The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 28 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Spielman: LPs Celebrate Talent Poaching as a Badge of Honor Unlike GPs
“That promotion, developing people, yes, for your organization, of course, but also seeing the people who are on your team grow to such a point where they're hired away. To a bigger opportunity. That's like a badge of honor versus on the GP side viewed as a sca…”
Spielman: Asset managers reach executive roles via analytical skill, not leadership ability
“First, it's important for them to understand how they and their organization got there, which is they got there not because they were a great Leaders, but because they were really good at doing the job, doing the work, doing the analysis, doing the presentatio…”
Spielman: Busiest executives are the most committed to executive coaching
“Those people who were the most busy and had the busiest schedule and they were traveling all over, they were the ones who were voracious to read the books or the articles and to have the conversations, and they kept all the coaching sessions.”
Spielman: 80% of Asset Management Professionals Are Myers-Briggs Thinkers
“The general population is 40% thinkers, T, and 60% feelers or F. In my 460 profiles, 80% thinkers and 20% feelers.”
Spielman: Pure investment professionals are 90% Myers-Briggs 'Thinkers'
“Now, if we actually just only looked at investment professionals and not professional services like IR, it's probably more like 88 or 90% thinkers.”
Spielman: Reinforcing Successful Behaviors Drives Faster Change Than Analyzing Failures
“The rate of positive change is far greater when you focus on a behavior that went well and that you want them to repeat as opposed to digging into something that didn't work.”
Spielman: Leaders Should Ask 'How' and 'What' Instead of 'Why'
“Try to avoid the why. Why put somebody on the defensive? Ask how or what questions.”
Spielman: Six to eight reports are optimal; check-ins need five minutes
“The six to eight is the sweet spot, but let's just even take the 20. I still think that that person can meet with his folks once a week, and it doesn't have to be an hour conversation. It could be Knocking on the door, popping by. Say, Ted, what do you got goi…”
Spielman: Outside coaches elicit more openness than internal staff coaches
“There can be something pretty powerful being outside an organization where intentionally a very different email address may not be in every day, and there's a little bit more comfort, I think, in sharing information with me or one of the members on my team Ver…”
Spielman: Coaching is often squishy because anyone can call themselves a coach
“There really is training, and there's a science behind coaching and the arc of the coaching conversation. I want to do it, and I didn't have that, and I want to do it the right way, and anybody can call him or herself a coach. It can be a really squishy indust…”
Spielman: Coaching should amplify strengths rather than fix weaknesses
“We don't coach from a position of weakness, so let's find out what Ted doesn't do well, and let's take out the sandpaper and sort of smooth that out. Let's identify what you do really well. What are your strengths? What are your signature traits that you deriv…”
Spielman: Focusing on three to four consequential goals produces cascading life effects
“This game plan has three to four critical goals that you've thought a lot about that are real consequential, meaningful to you. And if they're chosen, well, three or four is fine. Cause they're going to have massive cascading effects throughout the rest of you…”
Spielman: Limiting daily priorities to three tasks prevents dispiriting to-do lists
“What are the three things that you will have either, and could be started, advanced, or completed? We don't always complete things in a day. So what are the three key things that you will have done, the future perfect tense, today, so you can look back and say…”
Spielman: Mandated executive coaching partnerships usually fail
“I'm often asked a very similar question, which is, Matt, when have you seen the coaching partnerships go awry? And I said, well, when it's thrust upon them in an organization, and they haven't raised their hand for it.”
Spielman: PE firms are increasingly hiring internal leadership capital partners
“More and more, I've been reading a bunch about private equity firms bringing on somebody called a leadership capital partner, really focused internally and making the deal teams and the investment professionals and the investor relations and the back office fo…”
Spielman: Daily employee performance depends on psychological fulfillment beyond compensation and carry
“The day to day sort of performance of somebody is, hey, do I enjoy the people I work with? Am I really valued? Am I trusted? Do I have an opportunity to grow and develop? Do I have an opportunity to recharge my batteries every once in a while?”
Spielman: Executive coaching is most efficacious during periods of high stress
“It's actually times like this when the coaching partnership can be most efficacious. I talk a lot about slowing down to speed up, taking five minutes to have a conversation with me or have a conversation with oneself and say, okay, okay, I know things are craz…”
Spielman: Executive coaching must include non-work personal goals
“Recognizing that they're not robots. We can't just show up and compartmentalize all the Other facets or pieces of our life, we do have them set goals for non-work related outcomes.”
Spielman: Investment industry is 75% Judging vs 55% in general population
“The general population Is 55% J and 45% P. A slight scheduled regimented structured versus a little bit more pressure prompted, flexible, spontaneous, impromptu. Ok. This world is 75% J, 25% P.”
Spielman: Firm developing AI tool to deliver daily executive coaching prompts
“And that's driven by an AI, maybe on your phone or a person's computer. And we're in the developmental stages of that. I'm most excited about that. It's going to be a sort of joke. It's like inflection point GPT. That's the next incarnation of this”
Spielman: Most trading floor workers lived in quiet desperation for bonus checks
“I saw a majority of the people, as I say, living out the Henry David Thoreau quote, which is the mass of people lead lives of quiet desperation. There were people there who absolutely loved what they did. They had Bloomberg terminals at home. They read Barron'…”
Spielman: Senior leaders frequently experience pervasive executive isolation
“The one, ironically, that sits at the top is that it's really lonely at the top. Oftentimes, an individual or a partnership team, they have things in their head that they're thinking about that they can't share with anybody else. And they've exhausted all the …”
Spielman: Financial services accounts for roughly 70% of coaching clients
“And I have found in financial services, they're very much like-minded people, whether it's public investing, you know, whether it's like hedge funds or in private equity. Or even investment banking and money management is probably. 70% of my client base.”
Spielman: Executive coaching must start at top leadership for organizational alignment
“One of the things that I strongly advise Is to have the, from the top of the house involved in the executive coaching program. So if we're sort of sticking with the private equity world, the managing partners, and when the managing partner or the co-founders, …”
Spielman: Adding 30 to 50 yearly workouts delivers outsized marginal benefits
“So if you can squeeze an extra 30, 40, 50 workouts in a year, at the margins is really where the benefits are made, both physically, mentally, and emotionally.”
Spielman relies on a daily analog 'Win the Day' index card
“So aside from the exercise, I have the win the day card. I get all analog, and I have a little index card here, and on top of it, I have win the day, and there are the three things that I'm going to do today that are going to move me closer to my goals on my g…”
Spielman: Career growth requires shifting mindset from 'should do' to 'could do'
“So I mentioned my coach, Peter Hazelrig, earlier, and he gave me the permission to actually think about doing things that maybe I shouldn't do, but that I could do. Something that I talk a lot about now, sort of the should versus could.”
Spielman: Chasing financial upside early clouded his true passions
“Early on, I think I let the opportunity for financial upside cloud or murky the waters for this passion, this energy, the excitement that I speak so much about now, and I made some decisions in retrospect that if I were making those today, I probably wouldn't …”