Jason Anello on How to Work With Different Personality Types

In Chapter 17 of 20 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, creative director and Manifold ad agency co-founder Jason Anello answers "How Are You Learning to Work More Effectively With Different Personality Types?"  Working in advertising, Anello learns to be observant and adaptable when meeting different types of people in and out of work. He finds ways to get along with others, including client relationships where there is tension and a need to be accepting of views that he may not share.

Jason Anello is a founding partner and creative director at Manifold Partners, an award-winning creative advertising agency.  Previously, Anello worked in creative leadership roles at Yahoo!, Ogilvy & Mather, and Digitas. A passionate foodie and traveler, he runs the Forking Tasty food blog and supper club series.  He earned a BFA from University at Albany.

Phil McKenzie on How Life and Career Goals Can Support Each Other

In Chapter 10 of 18 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur Phil McKenzie answers "How Are Your Personal Experiences Shaping Your Professional Aspirations?"  To McKenzie, his personal and professional lives inform one another and thrive off one another.  He brings personal well-being approaches, such as mindfulness and presence, into his work and finds ways for life and career goals to support each other. 

Philip L. McKenzie is the Founder and Global Curator of Influencer Conference, a global content platform that brings together tastemakers in the arts, entrepreneurship, philanthropy and technology to discuss the current and future state of influencer culture. Prior to that, he was Managing Partner of influencer marketing agency FREE DMC and an equities trader at Goldman, Sachs & Co.  He earned an MBA from Duke University and a BBA from Howard University.

Andrew Epstein on How Personal Priorities Change With Age

In Chapter 21 of 23 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, charter school CFO Andrew Epstein answers "How Are Your Personal Priorities Changing as You Get Older?"  Happy to be living in Brooklyn, New York, Epstein does note how getting older focuses his time more on family, work, and scaling back how often he goes out with friends to see live music. 

Andrew Epstein is CFO of the Ascend Learning Charter School Network.  Previously, Epstein was a finance executive at Democracy Prep Public Schools and an operations executive at Universal Music Group's Island Def Jam Records.  He is a former Teach for America corps member and middle-school science teacher.  He holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Kyung B. Yoon on the Key to Making Marriage Last a Lifetime

In Chapter 17 of 17 in her 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Kyung B. Yoon answers "What Have You Found to Be the Keys to Making a Marriage Last a Lifetime?"  While she says the word "supportive" is overused, Yoon notes it is the key to making a marriage work, what builds trust and confidence in marriage, what helps a marriage grow.  She shares an example how her husband cared for her when she was sick - a small yet tender and supportive action that reflects on what it means to be a loving partner. 

Kyung B. Yoon is the executive director of the Korean American Community Foundation (KACF) in New York City.  An award-winning journalist and documentary film producer, Yoon earned an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University and a BA in History and Political Science at Wellesley College.

Jullien Gordon on Why Living a Fulfilled Life Starts With Being Yourself

In Chapter 9 of 21 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, business coach Jullien Gordon answers "How Are Your Personal Experiences Shaping Your Professional Aspirations?"  For Gordon, it comes down to lifestyle design and in this, personal and professional are the same thing.  Gordon notes that at the end of the day your life is integrated and your behaviors need to be aligned to create conistent behaviors that support that.  Jullien Gordon is a high performance coach and consultant to organizations, individuals and teams who want to increase employee performance, motivation, engagement and retention.  He earned a BA from UCLA, an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a Masters of Education from Stanford University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How are your personal experiences shaping your professional aspirations?

Jullien Gordon: There’s no division between who I am and what I do, they are very linked. And so this is about lifestyle design for me, and my career is part of my life, there’s four domains of my life which are myself, my family, my career, and my community. So who I am is actually informing everything that I do, and I think that when we move through life in that way, we just feel more integrated and we feel more satisfied.

The way I think about it is that oftentimes we’re moving through life and there’s five different versions of ourselves. There’s who you really are, there’s who we think we are, there’s who we want to be, there’s who others think we are, and there’s what others need us to be. And to the extent that those five different versions of ourselves are spread out and they aren’t one, is where we find that we’re unfulfilled. Those are where leaks occur in our happiness and our joy. And to the extent that those things can be aligned, and you don’t feel like you have to be someone else—somebody else for somebody else, and that who you are becoming and who you are, are actually one, I find that that’s where I feel most alive and most fulfilled.

