The Exchanges

Q Are those the four, or is there anything else that, like, if you want to make more money, you should absolutely do?

A Ah, I mean, another good one is bring solutions or propose solutions. The last thing I would probably add to your short list is, If I have a problem that I'm not sure how to solve or that needs your approval because we're going to spend money, make the case. Don't just come and say, oh, Cody, would you pick between A and B? But instead, look, say we face A and B. It's a debate in the team. Here's the advantages of A. Here's the advantages of B. I recommend, but you tell me because in the end, it's your money. And what I'm doing there is making it super easy for you, but still letting you make the choice. Now, If you're a really strong lieutenant, if you got, if I have a great relationship with you, I might be so bold. This is like playing the advanced level of the game to say, Hey Cody, we looked at A and B and I know how you think. And so I've gone ahead because of these reasons and made the call A. It is still reversible. If you disagree, call me back, but otherwise just know we're already running. And at this point you're like, this person is magic. They're doing what I would do for the reasons I would do it. And making me money, and all I have to do is like, well, nothing actually, right? Just read the email and collect the check. That's, that's where you're trying to get to. But that takes a relationship where I, where you and I have enough trust that I can make decisions …

AI assessment note: “another good one is bring solutions or propose solutions.”

Q So how do you tell who is going to be an A player who is not?

A Oh, I wish I could do it perfectly, because of course I've mis-hired people. The biggest thing we've learned to look at, and with leaders you can do this more because they have some sort of track record, is almost always looking what they have done predicts what they are going to do. So how much can you dig into that? My favorite trick for figuring out A players is everybody knows to give three references if you ask. My trick was I would call a reference and say, Hey, who else knows this person that I could call? And that way I would get out of their list of chosen references because they know somebody else who knows them. They'd be like, Oh, well, Cody worked with him. And then I would call you and you're not expecting a call. You haven't agreed to give a reference, but I'd say, I am considering hiring, you know, whatever Mark Smith, uh, I know you worked with Mark. Would you give me a little bit of insight? And usually you'd be the one if you're like, Mark is awesome, whereas you're like, well, I could talk about Mark. That was my real way to tell who was an A player, is, is what, what were people who weren't sort of the listed references gonna say about them, plus what were their accomplishments?

AI assessment note: “My favorite trick for figuring out A players is everybody knows to give three references”

Q Yeah. How can you tell if someone is going to be your advocate or is actually going to be your adversary in the workplace?

A Yeah, well, one way, of course, is relationship. If, if you can be friends on any sort of topic, commonality, common place you went to school, common sports team you like, kids, whatever, it's more likely they're going to advocate because we take care of our friends. The second thing, though, is people help those who help them. And I think I made a lot of my career effectively by deal making, by finding people that I could align with what they wanted and help them get what they want, and then I would sometimes talk to them privately and be like, hey, I will help you get this, but like, I'm looking for a little help here, and most people are very willing to, hey, you help me, I'll help you, uh, because there's no harm in it, uh, and so If you can't do that though, and someone wants something completely opposite of what you want, then there can be a problem. The other thing could shoot down is style. If there was a case, you know, where like I'm very outspoken and driven and you run into somebody who's very consensus based and wants to be cautious, that can lead to friction right away. Because I think a lot like you, I'm like, let's go, let's make a decision. And they're like, let's study it. Now, of course, I'm, I'm like giving a little lilty voice, which probably isn't fair, but that's how it felt to me, and of course, they're like, this guy's crazy. So, that can lead to confli…

AI assessment note: “one way, of course, is relationship. If, if you can be friends”

Q Yeah. What are the, the career killers that you can do that people will remember forever in their jobs?

A Betrayal is the number one. Any sort of, and to some degree that's the letting me down where you promise something, like I'm counting on something and then it doesn't show up and it makes me look bad. Anything that hits people's ego or identity is actually more than raw performance. If you lose me money, I'm upset, but if you make me look bad, I'm furious, even if I can't admit it, right? So, uh, if you leave me hung out to dry where I feel foolish or I feel incompetent. That's gonna be the number one thing. The second thing is anything that leads me to distrust you more generally. I see you, you know, cheating on an expense report or behaving inappropriately. Again, anything that makes me question you as a human being is probably deeper than things that make me question your performance. Cause performance, maybe you can get better. Maybe I can train you. Uh, maybe you can learn. Whereas if I start to distrust you, there's really no path back from that, right? It's a little bit like how many marriages recover when a partner cheats, right? It's just usually kind of over. Yeah. Same thing.

AI assessment note: “Betrayal is the number one.”

Q also what they think, uh, And neither of those things may be total truth. And I could only imagine at a company as big as the ones that you've been at, how real that is. Like, as a leader, how do you find the truth in your business units? And how do you figure out where the series of, like, compounding lies is, if you even agree with this sentiment?

A I completely agree with compounding lies. It's, you said earlier, you could talk yourself into anything. Well, this is a company doing it at a larger scale, talking themselves into, believing their own PR, Talking themselves into, oh, this is a great idea. It's Manifest Destiny. Um, I think the way Jeff partly got at this was driving hard on the numbers. So, okay, well, if it's Manifest Destiny, you know, show me the numbers. Like, what are the trends, or not like, what's the market research, but then what are we seeing? He would wait a very long time for a business to go profitable if he could see the line. But if the line wasn't leading there, he would be very hard on like, Hey, you know, this line never gets there. Like it never comes into the, you know, what's, what's the plan. He would drill really hard on the numbers. The second way though, I think you figure this out is you go talk to people on the front line. You go talk to the individual engineers or the individual people delivering the services, because all the managers in between are kind of reporting up things that make them look good. They're not trying to lie. Just no one wants to be the bearer of bad news. It's unpleasant if you go all the way down. So I always maintain some contacts with people, many levels below me. When I had a big team, I would still talk to people who were five, six levels in this giant orga…

AI assessment note: “driving hard on the numbers... you go talk to people on the front line”