Insight
Kao: Executives succeed when treating a founder's personality as a constraint
“I think that many pairings of execs and founders that work really well are when execs recognize that their founder can be spiky in different ways that might not really make sense, that they are really good at certain things and not as good as at other things.
…”
Insight
Kao: Speed vs quality is a false trade-off in most situations
“Trade-offs like speed versus quality, you know, like people talk about that and throw that around, like, You probably have room or I had room to be faster and to produce better quality without starting to trade off on either. That in most situations, there's s…”
Insight
Kao: Public speaking is a terrible mental model for workplace communication
“There was so much of communication that operators and founders do on a day to day basis where public speaking is actually a terrible mental model. If you think about it with public speaking, it's one directional. You're sage on stage. You have one speech which…”
Insight
Kao: Low-emoting leaders should amplify enthusiastic wording over forced facial expressions
“If you are someone who's low emoting instead of trying to be, you know, high emoting, you should basically take that into account and turn up the enthusiasm in your words, in the actual content of your words, instead of relying on your facial expressions or to…”
Insight
Wes Kao: Most people over-index on explicit rather than implicit feedback
“I think that most people over index on explicit feedback. So we wait until, you know, our colleague complains about something. Or, you know, gives us very direct feedback before we're like, oh, okay, this was bothering them. Whereas if you took a step back and…”
Insight
Kao: Frame recommendations under a founder's existing values, not new ones
“It is much better
To frame whatever it is you want to talk to them about or your recommendation under an existing umbrella of what they already care about, of values they already have, of ways that they already think the business should be run.”
Insight
Kao: Competing outside natural strengths guarantees defeat to naturally talented peers
“Whatever it is you find extremely difficult and unnatural for you, there is someone out there who loves doing that and it comes extremely naturally for them. So if you are in a role that requires you to do this thing that you are not very good at and could not…”
Insight
Kao: Leaders react better to concrete proposals than defining abstract concepts
“It's much easier for most leaders to react to something you're putting in front of them to correct you basically to say, yes, that no, not that. Then it is to say, you know, teach me ways to be strategic or define what that means for me. Your leader Hasn't don…”
Insight
Kao: A business problem does not automatically warrant resources to solve
“Just because something is a problem doesn't mean it warrants resources to solve, or the resources that you are asking for to solve, and so You know, developing that sense of right sizing, of context, of, you know, is the juice worth the squeeze here to try to …”
Insight
Kao: Building an audience requires a spiky point of view
“I think with an individual, but I would also say this works for companies, having a spiky point of view is really valuable. And so when I say spiky point of view, I don't mean stirring the pot with controversial statements just for the sake of it. I mean, Havi…”
Insight
Kao: The best founder content originates from internal pet peeves
“When I reflect on my own experiences and things that bother me, Pet peeves of mine. Things that I think are annoying. That's where a lot of my best stuff comes from. And I think, you know, that's kind of going full circle to what we started with, how important…”
Insight
Kao: Spending 15 to 30 seconds preparing clarifies business communication
“Literally, 15 to 30 seconds getting grounded on what am I really trying to say? What does this person need to know? What is my main point and what's potentially secondary? Spending a couple moments asking yourself these questions allows you to write a message …”
Insight
Kao: Employee feedback reflects issues simmering for a long time
“Knowing that being the person in power, you know, by the time anyone's speaking up to challenge you or to
Give you feedback.
This has probably been bothering them for longer than you knew.”
Assertion Supported
Kao: Completion rates for asynchronous video courses were only 3% to 6%
“I started digging into the completion rates of video courses and realized that they were abysmally low. I think three to six percent is completion rate.”
Insight
Kao: Online lecturers should introduce a state change every three minutes
“It's very hard for audiences to stay focused for an hour or two hours on Zoom, and so I shared a concept I called the state change method, about how every three to five minutes you should have a state change of some sort, whether that's switching from gallery …”
Wes Kao