Episode 53 Alisa Cohn

[00:00:00] Introduction to Leadership Challenges

[00:00:00] Alisa: leadership is an unnatural act, and if you question that, ask yourself this. it natural for you to go give feedback to people who are like your friends, like people you know? It's not natural.

[00:00:13] Alisa: So all these sort of aspects of leadership are just unnatural and are learned behavior. And if you're gonna be a successful leader. You're going to have to do the work of learning what they are and learning how to do them.

[00:00:26] ​

[00:00:31] Welcome and Guest Introduction

[00:00:31] Allan: Welcome to the Lean Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Allan Dib. Today I've got a guest, Alisa Cohn, and Alisa is an expert at people, and especially an expert at people in business. She's the author of From Start-Up to Grown-Up. She's an executive coach, helps people really understand the people side of things, the mindset side of things, the metrics side of things of really.

[00:00:55] Allan: Growing and scaling a business. I had the pleasure of meeting Alisa [00:01:00] recently at an event. It was so cool to share a few days with you. Alisa, welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:05] Alisa: Thank you Allan. It's so good to see you again.

[00:01:08] Alisa Cohn's Background and Expertise

[00:01:08] Allan: So, um, for people who don't know what your background is. Do you wanna give us a couple of sentences on who you are, who you do it for, and then maybe we'll get into it.

[00:01:17] Alisa: Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I've been a coach for 25 years. I work kind of with two kinds of people. I work with elite founders and help them think about how do they need to scale themselves as they scale their business. And I also work with C-suite executives in larger companies, fortune 100 companies, and I help them think about where are they going and how are they gonna get there? But specifically in light of sort of an entrepreneurial mindset, like how do you, you know, move things faster even inside of a large company? So that's how I think of it. And then I also do offsites and I do, I write for fast Company and Harvard Business Review and Forbes and Inc.

[00:01:52] Alisa: And I speak a lot and I own my own podcast called From Start-Up to Grown-Ups. So that's like my full plate of the things that I do.

[00:01:59] Allan: [00:02:00] Nice.

[00:02:00] Commonalities and Differences in Leadership

[00:02:00] Allan: Actually, I mean, it's a very different group the people who are running large companies, CEOs, executives, and then the people who are starting a scrapping new start-up. What are the commonalities between them. And what are the differences that you find you need to translate between one group and the other?

[00:02:16] Alisa: Well, the commonalities are always commonalities to all of leadership, which means really figuring out what's working about what I'm doing, what's working in the context that I am now. What's not working and what do I need to change and grow in order to build my leadership capacity? And again, sort of scale where I am right now.

[00:02:33] Alisa: So for large companies, what that often means is how do I help people who I don't ever talk to? It's like a large company, understand the vision, where we're going, understand the top priorities, and kind of maintain a culture, let's say maintain a high metabolism inside of a culture.

[00:02:50] Allan: Mm.

[00:02:51] Alisa: And so that's. Very different from a start-up, which is fighting for their lives every day.

[00:02:56] Allan: Yeah.

[00:02:57] Alisa: you know, founders there have to think about where do I lean [00:03:00] in and where do I lean out and what do I need to kind of recognize I need to take over myself or what am I able, willing, and able to hand over to other people that. I would say, a never ending story. It's sort of it's constantly adjusting as you

[00:03:12] Alisa: grow Obviously the stakes are higher in a start-up because, you know, let's face it, IBM's gonna be fine no matter what you do.

[00:03:18] Allan: Yeah.

[00:03:18] Alisa: sort of like this way. I think about it, the stakes are higher in a start-up, but I would also say that what I bring to start-ups is a lot of the process orientation that Fortune 500 companies take on. And then what I bring to large companies is kind of more of an entrepreneurial mindset, metabolism.

[00:03:35] Allan: Yeah.

[00:03:36] Personal Development in Business

[00:03:36] Allan: It's always been my view that business is the world's best personal development vehicle. You know, whatev whatever issues you have in your personal life they're gonna be magnified tenfold. In your business, if you are late all the time, it's gonna be in your business tenfold. Any personal trait that you suffer with is gonna be magnified tenfold in your business or especially a growing business.

