Decide and Conquer

44 Decisions That Will Make or Break All Leaders

By: David Siegel

Narrated by: John Behrens

Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

Success boils down to one thing: making good decisions. That’s easy to say, but what do we do when we are faced with terrible options, deep anxiety, and fear of failure? Learning the right framework now can make all the difference later.

Turn to Decide and Conquer to access the decision framework David Siegel used when he took over as CEO of Meetup, the world’s leading platform for making connections and finding your community. Let David’s success during one of the most tumultuous times in his company’s history help guide you on your own path.

Decide and Conquer helps all leaders navigate the big decisions that will impact their future and make their organizations a success. David outlines the 44 challenges leaders face when starting a new position. He then shows you the decision framework he applied to overcome these challenges as CEO of Meetup. David takes you on an epic journey of corporate and personal survival that includes industry titans like Adam Neumann, Barry Diller, Jack Welch, Bill Ackman, and other leaders. Learn to:

• Apply principles like open communication, transparency, and kindness to inform great decision-making.
• Set yourself up to succeed, even before you start, by removing potential roadblocks before they become a problem.
• Be a bold and decisive leader and not succumb to fear.

When David took over as CEO of Meetup, the road was fraught with obstacles that could have destroyed Meetup and his reputation. By applying the principles he had learned in previous leadership positions, David was able to make the many critical decisions that would mean life or death for Meetup when WeWork decided to sell the company. From deciding to accept the position and negotiating terms to the first 30, 60, and 90 days on the job and managing a seemingly endless series of crises during the sale and global pandemic, Decide and Conquer walks you through the key decisions you will face with invaluable advice for each one.

A sample layoff speech and sample succession email are available in the audiobook companion PDF download.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 David Siegel (P)2022 HarperCollins Leadership

A great read for business leaders!

I work in tech and aspire to get promoted to a C level position or start my own company someday. There was a good amount of practical leadership advice while telling the story of Meetup from the WeWork era to post pandemic. The two themes that resonated with me the most were resiliency and transparency, and David provided many examples where these values were instrumental to his success navigating the waters as CEO. There are many great parables as well that illustrate the values applied to other situations. I liked the story about the artist siblings - one invested in a studio, the other invested in an RV and scaled their connections nationwide. I’ll probably listen to this again would love to chat with David sometime about the lessons here and other stories in business!

Love that it's not a founder story

This story feels super real, something I find is missing from business books "beind the scenes"

Fantastic leadership insights

This book is great for any leader, not just CEOs. The insights and decision-making advice in this book are essential for anyone looking to optimize the performance of any team or business. David's examples, stories, and experiences pull you into the learning and growth opportunities that are essential for any successful leader. Amazing to see how a good leader can step into an insane situation with a company that is on an unsustainable path and turn it around by making hard decisions and focusing on the customers, employees, and core business goals.

Good book wrong narrator

The guy reading the book sounds like a young 20 something kid. Hard to imagine his voice being anywhere close to a seasoned CEO. Other than that there are some well thought out points and storytelling.

A Must Read for All Entrepreneurs and Executives

David did an eloquent job of sharing the story about his rise to CEO at Meetup. He did a great job of describing his personal challenges, tactics, navigating the choppy waters and reaching his goals. For those that are familiar with the WeWork/Adam Neumann story, you’ll find this book especially fascinating as the author dives in deep about all the multidimensional strategies and challenges that come between culture change, egos, personalities and dealing with a parent company that was under turmoil.

As a founder and business executive myself, I found a lot of parallels with David’s story and was great to hear how he overcame many of the challenges and turned the company around to profitability.

This book is inspirational and motivational.

Required Reading for CEOs, Founders, and Investors

If you are starting a business, running a business, or even writing an essay in business school and need an A, this book and audiobook should always be by your side. While structured by number and phases of tenure, its deceptively complex and deep. It moves forward clearly and decisively, ultimately like David's leadership at Meetup. I've discovered actual new value and insight in this book- not just cleverly re-packaged aphorisms like with most business books.

By delving into his successes and failures, he affords you expensive lessons you do not have to learn the hard way. You live forward in uncertain and trying times, but only learn from the past. Let this book be your guide through unknown and precarious waters.

Most importantly, this book is from the perspective of a CEO coming into a startup in which the Founder separated from his own company. On average, a Founding CEO has just 18 months from major funding before being voted out of the company he started. This applies to every single startup, especially in tech.

If you are starting your company or just formed a Board of Directors after receiving investment money, you have 18 months (on average) to read this book and implement all the things David did. If you want to keep your startup, you will need to transform it to become what your replacement would end up making it.

Furthermore, if you have invested in a startup and want to see it and the Founder succeed and mature, this is not just a great book to give the Founder. It's THE book to give the Founder. And its also a benchmark to judge how the startup is growing, before the numbers show up on the income statement. To actually see the business as it breathes and changes, or doesn't change and dies slowly- because they didn't read Decide and Conquer!

The METAVERSE of Leadership

This book was not what I had expected coming from a CEO. It’s like a CEO and a leader from another world. If you are taking on or considering a position as a decision-maker, whether it’s for a start-up, as a CEO, or in any leadership role, you need to read this book. There are several lessons in this book I have never seen in any other book written by a CEO. There were some common things for sure, but some were of another dimension. Sometimes you'll find yourself saying, "What the ...." but you'll be impressed in a way you've never been before. When you have to make tough decisions, you are likely to find a solution here in this book. I gained valuable insight and priceless wisdom to carry me on my journey as I launch my new company and help it evolve. Read this book, and you’ll find many priceless gems and golden nuggets that will guide you through your journey.

Great company bookclub

Our team read this title and discussed the key takeaways as a group. Wonderful discussion. Some points that stood out to me:
1. What you choose not to do can be just as important as what your company invests resources in to do.
2. Competition is a motivator, not the reason to make a decision
3. Amazing and inspiring stories shared about really picking the companies you work for based on the people and creating your own roles, you don’t have to e limited to the job descriptions written. Write your own.

The WeWork “drama” was pretty interesting too!

Genuine & Exemplary Leadership Lessons

David is providing an amazing account of his unique leadership experience, that's not only a must read for any founder or CEO, but for anyone wanting to contribute to the performance of a great team. David shares lessons of integrity, kindness, and pragmatism in leadership that are not only super valuable for the insight they provide, but are just as inspirational. David sharing his learnings is such an amazing resource that you should definitely explore — it gives insights into committed leadership in times of uncertainty that everyone can learn from! And it does so in a very well told and encouraging way. Would definitely recommend!

Candid leadership playbook

As David writes, “Come for the drama, stay for the decisions.”
Decide and Conquer is a well-designed playbook for leaders of dynamic, growth-oriented companies. His brutally honest and self-critical assessment of many of his key decisions shed thoughtful light on how to navigate both common and uncommon leadership scenarios and quandaries.