#QOTD, from Suzy Welch: In our book we make the case that the place you should be working is something we call your "area of destiny." It's the intersection of what you're uniquely good at and what you love to do. How many of you feel that you are currently working in your area of destiny?
#Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
2:29 - How important is failure. You hear a bunch of people saying how important it is to fail. But is it really?
5:08 - Is terminating the bottom 10% still a good idea? Even on a team of all-stars, someone has to be last.
8:19 - As a business grows, what is best solution for documenting policy, procedure and process so all are on same page?
11:05 - What is the best way to scale a business with an inherently low profit margin?
13:58 - How can efficiency and creativity better work together?
17:33 - Jack and Suzy talk about their new book, "The Real-Life MBA".
#LINKS
Jack and Suzy Welch's "The Real-Life MBA" (all proceeds go to charity): http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Life-MBA-Winning-Building/dp/0062362801
Jack Welch on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jack_welch
Suzy Welch on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SuzyWelch
How important is failure? The failure has to be quantified. If you fail and then can never get up from it again, that's not a good kind of failure. Failure and adversity are the two things I think about. For me, as an entrepreneur, all my failures along the way have been a lesson. I'm even thinking back to when I attended my first baseball card trade show. I bought a table at 13 for $400 and nobody showed up. That was a lesson. Those micro failures were super super important. But it also depends on your stomach. If you really go out of business, people can go one of two ways. Either they're just finished and they're never able to get off the mat, or they go in a different direction. So to me, quantifying the failure is important.

Gary Vaynerchuk builds businesses. Fresh out of college he took his family wine business and grew it from a $3M to a $60M business in just five years. Now he runs VaynerMedia, one of the world's hottest digital agencies. Along the way he became a prolific angel investor and venture capitalist, investing in companies like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Uber, and Birchbox before eventually co-founding VaynerRSE, a $25M angel fund.
The #AskGaryVee Show is Gary's way of providing as much value value as possible by taking your questions about social media, entrepreneurship, startups, and family businesses and giving you his answers based on a lifetime of building successful, multi-million dollar companies.
Gary is also a prolific public speaker, delivering keynotes at events like Le Web, and SXSW, which you can watch right here on this channel.
Find Gary here:
Website: http://garyvaynerchuk.com
Wine Library: http://winelibrary.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/gary
Twitter: http://twitter.com/garyvee
Instagram: http://instagram.com/garyvee
Medium: http://medium.com/ @garyvee

11 thoughts on “#askgaryvee episode 89: jack suzy welch talk about efficiency, creativity, failure”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Erick Onego says:

    I had to comment today! I love the end!

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Brendan H says:

    I'm sorry, but terminating the bottom 10% every year is very poor advice. For several reasons. First, it assumes that the person that replaces the bottom 10% is better than the original person. The better the bottom 10% is, the greater the probability of reducing the efficacy of the team. Simply math there.

    Second, it often destroys collaboration, creating silos and knowledge hoarding. It makes internal competition the highest priority – not the competition against other companies. Therefore people rarely fully commit to get the team ahead, and begin seeing their team members as the real enemy. Any selfless act could be that thing that puts a bottom 30%er into the bottom 10%. That is not the culture of effective teamwork.

    Third, "A team of champions will always lose to a champion team." While some sports this statement probably isn't true (eg. Basketball, maybe American football), in many sports this is completely true (Soccer, Australian football, road cycling). Teams have different roles within them, and some of those roles are not heralded but are vital for the functioning of the team. Get rid of those, and the team collapses. A blanket rule of getting rid of 10% each year will eventually get rid of a vital role, and destroy the team and possibly the company.

    Fourth, this principle assumes that you can measure each person's overall performance accurately and be able to make a measured assessment, which is only really possible if all the team can be measured the same way. It is an exception if you can. Most teams have fewer than 10 people doing the same roles for all the roles in the team, so the measurements are almost always skewed.

    Fifth, it gets rid of corporate knowledge, weakening your team. Even worse, it can set up competition for your very business, since the people cut can start their own business. (And if you have tied them up in a pre-agreement, this could be considered restraint of trade.)

    Sixth, it fails to recognise or respond to the changing priorities people have as they walk through life, careers and life stages. Instability is a young person's game, for people who haven't had experience that leads them to seek more stable opportunities, or don't have responsibilities that come with raising a family etc. Most work places have far longer terms of employment than elite sports do, because their abilities and careers don't start to decline in their mid 20s., and therefore don't need to turn over staff that quickly.

    Finally, it fails to create a culture of teamwork that lifts the bottom 10% to a higher level. Alleviating the fear for the future and one's medium term place in a team does wonders for their commitment to the company. I have seen teams go from under performing to world beaters, simply by stopping the internal fear of the members' acceptance within the team.

    So this is advice in the bottom 10% of advice that I have ever herd. Maybe we should…

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars sychophantt says:

    Never knew he had Jack on WOW!

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Phamousillday says:

    I am not sure I am even though I definitely love helping people.

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars brady nields says:

    Does anyone else watch all of these shows start to finish?

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Joshua Lazenby says:

    Unfortunately I am not, I am definitely closer to it than I was a year ago or even six months.

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Riann Smith says:

    QotD: I just tripped and fell face first into area of destiny, now I have a tested market place, I've found my competitor landscape and I'm finding joy every day in squeezing as much time as I can to build my product offering. I am SO excited about what the next 12 months look like for me.

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars dudewat212 says:

    Would she have married him if he wasn't a Billionaire ? …

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Craig O'Sullivan says:

    QOTD – most definitely I'm working in that cross-section!!!

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars z2akuma says:

    I accidently fell into my area of destiny and have excelled – I am truly lucky – this book is made for someone like me. Audible?

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars CAWRHY says:

    Gary, when are you bringing back the beard?!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.