Nate’s Notes 119: Stanford Professor Bob Sutton | The Best Leaders Are Trustees of Others Time

First, the best leaders see themselves as trustees of others’ time. As Bob told his employer at Stanford, and even a Google executive yesterday, “If the California DMV can be trustees of our time, you can do it for your employees too.”

Second, our natural tendency is to add things to anything we do, whether it’s a recipe, a vacation, or our jobs. But when we switch to the subtraction mindset, we can vastly improve things. In the state of Michigan there was a form that 2.5 million residents filled out that had 1,000 questions. But thanks to project Reform, the form is now 80% shorter and takes half the time.

Third, lead with love. Starting with love, and then building the logistics behind it, can lead to vastly improved experiences compared to starting with the logistics of, for example, how can we make it difficult to cancel. And in the case of Netflix, when they made it easy to cancel, they got much better data.

In summary, the best leaders view themselves as trustees of other’s time, and Bob gave us two great ways to do that: think improvement by subtraction and lead with love.

It’s a simple idea. Please take it seriously.

Bob Sutton Bio:

Bob Sutton, Professor at Stanford University, is a New York Times bestselling author of nine books including his most recent, with co-author Huggy Rao, titled The Friction Project. Bob co-founded Stanford’s Center for Work, Technology, and Organization, the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, and the “d school.” Bob has served as an advisor to McKinsey, Bain, and Microsoft, as a Fellow at IDEO, and as faculty at the World Economic Forum, and he is currently a Senior Scientist at Gallup.

Bob has given keynote speeches to more than 200 groups in more than 20 countries and has been a guest on numerous radio and television shows, including ABC, Bloomberg, BBC, CNBC, Fox, NBC Today Show, PBS, NPR, Marketplace, and CNN.