#006B Summary Episode - Serendipity with Martha Lane Fox - a podcast by Ann Hiatt

This week I’m summarising the conversation I had last week with Martha Lane Fox, who is a remarkable human being and a fascinating example of true leadership.

The word that summarised this episode for me was serendipity and I think that’s what we’re really missing right now, those moments of spontaneity. So how can we create those moments?

Martha introduced this concept describing the very early stages of her career, when her first job was really to become a cheerleader for the internet. She credits the success of her first company to a few things, and highlighted building trust and credibility about the internet with investors, users and employees. She had to build up this relationship which had never existed before.

When we discussed how she survived the original DotCom Bust, Martha walked me through the following:

1- timing was everything and got lucky. Had enough cash enough to ride out the original bust.

2- Co-founding relationship was right.

Had 2 people making the company grow fast.

Able to do more breadth and depth by dividing and conquering.

3- Learned that success is all about the people.

Empowered her young team

Helped them feel real ownership and accountability. That is the secret.

Martha describe herself as being a generalist and gets her focus comes being centred around her passions. Her earliest life passion was social justice, which is where she anticipated she would be addressing complex problems in prison systems but instead her roles in the internet and government are really united in this central theme of social justice, and being an advocate.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about her TED Talk: “The Digital World is having a midlife Crisis!” and the 3 big questions she asked:

• 1- Will we look back in 10 years and be proud of the solutions we’ve created?


• 2- Have we got the right voices in the room?


• 3- Are we using the tools of the modern age in the best way we can?

What would your answer be to these questions? What do you think?

Finally, here’s a few ways on how you can create opportunities for yourself:

• Be willing to ask questions


• Shift from knowing nothing about a subject and one week later being a world’s expert.


• Shift from “know it alls to learn it alls”.


• There is an importance of Hinterland (meaning the depth and breadth of knowledge).


• “Success” rarely feels like “success” in the moment. It feels messy and anxious or subpar. No one feels it as a permanent state.

What did you think of this week’s episode? I’d love to hear from you! Email me at hello@annhiatt.co :)

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Take care,

Ann

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