Amp It Up, by Frank Slootman
My chapter-by-chapter takeaways from Slootman's book about the defining characteristics behind his success with Data Domain, ServiceNow, and now Snowflake.
It’s hard to read anything by Frank Slootman and not feel … amped up. While light on the details, his various calls to action can be useful prompts for anyone feeling stuck. I particularly enjoyed his advice to a) embrace audacious goals to counteract incrementalism (chapter 4); b) emphasize execution over strategy (chapter 5); and c) embrace your role as a driver rather than a passenger (chapter 6).
If you enjoy the summary below, I highly recommend buying and reading the full book: Bookshop or Amazon.
PART I: AMPING UP
Introduction: The Power of Amping Up
When leadership is either weak or easily distracted, people adopt "good enough" as the standard, output slows, and your best people will get frustrated and leave. "Amping it up" is when you start executing with more focus and higher expectations, and can feel like busting through a log jam. Five key steps:
Raise Your Standards: Aim for insanely great. “Present things to me when you're bursting with excitement about what you're proposing."
Align Your People and Culture: Define success for all teams based on the same dimensions. (Related: Implementing Management by Objectives at the individual level often hurts team- and company-level alignment.)
Sharpen Your Focus: Approach execution sequentially rather than in parallel. Prioritize hard (it should be hard!) whichever thing you do first. "Clarity of thought and purpose is a huge advantage in business." Good prompt: "If you can only do one thing for the rest of the year, and nothing else, what would it be and why?" Red flag: whenever the plural “priorities” is used, you aren’t prioritizing hard enough.
Pick Up the Pace: Compress cycle times in every encounter, meeting, and email. Change your mindset to be less patient. Doing this creates energy in your organization.
Transform Your Strategy: As long as you have good execution first, strategy will become a “force multiplier to your efforts."
Chapter 2: My Journey from Teenage Toilet Cleaner to Serial CEO
[Brief autobiography, starting with the author's upbringing in the Netherlands to his early teams and later string of CEO successes at Data Domain, ServiceNow, and Snowflake.] Some takeaways:
Embrace the mentality of living up to your potential - don't focus on day-to-day outcomes, instead "maximize the input side of the equation" (e.g. what you put into it).
"Be careful what 'elevator' we get into early in our careers. Some go up, some go down, some don't move. It's largely beyond our control, so choose wisely." For example, people who spent the last 10 years working at Google, Apple, or Amazon have done really well.
No matter where you are or what your role is, cultivate your own sense of ownership.
"Hire more for aptitude than experience and give people the career opportunity of a lifetime. They will be motivated and driven, with a cannot‐fail attitude."
Be careful with pattern-matching between companies: "just because another company is doing it doesn't make it right." Too often, this is a sign of intellectual laziness.
Don't underestimate the strategic differentiator of having superior architecture.
When you're growing quickly, speed up anyway! Never slow down growth. Don't squander the opportunity even if it feels like the whole thing might blow up at any minute.
Don’t get landlocked into your initial addressable market by failing to diversify your business.
Learn to "check your own views at the door and bet on the conviction of others." (E.g. ServiceNow’s successful expansion into the consumer-oriented customer support segment.)
Summary self-observation: "The biggest difference between younger me and older me is that I am now much quicker to grasp what's really going on and what needs to happen to amp up an organization. Years ago, I used to hesitate and wait situations out, often trying to fix underperforming people or products instead of pulling the plug. Back then I was seen as a much more reasonable and thoughtful leader—but that didn't mean I was right. As I got more experience, I realized that I was often just wasting everybody's time. If we knew that something or someone wasn't working, why wait? As the saying goes, when there is doubt, there is no doubt."
PART II: RAISE YOUR STANDARDS
Chapter 3: Make Your Organization Mission Driven
Cultivate a strong mission to be held both intellectually and viscerally. This will help your people "become motivated, focused, impatient, and passionate." Great missions are a) wildly ambitious, but not impossible to achieve; b) well-defined such that it's easy to maintain focus and avoid distractions; and c) not about money, even if financial success is one of many milestones along the way.
Nurture your mission through a) disciplined focus (e.g. not getting caught serving well-intentioned distractions); b) urgency (learnable mindset that helps us to separate from the competition); c) organized execution (including high standards and efficient use of resources); and d) thoughtful strategy, which must be aligned with the mission. More tips:
Red flag: mission creep, when the purpose keeps changing or being redefined. Distracting!
