Disqus - Latest Comments for justingsouter

Re: Book: LEVERS – The Framework For Building Repeatability into Your Business

Justin Souter — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 01:40:02 -0000

Done! Thank you Brad for this, and so much else 👍🏻

I hope you, Amy, and everyone in Boulder are healing after recent, shocking events 🙏🏻

Re: Founders Mental Health in the Time of Covid

Justin Souter — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 07:16:34 -0000

Hi Brad - thank you for your continued advocacy towards wellbeing for entrepreneurs. This post, and The Three Crises, are sound and important. I work with founders on startup accelerator programmes, and feedback I've received is that our participants value what I / we do to make this a 'safe' topic to discuss.

Reboot continues to be an inspiration for me, I listened to a couple of podcasts over the weekend re Psychological Safety, and Red-Yellow-Green check-ins. Great stuff.

In terms of advocacy in the UK, then I'm a big fan of the work of Lizzy and Emma at https://myndr.co.uk/. Also James and George at https://sanctus.io/about-us/

I got worried earlier in the year as to the impact of the pandemic on the link between unemployment and self-harm. A more recent article authored by two Princeton academics seems to be greater cause for optimism https://www.washingtonpost....

Thank you very much again, kudos, and stay safe you, Amy & your Foundry Partners 👍🏻

Re: Are You At Your Best Right Now?

Justin Souter — Mon, 31 Aug 2020 03:56:31 -0000

Excellent post Brad, thank you. We are all a work in progress. I too feel the size of the gap between who / how I am and how I'd like to be. I think many of us are thrashing around, and will continue to do so. Perhaps an opportunity to focus on repairing the relationship with ourselves, with others - rather than on the rupture? Our journeys continue...

Re: The Disorientation of Exiting Phase 1

Justin Souter — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 01:58:14 -0000

I'm reading this first thing here in the UK. Thank you for sharing your experiences Brad. They are help in terms of expressing the uncertainty of the pandemic, the anxieties that we own ourselves - and those of others, and the primacy of beginning again (and however difficult that may be). Wishing you safety, equanimity and harmony in these challenging times.

Re: Leadership is Pulling Together, Not Tearing Apart

Justin Souter — Thu, 16 Apr 2020 14:20:45 -0000

I agree with Jerry. The question was bait and Governor Polis acted with dignity, poise and clarity.

“Everything we do before a pandemic will seem alarmist. Everything we do after a pandemic will seem inadequate. This is the dilemma we face, but it should not stop us from doing what we can to prepare. We need to reach out to everyone with words that inform, but not inflame. We need to encourage everyone to prepare, but not panic.” — Michael O. Leavitt, 2007

Quoted at https://telliamedrevisited....

Re: Boulder Community Health Takes On The Mental Health Stigma

Justin Souter — Sat, 29 Jun 2019 06:45:41 -0000

This is the original 'periodic table' I based my Trello board on. It includes work from Prof Amy Edmondson re Psychological Safety at top right... https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Re: Boulder Community Health Takes On The Mental Health Stigma

Justin Souter — Sat, 29 Jun 2019 05:51:42 -0000

Hi Brad

Thank you for this, and your continuing advocacy around mental health and wellbeing - especially for entrepreneurs.

I would like to share some info about what my colleagues and I are working in this domain, based in North East England.

By way of backstory, last year Claire Robinson, Valerie Monti Holland and I ran a six month pilot on founder wellbeing. We've shared some of our activity on our blog aka Resilience and Authentic Leadership for Entrepreneurs.

Now we’re going again. I hope the following summary gives a flavour:

“We know that entrepreneurs, founders and innovators take big business risks to take forward their endeavours. Increasingly, there is constructive recognition that entrepreneurs struggle with their mental health and wellbeing – indeed they may be more predisposed to do so.

