As a founder coach and facilitator, nothing brings me more joy than identifying and working with levers for excellence. What do I mean by that? The conditions upon which their X-Factor reveals itself. In my experience, there is a spectrum of 4 distinct types and we could all generally fall into multiple buckets to varying degrees (more below).

At some stage, early-stage growth startups can’t solve every problem they are facing at once. They are forced to solve the problem that is of most consequence to earn the right to solve the next etc. etc. This is how founders earn their right to elevate.

However, knowing which problem to solve and how to go about it can be difficult. There are so many trade offs and “guess work” involved. Therefore, most startups default to speed and learning through doing versus theorizing. However, if you aren’t thoughtful enough, you could end up burning money, time, and human capital unnecessarily. Here’s are 4-lenses to decide where to focus next.

Top teams treat accountability like a game and pattern this mindset into their teams— they win together, learn together, and fail forward together. In this post, we share a simple communication model so you can drive accountability when: 

• You communicate with others in your team. 

• You respond to communications. 

• You provide corrective feedback for sloppy communications.

• Other team members communicate with you and others. 

The model is first-principles based so that you can repurpose it appropriately for specific communication media— email, Slack, SMS, Asana, for example— and in your voice.