Decide and Conquer: 44 Decisions That Will Make or Break All Leaders

| Author : David Siegel, 2022

What’s It All About?

There are many success stories out there from CEOs, but do their lessons always apply to mid-level leadership? They do when they come from David Siegel, the CEO of Meetup and the author of Decide and Conquer: 44 Decisions That Will Make or Break All Leaders! (If you’re not familiar, Meetup is a great platform that allows people with similar interests or roles to connect, find support, and grow their business.)

In his book, Seigel doesn’t simply share his hero’s journey. Instead, he shares a behind-the-scenes look at the micro-decisions and emotions that drive real change in careers and organizations. To do this, he shares 44 lessons leaders can apply to their own organizations. While he uses examples from his own career, his book is full of advice you can apply to your own leadership, no matter what industry you’re in.

Favorite Quote

“The people know. Don’t try hiding the truth, people are smart, they always know if a company is healthy or not, or if their role makes sense or doesn’t make sense.”

Biggest Takeaway

One of the most interesting parts of Siegel’s book was where he shares the six values that best represent his team members at Meetup. He shows the extensive process of how he landed on these values, which took months and involved dozens of people. This story shows that if you’re transparent about the development of your organization’s values, you might not even have to train your team on the values. Instead, the values will be seen in everyday behaviors and language. As a result, employees will feel vested in your organization’s values, not imposed by them.

Bonus information

Once Seigel’s employees landed on their six values, each employee had a tag with the value most important to them. What a creative way to keep the conversation going!

Reviewed by: Trevor Blondeel, December 19, 2022

At Manufacturing Greatness, Trevor Blondeel works with manufacturers to connect the top to the shop floor. If you’re ready to improve your own organization, contact Trevor to learn how Manufacturing Greatness can help you build stronger leaders and develop a dynamic, high-performing workplace.

Mindfulness Manufacturing

Our show is about providing listeners with real stories that come from a place of experience, transparency, and authenticity. Most importantly it’s about what we learn from these stories and applying Mindfulness in our everyday work and personal lives.
Our intention is to create an environment where people can learn through open honest discussions on how we apply Mindfulness. Although our experiences and stories come from time in a manufacturing environment hence the title “Mindfulness Manufacturing”, we still see our discussions and topics relatable to any organization or profession.

When a mistake occurs on the plant floor, your mind might jump to one question: who caused this issue, and should I write them up for their mistake? But there’s a more productive approach you could be taking—and in this episode of Mindfulness Manufacturing, guest Dr. Jake Mazulewicz breaks it all down!

With a background as a firefighter, EMT, and military paratrooper, Jake knows the challenges of high-hazard industries, and works with organizations to reduce errors and create safer, more reliable workplace environments. In this episode, Jake shares why you can’t procedularize everything, including the way you handle errors and accidents, and offers great insights and stories about how to use connection and curiosity to improve safety, address errors, and strengthen your organization.

3:35 – Procedures and policies are the work that is imagined, and on the floor is how the work actually gets done

4:19 – The work as-done is almost always radically different than the work as-imagined

5:20 – Even when you have standards and people show up wanting to do a good job, you can still see issues that need to be addressed

6:44 – There will always be areas that absolutely need to have procedures in place

8:02 – There are also adaptive jobs, which leans less into procedures and more intro troubleshooting and tacit human knowledge

10:56 – In an ideal environment, both mechanistic and adaptive models are used and respected and needed

12:11 – There are four levels, ranging from strict procedurals to looser guidelines that show what to do, but not how to do it

15:36 – Tacit knowledge gets shared through conversations

16:22 – A way to share important information is to have frontline experts record videos sharing their insights to problems, especially those that are not covered in procedures

19:44 – Through conversation and connection, more knowledge is shared

21:58 – Debriefing also plays a central role

23:45 – If you have strong discipline, you’ll find more freedom

25:31 – In most situations, errors are signals, not defects

27:07 – When an error occurs, be curious and find the deeper cause of the problem

Connect with Jake Mazulewicz

Find him on Linkedin

Visit his website