Amp It Up

Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity

Frank Slootman

Publisher: Wiley, 2022, 191 pages

ISBN: 978-1-119-83611-7

Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Leadership

Last modified: March 29, 2024, 1:45 a.m.

Synopsis

Snowflake Inc. CEO Frank Slootman is one of the tech world's most accomplished executives in enterprise growth, having led Snowflake to the largest software IPO ever after leading Data Domain and ServiceNow to exponential growth and the public market before that. In Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity, he shares his leadership approach for the first time.

Amp It Up delivers an authoritative look at what it takes to transform an organization for maximum growth and scale. Slootman shows that most leaders have significant room to improve their organization's performance without making expensive changes to their talent, structure, or fundamental business model — and they don't need to bring in an army of consultants to do it. What they do need is to align people around what matters and execute with urgency and intensity every day.

Leading for unprecedented growth means declaring war on mediocrity, breaking the status quo, and making conflicted choices daily, all with a relentless focus on the mission. Amp It Up provides the first principles to guide that change, and the tactical advice for organizing a company around them.

Perfect for executives, entrepreneurs, founders, managers, and leaders of all kinds, Amp It Up is a must-read resource for anyone who seeks to unleash the growth potential of a company and scale it to heights they never thought possible.

Table of Contents

  • Part I — Amping Up
    1. Introduction: The Power of Amping Up
    2. My Journey from Teenage Toilet Cleaner to Serial CEO
  • Part II — Raise Your Standards
    1. Make Your Organization Mission Driven
    2. Declare War on Your Competitors and on Incrementalism
    3. Put Execution Ahead of Strategy
  • Part III — Align Your People and Culture
    1. Hire Drivers, Not Passengers, and Get the Wrong People off the Bus
    2. Build a Strong Culture
    3. Teach Everyone to Go Direct and Build Mutual Trust
  • Part IV — Sharpen Your Focus
    1. Put Analysis Before Solutions
    2. Align Incentives for Customer Success
  • Part V — Pick Up the Pace
    1. Ramp Up Sales
    2. Grow Faster or Die Slow
    3. Stay Scrappy as You Scale Up
  • Part VI — Transform Your Strategy
    1. Materialize Your Opportunities — the Data Domain Growth Story
    2. Open the Aperture — the ServiceNow Expansion Story
    3. Swing for the Fences — the Snowflake Growth Story
  • Part VII — The Amped-Up Leader 
    1. Amp Up Your career
    2. Just for CEOs — Dealing with Founders and Boards
    3. Conclusion — Great Leaders Have Great Outcomes