Cook’s PlayBooks: “Best Of” Leadership Top Level Framework
Here’s the Game Plan!
“Welcome to my weekly newsletter where I share three decades of start-up wisdom and personal ‘Best Of’ lessons learned from scaling several iconic Silicon Valley companies including Intuit, Netflix, and Mozilla Firefox. My career has been profoundly influenced by some legendary coaches, mentors, and other executive team members and it is now time to pay it forward and to create a shared learning community for the next generation of startup leaders.”
THANK YOU! - A shout out to everyone who subscribed and sent personal messages of support on the very first post of this blog. There is clearly a demand out there for more content like this and your messages of support, enthusiasm and even the brief comments are awesome.
GAME PLAN:
I’ve been a CFO in Silicon Valley for the last 25+ years at some high profile companies. I’ve been asked dozens of times from VCs, CEOs, and several others, various forms of “What Does A CFO Do?” or “What Should a CFO Be Doing?” or “Do You Have A Good Job Description for a CFO?”
I remember drawing a version of the below graphic on a whiteboard in a Kleiner Perkins conference room. It wasn’t enough to explain verbally, I felt the VC’s and CEO’s in the room had to “See It.”
I explained how a CFO sits at probably the most unique intersection in the organization - the intersection of all the organization’s people and their activities and the corresponding data generated by everyone’s activities.
This 2010 version was a much prettier version than my 2000 whiteboard version:
Around 2015, I created a version that looked like the one below which spoke more toward the leadership aspects required and specifically highlighting one of my main mantras:
“Strategy-Structure-Execution”
Or specifically laid out as:
Strategy > Org Structure > Systems > Decisions > People/Culture > Communications & Influence
Once I started coaching CEOs (Leadership/Teams) and CFOs full-time, I developed the version below and it currently serves as starting point for my Coaching practice.
This Top Level “Best Of” Framework is also my Game Plan for this weekly blog and my next 100+ posts.
You sit at the center in most likely a C-Level Role surrounded by 4 color coded zones for Leadership Mastery. By “mastery,” I specifically mean “Learning” these frameworks and playbooks, “Doing/Implementing” them, and finally “Coaching/Teaching” these zones to your own teams.
I’ll be unpacking each of these Zones and the Frameworks and PlayBooks within each zone in my upcoming weekly blog posts. So hit subscribe to make sure you get these posts delivered into your inbox.
STRATEGY
Communicate the Vision:
Communicate a clear, compelling Vision - at least 4 quarters ahead; ideally 6-8 quarters from now
Where Are We Going? Why Is That Important? 1st Principles
Define the Roadmap:
Where We’ve Been (The path you’ve already traveled-history)
Where We Are (You are here on the map)
Where We Are Going or Future Requirements
Set Milestones on the Roadmap:
Clear Objectives, Goals, Key Metrics or OKRs
Note: I’ll be doing a “Best Of OKR’s” in the future - featuring John Doerr who I worked closely with at Intuit and Wineshopper.
DECISION MAKING CULTURE: There are key frameworks and playbooks in this quadrant and I highly emphasize “Agile Decision Making Systems” in my coaching practice. Some examples are:
“Thinking in Bets:” Properly make decisions on the risk curve. Ode to Annie Duke’s book here
Chalking the Field: Clearly defining in-bounds vs out of bounds; playing by the rules, and having clear marker lines for proper scoring. Think of any sport and these “lines” somewhat disappear into the sport but are critical for scorekeeping and game management (refereeing).
Leading with Powerful Questions
Documenting Key Assumptions
Calling Key Plays (making agile decisions)
Course Correcting (based on decision outcomes): Important note - separating “Decisions” from “Outcomes” is a critical part of agile decision making
LEADERSHIP CULTURE: It’s been said before - “Culture and Teams” eats strategy’s PowerPoints and business model spreadsheets for breakfast.
Bottom Line: “Teams Win.”
Companies are only as good as their culture.
Cultures are only as good as their people, values, and behaviors.
In this Culture Zone, we’ll be diving deep into my “Best Ofs” to master:
Creating an Ownership Culture
How to Lead with Why?
Leading with 1st Principles
Connecting the Why, What, and How
You will hear and understand detailed PlayBooks for “Everyone is the CEO of their Product,” “1st 100 Days,” “Listening Tours,” and several others.
INFLUENCE: the extended version is “Communicating for Influence.” Once the other 3 zones are mastered, Influencing is where the Coaching part of Mastery comes into play and where you cement yourself as a truly great leader. “Learn It,” “Do It,” “Coach It” - this zone is the “Coaches Corner.” Great leaders and Coaches extend their impact beyond their immediate teams.
Becoming a better storyteller
1st Principles Communication techniques including two of my favorites I’ve coined over the years
“7 Times; 7 Different Ways”
“SECS Talk”
Reimagining your role as Chief Alignment Officer
Every week, I’ll be providing a specific framework and/or playbook that will come to your inboxes, LinkedIn, X, Instagram, YouTube - meeting you wherever you are - for at least the next 100+ weeks of lessons learned already drafted.
Subscribe Now for access to future posts to take your leadership game to the next level:
Paid Subscribers can leave Comments where we hope to build a great community and collective “Best Ofs”
Please share this with somebody who may need it with a simple click.