462 Posts found for Source: First Round Review

The best leaders ask questions they genuinely want to know the answers to. To do that, stop and check in with yourself: Why am I asking this question? Do I genuinely want to hear from this person or am I trying to make sure that I don’t look bad? Am I checking a box or am I trying to truly engage?

Content: Quotation | Authors: Massella Dukuly, Vanessa Tanicien | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Leadership, Management

People-pleasing is one of the deepest forms of manipulation that exists. You’re essentially figuring out how to get people to like you in a way that’s disingenuous to yourself, creating distance between ‘work you’ and the person that you see yourself to be.

Content: Quotation | Author: Vanessa Tanicien | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

We humans default to, “Who do I trust here?” or “Who do I have a good relationship with?” or “Who am I sitting next to?” and then pull those people into rooms for conversations to solve problems or share info. All these tiny micro exclusions add up without us even realizing. This tendency to lean on the people we already know and like is amplified … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Vanessa Tanicien | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Organizational Behavior

As humans, our brains are wired for bias. This means that we have to be intentional and systematic about welcoming diversity and establishing equity and inclusion. You can’t just assume inclusion will sprout organically once you’ve introduced more diversity.

Content: Quotation | Author: Massella Dukuly | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Diversity, Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

When it comes to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) strategies, companies tend to concentrate their energy on hiring and sharing reports about “diversity data” instead of examining the existing dynamics within their own walls. Since the former deals in numbers, and the latter involves squishier concepts like belonging, the “I” in the acronym is too often left out. And that has a real impact on … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Diversity, Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

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I love Adam Grant’s tactic for interviewees to learn about an organization’s culture: A job candidate can ask, “Tell me a story about something that would only happen here.” It’s a neat trick for candidates, but when you’re a manager, and by consequence an arbiter of the company’s culture, you should be asking yourself that, too. What’s that story for your company? Does it involve … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Liz Fosslien | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Culture, Organizational Behavior

The best managers ask questions and invite specific, meaningful feedback. Ask your direct reports, “What is one thing I can do to improve?” or “ Is there a roadblock I can remove for you?,” Finally, if you ask for feedback, follow through on it. If your direct reports give you feedback and then get radio silence in return, they’re never going to give you feedback … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Liz Fosslien | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Management

Make an observation, not a generalization. A colleague interrupts you at a meeting. You could say, “Hey, you’re rude,” but that’s going to be interpreted as an attack on their character. Instead, be specific and constructive: “You interrupted me in that meeting. It made me feel like I wasn’t a valuable part of the team. I’d appreciate it if you let me finish speaking next … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Liz Fosslien | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Communication, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

Like any relationship, that of the manager and their report is a two-way street. Whether you’re taking on your first direct report or you’re a seasoned leader looking to sharpen your skills, there’s plenty of advice to go around when it comes to managers. But when the focus shifts to those who are being managed, many of those concrete tactics and strategies get decidedly less … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Career, Personal Development, Productivity / Work Tips

The most important reason not to pre-screen [job candidates] is that it removes a huge source of initial bias. Many incredibly talented candidates won’t have the education or experience recruiters are trained to look for. This not only means you lose out on great candidates, but you’re also going to be competing furiously for those few candidates that look good on paper — everyone else … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jeremy Stanley | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources

We designed our [hiring] process to test these [quantitative] skills first, then move on to more subjective (yet still measurable) skills like problem solving and communication. Only at the end do we get to the most subjective of all — how the candidate works on a team and fits into the culture. These later stage, more subjective criteria are the most time-consuming to evaluate and … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jeremy Stanley | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources

Investing in an always-on process will force you to treat hiring as a discipline. This will drive consistency in protocol and results, enable you to collect data about your successes and failures, and force you to manage your talent pipeline with the same care you manage your data pipelines.

Content: Quotation | Author: Jeremy Stanley | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources

Your response to failure should be as transparent as possible. When people see someone fail, and then see that our response is not to fire them but to get them the help they need to improve, everyone is empowered. Everyone feels more comfortable to ask questions and to admit fault. And that’s how organizations really end up getting better — when people feel like they … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ray Smith | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

In my work as an angel investor and advisor, I often find myself dishing out the same advice: Do the work to make sure you are building a product that people will actually find valuable. That requires an incredibly deep understanding of the user, their hopes, and their motivations, instead of taking the easier path of operating off of untested assumptions.

Many entrepreneurs may do this … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Sunita Mohanty | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Market Research, Marketing / Sales, Project Management

A direct line of communication between a sales ops leader and someone analyzing user behavior is hugely valuable. Together we can go through the data and figure out what we need to change in our process. Who should sales development reps be calling? Who should the customer success team be worried about for renewals? Your analytics person could say, “Hey, here are your top users, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Don Otvos | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Marketing / Sales

You always want to compensate your reps based on what they can actually control. You want to tie as much of people’s compensation as you can to things like “meetings set” or “demos given” — actual activities. When you’re at a startup, it’s hard to figure out what your quotas should be — there’s usually no precedent, so you throw a number out there, and … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Don Otvos | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Compensation, Human Resources, Marketing / Sales

In this exclusive interview, Molly Graham shares her six rules for how to be a good manager. Some come seemingly out of left field, others are nuanced takes on common pearls of wisdom — but true to what we’ve come to expect whenever we sit down with Graham, all are useful rules of thumb for any startup leader or new manager to lean on. From … [ Read more ]

Content: Thought Leader | Author: Molly Graham | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Management

Empathy isn’t natural for everyone, but I have a way I like to test for it. I ask people to recount a conflict on the job. Then I ask them to describe what was going on inside the other person’s head. If they can explain why the other person wanted them to do something, that’s the sign of empathy — and a manager.

Content: Quotation | Author: David Loftesness | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources

As a candidate, prepping for a job interview can feel like a job that’s never fully done. Today we’re focusing on those moments when the interviewer turns to candidates and asks the inevitable, “Do you have any questions for me?” at the end of the interview. It’s critical to come up with a slate of good questions to ask that uncover vital information about the … [ Read more ]

Content: Career Information | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Career, Interviewing