Opinion
Most CEO books are feel-good theory rather than tactical advice
“The books that you buy that teach you how to be a CEO or teach you about business or Delightfully theoretical and a bunch of feel good crap and not very tactical.”
Insight
Great organizations rely on top-down alignment over bottom-up goal setting
“Great organizations set a vision and head in a direction, and everybody aligns to make that happen.”
Assertion Contradicted
Kleiner Perkins does not actually run its venture fund on OKRs
“When John Dorris didn't share, like, they don't run their venture fund on OKRs. Like if OKRs are so good, why isn't Kleiner Perkins running OKRs?”
Insight
Girdley: The Lean Startup methodology fails founders seeking maximum impact
“So lean startup is not a good way if you want to have maximum impact.”
Opinion
Girdley: CEO networks like YPO and Vistage do not teach execution
“No groups like Vistage or YPO or EO or any of those folks were like, they actually taught you like how to run a business. Like there's no class that teaches you how to fire people. Like nobody, nobody teaches you that stuff.”
Disclosure
Girdley hires and pays potential co-founders pre-idea with no strings attached
“So my model is I bring people on pre-idea. Like I go find co-founders first. So like I'm a big believer in like right people, right structure, right mission in that order. ... And so my associate model has been historically, I hire a few of them at a time and …”
Insight
Girdley: Entrepreneurs who accept a risk of ruin are failing
“Like, I think everybody gets the idea wrong that like entrepreneurs are like these like gun totem, like totally okay. Corral like betting everything all the time. Like it's the opposite of that. Like if I have a risk of ruin, I'm totally screwing up.”
Insight
Girdley: Having 10,000 customers is safer than relying on one boss
“The difference is For me, like, 10,000 customers have to fire me for me to be out of a job. For other people, only one boss has to fire you when you have a W-II job.”
Opinion
Girdley: Most people should remain traditionally employed to be happy
“By the way, most people should have a job. That's my, I believe that. I think they'll be happier, but, like, it's also, you know, it's definitely not as risky as, like, people think. That's my opinion.”
Insight
Selecting and using any standard framework drives 70% of operational improvement
“I tell people actually, if you're going to be trying to run your business better, like, 70% of it is just picking one of the frameworks and using them.”
Insight
Scaling Up's advanced tools are unnecessary for companies under 50 employees
“There's stuff that scaling up, for example, does that is bigger and badder than what's in EOS, but a lot of times when you're, like, under 50 people, like, that stuff doesn't really matter much, so that's why I spend a lot of time talking about EOS.”
Insight
Eighty percent of business operations are universal regardless of the industry
“80% of all business tastes like chicken, and kind of the idea is, is like, every business has to do these same common things, right? You have to, like you have to have, like, a strategy. You have to have a vision. You have to You have to define your core value…”
Insight
Assigning a business goal to multiple owners means nobody is responsible
“When you apply, you know, you assign a goal to multiple people, then that means nobody's responsible for it. So, like, they will say, like, one person has to take ownership of this particular goal and go for it that way.”
Insight
Accomplishing just three to six key priorities per year drives growth
“If you look at what truly pushes businesses forward, it's like three or four things you achieve each year. Maybe five or six at most.”
Opinion
EOS accountability charts outperform traditional hierarchy-based organizational charts
“Ultimately, like what it does is it creates a very powerful situation as you think about your organization, where there is an accountable person who is responsible for every function of that organization. And everybody knows what it is because there's this map…”
Insight
Companies should self-implement EOS until reaching 25 to 30 employees
“Most businesses tend to self implement And do the second option, which is read the book and then just start doing the exercises and learning the process very well until they get to about 25, 30 employees. And then at that point, the business is big enough and …”
Insight
Girdley: Founders should prioritize their strengths before conducting customer interviews
“Notice we didn't start with going to talk to customers. We went to start with what we're really good at, then we went to go talk to customers. And so that's one of the core principles of this idea of effectuation. Yeah, you got to build something people want, …”
Insight
KPIs predict future performance while financial statements only describe the past
“And you want KPIs because it predicts your future. Your financial statements are really good at describing your past.”
