Doubling Down on Communication: How Tobias Peggs Accelerated Square Roots' 10-year Plan to 10 Weeks in a Pandemic

Tobias Peggs is an accomplished tech CEO-turned disruptor of the industrial food system. Co-founding Square Roots with Tesla and SpaceX board member Kimbal Musk, Tobias led the tech-enabled urban farming company to rapid growth before COVID19 threw a wrench in the company's 2020 plans. In this episode, Tobias breaks down the story of how Square Roots rapidly evolved from selling high-end herbs (the "roadster" of Square Roots) to growing arugula (its "Model 3") in 10 weeks- a process that was expected to take 10 years on its roadmap.

In this episode, you will learn:

1. Why all competition is not bad, and how managers should think about competition in a large-yet-underdeveloped market

2. Why "The Playbook" is a powerful framework for articulating your mission and values, and connecting them to your team's day-to-day on a single piece of paper

3. How constantly communicating the "why we exist" can feel ad nauseam during good times, but is the thing that pulls a team through when times inevitably turn hard

4. Why the #1 skill for a manager to master at every level in the organization is to become an expert at communicating the vision and mission to their team(s)

5. Why a conversation on the "future of work" that focuses on remote work is a very limited view of the world

Management books to read, mentioned in the episode:

- The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business (Patrick Lencioni)

- The Goal (Eliyahu M. Goldratt)