So, again, who I am informs what I do and so I don’t see a separation. There’s no separation between our personal and professional lives. If there was, where would it be? At our front door? At the driveway? At the parking lot? At our desk? There’s no line. It’s helpful to talk about them separately sometimes, but at the end of the day, our life is integrated, it’s one thing, it’s not these different compartments. If your day at work sucks then that’s gonna filter into your “personal life.” If your personal life is sucking, that’s gonna filter into your professional life. So there’s no distinction for me between the two. They’re all one for me.

Hattie Elliot: How to Reflect on and Improve Your Life

In Chapter 10 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, female entrepreneur Hattie Grace Elliot answers "What Role Has Reflection Played in Shaping Your Personal Growth?"  She finds what separates the inspiring people in her life from others is how they reflect back, learn from their choices, plan for the future and execute on these plans.  Hattie Grace Elliot is the founder and CEO of The Grace List, a social networking company that creates destination events and experiences to forge lasting personal and professional connections across its young professional members. Elliot graduated from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, where she studied economics, philosophy, and politics.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: What role has reflection played in shaping your personal growth?

Hattie Elliot: Wow, reflection I think is one of the most painful, difficult, spectacular, and just brutal processes but ultimately in life, one of the most unbelievably rewarding. It’s why—you know, when I think about New Years and birthdays and things like that, and anniversaries, it’s why people oftentimes get very sentimental because it’s a time that you—you not only look forward but you often tend to look back, it forces you to reflect. For me, as tough as it is, I think my life has been so much more rewarding to me because I just—I force myself to kind of constantly kind of acknowledge where I am and reflect back. Coming here for instance, you know. Checking in every year with you, and talking about the business, it forces you to reflect about when I was like sitting in this seat last year, like where was I? What’s changed? But I think one of the most liberating and awesome things in life, too, about being an adult, is you have the ability, you reflect back, you reflect on the good stuff, the tough stuff, but then you have the ability to really figure out--to change what’s wrong. And I think that that’s really what separates people that I really admire and that inspire me from others is that they are people that can confront that, they can reflect back, they can acknowledge it and be accountable for things in their life and what they might need to change, and what their aspirations from what they want and they come up with a plan, and not only do they come up with a plan, they’re not all show no blow, they actually execute on that, and to their best. We’re not always gonna be successful at everything but, you know, to the best of their ability. It’s something that I really strive to do in my life, and it’s something that when I look at people that I really—I hold dear and that I really admire, and wanna be surrounded by, who inspire me to do better and be better, that’s a quality that they have as well, is ability to really reflect.

Erik Michielsen: Where do you even get started with that?

Hattie Elliot: First, I think it’s realizing what reflection is and that’s what it is. It’s that feeling that you have on those particular days, the day that your father passes away, the day that your niece was born, the day that comes around every year, something significant in your mind. I kind of even trick myself but, you know, I set up—and this is just my own little trick that I play with myself but it forces me to do it, is I set up little, you know, marks that I can use, like kind of I hedge timelines in my mind, whether it’s every Friday where I was the week before, or the first weekend of every month, and there are just specific times where I force myself to look back at my to-do list the week before and what was going on, and—what was going on with everything in my personal life, my professional life, with my finances, with the—with our membership members, with the events that I was doing, with things that made me happy, sad, and just kind of see which of those things that I can personally change, or there—that I can take action on, that’ll make this time next week Friday when I reflect that I’ll be in a better situation. Or this time next year on a date that will forever be set in my mind. Because whether it’s a happy date or a sad date, where hopefully I’m in a better place because you make your future. You make your destiny—I mean we can all be struck down with bad luck, but we do have choice, we do have the ability to be better and do better and to move forward. And that’s what I choose. That’s what I choose.

