that's where we are at some point, it's Just not, you know, that this is your B player. A player. And I believe everybody is an A player in the right context. It doesn't mean you're saying enough value in that role. Then you sort of have to just be honest about it, put a timeline on it and move on.

And let's try to give them a soft landing somewhere or something.

Yeah, yeah. And you can do that with it because sometimes that you. Sometimes somebody else in your company has it, and, like, what a gift. Like, I have this great person who's trying really hard, and we just had them in the wrong spot. It's happened to me, like, my first role of Bridgewater, Like, I was a B player in it. Like, it was not a fit for me. It was set to your context. It doesn't even mean your company has that context to offer. But if we can't get them to, like, producing enough value in that role, then you sort of have to just be honest about it, put a timeline on it and move on.

And let's try to give them a soft landing somewhere or something.

Yeah, yeah. And you can do that with. Because sometimes that you. Sometimes somebody else in your company has it and, like, what a guess. Like, I have this great person who's trying really hard, and we just had them in the wrong spot and really drawing upon part of, like, part of what I'm like, that's weaker and then put no value on the things that I'm excellent at. And then luckily, I had a leader who was wise enough to be like, you don't belong there. You belong here. And that move was eight more years, you know, at. At a company with lots more impact because we sort of were now playing to my strengths and not for my.

That's awesome. Yeah. Maybe let us kind of wrap up on that. Right.

It's happened to me, like, my first role of Bridgewater, like, I was a B player in it. Like, it was not a fit for me. It was set up and really drawing upon part of, like, part of what I'm like, that's weaker, and then put no value on the thing.

Like, I think everyone has something that they're working on as a manager or as a leader. Maybe you can just close with, like.

A personal story that I'm excellent at. And then luckily, I had a leader who was wise enough to be like, you don't belong there. You belong here. And with that move was eight more years, you know, at a company with lots more impact, because we sort of were now playing to my strengths and not to my that's awesome.

Yeah, maybe let's kind of wrap up on that. Right. Like I think everyone has something that they're working on as a manager or as a leader. Maybe you can just close with like a personal story of something that you personally struggle with. I mean, now you're teaching like hundreds of people, but what's something you personally struggle with along the way?

Yeah, we can do that one. Let me think about it for a second. I, I just, I like to like not give you a rehearsed answer. I don't want to think about it. Well, it's not a podcast. It was pause. Isn't that awkward?

Yeah, it's not like I'll give you my example. Like, I, I, I think I've always been kind of like an impatient person. I always want to like just like get shit done. And I, I think it came down to like my manager had just like one of my managers sitting down. Like, hey, by, by constantly like pushing people and being so impatient. You're like kind of leaving people behind is actually detrimental for your project because.

Like you're going too fast and you're.

Like, you know, missing gaps and you end have to go backwards. And it came to that kind of like serious talk that made me realize I need to really fix this and actually make a proactive effort to, you know, fix the problem that I had.

