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The Messy Middle Summary
About The Messy Middle Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INSPIRING BOOKS OF 2018 BY INC.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST STARTUP BOOKS OF ALL TIME BY BOOKAUTHORITY
The Messy Middle is the indispensable guide to navigating the volatility of new ventures and leading bold creative projects by Scott Belsky, bestselling author, entrepreneur, Chief Product Officer at Adobe, and product advisor to many of today's top start-ups.
Creating something from nothing is an unpredictable journey. The first mile births a new idea into existence, and the final mile is all about letting go. We love talking about starts and finishes, even though the middle stretch is the most important and often the most ignored and misunderstood.
Broken into three sections with 100+ lessons, this no-nonsense book will help you:
• Endure the roller coaster of successes and failures by strengthening your resolve, embracing the long-game, and short-circuiting your reward system to get to the finish line.
• Optimize what’s working so you can improve the way you hire, better manage your team, and meet your customers’ needs.
• Finish strong and avoid the pitfalls many entrepreneurs make, so you can overcome resistance, exit gracefully, and continue onto your next creative endeavor with ease.
With insightful interviews from today’s leading entrepreneurs, artists, writers, and executives, as well as Belsky’s own experience working with companies like Airbnb, Pinterest, Uber, and sweetgreen, The Messy Middle will outfit you to find your way through the hardest parts of any bold project or new venture.
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Alignment over process
As the team grows, misalignment happens: deadlines are missed, communication is inconsistent etc. Process is how we force alignment when it doesn’t happen naturally: Check-ins, organisational diagrams, approval processes etc. But process can slow down progress, because people don't like obstacles to work.
Alignment is the solution. The more aligned your team is, the less process you need: help everyone understand the goals and plan.
Introduce processes to help the team not just to reduce anxieties. Respect other people processes too. Different people, different working styles.
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Internal Marketing: Promote Plans & Progress
The best leaders of productive teams are the ones coming up with clever ways to get their colleagues to act:
- Promote plans, through graphic representation of milestones, a communications campaign that repeats goals or time-bound declarations like Pinterest’s “Year of Going Global” (which pushed every team to internationalise the business) or Uber’s “Year of the Driver”.
- Promote progress: when your team makes meaningful progress, you should merchandise their achievements back to them. Give your team the gratification of seeing their progress.
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DRI & Delegate, Entrust, Debrief
Adam D’Angelo, the founder of Quora, has advocated for every project having a “DRI”—a Directly Responsible Individual—whom the entire team knows to go to and rely on for that particular area. Things leaders must do to make sure DRIs are effective:
- #delegate: Make sure responsibilities are clearly defined & well known.
- #entrust: but make it clear who the person is accountable to.
- #debrief: understand why something didn’t work and what needs to happen to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
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As doubt occasionally creeps in, you find validations that help you stay on the track
Plough And Bash Through
Breaking through anonymity is endurance
Replace big goals with creative smaller short term rewards.
Celebrate them because it's the little rewarding milestones that keep you going.
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