In Hubspot’s early days as a startup, CEO Brian Halligan prided himself on being a “yes man” — saying yes to every exciting and half-way feasible idea someone on his team pitched. But this eventually resulted in a chaotic lack of focus for his employees. So, he learned to say no. To say no strategically, the company developed a tool called the MSPOT. With it, they articulate their Mission, the constituencies they Serve, the Plays they’re going to run this year, the plays they are going to Omit, and how they will Track their progress. Using this tool has allowed Halligan and his team to be more careful about how they spend their time, money, and other limited resources
When HubSpot was in its earliest stages, I used to say yes to almost anything: new features, new initiatives, new ideas. It empowered my team to move fast and get things done. I prided myself on being a “yes” man. We were working hard on getting product-market fit right, so anything we could do to get more customers and to find the right feature mix was a critical learning opportunity.
See the original blog:
https://hbr.org/2018/01/the-art-of-strategy-is-about-knowing-when-to-say-no?fbclid=IwAR3vLPmtMQEGmxG8eZQNPTJ9hqn3ghPuc1OjgAUtoJ7geY0-4g8Hp64pZL0
