How Much Freedom Should You Give Talent

Based on words from Brian Chesky:

Takeaways

• The “Boss” should never only get information from the highest level of the company.
  • Brian gave his executives and “best” people freedome to operate. But during the pandemic (I believe that’s what he mentions) he found out that a lot of things were not actually running well.
  • The business goes through this tough episode, he works with the team to resolve issues and the company survives. His executives and “best” people start asking for things to go back to how they were, they ask from their freedom back. But told them, I tried things this way for 12 years and we ended up here. So we need to try a different approach. People were not happy!
• Consider getting CEO reports from people multiple levels down e.g. 2 or 3 levels down, not just the executives. But be prepared for frustration and hate from the higher ups.
• At a lower level I can help with decision making and I can give approach so subordinates do not need to go up the foodchain for it. But if I get into situations where I vito the higher ups a lot:
  • Either I have hired the wrong people,
  • The people will get frustrated and end up quitting.

I have had a lot of frustating moments when dealing with issues at the RMG and I have had thoughts about:

• micromanaging: not over the top, but to some level.
• increasing my involvement in day-to-day decisions.

I thought that these would help improve things like:

• machine uptime
• expenses from poor inventory management
• security
• customer satification

I never implemented my thoughts, but Brian has me thinking because some things haven’t improved yet.