399: Josh Kaufman - How To Master The Art Of Business
Dec 28, 2020
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Josh Kaufman, bestselling author of "The Personal MBA," shares insights about mastering business skills. He emphasizes constant learning and breaking down skills into manageable parts for rapid acquisition. Kaufman contrasts management and leadership, urging the importance of empowering teams through 'commander's intent.' He also discusses the impact of practical experience in education and critiques traditional management practices. With a focus on fostering intrinsic motivation, Kaufman outlines how effective leadership can overcome stagnation in organizations.
Effective leadership requires clear goal-setting and empowering teams to make decisions without micromanagement, fostering adaptability and initiative.
Rapid skill acquisition is enhanced through specific strategies like breaking down skills, committing to practice, and establishing feedback loops.
Deep dives
Understanding Commander's Intent
Commander's intent emphasizes the role of leaders in guiding teams without micromanaging. Effective leadership involves establishing clear objectives and the rationale behind them, allowing teams to make real-time decisions as situations evolve. By fostering an environment where team members feel empowered to take initiative, leaders prevent the cycle of dependency that comes with micromanagement. This approach enhances adaptability, enabling teams to respond effectively to changing circumstances and driving better outcomes.
Keys to Rapid Skill Acquisition
Rapid skill acquisition is achieved through specific strategies that help individuals learn more effectively. It's crucial to define what you want to learn clearly and break the skill down into manageable parts rather than attempting to tackle everything at once. Research and practice facilitate a smoother learning experience, and setting a commitment to practice for a predetermined amount of time—ideally 20 hours—can help overcome initial hurdles and frustrations. This method encourages persistence and ultimately leads to noticeable improvements in performance.
The Importance of Feedback Loops
In both hard and soft skills, establishing fast feedback loops is crucial for improvement and effective learning. Keeping a daily log of interactions and decisions helps leaders better understand their actions and the reactions of their teams over time. This logging method provides insights into patterns and areas for growth, allowing for adjustments that enhance leadership effectiveness. By understanding how their management style affects team dynamics, leaders can refine their approach to support better communication and performance.
The Distinction Between Management and Leadership
Management and leadership are often conflated but represent different skill sets and responsibilities. While management focuses on coordinating group efforts and ensuring tasks are completed efficiently, leadership involves inspiring and guiding people toward a vision. A good leader is not necessarily just a good manager; they must understand how to cultivate a culture of collaboration and motivate their team members. By recognizing these distinctions, organizations can better utilize individuals’ strengths and establish appropriate career paths that align expertise with roles.
Obsessive about learning the details, not a cookie cutter approach
Rapid Skill Acquisition:
Must be specific
Break it down: don't try to do it all at once
Do research
Practice
Deconstruct the skill to its smallest parts
Make a pre-commitment - "I'm going to practice this skill for 20 hours no matter what."
Create fast feedback loops for yourself:
Keep a daily log of what you do... Meetings, interactions, what was discussed, how you feel, etc.
This helps reinforce the importance of paying attention to the small details of what you're trying to learn
If something happens, you can review your notes later
Josh has always had "a desire to understand the world around me"
Teaching is one of the greatest tools in the world for learning
"Management is the act of coordinating a group of people to achieve a goal. Management is not business. Management is not leadership. Management is a supporting function, not a decision making function."
"Leadership = define the goal, account for change."
"Good management =
Recruiting - must get good people
Communicating well between teams and decision making parts of the business
Must create environment of psychological safety
Create a productive working environment
Planning - Estimating time lines and schedules
Measurement
Commander's Intent - "When you are a leader, decision making authority, the least effective thing is for you to make all the ground level decisions." Push decision making power to the people closest to the action.
More quotes from Josh's work:
“You can't make positive discoveries that make your life better if you never try anything new.”
“Every successful business (1) creates or provides something of value that (2) other people want or need (3) at a price they're willing to pay, in a way that (4) satisfies the purchaser's needs and expectations and (5) provides the business sufficient revenue to make it worthwhile for the owners to continue operation.
“If you rely on finding time to do something, it will never be done. If you want to find time, you must make time.”
“The best thing that can happen to a human being is to find a problem, to fall in love with that problem, and to live trying to solve that problem, unless another problem even more lovable appears.”
“Every time your customers purchase from you, they’re deciding that they value what you have to offer more than they value anything else their money could buy at that moment.”
“The trouble comes when we confuse learning with skill acquisition. If you want to acquire a new skill, you must practice it in context. Learning enhances practice, but it doesn’t replace it. If performance matters, learning alone is never enough.”
"Be positive, force yourself to smile."
“Improve by 1% a day, and in just 70 days, you’re twice as good.”
“Ideas are cheap—what counts is the ability to translate an idea into reality, which is much more difficult than recognizing a good idea.”
“Fear of the unknown will always be with you, no matter what you do. That’s comforting in a way: if there’s nothing you can do to change it, there’s no reason to let it stop you.”
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