Google Venture's Unique Approach To Giving Feedback

In this edition of Elite Team Tactics:

• One quick win: a tool to gauge your team’s form from an NBA coach

• One proven system: Google’s revolutionary approach to feedback

• One to watch: viral video from Jocko Willink on how to overcome adversity

• One for you: the Law of Reversed Effort used by elite sprinters

• One million-dollar question: a method to unlock your team’s full potential

• Ones we recommend: How to spot the red flags of a toxic workplace

• One quote from: LinkedIn Co-founder, Reid Hoffman

Welcome to all the new subscribers this week 🫡 Every week, we share the strategies and blueprints behind the world's most successful teams so you can become the best leader in your industry 🏆

1. WHAT IS YOUR “ZEST FOR LIFE” RATING?

Steve Kerr was a critical team member of Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls Dynasty, winning 5 NBA titles himself.

He has now become one of the greatest coaches of all time, leading the Golden State Warriors and Steph Curry to 4 NBA titles.

So he knows a thing or two about high-performing teams.

The one interesting method he uses to build strong bonds with his players he calls the Zest For Life (ZFL) score.

Every day in practice, he asks players to rate their ZFL score between 0-100.

This allows an easy exchange that only takes a few seconds and gives him a read on the player that day.

If the scores drop below 60 then it can lead to a deeper conversation after training.

After working alongside multiple founders and CEOs, the most successful ones always ask their top team to rate their form before the day or before key meetings.

Steal this simple yet effective method for your own leadership toolbox 🤝 

2. THE UNIQUE FEEDBACK CULTURE AT GOOGLE

At the Google Ventures office in San Francisco, the organisational structure is relatively flat which used to mean teams missed out on the day-to-day feedback that you’d receive in a traditional management system.

To combat this, they created a new feedback method - “the anxiety party”.

We’ve all had anxious thoughts at work:

• Am I leading the team in the most effective way?

• Am I communicating well enough with other teams?

• Am I being too critical with my design suggestions?

An Anxiety Party gives you a structured setting where you can be vulnerable with your peers, increasing the connectedness of the team, whilst getting support on how to reduce some of the challenges that are giving you anxiety.

How can you implement an Anxiety Party within your business?

1. Block out 1 hour in everybody’s diary (ideally at the end of the day so your team aren’t preoccupied with the next meeting)

2. Every person in the group then spends the first 10 minutes writing down a few work-related issues that they worry about e.g. “I’m worried that if we can’t get resources from our tech team, the product launch date will be delayed”

3. Rank the anxieties in order from most to least concerning

   • Zero = something on my mind but a relative non-issue

   • Five = needs immediate attention, can’t stop thinking about it

4. Ask each team member to share their work-related issues, starting with the highest-rated numbers first

5. Ask the group to rank each concern in the same way from zero (“It never even occurred to me that this was an issue”) to five (“I strongly believe you need to improve in this area”)

6. For any issues that receive an average of 3 or more from the group, everybody contributes to a mini brainstorm to find solutions together

7. Repeat this process with the team every quarter or in line with your performance review cycles

3. THE VIRAL VIDEO FROM JOCKO WILLINK ON HOW TO OVERCOME ANY CHALLENGE

Joe Rogan plays this clip every time things are hard in his personal life or business.

Why?

The one thing we can be certain of is life throws you curveballs.

Systems and processes can break, you can lose your biggest clients if the markets fall and at any moment, your people can get sick or leave.

Building a team is hard.

Jocko Willink’s approach to adversity is one of the simplest yet most powerful mindset hacks you can adopt.

Try saying “good” next time a problem lands on your desk. Your team are looking to you for confidence and direction so if you can be the one to spot the rose petals in a sea of nettles, it will also start to influence the way they take agency and look for solutions.

4. WHY ELITE SPRINTERS AIM FOR 85% EFFORT, NOT 100%

Pushing to the max at all times is a surefire way to reach burnout.

We’ve all seen it or experienced it in our own lives.

Next time you are going all out, consider the concept called the Law of Reversed Effort, coined by author Aldous Huxley:

"The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed."

When sprinters try to run at full intensity, their bodies tense up and they aren’t able to run at their fastest.

Usain Bolt and his relaxed demeanour before and during races is the perfect example of this in practice. He was able to win 8 Olympic gold medals and is considered the greatest sprinter of all time, whilst fist bumping race officials and pulling out the MoBot in London 2012.

Life is not about pushing to the max at all times.

• When you press to try to complete a creative task, you become less creative.

• When you are pushing to find the perfect partner, you rarely find the one.

• When you try to chase a new client for a sale, you will struggle to close.

Find your rhythm by balancing effort across your week.

When you achieve this mindset, you have the blueprint to consistently succeed.

5. QUESTION OF THE WEEK 🤔

Fear of failure stops teams from achieving their true potential.

When we think about stepping out of our comfort zone, it comes with a high expectation that this situation could end in potential humiliation.

We are not afraid of failure but of what other people might think of us if we fail.

This human phenomenon is known as the “Spotlight Effect”.

We tend to overestimate how much others notice our appearance, behaviour or lifestyle than they actually do.

The harsh reality is that nobody is thinking about you half as much as you think they are. In fact, in a study by Social Psychologist Tom Gilovich, only 10% of participants were able to recall facts about the other people in the social experiment.

So what’s stopping you from attempting that next big feat?

How can you inspire your team to adopt a similar approach?

The results on the other side could change your life.

6. LINKS OF THE WEEK 🔗

HIRING

• Beware of using ChatGPT Bloomberg to screen and rank candidates after Bloomberg found racial bias (Link)

• Forbes identifies the skills you need in your team that AI can’t replace (Link)

LEADERSHIP

• 18x methods to build leadership development strategies when your teams are remote (Link)

• How leaders can be vulnerable on social media without oversharing (Link)

CULTURE

• Gallup study shows how you can effectively scale your culture (Link)

• How to spot the red flags of a toxic workplace (Link)

QUOTE OF THE WEEK 🗣️

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