Hattie Elliot on Managing Adversity by Embracing Challenge

In Chapter 11 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, female entrepreneur Hattie Grace Elliot answers "How Have You Learned to Adapt When Things Have Not Worked Out as Planned?"  Elliot talks about the highs and lows of her life experience and the importance of acknowledging disappointments, picking up her chin, and moving forward by executing her plan.  She refuses to play the victim role and tries to emulate people who take difficult situations in stride. 

Hattie Grace Elliot is the founder and CEO of The Grace List, a social networking company that creates destination events and experiences to forge lasting personal and professional connections across its young professional members. Elliot graduated from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, where she studied economics, philosophy, and politics.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How have you learned to adapt when things have not worked out as planned?

Hattie Elliot: I guess for me I just don’t think there’s any other option than, you know, I can choose to sulk in a corner and have a pity party or I can choose to lift my chin up and, you know, walk forward. It’s one of the reasons I, you know, love the city, that I love being an entrepreneur, because if I don’t show up or I have a sick day, I can’t pay my bills. I just—I haven’t given myself another choice. Things constantly in my life, I’ve had such extraordinary high highs and, you know, and I’ve experienced real heartache and real tragedy, and real disappointments, but there’s, for me, something very empowering about just, you know, acknowledging, you know, the disappointments, and the times when things haven’t work out, and you know, great, take a breath, take a little ohm moment, whatever it is. And then picking my chin up, and coming up with a plan, you know, of how I’m gonna move forward in my goal, and how I’m gonna fix this, and then, most importantly, actually, you know, executing it. 

It’s—you know, never easy but it always feels so much better to me to at least know that, you know, to not be the victim and just to do and be the best I can, you know, with the situation at hand. I think that—you know, I’ve heard it said that, you know, extraordinary people are those who just kind of, act in such a way, you know, during really difficult situations, just act in a—as they would normally and conduct themselves normally. It’s not that you’re, you know, over the top, and you’re like going and saving the world, but it’s just, you know, being gracious, and handling the system—you know, the situation to the best of the ability in a way that I hope when I look back, whether it’s today, tomorrow, in 5 years, I never have any regrets about how I treated anyone, and I never say what if, I just know I handled it to the best of my ability, and that’s all I can do. I’m not perfect, but it’s just taking the deck of cards that we all have, sometimes it’s satatious, sometimes it’s fabulous, and doing what we can with it, making the best of it. Making margaritas out of limes, you know?

Hattie Elliot on Finding Healthier Ways to Manage a Busy Schedule

In Chapter 17 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, female entrepreneur Hattie Grace Elliot answers "How Are You Learning to Better Manage Your Time and Your Commitments?"  Elliot emphasizes making her appointments on time and, as her schedule gets busier, she learns the importance of not overcommitting to a point where she gets run down and sick.  As a small business owner, Elliot realizes she needs to stay healthy to do her work well.  Hattie Grace Elliot is the founder and CEO of The Grace List, a social networking company that creates destination events and experiences to forge lasting personal and professional connections across its young professional members. Elliot graduated from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, where she studied economics, philosophy, and politics.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are you learning to better manage your time and commitments?

Hattie Elliot: You know, being true to your word is very important, so if I say that I’m gonna be, you know, meet a client or a friend or my mom for coffee at 10:00, if I’m not there, you better believe like I’m in the E.R. on a stretcher. Like—or, you know, swimming with the fishes, like it just doesn’t happen. However, I think my issue is, I can sometimes be overly hard and overly commit myself, so in terms of time allocation, I don’t always allocate enough time just to kind of downtime, to relax, to myself, because I take all these other commitments so seriously, you know, kind of really passionate about all the things that I’m involved in and I’m involved in a lot, so as I’ve, you know, I would say the last couple of years, I’ve come to the conclusion that, no, I’m not superwoman, I’m only—I can do a lot, but I’m like, only one person, and especially, you know, being responsible for my own business, paying my own rent, having responsibilities to my family, friends, clients, just keeping the people who work for me that if I let myself get run down, sick, I overwork myself, then I’ve got nothing.

