How to Get Your Team to Listen to You, Why Web3 Marks the Dawn of a New Supercycle - Tactician #0063

"Ever notice how getting your team to listen to you can be like trying to get a cat to follow instructions? 'Okay, team, here's the plan.' And they're all looking at you like, 'We hear you, but we have our own plans. Also, can you feed us?'"

22/02/2024

How to Get Your Team to Listen to You

Wes Kao, Co Founder at Maven, provides guidance on how to effectively communicate business cases to ensure ideas are understood, valued, and acted upon, drawing from her experience as an a16z-backed founder in “The #1 question every business case should answer”

• The Importance of Pitching Ideas Effectively

  • "Intelligent people can be shockingly bad at pitching their ideas. A few years ago, one of my direct reports said, 'I’m so frustrated. I flagged an issue to the CTO, but he didn’t care. I can barely keep it together and want to scream into a pillow. I don’t know what to do. Could you share how to get him to listen?' This was the first time my team member (let’s call him Evan) mentioned this issue, but he had clearly been frustrated for a while...Evan tried to make a business case, but his write-up was lacking. How do you speak up so your manager or colleagues will listen?"

• The Central Question of a Business Case

  • "While your circumstances may be unique, the underlying question driving all business cases is the same: How will this save money or make money?...Businesses exist to make money by creating value for customers."

• Different Forms of the Central Question

  • "There are other incarnations of this underlying question “how will your idea save money or make money for the company?”...“How will this drive the business?”...“What’s the frequency and magnitude of this problem?”...“Why now?”

• Frameworks for Presenting Business Cases

  • "What bad things happen if we don’t do this? What good things happen if we do?” I call this framework “Bad Things / Good Things.”...“Why is the juice worth the squeeze?”...“How does this make our customer’s life better?”

• Crafting a Compelling Business Case

  • "Putting it all together, here’s an example of what a business case could look like for flagging a problem and how much it’s costing the company: “I’d like to propose building an internal feature that allows the marketing team to pull sales data more efficiently..."

• Phrases to Highlight the Cost of a Problem

  • "Don’t only say “this costs us money.” Share evidence about HOW a problem is costing money...Here are phrases to help your audience feel the pain: Makes us more prone to human error...Exposes us to risk...Slows us down..."

• Sharing Logic, Evidence, and Rationale

  • "When you share your thought process, you allow your colleagues to discuss and debate an idea with more specificity...Flagging a problem you believe is worth addressing...Proposing an idea you believe is worth pursuing..."

• Ensuring Understandability to a Neutral Reader

  • "Remember my direct report, Evan? His original lackluster business case wasn’t due to his ability or intelligence...Once he used the frameworks above, he got the CTO to take action and discuss next steps."

Why Web3 Marks the Dawn of a New Supercycle

Marc Baumann, Founder at FiftyOne Ventures and Jacy L. Youn, Web3 Strategy Consultant, informs brand leaders about the transformative impact of Web3 on eCommerce, highlighting the burgeoning opportunities for brands in this new digital landscape in “Web3: A New Commerce Layer for the Internet”

• The Big Picture: Power to the Users

  • "In Web3, users own their data and control access to their data regardless of what platform they are on...we’re moving from closed platforms to open protocols...Web3 gives ownership over this information back to users, breaking up the platforms and allowing for an interoperable, composable web and a more efficient value exchange."

• eCommerce Evolution: From Now to Then

  • "The first ever sale to happen online occurred in 1994...In 2021, Covid-19 drove a 77% increase in eCommerce transactions...And now, we’re on the cusp of the next transformation...Standardization, infrastructure and tooling democratized web presence."

• Web3 Meets eCommerce

  • "Web3 is poised to play a significant role in the future of eCommerce...This partnership makes it easy for brands and sellers to sell physical goods connected to NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens)...Users are guaranteed to either get the product or their money back."

• Why Web3 Commerce is Uniquely Enabled by Technologies Like Boson Protocol

  • "Boson Protocol solves that with an on-chain guarantee that the buyer receives the physical item or a refund, without needing to trust any party...It allows brands (and literally anyone) to sell physical things as NFTs online, in virtual worlds and on NFT marketplaces."

• Advent of a New Supercycle

  • "What’s happening now? Three trends: Web3 infrastructure is maturing, A new demographic of Web3 native consumers is entering the market, We’re at the beginning of another Web3 adoption cycle...We’ve essentially spent the last 14 years since Bitcoin gave birth to 'blockchain' building infrastructure."

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