That's a good story. I was just trying to think of like, if I had an anecdote of like someone really. So this is one, so I'll give it to you. Yeah, we, I tell this story in the class. So there's this guy who worked for me and he was leading a team of two. He'll come to me, I promise. He was leading a team of two or three people and he had just been promoted and then we did a reorganization and he was working for me. And so I have this brand new manager that I didn't hire and I watch him interacting with his team and we're having our one on one check ins. He's being the CEO of his area and showing up and being like, oh this, you know, it's really going not that well with person A. And then, oh, it's not really going that well with person B. You know, and like week after week he'd show up with a different person on his team who he wasn't getting along with or it wasn't going that well or they were underperforming and like by the end of like a month we had hit everybody on the team. So he was really getting along with nobody. And I remember looking at him and he's like, I don't. I just don't get it. I was like, well, I get it. He was like, well, tell me. And I was like, you're an. And he was like, what did you mean? And I was like, well, listen, you. Every time someone brings you an idea, you say, yes, but. Yes, but here's my better idea. Every time someone says something that's disinteresting to you, you, like, open up your phone and get distracted. Every time we're in a meeting and it's driving on, you put your head physically on the table. I'm like, would you want to work right? And he was like. And he says this thing which everybody says when you shine the mirror in this, like, really uncomfortable place. And he says, but I can't change. That's just who I am. And I said, well, I know that's not true. It's just who you've chosen to be until today. And the reason I know that's not true is because 10 years ago, I sat in your chair and my coach told me I was canceling, like, this to be exact same thing. Because I had almost the identical problems of being impatient, rolling my eyes, of, like, letting my face say what I was a little bit too afraid to say with my words, and not realizing that, like, all this thing that I chalked up to being, like, a little bit better or a little bit faster or whatever else was actually undermining my mission. Like, I was pushing my team away, not drawing them closer. I wasn't, like, motivating them through this. I was demotivating them. And so, like, I don't know. I tell that story because it was very real. It was. And I am so grateful that I had a coach who was brave enough to be like, you gotta stop. Like, that is. You don't see it, but everybody else does. And so I guess that's my part of the origin story of what I. Why I do what I do today. Because that changed the. Changed the trajectory of my career, that conversation. And that same person 10 years later still writes to me from time to time and be like, I still think about that conversation. And I changed the trajectory at this career. And. Nice. Pretty fulfilling.

You kind of have to use some, like, strong language, right, to make them realize, like, you call them whatever you need to. Yeah. Wow. Okay. And you mentioned you had a coach. So this person was not, like, your management chain. It's just, like, someone that you work, work with.

Leadership. Luckily they were investing in me and my manager was like, I think he was probably trying to tell me and I just wasn't hearing it. And so like, let's get you a coach. And they got me encouraged and then I heard it.

That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, I should try to get a coach for myself. I, I think that's pretty important for different leaders.

Yeah, I think one of the most fascinating, different place. I see a lot of parallels between sports and business. Like I use a lot of analogies from sports because they have the same dynamic that they have a scoreboard. Like this is a little murkier, you know, but like when a English premier team goes out and plays football, like there's a winner and there's a loser, like you score goals or you didn't. And so all of those, the recruiting, the development, all of those things come together and they play out in real time. And what I'm shocked by is like so many people are sports fans. We think it's totally reasonable that these elite athletes don't even have one coach, but many of them have like three, four or five that focus on nutrition and focus on performance and focus on mindset and then focus on the game, tactics and playing. And we're like, that's totally normal. And then we think we're going to go do something as complicated as leading a business and we're just going to figure that out by ourselves.

Yeah, exactly.

So anyways, I'm a, I've had a coach multiple times, you know, different coaches for different seasons. You should totally do it. It's really helpful and especially outside of your management chain because as much as you can try to encourage people to be honest with you, like if you have any impact over them, their career, the work you do, your relationship, like there's going to be a hesitation to tell you the unbarnessed truth.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And good thing, like a lot of companies actually provide funding for co coaches for lead hitters. So I'll definitely try to take advantage of that. Cool. Dave. Well, I mean thanks so much for your time and where can people find you online?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say the two main places to find me, one would be social media. So I'm on Twitter and LinkedIn about equal frequency these days. They're Decline II on Twitter and decline on LinkedIn. And then we started writing the management Playbook. It's a weekly, less than a five minute read. Try to break down one specific management challenge every week and give you very practical how to's like, here's some tips, some tactics, a template. My goal is that everybody can sort of read it and go turn around and, like, take a step. They can, like, put it in action. I don't want it to be a. It's not a bulletin. It's not meant to be something that you kind of get to and read to whenever you want to. I want you to be. If you read it, I want you to know that you can go take action on it.

That's awesome. And are you still teaching your course or.

We are, yeah. So that you can find that one on the MGMT accelerator. The management accelerator is on maven. We our next cohort will be in May. So we kick off, I think, May 2nd.

Cool.