Hattie Elliot on Finding Better Ways to Motivate Small Business Employees

In Chapter 19 of 19 in her 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, female entrepreneur Hattie Grace Elliot answers "How Are You Learning to Better Manage and Motivate Teams?"  Elliot learns to separate her perspective as an owner from that of employees working at a small business for a job.  Elliot learns to strike a balance motivating employees by providing monetary compensation and emotional compensation. 

Hattie Grace Elliot is the founder and CEO of The Grace List, a social networking company that creates destination events and experiences to forge lasting personal and professional connections across its young professional members. Elliot graduated from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, where she studied economics, philosophy, and politics.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are you learning to better manage and motivate teams?

Hattie Elliot: It’s easy for me to stay motivated with my business because it’s my baby, you know? I own it. It’s kind of—there’s no separation of church and state, it’s my everything. When people are working for you, you know, as much as they might, you know, like what they’re doing, and believe in you, and like the business, it’s different than when you’re an owner, so there’s a few different things that are really important in motivating people. People need to pay their bills, like there’s—there’s monetarily compensating someone. And I’ve learned, you know, with my business, ways to do that is scaled, not just—let’s say paying a—just kind of a normal salary but really scaling it based on performance. Especially it’s a win-win as a small business owner, because, you know, if they’re bringing in money and business, like, hey, I am more than happy to share the wealth, you know, everyone wins.

If you’re really underperforming, and you’re not really working your tail off, then, you know, your monetary compensation is gonna reflect that, so that’s actually been kind of striking that balance and figuring out how to monetarily compensate people so they also feel really valued, and it motivates them is important. Just kind of I would say emotional compensation, really not—really when someone does something that’s great and wonderful, and it’s beneficial, encouraging it, acknowledging it, when they mess up, acknowledging that too which is hard, but doing it in a way that’s productive, so you’re not just, you know, putting them down, and like kind of cutting it off there, but you’re giving them an alternative or a suggestion, a way to do their job better, to be better, to craft it because I always try to empower my employees and people I work with, because I feel like whether they work—I mean they’re not gonna work for me forever, you know, hopefully, they go out and they, you know, end up being a big baller, starting a hugely successful business or working for a big corporation making millions.

I can’t guarantee I’ll ever be able to pay them that, but at least then you’re really empowering them with skills, and confidence, and tools, so—that they can really use and are beneficial to them personally later on. And I think when you proposition and position it that way that they really appreciate it and also feel much more responsibility to kind of performing because you know when you’re very protective and you—and you encourage them, they also feel kind of more accountable towards doing a really good job for you.

Adam Carter on Deciding Not to Grow a Nonprofit

In Chapter 8 of 13 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, micro-philanthropist Adam Carter answers "What Made You Decide Not to Expand the Scope of Your Micro-Philanthropy Efforts?"  As Carter gains experience, he finds it is not in his best interest to scale his non-profit in the funds it raises and the number of projects it completes.  Carter notes his struggle to do more good while staying true to his hands-on founding goals. 

Adam Carter is a micro-philanthropist currently living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  He is the founder of the Cause and Affect Foundation, which raises small amounts of financing to provide direct-to-source project funding for individuals and communities in need across the globe.  To date, Carter has traveled to over 80 countries.  He earned an MA in International Development from George Washington University and a BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Michigan.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What made you decide not to expand the scope of your micro-philanthropy efforts?

Adam Carter: I think a lot of start-ups whether it’s a nonprofit or a business, they’re immediately thinking, okay, how big can I get? I think that’s kind of the instinct there. So when I started Cause & Affect, I was really excited to really create a model that could be ramped up in time. And so as I started the process, as I started to raise money, and then I started to distribute the funds to these projects around the world, I got to the point where I realized that there was a problem and that was that as I scaled up Cause & Affect, it would change the whole structure of what I had envisioned. You know, I created this so that I would be able to be out in the field personally overseeing all of these projects. I mean, Cause & Affect is based on the fact that I’m able to see exactly how every dollar is spent, and that I’m not just simply sending it over to organizations that look like they have a good website, or someone goes and visits and says, “Oh, it’s a good project. Okay, here’s a few thousand dollars.” That’s not how it works.

