Building self-sufficient teams and operating in constrained funding environments

Posted Nov 22, 2022 | Views 1.6K

Elaine Zhou

CTO @ Change.org

Summary

We cover how to uplevel your eng team with Elaine Zhou, CTO @ Change.org! She shares some of her favorite frameworks and strategies for creating self-sufficient teams, amplifying high-performers, performing self-assessments, and hosting prioritization conversations. Plus Elaine shares the story behind how she got involved with Change.org, navigating different operating constraints in your business model (from non-profit to VC-funded contexts), and what it’s like investing in high-impact areas with no revenue expectation.

+ Read More

Transcript

ABOUT ELAINE ZHOU

Change.org CTO Elaine Zhou joined the platform for change in 2020. Prior to Change.org , she was at Vidado as CTO, and has held leadership positions for over a decade at companies including HomeStore, PlanetOut, IAC and more. She’s been a longtime mentor at Upwardly Global. Follow her on Twitter at @softwired .

"High performance need to be in that fail safe environment so they're willing to explore and to iterate. So really help them to do that, the way that I solve the problem with them is not just that, “You are good, you're good.” Just pump them up. No, it's actually, “Let's look at a problem. I actually agree with your solution and this is why I like your solution.”
Help them to gain the confidence and give them that kind of hard opportunity to try that and you know they will build their confidence so much.”

- Elaine Zhou

SHOW NOTES:

Why Elaine got involved with Change.org (2:24)

The importance of understanding the business / non-profit model for eng leaders (6:29)

How business, technology, & financial constraints impact business decisions (9:44)

Investing in impact with no revenue expectation (14:42)

Strategies for creating self-sufficiency within teams & traps eng leaders fall into when leveling up their team (18:06)

Questions to ask yourself during self assessments to determine priorities (22:05)

What you should do as an eng leader after transitioning your team to be self-sufficient (28:10)

Frameworks for prioritization conversations (29:14)

The technical area Elaine is most focused on growing right now (32:23)

Strategies for amplifying & supporting your best performers (33:58)

Rapid fire questions (38:35)

LINKS AND RESOURCES

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses - Eric Reis’ book outlining his strategy for building a start-up that he developed during his time as a founder and start-up advisor.

Measure What Matters - John Doerr’s collection of first-person accounts that demonstrate the focus, growth, and explosive growth that OKRs have spurred in many great organizations.

Comments (0)

Popular