Introducing Blueprints

Blueprints are frameworks from our favourite operators. The shortcuts and heuristics they used to turn uncertainty into a clearer path forward.

What are Blueprints?

Blueprints are frameworks from our favourite operators.

The frameworks great business leaders find most valuable.

Because the best frameworks turn uncertainty into greater clarity.

Blueprints are frameworks we know well, love, and use regularly.

They’re not theories that sound academic, they’re applied in the real world.

And we hope our Blueprints act as building blocks for you.

Why Blueprints?

John:

I love discovering new ways to look at the world.

I’ve been fortunate to work for amazing leaders who taught me to see the world more clearly. Longtime CEO, Jeff Weiner, and several other senior execs opened my eyes to the power of frameworks: ways of organizing your thinking to tackle tough, complex problems. What made their wisdom so memorable is not just the frameworks themselves, but the storytelling and perspective with which they were delivered.

Blueprints is our opportunity to share frameworks from our favourite operators. From LinkedIn leaders - where we worked together for 10+ years - and well beyond. I picture all you ex-consultants having an encyclopedia of frameworks on your bookshelf. For the rest of us, we will now have a common library.

James:

This particular ex-consultant keeps all his frameworks in a locked chest under his bed (we don’t want any robbers getting them).

Blueprints as a project started for me with your asking me a few months back, “Why isn’t there a great resource that shares the most useful business frameworks?”

I didn’t have a good answer.

There are plenty of sources on the web for frameworks, but none hit the spot for me. I see PDFs shared on social media pretty regularly, but they tend to be “12 great leadership frameworks in a single page” style. Or a carousel that powers through 7 frameworks in 7 pages.

Learning about frameworks at the surface level can be a helpful starting point; but, just as you mentioned with our shared experience at LinkedIn, it’s the “When” and especially the “How” that matter much more than the basic “What.” There are lots of excellent blog posts and articles on various frameworks scattered around the web, but nothing I’ve found that curates only the best ones with a clear focus on “How.”

John:

I’m excited for Blueprints to allow the two of us to geek out a bit. I love discovering a new framework and unearthing a new lens on the world. Equally fun is going deep on something where I already know the basics; learning from experts there are 201 and 301 and 401 levels to supplement my current 101 knowledge.

I’ll be the first to acknowledge a big source of inspiration, the Acquired podcast. [a podcast blending company stories and analysis we’re both addicted to]: I hope creating each Blueprint not only makes us better but also makes anybody discovering it better too. I feel smarter after every Acquired episode. And while our Blueprints are much less dense than Acquired episodes, I hope folks leave feeling better and more prepared.

James:

Acquired is SO GOOD. If you’re reading this and don’t already listen to Acquired religiously, stop reading about Blueprints and go listen to the Nike or LVMH episode!

If you or I can bring 1/10th the energy and enthusiasm to Blueprints as Ben and David bring to business narratives, we’ll be in great shape.

I’m confident we can since we’re both huge framework geeks + you love to draw and I love to write. Therefore, also like Ben and David from Acquired, ideally our skills are highly complementary. Especially since we both share a love of learning and of teaching.

Selfishly, I’m excited to be able to share our Blueprints: right now, I often bring up a great framework with somebody, discover they’re not familiar with it, and I do my best voice-over, but always wish I had something to send them with more nuance that goes deeper. Now with Blueprints I do and we do!

When to use Blueprints?

Depending on the specific challenge we’re facing, we pull from our internal libraries to choose the best framework(s)to apply. These Blueprints are part of our personal operating systems.

With this in mind, we’ve categorized each Blueprint so it’s easy to find whatever Blueprints could be most helpful in any given situation.

Maybe you’re struggling with a prioritization question? Then use our “Prioritize & Decide” Blueprints. Or maybe you need to know how to frame a specific piece of writing? Then use our “Communicate” Blueprints. Along with “Prioritize & Decide” and “Communicate,” we have “Lead & Manage,” “Delight Customer,” and “Manage Self.” These five categories aren’t completely MECE (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive - likely a future Blueprint itself), but we think they work well.

How do we use Blueprints?

That’s the central goal of this entire project, sharing how we and our favourite operators use these frameworks.

The web offers many places where you can learn the basics of hundreds of frameworks; our goal with Blueprints is to move from basic understanding to a deeper comprehension of how great operators use their favourite frameworks.

With this focus on How in mind, within each Blueprint, the longest section is typically “How we use it,” where we can share our own examples and those from our teams or companies.

Turning to our individual thoughts:

JAMES:

We’ve deliberately started with six of our absolute favourite frameworks. For example:

I’ve taught and coached more people about The Priority Matrix (PMAT) (with LinkedIn COO Dan Shapero) than any other framework, thousands of people over the years
Sticking with prioritization, Warren Buffett’s 5/25 Rule is such a provocative way to think about walking the walk on what’s most important
Moving to decision-making, Jeff Bezos’s 1-Way vs 2-Way Doors is, I think, the framework I’ve seen the highest number of great operators use and recommend
Turning to product building, at least monthly, I send somebody a link to Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on the 11-Star Experience. Now I can share Brian Chesky’s 11-Star Experience!
Shifting to how we manage ourselves, Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset is one of the defining frameworks for both of us, especially given we’re both parents of pre-teen children.
And, finally, on crisp writing, I authored an entire LinkedIn Learning course here because I’m so passionate about the ideas in And, But, Therefore Storytelling

JOHN:

Agreed, I love and use all our first six Blueprints. I’m also excited about several coming soon:

“This Meeting will be a Success If”: I immediately ported this over from LinkedIn to my CRO role at CyberGRX.
“What do you Need to Believe”: an easy and powerful way to narrow down to the key assertions that must be true to pursue any course of action.
“Transformation framework”: an approach I helped to develop several years ago at LinkedIn and also used successfully several times at CyberGRX.
“Self-Management 2 x 2”: a framework I discovered through coaching that I’ve used ever since both for myself and with my teams.
“3 Types of Executive Feedback” from Jeff Weiner: Jeff has at least 10 frameworks we’ll likely Blueprint; we both love this one as our first Jeff-powered Blueprint.

Want to learn more?

Note: Selected blueprints feature video interviews with our favourite operators. As a guide, if John has drawn a cartoon image of the operator, that Blueprint includes video clips. E.g., The Priority Matrix (PMAT) has an interview with LinkedIn COO Dan Shapero).

The rest walk through the What, When, and How behind the frameworks we love and use most, without video interviews (for the time being at least).

The Priority Matrix (PMAT)