Notes on From Start-Up to Grown-Up by Alisa Cohn

I heard about Alisa Cohn from the podcast she did with Tim Ferriss. I recently finished reading her book From Start-Up to Grown-Up: Grow Your Leadership to Grow Your Business, and I really liked it and learned a lot. It served as an excellent overview of many parts of leadership and management and how those evolve as a company grows. I also loved that she had an appendix full of actual scripts for the most delicate situations that are so common.

Below are my main takeaways and notes on the book. I highly recommend it to any entrepreneur running a business that's growing.

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​Foreword
Are you coachable?
Make yourself vulnerable
Be ready to know yourself deeply

Intro
Leadership is Unnatural 
Managing you
Managing down
Managing company

Part 1 managing you

1 your startup self
Mini 360 review: ask those around you for the 3 words they’d use to describe you and compare to how you describe yourself
CEO role is to adapt
Set direction
Hire leadership
Raise money
6 questions about style 
How do you express yourself? Ask questions or give orders?
How do you deal with conflict? Lean in or avoid and hope others work out for themselves?
How do you deal with feedback? Actively solicit or avoid?
How much do you want to control the process? Watch over every step or just wait for the end result? Make decisions alone or gather input from various people?
How do you respond to stress? Snap back or shut down?
How do you make decisions? Consensus?
Choose a response versus have a reaction
360 feedback from others 
Strengths
Weaknesses
Blind spots
Obstacles
When they’re trying to influence you, how do they do it
How would you describe their leadership style
What environments bring out best in them and worst in them
What do strongest allies say and harshest critics say
What specific behavioral suggestions to be a better leader (what to start doing, stop doing, continue doing)
Probe for specific examples
Sample scripts In book for following up with those who gave feedback and explaining what you heard and what you will do about it 
Polite your passions
Don’t bully
Show your emotions 
Say what you mean sometimes
Be the decider
Decide when you should decide
Delegate
Communicate 
Praise is your best tool
Run better meetings
Be yourself except when you shouldn’t
Show up as a human being
Appropriate vulnerability at appropriate times
Self reflection should become a reflex
What energizes or drains you?
What are your superpowers and Achilles heel?

2 be the boss of you
How do you calm yourself when upset?
Imposter syndrome
How to be your own best friend
Create highlight reel of your successes to play when you feel unsure and every morning
See yourself in eye of others
Lose fear of being wrong
Each time you’re wrong, you learn something 
When it gets to be too much, get help
Habits, routines, rituals
Journaling
Reduce distractions
Carve out time for deep work
Take 30% of your meetings off your calendar and see what others can do
Take care of physical and mental
Once a month fully disconnect for a day

Part 2 managing down

3 why should anyone follow you
Need to praise people
Make goals clear
Emphasize what’s good first
Frame things as a learning challenge
Give each person praise twice per week
Say what you mean and mean what you say
Feedback/analysis: Goal, outcome, do over (what would you do differently)
It’s not better when you do it yourself
Commitment and competence
Will and skill

4 cultural conceptions and misconceptions
Values as foundation
Purpose and meaning
Company rituals
Personal, purposeful, powerful
Weekly cross functional lunches

5 hiring and firing
Hiring right: values 
Need to be intentional
First 500 employees are your cultural cofounders
Founder eliminates half the candidates
Have one person who just interviews for mission, values, mindset
Hire only when need to and what you have to
Use automated tools before you hire people
Ask people to tell you stories in interview
Gather tangible examples
Check references
Review online reputation 
Ask them for their personal operating manual
If you hire friends, run formal interview process and tell them they may be layered in the future which is a sign of success of the business
Help them start strong
Explain what you expect in first 30-90 days
Give new hires personal operating manual
Quick wins for new employees. Need others to see their new value quickly. 
When you have to part ways
Are these the right executives at this point in time?
If there’s doubt, there is no doubt
If you think someone has to go, the sooner the better
Make agreement with them and tell them to check in with you on the progress. Up to them to update you, not you
How to fire, who to tell, how quick 
Decide plan in advance
Tell whole company
When the person you can’t live without leaves
Downsizing with dignity
Good script for layoffs in book

Part 3 managing your company

6 growing and growing up
Getting the right people person
At 50 people, everyone needs roles and goals
Office manager isn’t the right person for head of people
Structure is sexy
People want to be managed and know who to turn to
What’s a managers to do
Managers coordinate work for others to get done and optimize the conditions for that 
Skills to discuss with managers
Role modeling
Cascading info
Giving feedback
Career development 
Goal setting
Accountability 
Manager’s job 1: modeling behavior
Can’t be moody
Own the decisions the company makes
Script to give new managers who will be managing former peers
Manager job 2: spreading the word
Executive team meetings
Decide on messaging for company together
Keep repeating
Manager job 3: coaching
Build relationship
Ask open ended questions 
Grow model
Goal
Reality
Options
Way forward
What are you afraid of
How can I be helpful 
Manager job 4: giving feedback 
Praise
Constructive
How coming across to others
Coin model 
Context
Observation
Impact of behavior 
Next step from you or ask them
What are you going to do differently and when should we have a conversation to check in on this topic next 
Script for defensive reaction
Script for teary employee
See feedback as a gift 
Manager job 5 helping employees grow 
Script for early startup career development conversation 
Manager job 6: setting goals and accountability 
HR job 1: training
HR job 2: make sure people know what to do and how
Performance management system
Clear process for deciding who is ready for promotion 
Focus areas
What employee accomplished
Their strengths
Growth opportunities 
360 feedback from peers
Nothing in the meeting Should be a surprise to anyone
Continuous feedback
What’s getting in the way of you achieving your goals?
HR job 3: growing org chart as company grows
Layering script 
Removing people from exec team who used to be there script
Your job changes too
Instead of leading and managing everyone, you’re leading and managing leaders