[00:03:59] Allan: And [00:04:00] I think for me, one of my biggest challenges for the longest time, and I think it's still probably a challenge, is. People, right? Because I, I'm from an engineering background where, you know, if you have a certain input you can have a pretty reliable sort of output with people. Not so right?

[00:04:15] Allan: People are not robots. You can't program them as reliably as you can. What are your thoughts on how do they kind of break through that next level

[00:04:26] Alisa: Yeah. First of all, have always said the same thing. We're obviously like twins here because I've always said this is where personal growth happens right

[00:04:35] Allan: Yeah.

[00:04:35] Alisa: career context, inside of your

[00:04:37] Allan: Yeah.

[00:04:38] Alisa: context. And that's actually why I went into coaching because that's like everything important in your life happens in the context of work.

[00:04:45] Alisa: I really kind of believe that. In addition to all the things you said about how like your limitations show up at work, that's so true. Also, frankly, your healing shows up at work

[00:04:56] Alisa: Grew up in a household which didn't have healthy conflict

[00:04:58] Alisa: M

[00:04:59] Allan: mm.

[00:04:59] Alisa: Then [00:05:00] you learn inside of a company to have healthy conflict after a lot of trial and error and a lot of coaching, a lot of guidance that is like a triumph over the past.

[00:05:07] Alisa: It is such a beautiful moment for you as a human being. That you were able to transcend your past and finally learn how to have healthy conflict. And oh, by the way, you're right, that then can show up at your home. Like at home, you can now have the conversations you need to have and have healthy conflict, which is like an essential skill.

[00:05:24] Alisa: So I think it's like holy work actually working with people in a workplace context. And you're absolutely right that like when you have certain limitations, they scale. I. You may not be a peopley person, anyone out there, this is not about like necessarily making you a better person.

[00:05:41] Alisa: It is about the success of your business because you'll never be successful if you can't overcome these challenges. And oh, by the way, it will make you a better person.

[00:05:49] Allan: Yeah.

[00:05:51] Transitioning from Start-up to Grown-up

[00:05:51] Allan: In the beginning of a business or start-up, it's kind of like all hands on deck. Everyone's doing everything. There are no maybe clear roles or maybe [00:06:00] there are some sort of blurry roles, but everyone sort of sleeves up, doing the. everything from mopping the floor to, you know, writing the code or whatever it is.

[00:06:09] Allan: and that's, that's beautiful. That works well in the beginning. That does not scale very well, and that does not get us to grown-up. And you know, some people will be able to make that transition from Start-Up to Grown-Up, but often many can't make that transition. How do you transition from their level of competence in our start-up journey or whatever.

[00:06:33] Allan: And can people break through that? How have you dealt with that in the past?

[00:06:37] Alisa: Yeah, it's a great question. I think of this as like start-up people. So your early days start-up people are the ones who love that kind of chaotic environment where

[00:06:44] Allan: Yeah.

[00:06:44] Alisa: everything and then there are the later stage start-up people who are like, I love the idea of joining an environment which is sort of scaling fast. And then we need to do is quickly hire the right people. to your point, clarify the rules. [00:07:00] And that's the kind of things that they like. So there are all the different stages of start-up people.

[00:07:04] Alisa: By the way, the later stage of start-up people are kind of like corporate people. They want benefits and they want a career path, and they wanna know that, like they have already have role clarity. So people enter at different stages.

[00:07:17] Alisa: They can definitely change and grow and develop into from one stage to the other if they want to and if they're given the opportunity. but I would say it's not necessarily guaranteed that they will. And I think the better self-awareness you have about where you want to play in the start-up ecosystem, the more likely you'll find your fit.

[00:07:37] Alisa: And I think having the self-awareness of the kinds of things you wanna do is essential for your success in that almost like outta control experience of being in the start-up.

[00:07:47] Allan: The other thing I've found is many times found as an entrepreneur is we love novelty, and novelty is wonderful in the beginning because you're trying new stuff, you are developing all of that. But once you've got a [00:08:00] product to market fit or you've got a service that's now working and now we really need to think about scale and systems and all this boring stuff.

