Startup Leadership
66 frameworks, rules, and principles from 31 practitioners — ready to drop into any AI agent.
Alon (Gong), Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth, Annie Duke, Carole Robin, Claire Hughes Johnson, and 26 more
What's in this pack
19
frameworks
7
rules
15
heuristics
20
principles
5
disagreements
Your AI can help you
- Navigating founder-CEO transitions
- Setting vision and rallying early teams
- Making high-stakes decisions with limited data
See the difference
Generic AI gives you a checklist. Gavel gives you named experts who disagree — so you can decide who to follow.
"My leadership team can't align on our next big bet and it's paralyzing the company."
Here are some things to consider:
- Gather input from all stakeholders before deciding
- Communicate your reasoning transparently
- Set measurable criteria for evaluating the outcome
- Align incentives with the chosen direction
- Be open to revisiting if new data emerges
The right choice depends on your specific situation...
"My leadership team can't align on our next big bet and it's paralyzing the company."
"Use the five-step decision process: frame the decision clearly, gather diverse perspectives without anchoring bias, define what evidence would change your mind, make the call with a disagree-and-commit protocol, then schedule a retrospective. Most paralysis comes from skipping step one — people are arguing about different decisions."
Julie Zhuo
Decision Influence Process"You are stuck in Ruinous Empathy — avoiding the hard call to keep everyone comfortable. Care personally, challenge directly. Present the two options, explain which one you are choosing and why, invite the team to poke holes for 24 hours, then commit. Consensus is not the goal. Clarity is."
Kim Scott
Radical CandorWhere They Disagree
Zhuo says the paralysis is a process problem — your team is debating without a shared framework for deciding. Scott says the paralysis is a leadership problem — someone needs to make the call and own it.
See exactly what you get
Real items from this skill pack. Every item includes expert attribution and source material.
The Five-Step Decision Influence Process
The Five-Step Decision Influence Process A five-step process to navigate complex decisions by fostering collaboration, understanding diverse perspectives, gathering evidence, and learning from outcomes. Steps: 1. Draw the Circle: Frame disagreements as 'us vs. the problem' rather than 'me vs. you' 2. Assume Truth in Different Perspectives: Recognize that disagreements arise because individuals perceive different facets of reality 3. Detective Work: Ask clarifying questions like 'What would have to be true for us to believe X?' and 'What evidence do we have?' 4. Turn Problems into Data Questions: Transform insights into testable questions and nominate the most appropriate decision maker 5. Reflect and Learn: Document decisions and outcomes to refine future decision-making Why it works: Transforms adversarial dynamics into collaborative problem-solving while ensuring decisions are data-informed rather than opinion-based Common mistakes: - Skipping the collaborative framing step - Not documenting decisions for future learning - Making decisions without gathering diverse perspectives first
Julie Zhuo
How To Win Friends & Influence Decisions (Julie Zhuo) | Lenny & Friends Summit 2024
high consensus30 days after hiring someone, ask yourself if you would hire them again with your current knowled...
30 days after hiring someone, ask yourself if you would hire them again with your current knowledge. If the answer is no, fire them immediately. Context: Hiring and firing strategy to avoid long-term damage to the team and company
Uri Levine
Lessons from a 2-time unicorn builder, 50-time startup advisor and 20-time board member | Uri Levine
If a product feels like a 'toy' and people dismiss it, that's often a sign of a disruptive idea.
If a product feels like a 'toy' and people dismiss it, that's often a sign of a disruptive idea. Context: Evaluating whether an idea has breakthrough potential
Sam Schillace
How to be more innovative | Sam Schillace (Microsoft deputy CTO, creator of Google Docs)
Frameworks from the people who've done it
Give your AI real expertise in startup leadership
66 expert-sourced frameworks, rules, and principles. One .md file. Drop it in and your AI cites practitioners instead of guessing.
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