So what I realized is that for me to really scale this up, first of all it would require a lot more time. I mean, as it is I’m putting in a lot of my own time and money for traveling, and I’m content with that. That’s fine, but in order for me to do this really full time, you know, to that extent, I would have to get some income, and so then you just kind of work backwards. Well, what’s the minimum amount of income I would need to live my life and plan for a future, whatever? So, I mean, even if it was just, let’s say $50,000, from $50,000—If I’m gonna raise $50,000, that’s gonna go towards me, we have to be sure that’s only maybe 10% of what we’re raising. So then you’re looking at $500,000 that we’d have to bring in every year in order to justify a $50,000 salary for myself. And that’s obviously quite a challenge these days, and also once you—in order to bring in $500,000 a year, you might have to hire someone to help you with your marketing or your fundraising, and then you’ve got another salary to deal with, so that’s more money you need to bring in just to break even, and I felt like this was just setting up a lot of pressure for me personally, whereas what I’m really good at, I wasn’t born to be a CEO and to micro-manage four or five people working for me, and if I wanted to do that I probably would have set up a business or an NGO 15 years ago.

What I’m good at is the interpersonal relationships in the field and assessing each of these projects and finding the best way to help them, and finding out how to be the most effective with this small amount of money. Now, obviously, it would be wonderful to be able to distribute more money, and hopefully, down the road, we will find a way to do that, to ramp up these contributions in that there is still a way within this model to give a lot more money. I mean each of these projects that I’m assisting with, $1,000 or $2,000. I could easily add a zero to that if some other donors come on board that really share the vision, but I kind of realized that I needed to focus on the task at hand which was making sure that every dollar distributed goes directly to the people in need, instead of worrying about how big of a structure I could create and, instead of getting my ego in it of like, how big of an organization I could create.

Ken Rona on Why Mutual Respect Matters in a Marriage

In Chapter 3 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "Why is Mutual Respect Important in a Marriage?"  Rona references a book written by a marriage counselor about how he could predict a married couple's future based on only a few minutes with them.  Rona notes why it is so important to be supportive and not be dismissive as well as to stay committed to growing the relationship over time. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: Why is mutual respect important in a marriage?

Ken Rona: I think if you’re gonna be married a long time you have to be friends with the person. I think there are other things that, you know, when you’re 18, you get married and you think are important are not as important when you’re 45. I can’t imagine being married to somebody where there isn’t a really, pretty big nugget of respect for them. You know—Do you know this research around snap decisions? I forget the name of the book. There is this marriage counselor, right? And he can basically within 30 seconds of watching a couple interact, predict if they’re gonna get divorced or not, and he has like—I thought—I wanna say he had like 100% success rate. I don’t remember the book but it’s a story in the book. 

And what it really is, is his critical—the thing that he synthesized is—the thing he’s looking for is are they treating other respectfully? Right? It’s not like, you know, Hi, sweetie, I love you. It’s more like, you know, that you listen, that you—That you—I said, that you’re not dismissive. So I think it’s core to any marriage. 

I really find it—I can’t imagine how would you even propose to someone? I think the trick actually in marriage is that as people change that you have to kind of figure out what the new thing is, right? Like what—Like as people shift, how do you maintain that level of respect? Right? Or how does it grow?

Ken Rona on How Reflection Informs Manager Career Growth

In Chapter 9 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "What Role Has Reflection Played in Shaping Your Personal Growth?"  Rona refers to fundamental attribution error, which is where you take credit for good things and blame bad things on the external world.  Understanding this bias helps Rona reflect and make sense of challenges and his choices to overcome them.  Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What role has reflection played in shaping your personal growth?

Ken Rona: You know, there’s that line about a self-reflected life is not worth living. I take some of that to heart. When I have a challenge, I try to think about what role I’ve played in creating it. Do you know what the fundamental attribution error is? 

Erik Michielsen: Tell me more about that.