[00:08:09] Allan: The founder or the entrepreneur often just starts creating chaos. Let's launch a new product. Let's try a new market or whatever. When you've got now the thing that's working and we've just gotta scale that thing and just do the boring stuff, the daily, weekly, monthly stuff that will scale, that will market this thing, that will get it, that will optimize it but not necessarily change those things.

[00:08:30] Allan: And so, I'm certainly in that bucket. I love the novelty. I love the work. Moving on to the new project and things like that, which is why it's been so helpful to hire good leadership in my business. I've got a great CEO, I've got a great operations manager. I've got a great team who will just work on the current thing and scale it, and then I can move on and work on the next exciting project or the next book or whatever else.

[00:08:54] Allan: how do you get to kind of that self-awareness and um, at what stage do you fire yourself [00:09:00] essentially and move on to the next thing and the next thing may be a project within the business. It may not be outside of the business.

[00:09:06] Self-Awareness and Leadership

[00:09:06] Alisa: Yeah, you are exactly right that many founders are much better off hiring professional leaders around them, keeping their fingers in the business and you know, allowing them to kind of fly and do their own thing.

[00:09:22] Alisa: And the self-awareness comes from your own internal state. Like, I think there are two aspects of what we call self-awareness broadly, but it's actually self-awareness and awareness of your impact on others. So self-awareness is your feeling inside. Plenty of founders will say, after a certain stage, I feel dead inside.

[00:09:40] Alisa: That's a really good sign that something is not working that something has to get changed and you might wanna really go like delve into what are my values, what brings me joy, what brings me purpose? And do some journaling around that so that you can kind of figure out. What's missing here?

[00:09:58] Alisa: Like what is the sort of the [00:10:00] problem here? The other part of self-awareness is your awareness of your impact on others. So for example, back to the Chaos thing. It's like if you're trying to run this business and what you're doing is being a crazy making founder because what you're doing is starting new things, you know, launching new things, wanting to be the person who's like in the middle of everything. You're making everybody around you less effective and crazy and you have to come to terms with that through 360 feedback or from, you know, insights that others will, will be willing and able to share with you so that you have a sense of like actually the damage you're causing inside of the company and the conditions that you say are important to you.

[00:10:36] Allan: A lot of your work as a founder is kind of setting, and I don't know if you can actually intentionally set company culture. I don't know. To some extent. I think it's just derivative of your personality.

[00:10:48] Allan: I think to some extent that will flow onto the rest of the workplace. Am I right or can you be more intentional about company culture?

[00:10:57] Alisa: I think it's both. I think that first of [00:11:00] all, you are who you are as a starting point. I believe people can change, but as a starting point, when you start your company, you bring yourself and you have like a set of values, whether you've done the work to kind of clarify them or not. So you might have a value of like speed at the expense of everything.

[00:11:17] Alisa: You might have a value of we go the extra mile, you know, if that's the kind of person you are. You're gonna assume that's the way the company should be like no matter what.

[00:11:27] Alisa: And so kind of, you probably won't examine that very much. And therefore, you're gonna hire for that and you're gonna act like that. You're gonna reward the behavior of going the extra mile. You're going to be annoyed at people who don't go the extra mile. So part of it is like by the time you realize you have a culture, it's already kind of been established. But I do believe. You can grow and you can change, and you can also look at the culture and ask the question, is this working for us?

[00:11:52] Allan: Hmm.

[00:11:53] Alisa: Is this the kind of culture that I'm meant to have?

[00:11:54] Alisa: For example, one of the companies, a serial founder that I worked with was a third time founder [00:12:00] and he said.

[00:12:01] Alisa: I always make this happen. And he said, I've hired the best rowers in the world, but I. They're not rowing in the same direction. So the boat is going around in circles and he had to come to terms with that.

[00:12:14] Alisa: The thing he cared about the most was smarts. He hired for smarts and what he got was smarts. He did not get collaboration. He did not get like people working together. So he had to do the painful work of changing the way the company hired, and changing the way. He kind of rewarded people and what was valuable and he started to really focusing on rere rewarding things like working together to finish projects much more than just sheer intelligence. And that was the process of culture change, but it took self-examination and self-reflection, and then a behavior change in order to be able to make that leap.

[00:12:53] Allan: Mm.

[00:12:54] Allan: So you talk about using like your founding story to kind of rally [00:13:00] people and team internally and things like that. Tell me more about that. I.