Regarding financial success: "I was personally committed to help each of our employees reach a different station in life as a function of the company's fortunes. In exchange, I was asking for the best they had to offer."
Your mission is not represented in what you say, only in what you do.
"Grinding away toward your mission, day in and day out, will absolutely pay off."
"This is nonnegotiable: we expect everybody to embrace the mission with everything they've got. This company is counting on our people 100%. All hands on deck, at all times." (Snowflake)
Chapter 4: Declare War on Your Competitors and on Incrementalism
Against competition: develop a visceral sense of contest. There are real stakes at hand: "in a few months or years, some will still be in business and others won't." Competitors will find whatever method they can get away with to compete. "Good leaders explain that none of us are ever truly safe in our roles for any length of time. If this fact makes people uncomfortable, that's good. You need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable because the only alternative is denialism."
Against incrementalism: we tend to approach things with ample caution, but it’s risky (in business) to merely aim for marginal improvements on the status quo. Think about the future state you want to reach, then map out bold steps to get there faster. Explore the outer limits of growth (how much you could grow if you pull all the stops). "Don't settle for respectable mediocrity; seek to exploit every ounce of potential you are entrusted with."
Having audacious goals is the most effective way to deal with both competition and incrementalism. "In free markets, somebody is always thinking about dramatic changes. You're much better off doing so yourself rather than hoping it won't happen." Also, a lot of hiring comes from "incremental growth, leading to mediocrity and waste," so constantly look for ways to get more from your existing staff.
Chapter 5: Put Execution Ahead of Strategy
Even the most promising strategy will fail if you don't know how to execute well. [Example metaphor of 5 year olds playing “soccer” as a mob chasing after the ball.] Develop the muscle of great execution first; it is a competency you can (and must!) teach. When you nail execution, you’ll have better clarity about your business, which leads to better strategy. More tips:
Sales is a great example of a functional team where you learn good execution on the job: junior hires start by following up on inbound leads, and good execution moves you up the chain.
Learn from your experience. "Good judgment comes from bad judgment."
Underlying execution gaps will vary by company. Ultimately, you need both innovation and discipline (management maturity). "A common mistake is relying on our innovators to also provide discipline."
Common problems with developing strategy: a) our perspective is often reflexive, based on prior experiences and pattern matching from other companies; b) it's hard to maintain intellectual honesty and avoid groupthink; and c) we can become attached to strategies and fail to recognize when "the dog won't hunt."
When a company struggles to make the most of its revenue opportunities, it's more likely a product execution problem than a sales problem: "a strong product will generate escape velocity and find its market even with a mediocre sales team." Think twice before firing your VP of Sales.
Don't hire strategy consultants, and don't bother having internal "strategists." The "operator in charge of each business unit must also be the strategist for their business."
PART III: ALIGN YOUR PEOPLE AND CULTURE
Chapter 6: Hire Drivers, Not Passengers, and Get the Wrong People off the Bus
Make sure to hire drivers, people who "get their satisfaction from making things happen [... and] feel a strong sense of ownership for their projects and teams and demand high standards from both themselves and others." Passengers, on the other hand, are people who like to be carried along by the company's momentum, can take up any side of an issue (without doing the hard work to take a strong position), etc. They can "hide out" in the fabric of the organization for years and inadvertently undermine your culture and performance. Some tips:
One of your top priorities must be recruiting, rewarding, and retaining drivers.
Most of us are somewhere in the middle between pure driver vs. passenger. Though "if you can't answer the question in an overwhelmingly positive manner, you are probably too much of a passenger." Emulating drivers is the only path to job security.
It's critical to get the wrong people off the bus. Move quickly to signal how serious you are about high standards.
Avoid the naïve thought that we can coach struggling teammates to a better place (success is rare). Many companies have a deep reluctance to fire anyone.
Always compare a given person’s current performance against the caliber of people you could hire to replace them. (“Topgrading” is when you systematically upgrade talent in each key role.)
Maintain the mindset that "if your company could find a better [CEO, product manager, etc.] than me for my role, then they should replace me too."
Maintain an active recruiting posture by a) tracking incredible candidates over time ( build relationships with them); b) maintaining a vetted, prioritized list of candidates for critical roles you're responsible for; and c) compare their potential against the current performance of the people in those roles. Recruiting never stops.
Remember: "Ultimately, leaders are only as good as the people they surround themselves with. Once you get good at both hiring and firing, you are well on your way to great results and a thriving career."
