A guide to difficult conversations, building high-trust teams, and designing a life you love

Rachel Lockett is an executive coach and former longtime HR leader at Pinterest and Stripe who works with CEOs, founders, and tech leaders on emotional intelligence, vision, and building trusted teams. The conversation covers coaching versus telling, active listening and powerful questions, avoiding burnout by operating from one's strengths, co-founder relationships, nonviolent communication for difficult conversations, and the one-page plan operating rhythm.

01Key learnings

• Coach instead of advising when the person has the context and skills to solve their own problem; advise only when urgency is high or the person lacks the needed skill.
• Practice three levels of listening, especially level-three global listening that attends to emotions, body language, and context beneath the words.
• Use the GROW model (goal, reality, options, way forward) as a flexible set of powerful questions to unlock someone's own solution.
• Track energy for two weeks by noting five things that energized you and five that drained you each day to reveal patterns in your strengths.
• Share your strengths and weaknesses openly with co-founders or managers and design roles around them, aiming for roughly 80% of time in your gifts.
• Hold regular co-founder check-ins (weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual) to surface unspoken issues and renew shared vision and working agreements.
• In conflict, aim for mutual understanding rather than winning; use observations, feelings, needs, and a small concrete request.
• Ask whether you would enthusiastically rehire a team member for the same role; a no signals that action is needed on talent.

02Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.