[00:13:04] Alisa: Well, I think people wanna get involved with something they believe in, and so your founding story was typically there was a reason you founded your company and you did, whether you said it to yourself or not, you had a dream. You had a dream of this kind of company or this technology or this kind of product being in the world, you had a dream of being successful. If you didn't have a dream of being successful or this thing in the world, you wouldn't have started your company. Why would you do that? So that can be very inspiring for people. Also, people really resonate with the founder. They want the approval of the founder.

[00:13:36] Alisa: So we wanna know about that person. We wanna know what they went through. We wanna know about like the ups and downs it took to get here. And that helps kind of validate the experience people are having now in the world, like now in the company.

[00:13:48] Allan: one of the things I think you, you've said is that leadership is kind of an unnatural act for many first time founders. And that's definitely something I've uh, resonated with at times for sure. What do you mean by [00:14:00] that? And how do you as a founder become a good leader?

[00:14:04] Alisa: Yeah, leadership is an unnatural act, and if you question that, ask yourself this. it natural for you to go give feedback to people who you know are like your friends, like people you know? It's not natural. If you are the kind of person who does not like public speaking, then at a, as a leader, at some point you're gonna have to do some version of public speaking, and that's gonna feel unnatural.

[00:14:30] Alisa: If you are a leader, the way you handle conflict is to, like lash out at people around you.

[00:14:36] Alisa: Sometimes. You need to praise and give positive feedback to your team as they are screwing up. So they're screwing up. And you still have to be like, I have confidence in you. You can do it. Even though you're like, oh God, I don't think this is gonna work out, because you need to convey that confidence to people, otherwise they won't make it to the finish line. So all these sort of aspects of [00:15:00] leadership are just unnatural and are learned behavior. And if you're gonna be a successful leader. You're going to have to do the work of learning what they are and learning how to do them.

[00:15:10] Increasing Your Disagreement Quotient

[00:15:10] Allan: You talked about disagreement question, actually. Maybe you tell us a little bit about that and how we can increase our disagreement quotient?

[00:15:18] Alisa: Yeah, I did a Ted X talk on this notion of increasing your disagreement quotient because I mean, in a polarized world that we live in, people are just having trouble disagreeing with each other, and I just think that's like, terrible. And I think people need to just. their ability to be with somebody they disagree with.

[00:15:36] Alisa: And so, you know, to sort of handle being like disagreeing. And so I've given some tools about how to do that. So one tool to just handle being in disagreement with someone is to sort of change your perspective, which is ask yourself the question why would a happy minded, healthy minded generous individual think this way.

[00:15:56] Alisa: So kind of putting yourself in their shoes and kind of their best self, the [00:16:00] most generous interpretation, and that helps you maybe open up your own aperture of like seeing it from a different point of view and then dealing, being able to deal with being in disagreement. Another is that rather than try to win, you try to learn like, okay, we disagree the way, it turns out.

[00:16:16] Alisa: If you have a big disagreement and they believe one thing and you believe something else, in general, it's kind of a fool's errand to try to talk them out of their idea. So since you can't talk them on their idea, fine, why don't you learn? Ask them questions, learn about it. And understand it better, so at least again, you can kind of relate to them. Also, you've learned something and it just helps you have a better conversation with somebody whose mind you are definitely not gonna change.

[00:16:44] Allan: Yeah,, I've certainly learnt more from people I've disagreed with over the years than I have from people who've agreed with me.

[00:16:51] Allan: And that's another thing that feels unnatural is hiring people who think very differently to you. So, you know, like if [00:17:00] I, like, if I think of a lot of my friends, a lot of them think very much the same with me. We get on, we, you know, we have the same jokes, the same humor, the same a lot of the same viewpoints on life.

[00:17:11] Allan: Whereas if you do that in a business, I found that to be dangerous because you've got a huge blind spot, right? And you are not hiring for your areas ofsimilar expertise or similar viewpoint to you, and so you're missing a huge chunk that you wouldn't see otherwise if you didn't hire people who had different skills.

[00:17:30] Allan: Different viewpoints came from different cultures and things like that, so that to me, has felt very unnatural, but has been very valuable as well.