Chapter 7: Build a Strong Culture
Aim your culture carefully to cultivate the behaviors and values which serve the mission of the company. All companies have a culture, whether actively nurtured or not. Only a few companies have culture as a force multiplier. Some tips:
If you don't "drive a cohesive, consistent culture across the organization, [... you get] an amalgamation of dominant personalities setting the tone in smaller subgroups.”
Culture is persistent over time, so work on defining it early. "When you get it right, people will feel protective of the culture and call out deviations, peer to peer."
Example from Data Domain: Respect (always engage with others in a genuine, timely, and helpful manner); Excellence (high standards); Customer (as the center of everything); Integrity (all stakeholders can believe and trust what we say, no exceptions); Performance (business outcomes matter); Execution.
Root out inconsistencies between the stated values and actual culture. Pursue and enforce compliance. (This is an area where centralized coordination has long-term benefits).
"People who choose to disregard our values are tearing at the fabric of the culture, which affects everybody in the organization." Get rid of these people, even if they deliver strong business results, otherwise you signal an unspoken culture of "do whatever you want, as long as you make your numbers."
"If you succeed in building and protecting a strong culture, it will simultaneously attract people who admire the culture while repelling those who find it distasteful. That's an intentional feature, not a bug."
Chapter 8: Teach Everyone to Go Direct and Build Mutual Trust
Look out for whenever department heads are the only ones who resolve problems requiring coordination across teams. This kills efficiency and enables leaders to hoard power. Instead, encourage people to "go direct" to who they need: "Everybody, and we mean everybody, has permission to speak to anybody inside the company, for any reason, regardless of role, rank, or function." Some tips:
Going direct "only works if your people default to trusting their colleagues in other departments." Remember this needs to be earned and developed.
Good framing of the foundational importance of trust comes from Patrick Lencioni’s book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, reprinted here. Without trust, all other dysfunctions cannot be addressed.
Things that erode trust: a) making hyperbolic projections; b) failing to give an honest accounting of our own behavior; c) allowing variance between what you say and what you do. Best antidote: underpromise and overdeliver.
Maintaining a high-performance organization (with drivers, not passengers) creates conditions to naturally create high-trust, even though failures will inevitably happen along the way.
PART IV: SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS
Chapter 9: Put Analysis Before Solutions
Follow the model of medical science: first make sure to get the appropriate diagnosis, which identifies the appropriate treatment. Continue to be vigilant in case treatments aren't working, which may loop you back to the diagnostics. Business tends to be "irrationally confident in our judgment and anxious to move forward with implementing solutions." This comes from intellectual laziness, groupthink, and the tendency to become increasingly committed to our ideas over time. Some tips:
Learn to see things from first principles. Break them down to the most basic elements and imagine you're seeing it for the first time.
Always walk back to the original problem and explore it in more detail. This will either protect you from being wrong about the problem (e.g. any solution was a waste of time anyway) or expand the range of possibilities (which protects you from sub-optimal solutions).
Emphasize analysis for important people decisions. Calibrate against peers to stay anchored to reality. (Our perceptions, particularly of people, get dull in day-to-day work; analysis fixes this.)
Chapter 10: Align Incentives for Customer Success
Make sure all teams are aligned with the success of your customers. It’s a bad idea to have a single department dedicated to customer success, because it "gives everyone else an incentive to stop worrying about how well our customers are thriving with our products and services." Some tips:
Example: When the FBI, CIA, NSA, and Pentagon failed to prevent the 9/11 attacks, the US government added complexity and created the Department of Homeland Security.
E.g. good organizational alignment comes from having technical support in the engineering org.
PART V: PICK UP THE PACE
Chapter 11: Ramp Up Sales
Every company has a point when you'll want to pull out all of the stops. High-level indications you’re ready for this: a) the product has "crossed the chasm" and found good product-market fit; and b) you've moved beyond business development and have found a systemic, repeatable sales process that yields consistent results (e.g. your salespeople have a good path to productivity). Some tips:
Early on, over-invest in lead generation to keep your initial sales team busy and learning.
Sales managers need to be constantly hiring & firing to ensure only the "gunslingers" are staying on the team. Red flag: when your product is selling better in one region than another.
Chapter 12: Grow Fast or Die Slow
Growth matters more than anything else as a driver and predictor of long-term success (far more than profit margin or cost structure). Develop a growth model (the combination of expectations and plans to achieve those targets) that stretch your growth goals. Some tips:
Misguided goal: reaching profitability too early often signals (to investors) that you either a) don't know how to invest in further growth; or b) that you've run out of growth opportunities.
