Want highly-aligned, motivated employees? This article reveals a simple, transparent, and effective company-wide bonus plan that incentivizes individual and company performance. Learn how to calculate payouts, set goals, and foster a high-performance culture.
Tired of unproductive 1 on 1 meetings? This article provides a comprehensive guide to transforming your 1 on 1 meetings from dreaded obligations into powerful tools for boosting team performance and unlocking individual potential.
Is your team losing its "A-players"? This article explores seven hidden reasons why top performers leave, from bad managers and lack of purpose to low compensation and poor work-life balance. Discover practical strategies for retaining your best employees and creating a thriving workplace.
Culture, Founders | May 11, 2025
Most traditional vision statements fail. This article details how the best companies create a strategic vision, and introduces a tool called the Vision Ladder that you can copy for your own company.
April 5, 2025
Why we created an alternative to OKRs If you’re having problems with OKRs (objectives & key results), then you’re in the right place. After using this system for years at the company I founded, Classy...
February 27, 2025
OKRs stand for Objectives & Key Results. They are a popular goal-setting framework for organizations, particularly within the startup and tech communities. OKRs were an evolution of MBOs (Management by Objectives), created by Andy Grove in the 1970s, the long-time CEO at Intel. Many decades later, OKRs were popularized again by Google, after venture capitalist John Doerr introduced them to the company.
January 17, 2025
I recently sat down with sales legend Adam Aarons for a Highland fireside chat, and wow did he bring the heat. As the CRO who helped scale three major tech companies past $100M+, including my own company Classy, Adam shared his most valuable (and non-obvious) lessons from the trenches - from knowing when to walk away from a deal, to balancing mission with performance, to optimizing the critical CEO-CRO relationship.
Ops | January 4, 2025
Know thy financial plan, know thy business. If you can’t build a strong financial plan, it’s unlikely you’ll ever build a strong business. But given its importance, I’m always surprised how little attention it gets...
Founders, Ops | December 14, 2024
A deep dive into three powerful insights from my fireside chat with Hiten Shah, one of Silicon Valley's most underrated founders. From reframing product-market fit as a dial rather than a switch, to building formulas over funnels, to the real talk about raising capital - these are lessons every founder needs to hear right now.
November 22, 2024
Complexity is the enemy of success. Here's how to start leading like a minimalist and create simplicity within your company.
Founders, Leadership, Management | November 8, 2024
Master the art of delegation! This article offers five rules to effectively delegate tasks, empowering your team and freeing you to focus on higher-level priorities. Discover how to choose the right projects and people, provide clear guidance, and conduct effective check-ins without micromanaging
Founders | October 13, 2024
What does this transition from startup founder to scale up CEO look like? The way I describe it to Highland members is this - you need to transition from working on all the details all the time, to working on the right details at the right time. There is a massive difference here. This means spending your time on two things: guardrails and checkpoints.
Culture, Management | August 30, 2024
Good feedback should empower, not deflate. Yet most managers stumble through the feedback process. Here are 5 essential rules will transform your approach to feedback and elevate your team's performance.
Leadership, Management | August 16, 2024
Tired of unproductive executive meetings? This article provides a clear framework for running efficient and effective executive meetings. It covers the ideal meeting length, frequency, and participants, and offers a detailed agenda focused on goal review and actionable outcomes.
July 12, 2024
Are you a leader tired of self-sabotage? This article identifies seven common misconceptions about leadership that may be holding you back. It provides practical tips for becoming a more effective leader, including prioritizing tasks, communicating clearly, and taking calculated risks