Ken Rona: Sure. It’s a psychological phenomenon, right, that many people experience. And the notion is that when something good happens, it’s because I’m great.  Right? And when something bad happens, it’s because the world is against me. Right? Or you know, it’s your fault, basically. Right? So you blame good things on yourself—Or you take credit for good things, but for negative things, you attribute to the rest of the world. And that’s one where, you know, when I think about something, I really try to separate that out. I really try not to take too much credit for the good, nor try to put so much of the bad, some of the negative factors on the external world. I try to kind of have a much more balanced—I try to—because I know about this I’m biased. I try to think about how to have a really honest assessment about what my role in whatever the challenge was, was. And I found that helpful. 

And I actually—it’s actually my—almost my talking point for the year has been to tell people about this. Because I have been in a situation in business where it happened with a vendor, where they were blaming something on us that was—like their product failure. They’re like, well, you’re not using the product right. Look guys, it’s your product. Right? Like, you know, why would you not take ownership of your product, and like blaming your customer is not a good way to go, right? But—So I’d say that’s kind of the—how I think about reflection. I guess it’s an empirical question if I do it enough or not, it’s certainly it seems to be okay but I think that you have to—especially as you get more senior, as you get more senior, you really have to think carefully about what your role in things are. And to make sure that you’re having the appropriate amount of influence, how you’re doing that influencing, where you use more direct power, right? 

I used to be accused of being a bit -- my elbows were too sharp. My elbows are probably always gonna be too sharp for the level I’m at, but I think that my use of the elbows is much more surgical. Right? I’m not like whacking them around, I’m more like—I’m more just going… And it was funny, I have a staff member who works for me and he’s—I—Do you know this notion in a—like World of Warcraft in a multimassive, multiplaying—massively multiplayer role-playing game, you have roles, right? And one of the roles that people have is they’re called tanks, and a tank is basically like a character that is designed to take abuse, right? 

So that while everyone else is running around stealing the vorpal sword, you know, the enemy is beating on the tank. Right? He is that guy. People just beat on him and he just takes it and takes it and takes it. And he’s—has much more—much higher emotional intelligence than I have, right? His EQ is much higher. I think. Because he takes that stuff and he takes it with a lot of equanimity, right? He’s just like really cool about it. And somebody was taking advantage of him. And I said, dude, they’re taking advantage of you. He said, I know, what should I do? I said, you gotta throw the elbow, man. Like so there are times when like being the calm voice, right -- the tank, is not always the right thing, right? Sometimes you gotta go a little bit on the offensive. 

So I’ve tried to be more—I’ve tried to kind of take actually from him the “be cool,” right? And I’ve tried to be a little more tank-ish. But I’m much more surgical about my use of my elbows.

Ken Rona: How to Establish Trust When Building Relationships

In Chapter 10 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "How Do You Establish Trust When Building Relationships?"  Rona notes that trust is the currency of business, not money.  He learns to just give trust to his staff, noting if you give it, you get it.  He finds this something controllable. When there is no direct reporting relationship, either with people more senior or in different parts of the business, Rona tries to demonstrate trust to them. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University. 

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How do you establish trust when building relationships? 

Ken Rona: Well, with my staff, I just give it. There’s that Paul McCartney, John Lennon line— ‘the love you get is equal to the love you give’ or something—I mean it’s that kind of notion. I think that if you get it—if you give it, you get it. So but there are—that’s with your staff and that’s kind of more controllable. I think for folks who are let’s say more senior than me or in different parts of the business where I don’t have—there’s no direct reporting relationship, I think that one of the things that I do is I exhibit to them that I trust them. And I try to demonstrate to people that I think about them in the circle of trust. 

I was just talking to someone about this today, someone I had lunch with, to say in our first interview, when she was interviewing me, we got to talking about a personal issue for her and I gave her some advice that you probably wouldn’t give somebody that you had just met. And I was—she said—she was talking to me about this today, this was 2 years later. I said well I did that to say like, you know, I would expect that we would have a relationship that is, you know, trusting. And that I was gonna kind of talk to you about this stuff and once again, I guess in some ways I did the same thing I do with my staff. I gave her my trust. And I brought her in to my circle. And that’s what I try to do. 

Now having said that, some people are unresponsive to it. Some people don’t respond when you say something personal. Or when you be kind of a real person. They may not respond. And that tells you something about them. I think that tells you kind of more how you have to treat them. It’s a more buttoned down relationship. But you know what I tell people about trust is—once again I try to come up with a pithy line, trust is the currency of business. That is how business works. It’s not money. 

