Inspired Execution

Hello, I’m Chet Kapoor and you’re listening to the Season 4 Recap of the Inspired Execution podcast

This season, we’ve had phenomenal guests across many industries

• Evangelist, Author & Podcast Host – Guy Kawasaki
• HackerOne CEO – Marten Mickos
• PacketFabric Founder – Anna Claiborne
• And so many more

It was a privilege to talk about their journeys, the obstacles they’ve overcome and how they lead world-class teams

Here are six magic moments from our discussions:

ONE – Okta’s CTO Sagnik said the key to building a durable business is operating with speed and scale. I love the example he used here… 

People feel in order to move fast, you have to be less careful, or like velocity and scale don't go hand-in-hand. The thing I often tell my team is we should think of our charter as we are a very fast train and we need to become a plane, but we don't have the liberty of stopping the train. Like the classic thing would be like, oh, let's stop the train, build a plane, move over. But that involves stopping. We don't have that luxury or liberty given like just the sheer amount of opportunity and growth ahead of us. It's doing both that I think creates very interesting problems and keeps at least me grounded. Can we move faster without compromising on quality? Can we plan for the future while not giving up immediate needs?

TWO – Longtime CFO and Board Member Kelly Battles shared an interesting perspective on risk-taking

• We usually think of a risk as diving straight into the unknown – like changing your career path or moving to a new city
• But some risks are actually about saying “no”
• As you navigate your path, remember to be thoughtful about when you’re jumping in versus when you’re opting out

THREE – Guy Kawasaki revealed the single hardest thing entrepreneurs should spend a ton of time on

By far, I think the purpose of an entrepreneur or an intrepreneur someone in a larger company is to create customer. How do you create a customer? Duh, you have to finish your product. You have to finish your service. So I think basically the bulk of your effort should be getting a product to market. Many tech entrepreneurs, especially in the startup phase, I think they lose track of that. At some level, the purpose of a company is to raise money. So they're all about writing business plans and making pitches and, shucking and jiving would venture capitalists. And then yeah, knock on wood. They finally raise money and they think, okay, so now the hard part's over, I hate to tell you, but the hard part is just beginning. So the good news is you raise money. The bad news is now you got to build a business.

FOUR – Mastercard’s CMO Raja shared how creativity and innovation can live anywhere

• We all know Mastercard as a payments company
• So I was surprised to hear that they created an entire album called Priceless
• The idea was to represent their brand through a medium we all know and love: MUSIC
• This is an awesome example of thinking outside of the box 
• Many of the most successful campaigns, products, and companies are born from wacky ideas
• So make sure you’re looking for innovation everywhere

FIVE – World Justice Project CEO Bill talked about the power of positive coaching

• It’s not enough to compensate your team financially
• You have to recognize their hard work and give them credit as often as possible 
• But you also need to be honest when they miss the mark
• You can give constructive feedback while also trusting someone to do better next time

And SIX – Leadership coach & author Jennifer Edwards highlighted the importance of approaching each other with empathy and radical compassion

We all are wearing this human suit. That's feeling tension and we never know what the person in front of us really has going on. I don't really know what's going on for you. You don't really know what's going on for me. Most of us wear brave faces. So if there's one thing that I believe we have to bring to any conversation, any facility is care. It's time for some compassion, radical compassion, to understand that, um, people aren't actively ever trying to be unhappy, you know, frustrating. They just might be stuck. And so if I bring anything to that, it's like, how can I care enough to find out what's really going on so that we can have a breakthrough in whatever we're looking at.

As always, I’m blown away by these phenomenal leaders and learn so much through our conversations 

I hope you enjoyed Season 4 of Inspired Execution and found pieces to incorporate into your style

I’ll leave you with one final thought: 

• No matter where your journey takes you, always start by leading yourself
• Then inspire the hearts and minds of others to achieve far more than they ever thought was possible
• At the end of the day, it’s about being on a mission together and solving hard problems while having fun

Thank you so much for tuning in to the podcast and we’ll see you next season