[00:17:40] Alisa: Yeah. Yep. I think that's very well said. You know what? You are gonna learn a lot more by being willing to expose yourself to different viewpoints and not staying in your little bubble of people you already know, thinking things you already think.

[00:17:53] Allan: Hey, Alan here. Want to dive deeper into today's episode? Head to lean [00:18:00] marketing.com/podcast for links to all the resources we mentioned, plus some exclusive ones. Just for podcast listeners, you can also subscribe to get notified when new episodes drop and receive my latest marketing and business tips right in your inbox.

[00:18:13] Allan: That's lean marketing.com/podcast. Now back to the show.

[00:18:17] Allan: How do you get people on board with your vision? I mean, people want more than just a paycheck. They want to be on board with a vision, some values that they care about a mission that the company is on. Where do you stand on that and how do you calibrate?

[00:18:32] Alisa: You know, I think that this notion of vision and culture are kind of overused in this. way which isn't always helpful And I think that the vision, the purpose, the reason for being of the company is important. It's important in that it motivates people day to day. It guides their work day to day, and it helps them understand the bigger picture of what they're doing.

[00:18:57] Alisa: The truth is that research has proven that [00:19:00] people are much more motivated when they understand the impact of their work and that they can see progress and vision helps mark that, you know, sort of towards the goals. And the thing about culture is that, what are expectations of each other? What are the behaviors around here? What do we expect around here?

[00:19:15] Alisa: One company I work with as an example, has not a problem spending money.

[00:19:20] Alisa: They buy. all the time. They do a lot of travel. you know, part of what they, they experience is that like spending money equals success in terms of like their own, comradery and then also like achieving their goals. So that's like, that drives a certain path forward. Another company, they have a value around thriftiness. so, you know, spending the least money is kind of a badge of honor, and you get rewarded for spending least money, by the way, not right or wrong actually, right? Each company, it's right for them it guides their actions and behaviors.

[00:19:57] Alisa: So you have a value in a certain kind of culture with the way [00:20:00] we do things around here.

[00:20:01] Alisa: And that's essential to kind of clarify for yourself. And I would just say building rapport inside of your company one way or the other is helpful because one day, sooner rather than later, people are gonna get into conflict with each other. And if they each other or they spend a little time like having a beer or like having a meal together, they're gonna be much more likely to be able to work out their conflict together. Also, you have people on the team who don't wanna ask the head of marketing a question, but they know somebody over in marketing.

[00:20:33] Alisa: And so because they know that person, they're willing and able to reach out and ask the question of that person rather than go through this whole formal process. So kind of like the social lubrication at work is actually very helpful. It's a part of culture, but understanding what's expected from each other, that is the essential part of culture you cannot skip.

[00:20:52] Allan: Yeah, I often think when people have those kind of vision statements and things like that, you know, how's that person who's just doing tickets on the [00:21:00] help desk?

[00:21:00] Allan: are they waking up every morning thinking, wow, I'm making the world a better place? Or are they like, you know I've got a hundred tickets to get through today. I've just gotta get this, done. And of course, you know, if you've got a hundred tickets and you've gotta get them done you're working on something that you're proud of, that's better than something that you hate, you know, if it's a product that you hate or, uh, a service that you don't believe in or whatever else.

[00:21:21] Allan: So, I've, I've kind of seen it and felt it from both perspectives and, that's why I'm often skeptical about these kind of offsites where you spend two days coming up with your values and all of this sort of stuff and ends up tends to be a waste of time for everybody. And you've got work piling up in the meantime.

[00:21:38] Allan: So, what are your thoughts on that and how do you get that balance right?

[00:21:42] Alisa: Well, I think you're right that like if you've got a hundred tickets to do, you got a hundred tickets to do that is like the truth. there's a company that I'm actually an investor with, it's called Thalamus.

[00:21:52] Alisa: Their vision is the right doctor at the right place and the right time, if you have a founder [00:22:00] and or if you have your own personal boss, which is even more effective being like, oh, I know this sucks doing all these tickets. Yeah, man, you know, I appreciate your work you're doing. And I wanna remind you that it's an important work that we're all doing to kind of build up that infrastructure. It change your a hundred tickets, but I think it makes you for just a moment, remember there's a bigger picture here about what you're actually working on and I think that's actually very helpful and, it comes back to, it's like not just the founder or the CEO who needs to be delivering that message.

