Execution = Structure x Organization

And most of the other shit doesn't really count in my view.

This past week I sat through a number of traditional-styled workshops for a client and we had some good brainstorming, etc.

Tons of good ideas and feedback were spoken.

A lot of good speeches were given.

Lots of good metaphors were used.

But at the end of the day… the end result is the set of actions that you write down and put follow up actions to.

That is in my view the only thing that really counts.

Because if you asked me about the other stuff… it’s already gone. I don’t remember it. And neither do most of the other folks that were there.

That’s just the reality.

The corporate world tends to love these types of workshops

Big companies often love having meetings and offsites.

They view them as a place to bond and develop relationships.

Certain types of people really shine in these meetings. Typically the ones that are a bit loud and like talking.

Others are on the opposite spectrum because they don’t really like speaking in front of others and are not very good at forming relationships.

So this format really tends to favor one persona over another in my experience.

And surprise, surprise… the ones that really shine at these meetings often tend to be the ones that are more senior in management.

In the past I used to think that was a good thing. Now i look at it is their fatal flaw.

It is why corporates will be political-based places where some of the best people will often be reporting to someone that communicates better than them. And it’s why most of these corporates will ultimately fail.

Their politics and relationships will choke them off in the coming years like a noose.

There are some useful elements to these workshops, but also some negatives

I started my career in the corporate world. First 7 years of strategy consulting (BCG, etc.) followed by another 8 or so in large companies (Visa Inc, Groupon, Lazada/Alibaba, Wayfair).

And so i’ve been to plenty of these types of meetings and offsites. I generally even enjoyed them.

One thing i like about these types of meetings is that there is a rapid, free flow of information and ideas.

And of course some relationships are built stronger… whereas some others, quite honestly, deteriorate because the people realize they don’t really like each other in person.

And as i’ve said before… I am NOT of the view that building relationships is a good thing. I run my companies on the philosophy of “I am not going to try to get to know any of you.”

Not because i don’t like relationships. I’d say i’m not bad at them.

But rather because for me relationships translate into politics. And i’ve seen how politics can absolutely ruin teams and companies.

I find that you can capture the same level of value in other ways

I’ll take my Reviv business. I never do any workshops like this.

There are probably at least about ten different freelancers involved…all of whom I pay only for what they do, ie. no fixed salaries.

And I control all of them directly via the Clickup tasks, which they are updating constantly.

I’m responding to them and giving them feedback constantly.

Ideas are coming ALL OF THE TIME. Each good one gets a clickup card in an idea or strategy list that I review periodically.

I tag the appropriate stakeholders to those cards and ask them to chime in with their views, which they do asynchronously in the coming weeks.

We are debating strategy constantly. In a forum where it doesn’t matter who has the loudest voice, or is the most confident speaking in front of others, etc.

Rather its in a forum where the people that have the best ideas and express them well in written comments end up edging out the others.

And I can tell you from experience… that the people who shine in this format are often completely different from the ones that tend to shine in the in-person workshop.

Speed of execution is all that counts in the end

You see at the end of the day speed of execution and iteration is the only thing that counts. As that is what creates value.

When some old school manager tells me they’re gonna just write a list of actions and email it out… i start laughing in my head.

I intuitively know from experience that I can destroy that manager 100 out of 100 times. By a pretty wide margin.

Because i will be creating tasks for everything, assigning them, and iterating on them with my team almost immediately.

And they might think that they’re good at ‘strategy’… But i have news for you.

In today’s world strategy is a function of how fast you iterate. And so if i’m iterating faster, I might start out with the wrong approach, but i’ll be micro-adjusting till my strategy is superior in the end.

Closing thoughts

My d2c ecom, Reviv, just surpassed $20k revenue with ~$10k profit this past month (in January). 100%+ month-on-month growth for several months in a row.

Almost completely organic.

I respond to 50-100 direct messages from customers across various channels on a daily basis. Which allows me to really understand my customer personas deeply.

And all this despite me also juggling two other clients (both of whom I am now winding down to focus more on Reviv).

There is no other employees other than me.

There is no fancy VC money.

There is me and a bunch of inexpensive freelancers who are very loyal for a simple reason.

No, not my personality… lol

They just like working like this.

The Beast Method cuts out the political bullshit. Cuts out the useless meetings. Cuts out the ambiguity of tasks that most managers usually give.

And instead we just get shit done with a system in which everyone supports each other almost real-time.

A number of them have told me they never learned as much from any manager as they had with me. Because I flipped this whole antiquated management notion on its head and showed them what freedom looks like.

These are the new rules of the game. And it’s gonna completely change who’s ‘good’ and who’s not.

Join me in the revolution.