Fred Destin

I aksed Joe Cohen at Seatwave how he deals with the ongoing complexity and varied demands on his time that come from managing a hypergrowth company, and I thought I would share the thoughts he jotted down for me:

1. Oversimplify and execute well.  If you make a mistake in strategy you can generally correct it by executing well even if you execute something else
2. Only do what only you can do – this is really hard but if anyone in your company is able to do something the CEO should not, by defnition, do it
3. Ignore the first request for everything.  If it’s really important then they will ask again
4. Push your team beyond what you and they think they are capable of – they will be more empowered and will be able to complete more on their own if they are reaching for a high bar
5. I have 0 emails in my in box when I leave the office each day.  Anything that I am cc’d on I will read on the weekend (separate folder) so I am only dealing with emails sent TO me each day
6. At least once per week leave the office in the middle of the day and have lunch with my wife or go to my kids school – even if only for 30 minutes

Simple and sound advice.