7 smooth operations
Metrics and standard processes
Metrics about people
What to measure and how
Cash is king for a reason
Learn to love dashboards
Compare to goal
Example Key metric for sales: meetings per month
4 per month yields 1 opportunity per month and 1 closed deal per quarter which could be enough to hit goal per sales person
Color coded metrics in traffic light colors
4-5 KPIs
OKRs
RACI chart to assign responsibilities 
Only one person accountable for each thing
Informed can be everyone
Consulted can be many
The magic of meetings
Preparation for meeting more important than meeting itself
Great meetings start with why
Have clear goal
Send out memo ahead of time
Why, how, who
Who is in charge
Who to notify
Personal opener and small talk
Mini check in
What’s highlight of week
What’s your spirit vegetable
What toy would you be
Important for remote teams
Rose, thorn, bud (new challenge or idea you’re looking forward to)
Meetings you need to have
With yourself daily
Priorities for day
Who needs you
Morning ritual
Cofounder meeting weekly
Leadership team meeting weekly
Everyone thinks from company perspective not just per team
Review dashboard of company’s most important 3-5 goals
Cascading of info up and down (tell execs what to tell their teams and have execs tell you what they’re hearing from their teams)
Celebrate successes big and small
Have execs prepare summaries of their projects and any concerns 
1:1s
Prepare ahead of time
Check in as people and if blocked or frustrated 
Quarterly ask them about career aspirations and if can give more opportunities for training or mentorship or new projects
Praise them for their contributions
Remind them how their work fits into the bigger goal
Structured script for what to do with 1:1s in book
Offsite strategy meeting for leaders quarterly
It’s ok to say we’re all learning and experimenting
Stop a meeting early if not going anywhere and say we didn’t adequately prepare and their time is precious
Metrics, systems, meetings

8 managing the board
2 types of founders: those that have issues with their board and those that will
Different dysfunctional board member personalities
Take charge of your board
See the board as another one of your direct reports
Boards are people too
Meet with each director 1:1 like a dinner or hike
How can you and I best communicate?
What excites you most about our company?
Build genuine relationships
Basics of board meetings
Plan our meeting dates for the year
6 weeks before each start planning
Premeeting call with each director in advance
Walk them through what they can expect at the meeting
If they have concerns, they can voice them
Prepare any executives participating in the meeting
Prepare deck with 2-3 strategic issues to decide
Send materials ahead of time
Send strategic items first, 3 days in advance, without financials
Set ground rules when meeting starts. Ask everyone to turn off all electronic devices. Notes on paper only. If someone participating only in one part, have them join just for that.
Say you want to hear from everyone in the room so quiet one speaks up and loud one stops talking
Start with personal question like what’s a highlight for you since our last meeting
Do some activity together like dinner
How to manage quirky director
Script for checked out director
Script for overbearing director
Friendly feedback from fellow director
Come to terms with your triggers
Role play board members
Encourage directors to build relationships with each other

9 cofounder care and feeding
Cofounder prenup
Legal
Emotional
List of topics to discuss 
Informal time together
Talk about goals and values repeatedly
Cofounder alignment script in book
Decide who does what
Control
Talk straight to each other
Bring up issues even if small
Explore areas of tension
What to do if cofounder can’t keep up
Address bad behavior compassionately

10 your new workplace
Virtual work
Create rituals for people to share about their lives
Do social activities remotely
Stay mentally fit
Keep communication flowing
Have to over communicate 
Digital body language book
Use the right tool for the right message
Have standards on which mediums used for what 
Email checklist
Open with pleasantries
Set context
Limit to only a couple topics
Team ground rules on response time, core hours
Define clear goals and see if meeting them
Learn to have intimate conversations over video
Signal good intent when about to give feedback
How to hire remotely right
Spend more time talking
Have formal interview and informal
Do more diligent research
Making new hires stick remotely
Give clear onboarding plan and steps
Welcome the person before they start
Ask for their operating manual and give yours before they start
Tell them what to expect in the weeks between hiring and start
Set up schedule and structure for first week
Send swag personalized to them and cookies and food
Send them lunch voucher for first day and have someone do lunch with them remotely 
Structure is still sexy
Clarify where things are
Clarify how decisions made

Conclusion
Leadership unnatural but you can learn

Sample scripts for difficult situations 
1:1 meeting
Career development
Difficult feedback or when someone underperforming
When someone wants a promotion they’re not ready for
Hiring your friend
Firing your friend
Firing an executive
Telling an executive they’re no longer going to be part of the executive team
Layering a good employee under a new manager
Cofounder alignment discussion
Delivering bad news in all hands meeting
Layoffs announcement 
Follow-up to 360 feedback

References
Digital body language 
alisacohn.com/book