The way things happen is that if I trust you to do something and you trust me—that we all kind of trust each other that we’re all gonna do what we said we’re going to do, right, we’re gonna meet our commitments. Wall Street certainly thinks about it that way. So the thing you’re making commitments about is money or projects or whatever, but I think that the –what limited success I’ve had I think is because people trust me to do the right thing, they trust my judgment and I’ve tried to demonstrate it. 

So I think also, you know, you get a lot of benefits by reps. One of the things that I try to do for the staff is make sure that they don’t—when I’m delegating, they’re not there in a situation where they can fail, right? Part of that trust is when somebody gives me something that I have the judgment to know when it cannot fail. That if my boss asks me to do something that you know, I have to make a call. Is this something that I should—that he is willing to tolerate failure on, or that he’s not gonna be super happy about. And he said that I get it right, I build up more trust. I build up social capital. I think it was social capital. And in fact we built up enough social capital with the stuff we’re working on where the company has entrusted us with more strategically important things to do. And I think that’s how you know when you’re a success. That if you kind of feel that people—that your circle of trust gets bigger. I guess I’ll say that.

Ken Rona on How to Be a More Effective Corporate Manager

In Chapter 14 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Ken Rona answers "How Are You Learning to Thrive in a Corporate Organizational Structure?"  Rona shares knowledge he has gained from management work experience in large corporate cultures.  He notes how being patient has been fundamental to improving managerial effectiveness and helping him achieve goals. 

Ken Rona is a Vice President at Turner Broadcasting, where he leads teams across advertising sales, big data software development and business strategy.  Rona earned a BA and MA in Political Science from Stony Brook University and a PhD in Behavioral Economics from Duke University.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: How are you learning to thrive inside a corporate organizational structure?

Ken Rona: If I could give someone one piece of advice around that they were gonna go to a large company, a large kind of corporate, kind of very traditional--traditionally structured company, I would say the critical thing is patience. 

So I use this phrase “the market will clear.” Remember what I said about learning? I have like these little kind of small phrases that I like to use, that’s one of them. “The market will clear.” And by that I mean at some point the right thing will happen. And—because I think people when they’re in companies—when they are reliant on other people to do stuff. You know, you say, “Why are they not doing this? Like it is so obvious. They just need to do this thing and the world will be so much better.” 

One of two things happens, if you’re patient, either one, if—and you’re right. That person does it. So you know you were getting yourself nutty for no reason, that it was gonna happen. Or they don’t do it, you are right, they don’t do it, it becomes obvious that you are right, that person gets kind of either, you know, removed in some fashion or another—someone else comes in and they do it. So by that I mean the market, that’s what I mean when the market clears. If you wait the market, you know, the market will get to its equilibrium. The right thing will happen. 

Sometimes that waiting time can be very long. I’ve certainly seen—I have seen in the case of one of the companies I worked for, it was weird. It was wacky. And me and some of the people I worked with were just like we can’t believe this company is a success. And like they’ve gotta have a contraction, they’ve got—it’s just badly run. And I—you know, and I believed that, and I left. A year later I’m like—They’re still doing fine. I’m like, “How could that be? How could they still be doing well?” Another 6 months goes by, the stock falls 60%, the market cleared. So in my experience, if you are patient and you are trying to do the right thing—if you do the right thing and be patient, if you can. There are certainly times where you need urgency. But in general, my counsel is patience. Just be cool.

Mark Graham on Planning Digital Content Strategy Working in TV

In Chapter 14 of 17 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, digital media executive Mark Graham "What Role Does Content Strategy Play in Your Work?"  Graham notes cable television remains the foundation of big media business, including his company VH1, and gets the majority of its audience and its advertising income from on-air programming.  He talks about working in strategic content planning and how the work is becoming progressively digital.  Graham offers examples of how media companies are packaging content for consumption across TV, mobile, desktop, laptop, and tablet platforms as consumer behavior trends mature into larger population segments.  From short-form music artist online video interviews to Spotify featured playlists to live streaming events over mobile, Graham paints a picture of the future of how digital media companies will evolve to meet its adapting consumer audience preferences. 