[00:22:34] Alisa: It needs to be, actually, I'm a big fan of the middle manager to, it needs to be the middle manager who understands that vision. Can translate it for that person and is also there to be like, I see you, I see the work you're

[00:22:47] Alisa: doing. I See how you're doing it. I care about you and the work you're doing matters.

[00:22:52] Alisa: And if you remind people of that you know now, and again in the context of vision and the context of culture, that is very [00:23:00] effective for people because people wanna stay with companies because of their bosses or leave companies because of their bosses.

[00:23:06] Allan: Yeah I totally agree that people want to stay or leave often because of their bosses. And being seen and being appreciated. Absolutely. A hundred percent.  that makes sense. I mean, you've seen the inside of so many different companies and different leaders and of different sizes. What are the few most commonalities that, you find as leadership blockers and how are you unblocking them?

[00:23:29] Alisa: Yeah, I mean there's so many. There's a few commonalities. Number one is that when you are the leader, suggestions are orders. Your inklings are orders. Your brainstorms are orders, and your orders are orders. And so you don't know that 'cause you're just like brainstorming, but actually people are taking them like orders.

[00:23:49] Alisa: And so that's a commonality that people do not anticipate. Right? They do not realize it. Now, out of the other side of my mouth, I will also say, [00:24:00] leaders don't realize how much they need to repeat themselves, right?

[00:24:02] Allan: Yeah.

[00:24:03] Alisa: always getting in because you have this idea, what do you call it?

[00:24:06] Alisa: Your vision or your mission or conscious of things you wanna do. other people have their own priorities. They either have the way I've done it before, playbook, the things I enjoy doing playbook, the sort of things I think we should do playbook or the, I'm just working to keep my head above water playbook.

[00:24:25] Alisa: Okay. All of those playbooks. Are not your playbook as the leader. Your playbook as the leader needs to be repeated all the time so that people kind of stay on track with what's important and they're able to kind of pull themselves outta the muck and mier, but it doesn't just happen.

[00:24:39] Alisa: Some of the other, let's say common uncommon problems are more about personality. So we talked about your conflict averse, or you're somebody who actually is too quick to take offense or too quick to lean into conflict. Either one of those, you kind of need to, you know, bring yourself back to the middle. You either need to learn to have difficult [00:25:00] conversations. We need to kind of ratchet yourself back when it comes to like being hot with conflict, you might be, you talked earlier about like not being on time. wanna be the kind of person who's on time.

[00:25:09] Alisa: Your entire company runs off time. You need to find ways to be on time and or if you are kind of like always on point, always on, you know, on schedule, on message, honestly, your people may not be able to keep up with that, so you need to be able to give some more slack. So it's all really situational. You as a leader have to figure out what are your triggers, what are the things that you know you need to really be mindful of as you're building your company and make the behavior adjustments that you need to.

[00:25:38] Allan: So what have been the best tools for doing those things, for kind of calibrating and really getting that self-awareness as well. Like sometimes you're not really even aware that, you know, hey, you know, my suggestions are taken as commands or, you know, I'm too hot or I'm not, you know, I'm avoiding conflict or all of those sorts of things.

[00:25:57] Allan: How do you get that? 360 [00:26:00] view, I guess.

[00:26:01] Alisa: Well, the way you get the 360 view is by getting 360 feedback. So like as a coach, it's a lot of what I do is I work with my leaders and I talk to the folks all around them and ask them what's working about this person's style? What's not working? What are there? There? Obstacles, blind spots, weaknesses, development opportunities, and what specific behavioral suggestions do you have to help make them better leader? And that gives people a roadmap, both with what other people are experiencing from them, and also a specific roadmap of things that they can do to make the changes necessary. It's a very powerful process if you don't wanna hire a coach or you don't have like an HR person who can help you with 360 feedback.

[00:26:41] Alisa: You can ask your people, what's one suggestion you have for me to make me a better leader? The most common answer to that is, oh no boss, you're great. No

[00:26:50] Allan: Yeah.

