Twitter: @kyleporter
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kyleporter
Bio: Founder of SalesLoft, Lover of smart sales and marketing
Hi Kyle, thanks for taking the time to answer some questions about decision making and leadership. Let's get started.
How does your team prioritize initiatives?
Focus on the customer first. Stay close to the customer and implement changes that will make the most impact with the least amount of complexity.
If you ranked the companies priorities in order and your reports ranked theirs, how closely do you think they would they match?
Super well. Our culture is aligned by our core values and priority projects which we review weekly and keep track of through our one-page strategic plan and our weekend updates.
How do you pick what project to do next? Do you use any formal methodology?
We take quarterly retreats and prioritize projects based customer needs.
What does the word "consensus" mean to you?
That everyone is comfortable with the direction
After you've laid out the vision, how do you know that the troops are behind you?
When hiring, we focus on positive, supportive, and self-starting individuals.
How do you make sure that introverts get heard?
We send a bi-weekly 5 question form to each member of the team using Google forms and spreadsheets and automate the emails to go out every other Friday using Boomerang.
There are lots of behavioral types, which ones do you find the most challenging to work with?
Negative and lazy. We don't hire people like that.
What do you think of the quote: "Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it."
I prefer: "The role of a leader is to serve"
Were you a leader in elementary school? Or did that come later? Any particular instance come to mind?
I was a leader of troublemakers :)
I love it. Thanks again Kyle! We'll have to do a follow-up on your band of trouble makers soon. "Solve For The Customer" is a great goal. Finally, I think your quote about leadership is spot on. Not easy to do in practice, but spot on.