Awareness is building amongst founders themselves, incubators / accelerators, and other support organisations that addressing mental health and wellbeing issues could lead to more startups turning into scale-ups, and therefore benefitting society. Many in the startup community are sharing their own experiences, learnings and support with one another.

We are setting up a social enterprise to build on these initiatives. Our mission to increase founder wellbeing has three elements. One, to distil and share best practice; two, to give entrepreneurs a unified voice (on this topic); and three, to ensure founders get the right help when in need.

We don’t plan to deliver many interventions ourselves. Our vision is to coordinate in the UK, and ultimately with Europe and North America. By being proactive about wellbeing, our goal is for founders to look after themselves and overcome their own – and society’s – self-limiting beliefs about mental health.”

Earlier this year, Claire and I incorporated ‘The Global Apiary’ as a company limited by guarantee. We’re seeking support for further academic research from a local Uni and grant funding from several UK foundations.

We're also doing customer development to find scalable routes for delivery and potential revenue streams - e.g. training incubator and accelerator managers. We've connected with a bunch of interested stakeholders, building a map of everything we find, and we're curating best practice.

Recently, I wrote a blog post for APX in Berlin, which is an incubator JV between Porsche and Axel Springer. They are doing great work, as are a number of accelerators / incubators, and VCs and coaching organisations - some of whom you know well (Reboot, Atlas / Jake Chapman, InvestWell Community in London, the Family, Anne Ravanona, Hampus Jakobsson - to name a few). We’re proposing a session in September at Techfestival in Copenhagen, which could be a great way to find supporters & early adopters.

Finally, we're also thinking of frameworks to bring everything together e.g. ways to synthesis the different vocabularies which people use - you prefer mental fitness and Open Labs speak to brain health. e.g. I've created this "Periodic Table of Needs and Self-Care" (on Trello) - my goal being to create equality of esteem between different vocabularies / modalities, yet still recognise the links and 'lines of force' between them.

I'd be really interested in your feedback, and whether you'd be interested in engaging in our mission please. Thank you!

Re: Wartime CEO

Justin Souter — Sun, 02 Jun 2019 04:40:27 -0000

Hi Brad, thank you for this prompt. I took THTAHT off my bookcase, and dipped into it again - I should do the cover to cover thing properly...

Things I happened upon this time - re 'the fine line between fear and courage, and 'the most difficult CEO skill' especially:

Courage, like character, can be developed
[...]
In all the difficult decisions that I made through the course of running Loudcloud and Opsware, I never once felt brave. In fact, I often felt scared to death. I never lost those feelings, but after much practice, I learned to ignore them. That learning process might also be called the courage development process.

In life, everybody faces choices between doing what’s popular, easy, and wrong vs. doing what’s lonely, difficult, and right. These decisions intensify when you run a company, because the consequences get magnified 1,000 fold. As in life, the excuses for CEO’s making the wrong choice are always plentiful.
[...]
Every time you make the hard, correct decision you become a bit more courageous and every time you make the easy, wrong decision you become a bit more cowardly. If you are CEO, these choices will lead to a courageous or cowardly company.

One last thought
Over the past 10 years, technological advances dramatically lowered the financial bar for starting a new company, but the courage bar for building a great company remains as high as it has ever been.

https://a16z.com/2011/08/07... [my emphasis]

I hadn't seen this before and it's excellent from https://techcrunch.com/2011...

By far the most difficult skill for me to learn as CEO was the ability to manage my own psychology. Organizational design, process design, metrics, hiring and firing were all relatively straightforward skills to master compared to keeping my mind in check. Over the years, I’ve spoken to hundreds of CEOs all with the same experience. Nonetheless, very few people talk about it, and I have never read anything on the topic. It’s like the fight club of management: The first rule of the CEO psychological meltdown is don’t talk about the psychological meltdown.

[my emphasis]

Also, I teach on startup accelerator programmes - I like to read out The Struggle to early-stage founders, to consider the mental health and wellbeing challenges they face. https://a16z.com/2012/06/15...

p.s. am just finishing the 2019 Venture Deals course. Good stuff - kudos to you and Jason!

