💡

InsightHunt

Hunt the Insights

E

Evan LaPointe

Episode #98

Founder

CORE Sciences

🚀Career & Leadership⚡Execution👥Team & Culture

📝Full Transcript

23,962 words
Evan LaPointe (00:00:00): The brain is like a college campus that has different departments in it. Most people rely on their history department way too much. If you instead send things to the more experimental, open-minded science department, the more creative art department, you get dramatically better answers. Lenny Rachitsky (00:00:13): I know you have a bunch of awesome advice on becoming more influential. Evan LaPointe (00:00:16): It's almost like you're playing Elden Ring or some video game. The starting point is to choose your character. Hey, I'm the devil's advocate approach, or I'm the break it and see if it still stands after I hit it really hard with a sledgehammer kind of guy, your personality kind of has a natural fit. Lenny Rachitsky (00:00:30): How do we create better relationships within our teams? Evan LaPointe (00:00:33): It's critical to ask what kind of experience am I? Not how good am I at my job, how much do I know, how critical am I to this process, but am I a miserable experience? If the answer is yes, don't worry too much about the other pieces yet. You got to fix that first. Lenny Rachitsky (00:00:48): I'm really excited for this episode. I think it's going to be unlike any other conversation I've had on this podcast. Evan LaPointe (00:00:52): Then here's the surprise ending. Lenny Rachitsky (00:00:58): Today, my guest is Evan LaPointe. Evan is the founder of CORE Sciences, which teaches companies and individuals how our brains actually work, and through that lens, how to more effectively work with other people on teams, how to build better products, how to grow your business, and how to make smarter and faster decisions. Evan is a four-time founder, including founding a company called Satellite, which is the fourth largest analytics product on the internet today, which was acquired by Adobe where he later ran product strategy and innovation for Adobe's digital business. (00:01:31): In our conversation, Evan shares a simple way to u...

💡 Key Takeaways

  • 1Ask yourself 'Am I a miserable experience?' before worrying about your competence; biological appeal outweighs ability in relationships.
  • 2Stop skipping the 'Priming' phase in meetings; jumping straight to decision-making without aligning on principles causes the majority of meeting waste.
  • 3If you are high in Conscientiousness but low in Openness, abstract vision work will feel like a 'pain cave'; use 'Reverse Engineering' of outcomes to bridge this gap.
  • 4Influence has three speeds: Slow (letting them fail), Moderate (teaching/Challenger Sale), and Fast (inducing Cognitive Dissonance).
  • 5True delegation (Trust Level 3) isn't hoping someone does it as well as you; it's recognizing their mind works in a way that is superior to yours for that specific task.
  • 6Vulnerability about your personality traits (e.g., 'I struggle with abstract concepts') is more effective than masking it or being unapologetically difficult.
  • 7Use 'Situational Awareness' (n > 5 customer conversations) to validate whether a strategic idea is actually 'inconceivable' or just outside your personal experience.

📚Methodologies (4)

🚀 Career & Leadership

A framework for deconstructing professional relationships into three components. Contrary to business logic, 'Ability' is the least important biologically, while 'Appeal' (the experience of working with you) is the most critical for survival in a social mesh.

Core Principles

  • 1.Component 1: Ability (Utility) - Can you do the job? This includes knowledge, reasoning, and imagination. It is necessary but insufficient.
  • 2.Component 2: Trust (Risk) - Evaluated on three levels: 1. Delegation (Simple tasks), 2. Scalability (Doing it as well as I would), 3. Superiority (Doing it better/differently than I could).
  • 3.Component 3: Appeal (Experience) - The biological priority. If you trigger a colleague's safety system (fear/threat) or are a 'miserable experience,' your utility is nullified because the network isolates you.
  • +1 more...

"It's critical to ask what kind of experience am I? Not how good am I at my job... but am I a miserable experience? If the answer is yes, don't worry too much about the other pieces yet. You got to fix that first."

#'experience#first'#relationship
View Deep Dive →
⚡ Execution

Treats meetings like a product with distinct phases. It mandates a 'Priming' phase before any decision-making occurs to align on the 'meta' of the conversation—principles, mindsets, and context.

Core Principles

  • 1.Step 1: Define the Category - Is this meeting for generating options, creative problem solving, or efficiency seeking?
  • 2.Step 2: Establish Principles - Explicitly state the rules of engagement (e.g., 'Are we honoring sacred cows or eating them today?' or 'Is speed more important than accuracy?').
  • 3.Step 3: Check Alignment - Ensure everyone has the same information context before debate begins.
  • +2 more...

"A lot of meetings skip the priming step altogether... It would be safe to skip the priming step if we began the meeting under the assumption that everybody here is on the same page... I think that's a ludicrous assumption."

#meeting#priming#protocol
View Deep Dive →
👥 Team & Culture

A method for navigating the tension between the 'Openness' trait (comfort with abstraction/vision) and the 'Conscientiousness' trait (desire for efficiency/order). It frames this not as a conflict of ideas, but a conflict of neural processing.

Core Principles

  • 1.Self-Diagnosis: Identify if you are Low Openness/High Conscientiousness. If so, abstract vision work will trigger your 'Pain Cave' and feel inefficient.
  • 2.Vulnerability: Explicitly state your bias. 'I am low in openness, so this feels inconceivable to me. I need help translating this.'
  • 3.Translation: Use 'Reverse Engineering' as a bridge. If a vision feels fluffy, ask to reverse engineer the inputs required to achieve that outcome. This satisfies the conscientious brain's need for structure.
  • +1 more...

"If you are low in openness... as soon as things get abstract, not only are you like, 'I don't like this,' you have a much more visceral negative response... you are now going into your pain cave."

#identity#alignment#team
View Deep Dive →
🚀 Career & Leadership

Gamifies influence by asking you to intentionally select a 'Character' and a 'Speed' for your influence campaign, rather than relying on default behaviors.

Core Principles

  • 1.Step 1: Choose Your Character - Are you the 'Compassionate Helper', the 'Logic/Data Provider', or the 'Sledgehammer/Disruptor'?
  • 2.Step 2: Buy Permission - Explicitly ask for permission to play that role (e.g., 'I'm going to play devil's advocate and try to break this idea, is that okay?').
  • 3.Step 3: Choose Your Speed - select based on urgency:
  • +3 more...

"It's almost like you're playing Elden Ring... The starting point is to choose your character. 'Hey, I'm the devil's advocate approach' or 'I'm the break it and see if it still stands'... your personality kind of has a natural fit."

#'select#character'#influence
View Deep Dive →
← Browse All Episodes