Amp It Up

Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity

by Frank Slootman

"Amp It Up (2022)" uncovers the transformative leadership principles essential for unlocking unparalleled enterprise growth. By revealing strategies for sidestepping common pitfalls and costly restructures, it emphasizes the power of aligning teams with critical goals, shattering the chains of mediocrity, and fostering a culture of urgency and intensity. It’s an essential playbook for leaders aiming to elevate their organization to unparalleled success without the need for external consultants or drastic overhauls.

About the author

Frank Slootman is a titan in the tech realm, celebrated for steering industry giants like Snowflake, ServiceNow, and Data Domain towards monumental growth. With an enviable track record in enterprise expansion, his leadership insights have shaped the trajectory of major tech entities. Along with Amp It Up, his wisdom is also captured in Rise of the Data Cloud, another seminal work on the transformative power of technology.

Supercharge your organization’s energy, ambition, and alignment to attain unparalleled success.

Navigating the corporate world often feels like an intricate maze. But what if the path to excellence wasn't about reinventing the wheel? What if you could supercharge what already exists instead?

Introducing the notion of "amping it up" – a method to dramatically intensify an organization’s energy, ambition, and alignment. This approach is about setting sky-high standards, ensuring unity of purpose, honing in on pivotal objectives, accelerating pace, and expanding strategic horizons to seize broader market opportunities. By elevating intensity, execution, and ambition, companies can bridge the gap between their current state of mediocrity and the success they desire.

In this Blink, you’ll learn the nuances of these transformative steps and how, when executed right, they can redefine the paradigms of corporate mastery.

The importance of mastering execution over strategy

Imagine you’ve just bought a high-performance sports car. It’s sleek, shiny, and on paper, it promises blistering speeds. But there’s a catch: you never learned to drive stick. No matter how advanced or top-of-the-line your car is, without the skills to execute its potential, it’s just a flashy object in your driveway.

Much like driving that sports car, in business, execution often sits in the shadow of strategy. For many, strategy is the thrill of the open road – it’s where you picture yourself zooming past competitors. Execution, in contrast, is learning the gears, the feel of the clutch, and timing your changes just right. It’s less glamorous – but still critical. Without mastering it, you’re not going anywhere.

Consider this: companies pour resources into honing sales techniques, but when was the last time you heard about training in execution? Yet, execution, like sales, is a teachable craft, one that’s refined with experience and guidance from seasoned mentors.

While strategy is essential, it must be rooted in the realities of the market, not in lofty dreams. Those rose-tinted glasses? They might prevent you from spotting a new rival in your rearview mirror. Remember, strategy isn’t a fixed roadmap; it’s more like a GPS that recalibrates based on real-time data. Don’t become so attached to one route that you refuse to take a potentially faster turnoff.

Sometimes it’s tricky to pinpoint whether or not the bumps on your business journey are due to a misguided map – your strategy – or because you’re stalling your gear shifts – your execution. If you’re not making those sales, it could also mean that you’re peddling a product that’s just not right for the market you’re targeting.

Here’s your takeaway: forget the pricey consultants. As you finesse your execution, you'll find that you will become the best strategist for your venture. After all, impeccable execution can propel even an ordinary strategy to success. Conversely, even the most meticulously planned strategy will sputter and stall with lackluster execution.

So, gear up! Make execution your first order of business. Master that, and your strategy will glide smoother than ever on the business highway.