Leaders Unscripted

Conversations with leaders about the challenges they’ve faced and what they’ve learned.

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32: Scaling Decision-Making at a Fintech Startup with VP of Engineering at Griffin, James Trunk

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Anything in business can be distilled down to a set of decisions, and a great system makes choosing the right one for your team infinitely better.

Griffin’s decision making method has seen an overhaul in ways which they carve their path forward, and as VP of Engineering, James Trunk has been at the forefront of this vital process. James joins us on Leaders Unscripted to take us through the values underpinning business decisions, why reflection trumps perfection, and the art of early feedback.

This Episode Covers:

  • How decision making was done before Griffin’s new framework
  • Griffin’s early feedback model instils agency, autonomy and pride
  • Why James’ daily reflection practice is an essential for any leader
  • Democratizing decisions without a feeling of dereliction of duty

Episode Highlights:

“Any sort of reflection practice is essential for leaders. There’s a variety of ways to do it - the creative ideas that come from it allow me to process anything.” - 13:00 - Suzan Bond
“I feel like there's often a connection between the challenge and how I'm feeling - not always, and it's not always so direct. Sometimes you only see it when you look back on patterns.” - 15:45 - James Trunk
“If you’re selling something as an experiment, with feedback at the 5% mark, then more people are willing to give it a try.” - 21:25 - James Trunk
“One of the things that I do in my workshops is I help folks identify their principles, and then making sure that we're communicating them, and then what are our principles that we want to operate under?” - 34:15 - James Trunk
“It's not like we've completely said, ‘we're never going to make any decisions’. It's more like there are certain decisions that we think are made better with this tool and this process. So let's give that a try.” - 42:35 - James Trunk

Links & References:

Constellary: https://www.constellaryhq.com/

Suzan Bond: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanbond/

James Trunk: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-trunk/

Griffin: https://griffin.com/