Scaling People

Tactics for Management and Company Building

By: Claire Hughes Johnson

Narrated by: Claire Hughes Johnson

From a Stripe and Google executive, a practical guide to company building and scaling the most important resource it has: its people.

A leader at both Google and Stripe from their early days, Claire Hughes Johnson has worked with founders and company builders to try to replicate their success. The most common questions she’s asked are not about business strategy—they’re about how to scale the operating structures and people systems of a rapidly growing startup.

Scaling People is a practical and empathetic guide to being an effective leader and manager in a high-growth environment. The tactical information it puts forward—including guidance on crafting foundational documents, strategic and financial planning, hiring and team development, and feedback and performance mechanisms—can be applied to companies of any size, in any industry. Scaling People includes dozens of worksheets, templates, exercises, and example documents to help founders, leaders, and company builders create scalable operating systems and lightweight processes that really work.

Implementing effective leadership and management practices takes effort and discipline, but the reward is a sustainable, scalable company that’s set up for long-term success. Scaling People is a detailed roadmap for company builders to put the right operating systems and structures in place to scale the most important resource a company has: its people.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Claire Hughes Johnson (P)2023 Stripe Press

The new scaling textbook

Claire’s book captures much of the best from it’s predecessors, such as the effective executive and high output management. Yet it goes further in not only providing general guidance, but providing frameworks, templates, and anecdotal examples that bring the guidance to life. This I should be the Scaling 101 textbook for anyone building a large organization from the ground up.

Great tactical book on people management

Essential for all leaders, managers, and startup founders. If you want to learn about the tactics of company building and people management, highly recommend you read or listen to this books.

learned a lot, true manual

I had to by this a a book too. it's now my go-to solution when I need help

Comprehensive and practical handbook for operating conpanies

I've been at big and small companies and read dozens of books on business and this is one of the best.
I listed to it beginning to end and it was a reminder of some of the best practices I've seen that have helped the orgs I've been on be effective. If you are a leader at a growth stage company or of a org at a large company this is a must read. I'm going to recommend it to my entire team.

Great tactics and mental models for scaling

The author (COO @ Stripe) says this is a book not necessarily meant to be read straight through, but as a startup founder it was a great read anyway. The templates online are also top notch

Good guidance for new managers, good reminders for existing

A bit too tactical for what I was looking for but well structured with some great insights.

One of the best manuals for managers and organizational consultants

Accurate, well explained and in depth view of management topics. The manual describes the main topics of managing teams, performance evaluation and how to act accordingly

The book I wish was available years ago!

The book was well written and covered management topics I thought I knew, but the author explained the background behind them and provided context for most cases. I wish I had read this book years ago, although it being a post-Covid title that would make such a thing hard to do.

COMPANY BUILDING

In "Scaling People", Claire Hughes Johnson offers an insightful and actionable skill-set for both creators and managers of eleemosynary, government, and business organizations. She explains how large and small organizations can become more effective in executing their plans for development. Johnson suggests every successful organization must have a clear statement of mission. "Mission" statements are the beginning of an entrepreneur's creation of a company, a non-profits' purpose, or a government's departmental objective.

A large part of Johnson's book is how to make organization' managers effective leaders of their respective management teams. Johnson explains teams are organized to achieve goals to meet an organization's mission as a sin quo non of success. Johnson's book about organizational management is based on her challenging experience as a manager for Google and as the Chief Operating Officer for a successful tech company called Stripe.

"Scaling people..." is a great addition to the literature of organizational management. "Scaling people..." is an excellent tool for forward thinking organizations interested in growing and improving their performance.

Awesome!

One of the best and most edifying books on organisations that I have ever read!