Selva Book Club: The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon
The below is taken from Selva Ventures’ Q2 2023 Quarterly Investor Letter
This section of our letters will take passages from a relevant investment or business book and share learnings and reflections directly related to Selva Ventures.
For the 9th installment we went in a different direction, choosing a fictional book that is filled with life lessons masquerading as leadership principles. In discussing this book with a friend recently, he nicely summarized it as “just like Dale Carnegie’s writing: some of the most important and obvious advice yet so many people get it wrong”. The Energy Bus follows a man (George) who is struggling to motivate his team before having his entire philosophy shifted by a bus driver (Joy), who drives him to work after he gets a flat tire.
Passage: There’s no better way to get people on your bus than telling them where you are going and asking them to get on…If you don’t clearly communicate your vision of the road ahead no one will want to travel with you.
In my time at CircleUp I learned from Ryan Caldbeck (CEO at the time) a framework for the role of a CEO that has always stuck with me. He said a CEO has three jobs: set / communicate the vision, manage culture / talent, and make sure the company doesn’t run out of money. I think I have always taken for granted how to communicate the vision once you do the hard job of setting it. Companies are minefields of miscommunication so it should not be surprising that it takes repeated articulation of where you are going to get people onboard and motivated. Too many people forget to do this, and they are left with misalignment beneath them.
Passage: When you’re enthusiastic, people want to get on your bus….Employees from different departments want to help you out. You get a reputation as someone people want to work for. Customers want to work with you. Salespeople come to you for advice because they’re looking for that enthusiastic energy to increase their sales. When you live and work with enthusiasm, people are drawn to you like moths to a light.
If there is one piece of advice I could give to any young person in business it’s that attitude is everything. If you can bring consistent, positive energy you will have such an unfair advantage. It is so easy to let small or large moments of adversity rock that positive attitude, but if you can fight through it and show up with good energy there will be a spot for you on every team. This is the key insight of the book and the cheat code of leadership.
Passage: You can give all the trophies and awards you want, and sure a raise would be a good idea for him, but eventually the gift is forgotten and the excitement of the raise wears off and what remains is an emotional feeling, a feeling of whether you love them…José and your team want to know that you care about them.
At our CEO Summit recently, I articulated the brand we are trying to build for Selva Ventures: a firm that can not only help you achieve your goals, but who also cares about you as a person. This sounds like fluff, but people’s motivators in business are highly emotional. Of course they need to be compensated and treated fairly, but beyond that much of their purpose, engagement, and performance stems from feeling supported, valued, and ultimately cared about. It’s amazing how powerful this insight proves to be for George in leading his team.
Passage: He understood how everything, including the good and bad had brought him to this moment. If he had never gotten a flat tire he would never have met Joy. If he hadn’t gone through all the adversity and challenges at work he would never have wanted to learn how to better lead his team.
As a hyper competitive person, I have a very hard time seeing the silver lining in the clouds right above me — it’s only after time and reflection that it takes shape in the rearview mirror. Markdowns are never easy for me, but looking back on our previous knocks I see roots of some of our biggest strengths in process and insight as a firm. I long to learn more hard lessons secondhand, but I also now expect that our scars will become advantages.
Please drop a comment on what you think of the format and what suggestions you have for future books. Next quarter’s book will be Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.
