Leaders Eat Last

Key takeaways:

- The main takeaway: Take care of your people (and treat them like people), then they will take care of your business.
- A team can only effectively face external threats when there are no internal threats. It's up to the leaders to eliminate those. You need a circle of safety.
- Leaders of great organizations don't look at people as commodities to grow the money, but they see money as a commodity to help grow their people.
- The story of the gazelle looking up when they think they spot danger, then that spreading to the rest of the herd was potent. It could be a positive, but, as outlined in this story, works the other way as well. If one of the teams senses ‘danger', everyone will feel it and become sensitive to it.
- We can change the chemical stimulation our team receives. Endorphins help hide pain; dopamine makes you feel good about accomplishing a goal; serotonin makes you feel grateful for the people who support you; oxytocin is responsible for love and released when bonding. You can use these to build a strong team with a circle of safety. Cortisol is released when stressed, which inhibits the other chemicals, and makes us more selfish.
- Abstraction Kills. If you make decisions after looking at numbers on a spreadsheet, you will be missing the human effect. Before deciding on layoffs, pay cuts, etc., put yourself in the shoes of one of the employees or customers who will be impacted by your decision.