Lessons from Molly Graham

On Scaling and Growth

On the nature of scaling: "I think of scaling as basically a bunch of kindergartners being plopped down in the middle of a pile of Legos. It's fun and exciting at first, and then it gets frustrating and scary because people are taking your Legos." [1]
The core principle of scaling: "If you personally want to grow as fast as your company, you have to give away your job every couple months." [2]
The emotional side of growth: "There's a unique feeling of ambiguity, chaos and stress that comes with doubling or tripling your team every six months. If you don't manage scaling proactively, you can end up in trouble." [2]
Counterintuitive reactions to growth: "Almost everything about scaling is counterintuitive. And one of the foremost examples is that reacting to the emotions you're having as your team adds more people is usually a bad idea." [2]
The opportunity in letting go: "The best way to manage scaling (and one of the secrets to succeeding in a rapidly growing company) is to ignore those instincts, and go find a bigger and better Lego tower to build." [2]
Growth means more for everyone: "Adding people doesn't mean there's less work for the people that are already there. It means that the entire company can do more." [2]
The challenge of early-stage scaling: "There's something really interesting that happens when a company can't fit around one table anymore—things just start to get a lot harder." [3]
The necessity of proactive management: "If you don't manage scaling proactively, you can end up in trouble.” [2]
The universality of the scaling experience: "I think it's important for people to talk about what it feels like to be inside a scaling company because it helps people realize how normal their experience is — and identifying that experience as a leader can actually help your team." [3]
On the constant state of change: "The best and worst part of scaling companies is that everything changes all the time." [4]

On Management and Leadership

The true job of a manager: "I basically think management, true management is the act of making the people around you better." [5]
Management vs. Leadership: "One of the big mistakes I think people make...is conflating management and leadership. I strongly believe you can be a leader without being a manager." [5]
Managers don't need all the answers: "It is not your job to have the answer, it is your job to bring a group of people together, to help them figure out what needs to happen next." [5]
Focus on the 'what', not the 'how': "Controlling how work gets done only makes your company slower... What you learn with experience is that... you will sometimes see people do things better and faster and more creatively than you ever could if you learn to let go and focus on the 'what'." [6]
The power of delegation: "If you spend your time controlling the 'how', you miss all the best parts of building a team and all the true power that comes from enabling people to find the solution that they think is best." [6]
The goal of management: "At the end of the day, management has a lot in common with raising kids. Your goal is to raise high functioning adults who can think for themselves and eventually navigate the world on their own." [6]
On performance reviews: With high performers, "I tend to do a lot of debriefing and reflecting... every month or two or at the end of a project... I'll do like a look back, look forward." [5]
The importance of off-boarding: "One of the best things to get good at when you are a growing organization is recognizing who's not working out and having a process to help them find their way out of the organization." [5]
The founder's cultural impact: "80% of Your Culture is Your Founder." [7]
Communication is about clarity: "Great communication is simple if you think about it as 'connect the dots'. It isn't about talking more—it's about creating clarity and alignment." [4]
The role of a leader in scaling: The role of a CEO or any leader is not static; it's about adapting and learning swiftly to steer the company through various phases of growth. [1]
On firing people: "One of the hardest things to do as a manager is decide to fire someone. Particularly if you're a new manager, you tend to spend a lot of time blaming… yourself." [4]
A simple ownership model: "Captains is an ownership model that we implemented at Lambda School that is much simpler than models like RAPID or RACI. It is an elegant and simple… way to define who is in charge." [3]
The danger of micromanaging: "Controlling how work gets done only makes your company slower." [6]
The benefit of letting go of the 'how': "Employees will inevitably do things that make you cringe, take different approaches than you, and sometimes even truly mess up. But it's rare that the best answer is to try to control their process." [6]

On Career Growth and Personal Development

The power of learning: "You can learn literally anything in the world if you're willing to sound like an idiot." [8]
Learners vs. knowers: "The learners are always going to win over the knowers." [8]
Embrace the unknown: "I'm a Believer in embracing not knowing. And then using your 20s as an exploratory journey of like learning." [9]
The value of risk-taking: "One of the most important things you can get good at in your career is taking risks, or, as I like to call it, jumping off cliffs." [10]
The outcome of taking risks: "Cliff jumps teach you who you are and what you are capable of in ways that the stairs can never." [11]
On career paths: "I've become a big believer in the winding path as a powerful way to figure out the highest and best value you can bring." [3]
The J-Curve job: "There's this concept that I've written a lot about um called a J-curve job uh this is essentially the the base jumping version of of jobs." [8]
The initial struggle of a new role: "I had gone from feeling competent and capable... to feeling like an absolute idiot all the time." [10]
The importance of being useful: In a scaling organization, "your only job is to 'learn as fast as you can.'" [2]
The power of being great at your job: "Being great at your job gives you leverage." [10]
On building a network: "Life is a barter economy... you need to give people things you need to be valuable to people you need to help them and expect nothing in return because you have to believe that it will come back to you someday." [10]
Stay connected: "Every time I leave a company I make a list of people that I loved working with and I just stay in touch with them." [9]
On work happiness: For work happiness, Graham looks for three "legs of a stool": a mission that matters, people you love and can learn from, and a learning curve so steep you're scared you'll fall off. [9]

On Emotions at Work

Acknowledge work grief: "It's something that I actually am going to write about at some point. Because I think if you can start to acknowledge that... The most obvious example would be like a layoff... watching an entire company publicly go through the stages of grief." [7]
The reality of imposter syndrome: "The imposter syndrome is real. Don't let it eat you alive." [2]
The driver of early career decisions: "Sometimes I think the early part of your career a lot of it is fear a lot of it is fear that you're not good enough fear that someone's going to figure out that you shouldn't be doing the thing fear that things are going to be taken away." [12]
Managing your emotional "monster": "You can't get rid of your monster, so you need to learn how to manage it." [2]
The two-week rule for emotions: "My main rule of thumb is if you are still having some emotion after two weeks... then uh your job is to go talk to someone but before two weeks generally speaking you can ignore most of the emotions. They're normal they're not useful." [8]
The story is the reward: "What you get out of it is the story you get to tell." [2]

On Compensation

The truth about compensation: "No one is ever happy with compensation, and compensation has never made anyone happy." [5]
Compensation is not a retainer: "Compensation is not a healthy version of retention." [5]
The importance of a system: "Create a system that revisits compensation only 1-2x a year." [5]
Transparency in compensation: "If you're leading a small, early-stage company... be as transparent about what people are making as possible... You can't be transparent if you're not paying fair, and if you are, there's no reason to not be transparent." [5]
The danger of over-leveling: "When in doubt while hiring, it is far far (far far) better to under-level people than over-level them... You can ALWAYS promote people; re-leveling someone to a lower level usually leads to them leaving the company." [13]
Parallel career tracks: The management track should be parallel to the individual contributor track, meaning "in order to become more senior and be paid more, you should not have to manage people." [13]

Learn more:

Lessons from Molly Graham

On Scaling and Growth

On Management and Leadership

On Career Growth and Personal Development

On Emotions at Work

On Compensation

Written by Antoine Buteau

Lessons from Hemant Taneja, CEO of General Catalyst

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