How CEOs Think Credit Pete Flintar Mind Shift 1 Pick A Clear North StThe term “North Star metric” is usually used in the context of picking KPIs, but it has a broader meaning Your North Star is often.
How CEOs Think Credit: Pete Flint Mind Shift 1: Pick A Clear North Star The term “North Star metric” is usually used in the context of picking KPIs, but it has a broader meaning Your North Star is often defined by which of the different groups of stakeholders in your company you consider most crucial to the success of your company You need to identify the highest leverage constituency and choose your North Star based on what creates the most value for them Mind Shift 2: Deeply Understand Your Multiple Constituents Step two is to go beyond that and develop a deep understanding of who all your constituents are — what their needs and incentives might be, and how to manage their competing demands Fortunately, one of your biggest jobs as a Founder during Phase One will have been to figure out how to engage and retain customers in a scalable way Some of the same techniques you used to delight your customers can later be used to service other key constituencies — such as employees, advertisers, partners, and investors — as the organization grows To this, you have to translate their needs into the appropriate metrics, product experiences, and processes, just as you did with customers to achieve product-market fit Mind Shift 3: Seek Out Advice and Feedback As a CEO, you need to be constantly learning and evolving If a startup is a learning machine, then the CEO needs to be the standard-bearer of this philosophy The more advice you can get, the more mentors you can find, the more feedback you receive, the better You need to be constantly learning and getting better at what you Mind Shift 4: Learn to Leverage Your Time and Delegate To scale any startup, you need to bring in leadership talent Founders need to hire exceptional leaders to fill in gaps in their early team’s capability — leaders that they can trust to help scale the organization Beyond removing yourself as a bottleneck, this is also about finding a way to free up your time so that you can focus it on the highest-leverage activities Mind Shift 5: Build Trust By Embracing Authenticity Authenticity is therefore critical to building trust If, as a Founder, you are transparent about what’s going on and the true situation your company is in, and if you can clearly articulate the plan and then deliver on that plan, the trust you build with employees and other stakeholders in your company is beyond measure