Team

What do these numbers mean to you? At a recent offsite, during our conversation about evolving our communication patterns (which I refer to, in my head, as “the Matrix”), Ryan said “16-49-81.” Everyone stared at him and I responded “4-squared, 7-squared, 9-squared.” Then, everyone nodded their heads but were probably thinking “these guys are numerology goofballs.” But then Ryan said, “Metcalfe’s Law ” and everyone immediately understood. When we were just four partners, our communication matrix was 16. We added three new partners and it became 49. We recently added a General Counsel to our team and consciously included our CFO in the communication matrix, so now it’s 81. ...

I said some version of the following statement several times in the past few weeks. Assume aliens came down and one of your senior leaders was taken away to their home planet. Do they have a person reporting to them who could step into their role, even if it’s only temporary? If you are the CEO, this includes you. It’s remarkable to me, even in companies that are over 100 people, how the answer to this question is no. I get that this can feel theoretically challenging in a very small (less than 20) person company, but it should still be an aspirational goal. Once you get to 100, it should be a requirement for every leader to be able to identify this person. ...