This week’s issue is all about 1:1s. For a long time now, I’ve wanted to create a mini-course or training I could facilitate to teach my clients how to run great 1:1s and teach and train their teams on how to do the same. And in this issue, that’s what I’ve done. You’ll find a text-based FAQ and a slide deck…

So this week’s issue is about WHY we struggle with our business partners. And let me tell you, while this issue is long, it’s dense with insights that I hope become the subject of some good conversations over the next couple of weeks. And in my next issue, I’ll write about HOW we…

Every CEO, founder, and executive I’ve met periodically struggles to manage their time. Metaphors of spinning plates, plates too full, and being pulled in too many directions collide with feelings of overwhelm and wanting to pull one’s hair out and run away to hide in a corner.The solution begins with a “Time Audit"

On the path to $1B in revenue, every company needs to figure out how they will get there. Will it be selling something for a lot of money to a small list of customers or selling something at a low price to an extensive list of customers? Depending on the answer to that question, a company has to decide how it will get…

The entirely avoidable super duper expensive sales hiring mistake founders make is hiring a sales rep who lacks the skills to sell in the sales phase the company is in on The Sales Learning Curve. I know this because we made the—very costly—mistake of doing this multiple times at Mattermark. So what are the phases…

Each of us has our own Wormtongue taking up residence, at least part-time, in our minds. And this inner SOB does its damndest to keep us small, scared, ashamed, and weak, keeping us from becoming versions of ourselves so strong even we’re surprised.

One thing to look out for is when people not used to the jungle get in the jungle, they offload their anxiety is by beginning to build dirt roads. It’s like being in the jungle, having four people hacking their way through, looking for resources, and having one person behind them clearing up all the weeds…

Founders need to be able to spin their mouse wheels to zoom in or out on a business. You need to see the forest and be capable of getting in the weeds without getting lost. Models like Ure’s help you see the forest and act as a counterbalance to the human tendency to make shit more complicated than it needs to be.

Imagine a family tree, but on this tree the people aren’t connected by birth and heredity, they’re connected by their obsessions. Unfortunately, however, we aren’t born with our hard drives pre-loaded with all the stuff our obsession ancestors figured out before we showed up on the scene. And so we face a choice when…

It is a core part of every manager’s job to plan, anticipate what might happen, and be ready for it. If someone on your team quits and you don’t have several people you can call who you have been “keeping warm” on the bench, then you’re dropping the ball as a manager. Similarly, if you thought at the beginning of 2022…

First, plot where you think your management style falls on the grid. Then, ask your team where they thinkyour management style lies. You’ll have to decide what you agree with and don’t, but your self-estimation is likely a bit off (if not, good on you!). You should now have a clear idea of the reality of how you…

The fact that we don’t have an easy label to talk about 9,9 management is a disappointing commentary on our collective failure to believe in ourselves. I mean, we can shoot rockets into space and put people on a giant rock orbiting our planet, but build a company where people trust and respect each other while…

Dee advocated for spending half of your time on managing yourself. Even more shocking, Dee believed a great manager only spends 5% of their time managing their subordinates because they practice and preach the principle of exceptional self-management. So if self-management is so important, where does one start?

In 1972, Dr. Stephen Karpman published a paper titled “Fairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis.” His doc-speak-laden paper lays out a surprisingly simple and useful framework to help us untangle interpersonal conflict, now known as “The Drama Triangle.” Not long after, another psychologist, Dr. Murray Brown, coined…

Things happen, and then people come up with stories about those things—especially when they are missing information. Our interpretations—the meaning we make—color what we think Reality is. They can make someone a villain or a hero, but they’re often made up. If you’re feeling frustrated with yourself, someone else…

Every founder I work with will, at some point, express frustration that something isn’t right. Hiring isn’t happening fast enough. People building stuff that isn’t aligned with the vision the CEO has. You name it. And almost every time the issue lies with time management.

This newsletter has had a few names. First, it was Andy’s Newsletter. Then, it was Coach Class. Each had a slightly different theme. The consistent threads through both are (1) that I’ve missed writing and (2) that I just wanted to get started and skipped spending the time to determine whether these newsletters were …