Pay attention to your inherent profitability based on underlying unit economics. If your gross margin is healthy and your operating efficiency will benefit from increased scale, you're in business (even if currently unprofitable due to pursuing growth).
"In my experience, anxiety about growth is a bigger problem than ignorance about growth. Leaders become afraid to burn too many resources or to make hard choices about where to invest their limited capital. Some are afraid that if the enterprise gets too big, they will lose control. Others are afraid that if they really go for it on growth, they may spin out and humiliate themselves. So they play it safe. [...] Slow growing companies become the walking dead."
When you review growth goals, ask, '"What would it take to increase that by X%?" See what ideas come up. It's rare to overspend on growth, so lean in and try to grow faster. Focus on outpacing your competition.
Avoid adopting (at least too quickly) the expectation that growth slows as you get larger. Rapid growth gets more difficult, but ultimately you're constrained only by your total addressable market. Likely this will come from adapting your original product for adjacent markets (or sometimes, if lucky, from launching new products).
One caveat to the growth at all costs perspective: "I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to have strong financial oversight and discipline on sales compensation. You may be tempted at some point to make your comp plans more generous to recruit and retain top sales talent, but abandoning financial rigor can be a fatal mistake—not just during the planning stages of each year but every day, literally from one sales deal to the next."
Chapter 13: Stay Scrappy as You Scale Up
Leadership’s role changes significantly as a company goes from a) embryonic stage (where everyone is a leader of a key function and even "CEO" is a part-time role); to b) formative stage (where big decisions need to be made about pricing, positioning, go-to-market strategy, and balancing cash burn with the need to hire and grow while you try to "cross the chasm"); and c) the scaled up company (where it's all about ramping up growth and achieving the full potential of your opportunity). Some tips:
Don't get stuck reminiscing about earlier stages; embrace the reality of the stage you're in.
Don't wait too long to add essential resources (like a really good CFO).
Work to retain the dynamism of your earlier stages, where it's all about everyone contributing (as drivers!) and all nonessential fluff is eliminated. "Avoid the lethargy of mass and bulk."
"I ask our teams what's the one thing we should be doing urgently that we are not doing for some reason? This is to avoid getting too engrossed in day‐to‐day activities and failing to see the forest for the trees. Always be paranoid about what you are not doing but should be. And, conversely, what are you doing that's of marginal value but crowding out more essential ways to use our time and resources?"
PART VI: TRANSFORM YOUR STRATEGY
Chapter 14: Materialize Your Opportunities -- the Data Domain Growth Story
Major lessons learned from Data Domain:
Attack weakness, not strength. (Especially when going up against incumbents)
Economic imperatives rule purchase decisions, so create some kind of cost advantage.
It's much easier to attack an existing market than create a new one. We all want to create a new category, but that doesn't happen very often. Use familiar language.
Early adopters buy differently than later adopters. Later adopters want to minimize risk along with costs, and don't want to be the first person using new technology.
Don't prematurely sell nationally or internationally; it might unduly strain your operations.
Build the whole product or solve the whole problem as fast as you can. Any holes you leave are openings for your competitor. Move quickly.
Bet on the correct enabling technologies. E.g. Data Domain bet (correctly) on faster and faster Intel microprocessors rather than slower-moving improvements in disk performance.
Architecture is everything. E.g. Data Domain performed deduplication on the fly prior to writing data to the disk, which enabled a lot of downstream benefits.
Prepare to transform your strategy sooner than you expect. Embrace the "awkward tension between executing your current business plan and plotting your subsequent strategic shift.”
Chapter 15: Open the Aperture -- the ServiceNow Expansion Story
"Ultimately the real question isn't how broadly you can expand—it's whether you can hang on to the new markets that you expand into." Lessons learned from ServiceNow:
Indicators of a potential super-grower: a) fast growth rate; b) unpopularity of the incumbents; c) early signs of people using the product in unanticipated ways (e.g. it was a platform, not a one-trick-pony tool); d) highlights from customer conversations showing superlative and consistent praise for the product and the people.
First step of going broader: "convincing IT execs to have their entire IT staff on the system, not just people on the helpdesk." Rationale: everyone was integral to the workflow, and ServiceNow improved quality & velocity of every stage. This approach of including contributors outside of the helpdesk staff created an enduring moat.
Next step of going broader: expanding beyond IT: HR departments, cybersecurity, etc.
