The chapter explores the importance of developing core systems within a company to shape its culture and productivity, emphasizing the need for a balance between investing in people and systems. It discusses essential systems such as decision-making through writing, effective meeting structures, and operating cadence for goal-setting. The chapter also delves into the concept of annual planning summits and simulations as tools for aligning company priorities and fostering strategic decision-making.
Today’s episode is with Kevin Fishner, Chief of Staff at HashiCorp. As the first business hire at the cloud infrastructure automation company, he previously built out the sales, marketing and product management teams.
Now as chief of staff, he’s focused on building a strong foundation of company-wide systems, now that the team has grown to over 1000 people. In today’s conversation, Kevin shares a detailed look at how they run meetings, set and track progress toward goals, and make decisions through writing at HashiCorp.
He also shares incredibly tactical advice for making annual planning more effective, including the unique business simulation they run, their scorecard system, and the weekly and quarterly meetings that help them stay focused on important KPIs.
While today’s episode is clearly a must-listen for fellow chiefs of staff and founders spinning up a company from scratch, managers and leaders of all kinds will walk away with several takeaways on how to make their teams more effective.
Because so much of what he shared is so detailed, we’ll be sharing some templates and visuals to go along with Kevin’s interview over on the First Round Review, so be sure to check that out.
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