Re: Simple, Complicated, and Complex Systems

Justin Souter — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 16:22:20 -0000

Excellent, that takes things up several levels - good news!

Re: Simple, Complicated, and Complex Systems

Justin Souter — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 14:11:29 -0000

Hi Brad, I enjoyed Startup Communities, so I'm intrigued by the latest insights which you and Ian will share with us.

Re these different systems you set in a fun vignette: I wonder if you're aware of the Cynefin framework, first articulated by Dave Snowden?

He adds 'Chaotic' to the three types of systems you describe. Dave's good people and a compelling speaker. There is an 8mins talk here: https://youtu.be/N7oz366X0-8

Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... and https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-l...

Relating to your core theses, are you going to cross-reference the work of the Kauffman Foundation by the way? E.g. The Rainforest book and their Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Building Playbook 2.0: https://www.kauffman.org/en....

Thank you for all that you do - especially around mental fitness - and I look forward to more from you in various domains e.g. your upcoming Venture Deals online course!

Re: Conscious Leadership – Panacea or Pitfall? | Oasis Human Relations| Oasis Human Relations

Justin Souter — Thu, 04 May 2017 16:34:11 -0000

Nick - agreed, a 'wicked' problem which eludes a neat solution. A reality distortion field has its uses, however your colleagues will soon spot the gap between words and actions.

Charismatic leadership could / should give way to 'servant leadership' a la Greanleaf at al. Nurturing conscious colleagues is arguably a more vital, more sustainable, more scalable pursuit than a conscious leader, but too many people are willing to buy into obvious snake oil.

“The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves.” - Elvin Semrad, as quoted by Bessel van der Kolk. Our inner work - and that with colleagues - will be ongoing...!

Re: Leaving GDS never easy - Morethanseven

Justin Souter — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 06:03:27 -0000

Nice one Gareth - it's healthy that folk should cross-fertilise between different sectors, with people moving out of the Public Sector and into the Private Sector, and vice-versa. Good luck with the new role :)

Best, Justin

Re: Cocoaheads Newcastle, July Meeting

Justin Souter — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 06:29:31 -0000

Hi folks - please keep me posted about developments, I'm keen to support you with my @dynamonortheast hat on :)

Re: Fostering Innovation in Established Companies

Justin Souter — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 12:53:23 -0000

Hi Ian - you may want to check out http://www.startuplessonsle... for putting your questions there... :-)

Re: THE MUSTACHIOED MAN BEHIND THE MOUSE

Justin Souter — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 08:33:22 -0000

Hi Ed - thank you for this article, it's great: well-written and insightful.

Thank you also for having the mindset to write it in the first place - please keep doing what you're doing.

[you might want to get one of your IL colleagues to turn this text above from HTML 'markup' to proper text... ;-)]

Re: Angela Beecroft, nutritionalist

Justin Souter — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 06:21:16 -0000

Hi there Miranda - many thanks for the comment, and great to hear you had a positive time with Angela.

It was so great to be able to talk with someone about issues that normally don't get discussed, even if they're incredibly important for well-being!

I hope Angela has helped you by bringing clarity and insight :-)

Re: Depression and Entrepreneurs

Justin Souter — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 13:29:15 -0000

A really tremendous post, and full of touching feedback and openness.

I'm wondering whether anyone here has come across the work of Brené Brown (http://www.brenebrown.com/)?

She writes very powerfully about shame and vulnerability, and having found her work via TED talks (http://www.ted.com/speakers... I'm now reading her first book "I thought it was just me (but it isn't)" - see http://amzn.to/VU6iko.

Really powerful stuff, and I'm confident many folk on this thread would benefit - e.g. 'getting help' is challenging for men because--above all-- we are brought up to believe that showing weakness is the one thing that men should not / must not do. Brené suggests (and it certainly resonates with me) that we are shamed if we do show weakness.

