Using Data to Improve Public Speaking (+2 Tactics), Get Lucky by Finding What’s Repeatable - Tactician: #0095

"Man, data is like the secret sauce of public speaking.

'I've analyzed the laughter decibels, and the joke about cats scored a solid 8.5, but the one about dogs only a 6.2. More cats, less dogs. Got it!'"

09/04/24

Using Data to Improve Public Speaking (+2 Tactics)

Why Read:

• Valuable insights on systematically improving public speaking skills, candidly structuring roles based on strengths, and iterating on company culture like a product. These lessons can help founders become more effective leaders.

Featuring:

• Lenny Rachitsky, Author at Lenny’s Newsletter and Lenny’s Podcast interviews Dharmesh Shah, Founder and CTO at HubSpot

Link: 

• “Zigging vs. zagging: How HubSpot built a $30B company | Dharmesh Shah (co-founder/CTO)”

Key Concepts and Tactics:

• Adopt a systematic and data-driven approach to improving your public speaking skills. 

  • "By adopting a systematic and data-driven approach to preparing and delivering presentations, you can effectively refine your skills and increase your impact as a speaker.

  • Define your metrics: Identify specific metrics that matter to you. For example, Dharmesh measures 'laughs per minute' (LPM), a metric commonly used by stand-up comedians.

  • Measure and analyze: Record your presentations and analyze them using tools or methods to measure the identified metrics—in this case, transcribing the talks and using custom software to track moments when the audience audibly laughs."

• Acknowledge your strengths and limitations candidly, and structure your role accordingly. 

  • "Dharmesh knows that he isn't adept at managing people, and made a conscious decision to avoid having direct reports. This decision not only allowed him to focus on what he excelled at but also contributed to his personal satisfaction and the success of the company."

• Treat your company culture like a product, iterating on principles and values to meet the evolving needs of a growing team. 

  • "Treat your company culture like a product, where your employees are the customers. Rather than preserving the established culture, founders should iterate on cultural principles and values to meet the evolving needs of a growing team. Document, iterate, and clarify cultural elements to reflect past, present, and future aspirations."

Get Lucky by Finding What’s Repeatable

• Why Read:

  • Gain insights on differentiating between replicable skills and unrepeatable circumstances, which can increase chances of success.

• Featuring:

  • Morgan Housel, Partner at Collaborative Fund

• Link: 

  • “Lucky vs. Repeatable”

• Key Concepts and Tactics:

  • Distinguishing Between Repeatable Skills and Non-Repeatable Circumstances (i.e. luck):

    • Point: Focus on learning and emulating repeatable skills rather than attempting to replicate non-repeatable circumstances.

      • "It's so important to know the difference between the two when attempting to learn from someone. You want to try to emulate skills that are repeatable. Attempting to copy the parts of someone's success that aren't repeatable is equivalent to a 56-year-old dressing like a teenager and expecting to be cool."

      • "In business and investing, you want to learn the big lessons about why things behave the way they do without assuming the past is a direct guide to the future, because it's not – most of the details are not repeatable. History is the study of change, ironically used as a map of the future."

  • Learning Broad, Repeatable Lessons:

    • Point: Seek to learn broad, repeatable lessons rather than narrow, non-repeatable ones.

      • "[After the dot-com crash], the lesson people learned from that was not, "I should never speculate on overvalued financial assets." The lesson they learned was, "I should never speculate on internet stocks." And so the same people who lost 90% or more of their money day-trading internet stocks ended up flipping homes in the mid 2000s, and getting wiped out doing that. It's dangerous to learn narrow lessons."

      • "The great thing when you ask, "is this repeatable?" is that you start to focus on things that you and I – ordinary lay people – have a chance of repeating ourselves."

  • Applying Repeatable Lessons from Successful Individuals:

    • Point: Learn from successful individuals' repeatable traits and strategies, but be cautious about copying non-repeatable aspects of their success.

      • "You can learn a lot from Warren Buffett's patience. But you can't replicate the market environment he had in the 1950s, so be careful copying the specific strategies he used back then."

      • "You can learn so much from John D. Rockefeller about the importance of controlling distribution. But you cannot replicate the 20th century legal system that allowed him to destroy competitors, so don't get carried away there."

      • "Elon Musk can teach you a lot about risk-taking and branding, but much less about competing in the auto business."

      • "Jeff Bezos can teach you so much about management and long-term thinking, but much less about e-commerce and cloud computing."

  • Increasing Your Chances of Success:

    • Point: Focus on identifying and leveraging repeatable elements to improve your odds of success.

      • "The way to get luckier is to find what's repeatable."

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