Mark Graham is currently a managing editor at VH1, an MTV Networks company. Previously Graham worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media.  He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.  

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What role does content strategy play in your work?

Mark Graham: It’s of a primary essence in everything that we do. And by that, what I mean by strategy is, VH1 is obviously as of right now a television network, primarily. That’s where advertisers pay us. That’s how we make our money. That’s where we have our largest viewership. But as the cable industry starts to change and evolve, VH1 is probably over the course of the next 5-10 years, will still be a TV station. Hopefully. But we’re also gonna be producing content for other devices in other places. Whether that be mobile, on your iPhone or your iPad, or streaming things on your laptop, people consume content differently based upon the device that they’re using to consume it. 

So when we’re putting together ideas for content, when talent is coming in, we discuss lots of different ways that we can package information for different types of audiences based upon how they’re gonna be consuming it. You know, sometimes it’s a print interview that will run a thousand words, that goes really in depth on certain matters with bands. Sometimes it’ll be little 30-second video clips that are, you know, really get to the point, really gets to the essence, something that’s newsy and timely and makes a good bite and something that’s funny and that people are gonna share. Sometimes it’s, you know, working with an artist catalog, you know, an established artist who’s come out with a new record taking a look back at their career and maybe putting together things like a Spotify playlist that showcases the ebbs and flow of their particular career and how they have sort of arrived at the point they’re at today. 

So we look at content not just in a very—we’re talking to this particular artist and it’s going to be an interview. As we’re developing the strategies for our interviews, we’re really cognizant of the ways we’re putting—we’re actually gonna package that and release that out to consumers at the end of the day.

Anatole Faykin: How to Turn Your Bad Habits Into Strengths

In Chapter 10 of 12 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur Anatole Faykin answers "How Are You Learning to Better Manage Your Time and Commitments?"  Faykin notes he is not improving how he manages his time and commitments.  He finds it more important to having the freedom to get things done and using creativity and flexibility to meet deadlines and project goals.  He notes "bad habits die hard" and that changing your style is not always better than learning to work within your style. 

Anatole Faykin is an entrepreneur currently working on a new startup as part of the Startup Chile incubator program in Santiago, Chile.  Previously, Faykin founded Tuanpin, a Shanghai, China-based daily deals site he grew to 25 employees and sold in the fall of 2011. He has worked for British Telecom in London, Intel in Shanghai, American Express in New York, and Oracle in San Francisco as well as several startups. He holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BS in computer science and biology from the California Institute of Technology.

How Band Member Roles Change as Album Gets Made - Conrad Doucette

In Chapter 12 of 19 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, musician Conrad Doucette answers "How Are Your Responsibilities Changing as Your Band Prepares to Release a New Album?"  Doucette notes how band member roles change from the recording process through the record release process and the touring process.  He notes the importance of being adaptable and embracing the different roles required at each stage of the process.  Conrad Doucette is a Brooklyn musician and the drummer for Takka Takka, which released its 3rd studio album, AM Landscapes, in late 2012.  He has performed with Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, The National, Alina Simone, and many other leading acts.  When not performing music, Doucette is the communications and brand director at music licensing and publishing startup Jingle Punks.  Doucette earned a BA in History from the University of Michigan.

Matt Ruby on How to Break Out of a Comfort Zone

In Chapter 11 of 19 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, standup comedian Matt Ruby answers "What is Your Comfort Zone and What Do You Do To Break Free of Living In It?"  Ruby notes how his comfort zone is actually being in an uncomfortable place.  His life is always about doing new things, moving to new places, trying new stuff, and hanging out with new people.  After performing comedy for over five years, Ruby finds himself trying to stick with things more often and more fully embrace who he has met and what he has done. 

Matt Ruby is a standup comedian and comedy writer based in New York City.  He co-produces the weekly show "Hot Soup", co-hosts the monthly show "We're All Friends Here", and manages a comedy blog "Sandpaper Suit".  Ruby graduated from Northwestern University.