Relationship builders, on the other hand, try to help other people first. They don’t keep score. They’re aware that many good deeds get reciprocated,… - Reid Hoffman

I like to generate fresh, innovative ways to play defense by asking my team, “If we were trying to compete with ourselves, what we would do? What if we were a start-up? Google? Facebook? Microsoft?

The purpose of hiring a management team is to solve the organization’s problems in a more scalable way. The CEO should be the hub, and the executive team the spokes that connect the CEO to the frontline managers and employees operating where the rubber hits the road.

We don’t know of a single start-up that succeeded without starting out as single-threaded. That focus is the key to beating larger competitors in the early stages of a company’s existence.