Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:33:52 · Eric Ries, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:33:52] S0: Well... [01:33:54] S1: Eric, we've given people a lot to think about. I think there's a lot of just like, "Oh wow, I should really think about this and take this seriously." What's a final thought, final nugget, final lesson you want to leave listeners with before we get out of here?
01:34:07 · Eric Ries, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:34:07] S0: Let's talk about Mary Parker Follett. I mentioned her in passing and I feel like, "You know what? I bet a bunch of people have never heard of her." So let me give you one more blast from the past. Most people have heard of someone named Frederick Winslow Taylor. Fred Taylor's good friend of mine with a pioneering original management theorist. He wrote The Principles of Scientific Management in 1911, and Taylorism was one of the most popular management fads of all time. If you think we have fads now, you should see Taylorism. It was like debated at the Supreme Court. It was front page news in the 19 teens. Taylor, they made movies about him. He was an incredibly famous person. But one of his contemporaries was a woman. Her name was Mary Parker Follett. And her work is so far ahead of its time that if you read it today, you would think this person lived in 2026. She would write things like, "We need to focus on power with, not power over." She said, "The superior and the subordinate together obey the law of the situation," meaning we work together to figure out what the situation requires. We don't just tell the subordinate what to do. She said, "The job of a leader, the hallmark of a leader is, can they create more leaders?" So if someone said that to you right now, you'd be like, "Oh, that's going on TikTok right this second." [01:35:18] S1: Twitter.
01:35:18 · Eric Ries
[01:35:18] S0: Like, "That's awesome. What podcast was that on?" No, she wrote that in 1920. Now, unfortunately, for reasons you probably can guess, she was utterly erased from history. Her work was utterly lost. Nobody studied it at all for most of the 20th century. And then it was totally rediscovered and it was republished in the 1990s. The great Peter Drucker called her the "Prophet of management." So one of her most important concepts is what she called the invisible leader. And I just love this. Just imagine someone, a woman in 1920 going around saying this to people, how it would blow their minds. She would say, "Mr. Rowntree, the owner of the Rowntree Chocolate Factory is not the leader of the Rowntree Chocolate Factory." And people would be like, "Lady, what are you talking about? His name is on the door. His family has owned this thing. What? How? If he's not the leader, who he is? She'd be like, "Glad you asked. Mr. Rowntree is an excellent leader because he's very good at instilling in his people the sense of common purpose of what this factory is about. And the common purpose rather than Mr. Rowntree himself is their invisible leader." And this is maybe the most powerful concept. If you want to manage something as a leader, you have to understand that the most consequential decisions that will affect any organization's life are almost by definition made when no manager is present. You think you made the decision when you told everybody we're going to build a high quality product. "Our vision is this, our plan is this," but you're not there when the product managers and the designers and the engineers make the actual trade-offs. Right? Somebody sitting there with the code and being like, "Rounded corners or straight corners, skeuomorphism or not?" When person clicks this button, do we double check? Do we understand what they meant or do we just erase their hard drive? Thousands upon thousands of these tiny little decisions get made. Only the invisible leader is present. So if you don't cultivate that sense of common purpose, you have no control over what's going to happen. Again, your promises are worthless. So if you want a little homework, read Mary Parker Follett. She will enlighten you.
01:37:32 · Lenny Rachitsky, Eric Ries
[01:37:32] S1: If any of this is at all interesting to you, if you want to explore this, if you want to implement it by Eric's book, Incorruptible, is there a website to look at or is just Google and find it? [01:37:42] S0: Yes, of course you can find it anywhere books are sold. But yes, we do have a website, incorruptible.co. Please join the mailing list. We have tons of bonus content, especially for those who are implementers. We have implementation guides and advanced implementation guides and readers guides, lots of extra content, including a secret chapter that got cut from the original manuscript. Tried to make it really worth your while to go to the website pre-order and sign up for the mailing list. But you don't have to buy it from me. You could buy the book anywhere books are sold. It's in hardcover. It's in audiobook and eBook. If you want to. One of my favorite things about the website, we have a list of, more than a hundred last time I counted of local independent bookstores that are carrying the book and where you could order online. So if you want to, not only could you do me a favor and buy a copy or 10 or 20 or however many you want and give them away, but if you'd like to make the day of your local independent bookstore, you want to support a local community, like a pillar of your community and be their favorite customer, you call them up and say, "I heard this book coming out. I'd like a bunch of copies to give away. Can I get them on launch day?" Your friends will thank you, the bookstore will thank you and I will thank you.
01:37:42 · Eric Ries, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:37:42] S0: Yes, of course you can find it anywhere books are sold. But yes, we do have a website, incorruptible.co. Please join the mailing list. We have tons of bonus content, especially for those who are implementers. We have implementation guides and advanced implementation guides and readers guides, lots of extra content, including a secret chapter that got cut from the original manuscript. Tried to make it really worth your while to go to the website pre-order and sign up for the mailing list. But you don't have to buy it from me. You could buy the book anywhere books are sold. It's in hardcover. It's in audiobook and eBook. If you want to. One of my favorite things about the website, we have a list of, more than a hundred last time I counted of local independent bookstores that are carrying the book and where you could order online. So if you want to, not only could you do me a favor and buy a copy or 10 or 20 or however many you want and give them away, but if you'd like to make the day of your local independent bookstore, you want to support a local community, like a pillar of your community and be their favorite customer, you call them up and say, "I heard this book coming out. I'd like a bunch of copies to give away. Can I get them on launch day?" Your friends will thank you, the bookstore will thank you and I will thank you. [01:38:46] S1: A great pitch. Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad... and How Great Companies Stay Great. Eric Ries, thank you so much for being here.
01:38:46 · Lenny Rachitsky, Eric Ries
[01:38:46] S1: A great pitch. Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad... and How Great Companies Stay Great. Eric Ries, thank you so much for being here. [01:38:53] S0: Hey, thank you, Lenny. Appreciate it. Appreciate you giving the chance to talk about it and congrats on all you're doing. [01:38:57] S1: Thanks, Eric. Bye, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com. See you in the next episode.