Chapter 16: Swing for the Fences -- The Snowflake Growth Story
"Anticipating how markets—and your position in them—will evolve is absolutely essential. Nothing stays the same, even when you do nothing. Taking comfort in a favorable status quo [especially one in which your product is well positioned and you’re growing quickly] may prevent you from ever moving significantly forward [beyond the status quo]." Lessons from Snowflake:
Always evolve and reposition yourself and find ways to play for much larger stakes. Doing so creates "profound [challenges] for our engineering teams (who had to resource a much more ambitious agenda of projects) as well as our sales and marketing people (who had to substantially evolve their marketing and selling motions)."
"As you confront similar situations, remember that the sooner you lay the groundwork for expanding into new markets, the easier all these challenges will be."
PART VII: THE AMPED-UP LEADER
Chapter 17: Amp Up Your Career
Consider yourself as a product. It doesn't matter whether you're qualified, you just need to be better qualified than the alternative. Tips to influence your career trajectory:
Education matters, but experience matters more. Even if you want to leave your current job, consider staying until you can make something of it worth talking about.
Aptitude matters the most. Good way to interview for this: "Why would you be great in this position?" It's always encouraging when someone is self-aware and confident enough to speak thoughtfully about their weaknesses.
Personality tips the scales, especially those with energy and drive. (Needs to be aligned with the culture you're trying to join). "We have found that people who are hungry, humble, and express a ‘can't fail’ level of determination are often a good bet." Red flags: entitlement, spending time explaining why they couldn't get something done (instead of just doing it).
Learn how to communicate well. Practice this, both written and spoken.
Hold on to your long-term goals so you can play both the short- and long-game. Don't focus too heavily on title and pay, but look for "a good role at a good company in a good industry." This means companies with mature management infrastructure (working in startups too early in your career can lead to poor habits).
Embrace the struggle (instead of following your passion). "We at least have a shot of getting what we strive, work, and fight for." Find projects close to the hard and essential problems that need to be solved for your company to succeed.
Make sure you never fear a reference check. What people say about you - and this means everyone you work with - can add rocket fuel in your career tank if you treat people well and drive real impact for your organization.
Avoid career doldrums by having proactive conversations with your manager about career development.Reaffirm your commitment to the company & mission (signals long-term potential) and be constructive, not entitled.
Closing thought: "The factors that may seriously derail or even kill your career are unlikely to be your experience or talent. Most people are, by definition, average performers. It's ultimately about your attitude and behavior, which is a choice, not a skill set. If you don't collaborate well, if you don't take ownership for your project, it won't be long before you're seen as more trouble than you are worth."
Chapter 18: Just for CEOs -- Dealing with Founders and Boards
Dealing with founders: It's hard to take over from a trailblazer founder with lots of great ideas. Tread lightly as you make changes, even if there is enormous pressure to solve problems. Remember you're not a founder and never will be. Keep the original founder(s) on a pedestal: after all, you're there to realize the promise of the original vision. It'll give you a huge advantage if the founder speaks of you with admiration. In the long run, success will be more important than popularity. If you succeed, people will love you - so don't let a desire to be liked get in the way of what you need to do.
Dealing with your board: there will always be a blurry line between the board giving advice and support versus telling you how to run the business. "A good board will give the CEO near‐total authority over strategy and operations." That said, "most board members have held powerful roles in the past and may be aching for opportunities to assert themselves." Do not fall into subservience (where you seek consensus with the board for everything): you'll lose your leadership mojo with the rest of the company if plans are constantly thwarted by the board. Make sure you lead the board: a) tell them what you think, don't lead with asking what they think; b) prepare intensively to maintain your advantage; c) keep important topics (like strategy) on the CEO side of the line (especially as it influences exec team compensation); and d) be prepared to end your tenure as a CEO if it comes down to it a decision where “either I do this or you can get a new CEO.” Get comfortable asserting your authority.
Chapter 19: Conclusion -- Great Leaders Have Great Outcomes
"Make the most of your unique aggregate of experiences. Apply those experiences, and the insights we've discussed in previous chapters, to become a truer, more honed, more effective version of who you already are. Finding your own path, however long it takes, will unlock your personal power."
"The good news is that if you persevere over long periods of time, if you focus intensely on delivering value for customers, and if you build a disciplined culture for your employees, it will all pay off in the long run. You will drive great outcomes for your organization and reap the rewards. It's hard to beat any leader who combines great resolve, persistence, mission focus, and clarity about what is and is not important. It's hard to beat any leader who truly amps it up."
[Just for fun …] One of the author's favorite quotes is Theodore Roosevelt's famous speech, The Man in the Arena: "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."