I've read the book once, and went straight into reading it again. I've also bought her other two books and I hope her wisdom and scholarship can help other folks here - both men and women!

Re: The Creation of Tech Britain

Justin Souter — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 13:41:09 -0000

I live near Newcastle and was at an @ignite100 event last night. So impressive to see how mature and impressive the teams are now - I think the lessons have been learned from The Difference Engine and previous Ignite100 intakes.

I'm presently mugging up for the @startuprev CoJourneo 'Startup Communities' course (http://bit.ly/RWyixI), so am stoked that Newcastle has got such great feedback, and hope that @leannortheast activity will pay dividends! tvm @bfeld & Shaun + Doug :-)

Quick footnote - I think the photo of Newcastle could be Newcastle, Australia lol

Re: The Lean Gates of Analytics

Justin Souter — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 06:12:18 -0000

Some great comments by Eytan & Michael - around engines of growth, metrics mapping, and business model generation, in particular. I love Eytan's mapping of the BM canvas to your stages, and I love the simple language you've used for the gates. Most business folk need something straightforward to relate to.

Also, how about having some iteration - Steve Blank rightly suggests you're going to go around the loop a couple of times before you get it right. I.e. it's not going to be an automatic leap from top to bottom...?

This is the first time I've seen the different elements integrated in this way - and in retrospect it seems obvious: however, I think that's the power of the diagram to make it seem coherent when before #leanstartup #bmgen #custdev & #aarrr were a bit of a mish-mash!

I've paused the Lean Analytics webinar to investigate this more fully - so thanks very much for the post. I think the colour scheme is a big plus, and I really think you're on to something here - great MVP and keep iterating! ;-)

Re: The Lean Startup – something for many to benefit from

Justin Souter — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 08:54:47 -0000

Hey Stephan! Thanks for the comment :-)

I've got some further posts queueing up in this area - I've posted today about Lean Startup resources [and now hopefully have got the date / URL right finally... ;$]

Re: Impact of big data and social media #1 – IBM CMO study

Justin Souter — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 09:50:04 -0000

Ian - many thanks for the comment, I see from your post that great minds think alike!

Interesting to see that Warren Buffett has plonked $10.7bn on IBM, suggesting he thinks IBM has got the balance right across IT provision... http://on.ft.com/rKAlkD

Re: DEMA Show 2011: The Trade Show Survival Guide

Justin Souter — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:50:53 -0000

Stephan - great advice here, also relevant for other shows like SXSW :-)

Re: SXSW 2012 - Will the social web build a world we want?

Justin Souter — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:00:11 -0000

Great topic, and excellent aims for this keynote. The thought struck me that this could also be worthwhile as a panel discussion with some heavy hitters - to help kick on and create even more momentum :-)

Re: Sneak Preview: Upcoming Blog Redesign

Justin Souter — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:10:24 -0000

Jeremiah - I agree with those saying it's a big improvement, and also that I like the clean look & feel.

I think it's a big improvement that the content is broken down into sub-sections, and the breakdown at the bottom is also excellent.

Couple of thoughts - I personally think the 'bald' statement at the top: "Jeremiah Owyang" doesn't work as well as "Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang", but I'll probably get used to it, and the reason I return is to view the content. I agree with getting shot of the padding, but a little more padding would suit me better ;-)

Second thought was - how can I navigate to the bottom breakdown more readily? How about a link or a separate page with this graphical navigation?

Re: The Happiness Dividend

Justin Souter — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 12:51:13 -0000

Hi Shawn - great article! A colleague of mine at http://happie.st shared it with the rest of the team soon after it was posted :-)

I understand our CEO @bobby_paterson has recently read your book, and the point of posting here was to see whether we could connect -- as I believe our two organisations have plenty in common.

It seems the more we look, the more there are learned articles, books, and online material about the importance of happiness - and I totally agree about the place of happiness in the workplace :-D