[00:26:50] Alisa: Right? then you gotta keep asking

[00:26:53] Allan: even on 360 feedback, you know, people are probably unlikely to give you truly what they think. Right.

[00:26:59] Alisa: [00:27:00] no, my experience, people tell me a lot of what I think of

[00:27:02] Allan: Really? Okay.

[00:27:03] Alisa: Oh, a hundred percent. Don't forget this is anonymous. And also most of the leaders I work with are like, have not created a toxic environment where nobody can say anything. If they feel safe and they're talking to me directly, they feel listened to.

[00:27:18] Alisa: Finally, someone's listening to me so they give, you know the feedback. Now can I tell you, they tell me the whole truth. And nothing but the truth. No, I can't

[00:27:28] Allan: Okay. Yeah.

[00:27:29] Alisa: But do I get a lot of good material to work with? Yes, I do.

[00:27:33] Allan: Yeah.

[00:27:33] Fundraising and Founder Mode

[00:27:33] Allan: you've done a lot of fundraising, investing, all of those sorts of things. That's a different mode that a founder needs to get into now, isn't it? Because you're now needing to tell a story about something completely different to a completely different audience.

[00:27:47] Allan: Talk about that a little bit. Like if you know, switching to fundraising mode, strategy, all of that sort of thing.

[00:27:54] Alisa: Well, right. I mean. the clients that I work with at some point have to, you know, ask for money,[00:28:00]

[00:28:00] Allan: Yeah.

[00:28:00] Alisa: one way or the other. And I guess I would say that some people are great at it. They're, you know, naturally competitive. They wanna win. They feel good about their, you know, like they have a lot of drive around it. And then a lot of people hate it.

[00:28:16] Alisa: So it's really about mindset when you're kind of going off to do that. And, you know, I had Rahul Vora the founder co-founder and CEO of Superhuman on my podcast, and he told me that a practice he does is he pitches himself. So, you know, whenever he is feeling down, and certainly when he is going to raise money. Takes out his little PowerPoint and he starts pitching himself and by the time he's done, he's like, oh, I'm in. Like, I, that's a great idea. I totally wanna invest in that.

[00:28:45] Alisa: And so you have to kind of believe in you and the thing you're working on, and then you have to get over your imposter syndrome or your concerns about asking for money or whatever, you know, however. Your baggage that you were raised with or whatever, in order to [00:29:00] remember that you are providing an opportunity for venture capitalists or whoever, for investors to get into something that's like very meaningful and will ultimately make them rich.

[00:29:10] Allan: Yeah.

[00:29:11] Alisa: don't forget, the job of the investor is to invest their money. If they don't have opportunities, they won't be able to invest their money

[00:29:16] Allan: Yeah I've heard it previously called with or without you energy, like, we are doing this with or without you. There's an opportunity to jump on board and that's a much more powerful frame that.

[00:29:27] Alisa: I love that. With or without you energy. That's beautiful. Yes.

[00:29:33] Allan: Yeah very powerful. I mean, powerful from not just a fundraising point of view, but from a sales point of view. From a marketing point of view. From from a hiring. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:41] Alisa: Human potential

[00:29:43] Allan: Totally, totally. Alisayou've seen the inside of many businesses. What have you changed your mind on? What's something that over the years you've had an opinion, but you've changed your mind on.

[00:29:54] Alisa: I think I've changed my mind on like the nature of workplaces. So I think it, I used to think [00:30:00] like a lot of my colleagues, my coach colleagues, it's like. You're supposed to empower people. You're supposed to delegate the things. You're supposed to work with them and train them so they can get the thing done. And now I see a lot more need, especially for founders, but certainly for CEOs to tell people, this is what I want, this is what I need you to do. And. I am not saying that's always the case, but I've definitely changed my mind on like the need to quote unquote empower people in a workplace. And actually I'm much more, I'm bigger right now in alignment. Everyone needs to be aligned and we're running in the same direction and we all understand our roles and that is what is essential. Rather than people feeling like, they have kind of full autonomy. I

[00:30:48] Allan: Yeah.

[00:30:49] Alisa: get full autonomy in the context of being aligned inside of, in service of and understanding your role.

