Thread by @clairevo

Let me tell you a dirty secret about a lot of execs:

They're extremely smart.
And they haven't had to do their own work for years.

Look inside any mid->large size company and you'll find VP+ executives that were promoted fast and furious in their early career because they're smart, hard working, make good decisions, have good taste, and can manage up down and sideways well.

And as they become more senior, they start to earn the "you're too important to [X]" executive scaffold:
- EAs for admin/scheduling/todos
- Chief of Staff to keep their directs on track
- Sr. leaders working under them eager for opportunity, so take on projects, presentations, meetings, etc.

They're still smart, and they're still hard working, and they still make good decisions, so they tend to orchestrate and use these tools at their disposal quite well, choosing what gets done by whom.

But
- they show up to board meetings with decks made by their team
- they show up to sales meetings with prep docs done by the sales person
- they share insights generated by some data team
- they +@[ea] to schedule every meeting
- someone reads & responds to their emails

And their job becomes
- charm customers
- charm candidates
- charm the team
- charm the board
- charm the market
- have good ideas (for someone else to do)

And before someone shouts "this just optimizes for people who are highly political!" I must emphasize: these people are still usually wicked smart, they're usually extremely charming, and they work really hard (earliest on, latest off.) They hang in the forest, not a tree. Their experience saves your butt once or twice.

They just don't have to put their hands on a keyboard and do the things. Sometimes they *can't* put their hands on a keyboard and do the things, because they're in endless meetings and on endless trips to do the charming/idea things.

But after awhile of this, their "doing the things" muscle atrophies. Your CMO can't write compelling copy. Your CPO doesn't look at designs anymore. Your CRO can't login to demo. Your VPE doesn't have the latest local env setup.

And over time, as an exec, your ability to be wicked smart degrades with your distance from the work, especially when things like AI come and smack your team in the face.

This is all to say, I have two warnings for you if you've made it this far:

EXECS: Do not stop doing the things. Take on projects, write your docs, do your own damn analysis, and don't stop touching the work. Fix your calendar so you're not just bopping meeting to meeting, and use that big brain of yours do actually build something.

TEAMS: Consider yourself lucky if you have a leadership team that can still/wants to do the things. Trust: you'd rather have a micromanagey CEO who drops suggested edits in your doc than a manager-class exec team that doesn't even know your doc exists. Your company will be better for the work, the specificity, the care that comes with a doing-the-things leadership team, than a organizes-the-work leadership team.

And for all of you: AI will generate a little microcosm of the dynamic above, but for IC work. I love AI, but still think it's important to exercise the muscle daily of writing, coding, reading, speaking, thinking. All unused skills will atrophy. Make sure you get stronger, not weaker, with these new tools.

Ok back to doing things 😎