John Heilbronn’s Post

"Huang, who oversees 50 direct reports, said that 'by definition,' CEOs should have the most direct reports of anyone at a company. He made the comment during an interview with Stanford's Graduate School of Business on Tuesday. Huang's rationale is that those who report to the CEO (theoretically) require the least amount of oversight, so CEOs have more bandwidth than other managers." Interesting quote from a Business Insider article about executive span of control. Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, argues that the CEO's span of control should be larger than the typical 5-10 you'll see in many management consulting firm studies. He also makes a point later that, assuming the above to be true, the reason a CEO would want fewer reports is for tighter control of information flow -- which he thinks is not a good way to manage a company. Horizontal structure would increase information flow, so that employees are empowered by information to do their jobs. And how does this tie into public health? Through equity, like most things. If a CEO chooses to have a higher span of control, they are literally listening to a larger plurality of voices. On the flip side, when a CEO listens to fewer voices (especially if there's a lack of diversity), they will be more susceptible to biased decision-making. - Business Insider article (https://lnkd.in/eSFVFhf4) - YouTube link to interview (https://lnkd.in/e2bsMReg)

"I've cleaned more toilets than any of you"- Jensen Huang, President Nvidia talking about his time as a server at Denny's. I'm not usually a big fan of #leadership content, but this interview with Stanford GSB (link in the comments) was fresh in its bluntness. I've paraphrased some of Jensen's ideas that I'm taking away for myself and NOBS Asia: 1. No work is beneath me (with the example of Denny's) 2. Gross margin is not a KPI, it's a result, what are my EIOFS (early indicators of future success)? 3. Be lazy about problems others can solve, what problems can we specifically solve that others can't? 4. "I don't understand CEOs with 2 direct reports"- I don't believe in a system where the information you possess is the source of your power; how can your employees have the best ideas or solve the biggest problems without unfiltered information and context 5. I have 50 direct reports, I encourage all employees to write in with their problems, I discuss my thought process and reasoning towards those problems openly (not in 1 on 1s), I want to enable good decision making at all levels In the spirit of the above, I'll be sharing a lot of real data and real stories on here (NOT humble brags, not PR, NO BS) on how NOBS is going to market for itself and for clients, stay tuned.

CEO Jensen Huang of NVIDIA recently shared that he has started asking more questions and giving fewer answers. Relearn the art of asking questions. Insufficient questioning can lead to poorly-made decisions. In today's "on-demand" world, people are eager to answer. But we must slow down, understand each other better, in order to avoid making bad decisions and achieve success in this environment. Encourage a culture of questioning in our business to promote curiosity, vulnerability, and better decision-making. #QuestioningSuccess #AskTheRightQuestions #LeadershipDevelopment #BusinessCulture #SuccessThroughCuriosity.

Day 94: Nvidia is an example of solid vision and hard work pays off. Yesterday I watch a video in which the CEO was lecturing a group. He said, you'll never be in a marketing class teaching "sometimes you have to ignore the customer" but that's exactly what we did a few years ago. When we presented our newest technologies to our customers, the likes of IBM, Dell, HP and others. Their teams' feedback was "the chip is too expensive for our budgets and too powerful for what we need. We would never buy it." Despite their feedback Nvidia recognized we have a special technology and Moore's law is our friend. So we will continue to develop. A few years later they are the technology's pioneers. My takeaway: As the supplier you are the the expert of the field, and customers "don't know the nature of your business". The customer is the consumer. Sometimes you have to avoid letting internal business stakeholders influence the genius of the engineering/research department, let alone customers who may not understand the companies vision and capabilities.

A very interesting fireside chat with leaders from two organizations (Stripe and NVIDIA) that seem to have some things figured out 😁 Happened across it because of a very eye-catching headline (Nvidia CEO on work/life balance: "When I’m not working, I’m thinking about working. And when I’m working, I’m working."). Kudos to Steve Goldstein at MarketWatch for that gem 🙌 But the thing that really stood out to me - About 10:55 in the video, the topic of executive team structure & meetings came up... Jensen Huang has 60 direct reports, does not hold 1:1 meetings, and regularly gives direct feedback to individuals on his team in front of the whole group. Hard to argue with his approach given the results, but wow! Curious if anyone has experienced a similar environment? PS Worklytics has a Sample Report on Meeting Effectiveness & Decision Making if you'd like to learn about what our research says...Link to that in the comments ⬇ #WorkLifeBalance #ManagerSpan #MeetingEffectiveness https://lnkd.in/g2n54Xuc

Jensen said that he usually doesn’t worry too much about the ups and downs of Nvidia stock, other than his greatest fear of a failed business letting employees down. Instead, he stressed the importance of first-principle thinking: whether you see usefulness, value and eventually a place in the market of the core technology you are building. If so, tune out the noise and dedicate to building; if not, quickly adjust, pivot, and be ready to disrupt yourself. Product market fit is a first-principle practice, so is long-term investment.

https://lnkd.in/gSgDRPr7 1:1s are overrated - well, I totally agree that weekly ones are definitely overrated. Instead, managers and employees should look for signals and have impromptu ones as and when needed (means, managers should have an open-door policy and an unpacked calendar). Ideally, praise should be in public and improvement feedback should be in private - so 1:1s are needed for latter.

“When everyone digs for gold, sell shovels.” The old-adage that arouse during California gold rush has been NVIDIA’s approach to the AI race. By selling GPUs to Microsoft, Google, Meta and the likes, NVIDIA stock price has propelled from 250$ to more than 900$ in the last 12 months alone. But what is NVIDIA doing differently, to completely outpace competitors like Intel and AMD? Harvard Business Review suggests that NVIDIA is adhering to an emerging set of strategic concepts that are coming into play, where ecosystems and partnerships are increasingly becoming central to the way organizations compete. This article delves deep into the mentioned 6 strategic concepts, unveiling how different leading companies are leveraging them to get ahead competition, being a great food for thought for any company looking to adapt to today’s rapidly changing and complex business environment. HBR pick of the week #5. #hbr #hbrpickoftheweek #strategy

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Thought of sharing Clayton Christensen’s (The Innovator’s Dilemma, The Innovator’s Solution) article extracts (2020 HBR) ‘I got a call from Andrew Grove of Intel. He had read about disruptive technology and asked if I could talk to his direct reports and explain what it implied for Intel. Excited, I showed up at the appointed time, only to have Grove say, “Look, we have only 10 minutes for you. Tell us what your model of disruption means for Intel.” I said that I couldn’t—that I needed a full 30 minutes to explain the model using a very different industry, steel, so that he and his team could understand how disruption worked. I told the story of Nucor and other steel minimills and when I finished the story, Grove said, “OK, I get it. What it means for Intel is...,” and then went on to articulate what would become the company’s strategy for going to the bottom of the market to launch the Celeron processor. I’ve thought about that a million times since Instead of telling him what to think, I taught him how to think—and then he reached what he felt was the correct decision on his own’ A strong and clear message for teachers, educators, advisors, consultants, coaches, business leaders et al? #Innovation #thinking #storytelling ##strategicviewpoint #discovery #pedagogy #andragogy #heutagogy #