🤸 Substance-to-word ratio, secrets from poker, & an *incredible* sunset

Hey — it’s Cristina & Jenni.

Each week, we share leadership reflections, resources, and laughs to help you excel in your role (+ have fun along the way).

As two tech leaders, we’re here to “lead in public” by sharing what we’re learning in our day-to-day roles, encouraging others to do the same, and learning and growing as leaders together.

Enjoy!

What we’re reflecting on this week

In 2015, I was invited to be a judge at Venture For America’s “Selection Day” in San Francisco.

Venture For America (VFA) is a program that connects recent US college grads with startups across the country, providing the grads with hands-on entrepreneurship experience and the startups with eager, ambitious talent.

With an acceptance rate of just 10% (right between Dartmouth’s 6% and Oxford’s 14%), VFA’s Selection Day is no joke!

After submitting their applications and going through interviews, candidates would get invited to the next stage and show up in-person on Selection Day.

The hallmark of the day was group activities: the candidates did a series of challenges, while the judges observed their interactions and asked detailed questions to understand why candidates behaved the way they did.

After the challenges, the judges went off to debrief on candidate performance…

And that’s when I picked up a leadership concept that I’ve never forgotten:

Substance-to-word ratio

The folks at VFA felt that substance-to-word ratio - the amount of high-quality content delivered per word - was a strong indicator of critical thinking, self-awareness, analytical ability, and leadership (among other things).

And the more I thought about it, the more I agreed!

The candidates with the highest substance-to-word ratio came across with better executive presence - they were able to read the room, surface the most relevant takeaways, and deliver the answer concisely on the fly.

Other candidates were less composed or focused on the wrong things - they talked too much about themselves, rambled without a clear direction, or struggled to answer questions directly.

As we chatted about the candidates and how they’d done, this was just one factor of many, but it stood out to me as something I’d like to focus on personally as a leader.

Have you ever been in a meeting where:

1. One person completely dominated the conversation?

2. Whenever so-and-so spoke up, you felt like nothing new was said?

3. Someone was quiet most of the time but then piped up and contributed the most insightful comment of the day?

As leaders, we often feel pressure to have an opinion, to speak up and be seen, to generally take up space… BUT how does that actually come across to others?

Is it a display of good leadership or an indication that you like to hear yourself talk?

Does it allow for the best team environment or remove space for others to contribute?

Let’s just say I’d rather be the third person on that list than the first or second 😉

Our challenge to you (and to ourselves!) this week is to get in tune with your own substance-to-word ratio in these 5 areas (+ 1 bonus 🌟):

• Talk time: What % of the time are you talking compared to others in the conversation?

• Reason for speaking: Are you searching for things to say, or are you speaking up because something relevant or helpful came to mind that you’d like to share with the group?

• Direction: Does it take you a while to arrive at your point aloud or are you able to get your point across pretty concisely?

• Timing: Do you find yourself hopping in as one of the first contributors or allowing others to share their opinion first (even if that means a bit of awkward silence upfront)?

• Listening: When others are speaking, are you listening (and maybe taking notes) or are you focused instead on formulating your next point?

• Bonus 🌟: Are you inviting others who haven’t yet spoken to share their thoughts?

As you start observing these areas, you might need to shift your style a bit and do some experimenting to see what feels right. Remember, the idea isn’t to suddenly stop contributing but to be more mindful about the value you’re adding to the conversation.

→ After going through the exercise above, did anything surprise you? Where did you nail it and what needs attention?

What we’re learning this week

• 📝 Article: Leaders, please talk less – This quick article ties directly to today’s reflection, and the title says it all! We love how Vivek breaks down this topic and provides several practical tactics to help us start talking less and listening more.

• 📺 YouTube: Secrets of poker thinking – In this interview with Tim Ferriss, you’ll hear from professional poker player, Liv Boeree, as she reveals the secrets of poker applied to the chaos of daily life. Liv studied astrophysics and now spends her time as a TV host and YouTuber specializing in game theory, futurism, and rationality. If leveling up your skeptic game and mastering high-stakes decision-making is of interest, you’ll want to check this out 🎲

• ✍️ LI post: The cost of inaction – We recently came across Jen Allen-Knuth (aka DemandJen) on LinkedIn, and we’re big fans. She writes content primarily for sales professionals, and as leaders we’re frequently selling ideas internally, so there’s some great crossover (even more so if your team is customer-facing).

What we’re enjoying this week

Take a quick mental break by clicking the image below and treating yourself to some incredible drone footage from the Bonneville Salt Flats (ft. an epic Oppenheimer soundtrack remix) 🤩 

That’s it for this week — thanks for reading.

See you next Thursday! 🤸‍♀️