[00:30:55] Allan: Yeah, It's got the vibes of the, that Netflix memo where, hey, we're not a family, we're a high [00:31:00] performance team. Right. And, you know, a high performance team. we won't be necessarily together forever. You know, you don't fire family members, generally speaking. Um, you're there unconditionally for them.

[00:31:10] Allan: Whereas a high performance team, no, we're here to achieve something. This is your role. This is what I expect from you and being quite direct about that.

[00:31:19] Alisa: Yes.

[00:31:20] Allan: Yep.

[00:31:21] Alisa: Also, it reminds me of founder mode. I was really interested in that whole founder mode thing that happened. You know, Paul Graham wrote that essay based on Brian Cheskys talk.

[00:31:29] Allan: Yeah.

[00:31:30] Alisa: What happened was Y Combinator had a private event with Brian Chesky, the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, and he gave some sort of talk and Paul Graham wrote about it the next day. And he called it, you know, Brian told us about founder mode.

[00:31:45] Allan: Yeah.

[00:31:45] Alisa: it kind of has to do with founder being in front, being I guess I would say decisive, clear, committed,

[00:31:55] Allan: Yeah.

[00:31:55] Alisa: and rather than the notion of manager mode, which is like you guys [00:32:00] decide. Also he said you have a lot of professional managers around you who are experts at like faking it, and you need to get into the details so that you deeply understand what's going on. Otherwise, you've got all these professional managers around you. Who are going to be packaging and kind of being professional fakers, which is very harsh, but the notion of being in the details and being involved as a founder, even as your company gets bigger. I have enjoyed, let's say, thinking about that. wrote an article for Forbes about it with a bunch of founders weighing in on founder mode

[00:32:36] Allan: Yeah.

[00:32:36] Alisa: then, Brian Chesky has given a number of public talks about what he meant by founder mode.

[00:32:42] Allan: Yeah. it's something that I learned from one public company, CEO, and it's something that stayed with me where he said you've even as a. Public company, CEO, you've got massive responsibility, huge staff, all of that. You've gotta at least once a quarter, spend half [00:33:00] a day on the help desk, see what tickets are coming in, see what complaints are coming in, see what or all of the just unfiltered traffic because by the time it gets through three layers of management, it's been packaged up and massaged and all of that sort of thing, and aggregated, and you don't see what's actually happening on the ground. So spending half a day or a day on the help desk, seeing what tickets are coming in, what complaints, ah, I thought we'd fix that issue.

[00:33:25] Allan: I thought we'd you know, updated that product. You will learn so much more than all the reports and things like that, that you'll get, that are filtered through management.

[00:33:36] Alisa: Completely agree. The most recent, just who was the former CEO now of Home Depot said the same thing, like I spent half my time at the stores. He's like, well, shouldn't you get the information from your executives? He's like, no. They're like busy packaging it up to me and making it look good.

[00:33:49] Alisa: I go to the stores to find out what's really going on

[00:33:51] Allan: Yeah. Yeah, totally.

[00:33:53] Conclusion and Resources

[00:33:55] Allan: Alisa, thank you so much uh, for your time today. You've been very generous with your time. Your podcast is From [00:34:00] Start-Up to Grown-Up As is your book, both excellent. And you've got a newsletter, which we'll, of course link to in the show notes. So, anywhere else where people can find you.

[00:34:10] Alisa: Just to say that on my website, you can download I, what I'm known for in part is my scripts in the back of my book, From Start-Up to Grown-Up. There are 14 scripts to help you have delicate conversations, difficult conversations, and there are five additional scripts on my website. One to make your life better, and you can get those at alisacohn.com/scripts.

[00:34:30] Allan: Perfect, and we'll link to that. Thank you so much, Alisa.

[00:34:33] Alisa: Thank you, Allan. This was so fun.

[00:34:34] Allan: My pleasure.

[00:34:35] Allan: Thanks for tuning in to the Lean Marketing Podcast. This podcast is sponsored by the Lean Marketing Accelerator. Wanna take control of your marketing and see real results with the accelerator. You get proven strategies, tools, and personalized support to scale your business. Visit lean marketing.com/accelerator to learn how we can help you get bigger results with less marketing.

[00:34:58] Allan: And if you enjoyed [00:35:00] this episode, please leave a review or share it with someone who would find it helpful. See you next time.

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