Business · Book club
Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity book club questions
Here are 12 book club questions for Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity by Frank Slootman, ordered to open easily and end somewhere worth arguing about. Copy them, print them, or bring them up one at a time.
Amp It Up is Frank Slootman's account of how he approaches leading organizations through rapid growth.
Frank Slootman · 2022 · 4h 0m
Full summary and key takeaways →The 12 questions
- 1.
Slootman argues that most organizations run far below their potential. What specific examples from your own experience match that diagnosis?
- 2.
He says the fix is to raise expectations, narrow focus, and increase urgency simultaneously. Which of those three is hardest to change in your current organization, and why?
- 3.
Slootman advocates holding positions open for months rather than hiring someone who is merely good enough. What are the actual costs and risks of doing that in your context?
- 4.
His model assumes high performers who want to move fast. What kinds of people and organizations is his approach poorly suited for?
- 5.
Culture is what you reward, tolerate, and remove people for. Audit your own organization against that definition: where is the biggest gap between stated and actual culture?
- 6.
He is explicit that Amp It Up is not a model for work-life balance. How do you think about the tradeoff between the performance ceiling of a calm culture versus the burnout risk of a high-intensity one?
- 7.
What does focus actually mean at an organizational level? How do leaders decide what to remove from the priority list when adding a new one?
- 8.
Slootman was brought in as a turnaround CEO at both ServiceNow and Snowflake. How much of his approach depends on a mandate for change that most incumbent leaders don't have?
- 9.
He argues that boards need to be as demanding as the management they oversee. What would a more rigorous board culture look like in an organization you know?
- 10.
Urgency is described as a leadership behavior that propagates downward. What examples from your experience show how leadership pace — fast or slow — shapes the whole organization?
- 11.
The book is written from the perspective of a CEO with an unusual track record. How do you distinguish between advice that is genuinely transferable and advice that only worked in Slootman's specific context?
- 12.
If you could implement one idea from Amp It Up in your current role, what would it be, and what resistance would you expect to encounter?
How to run the discussion
- Pick six to eight, not all of them. An hour of real discussion covers fewer questions than anyone expects, and racing the list is what makes a book club feel like homework.
- Open with what people noticed, not what they concluded. Asking for a verdict first hardens opinions before anyone has heard each other.
- Let the disagreement run. The questions below that split a room are the ones worth the time; the ones everyone answers the same way can be skipped.
- Ask the quiet person a specific question. A direct, narrow question is far easier to answer than an open invitation to contribute.
Themes worth steering toward
If the conversation stalls, these are the threads that usually restart it.
Common questions
What are good book club questions for Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity?
Here are 12 book club questions for Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity by Frank Slootman, ordered to open easily and end somewhere worth arguing about. The strongest openers ask what each reader noticed rather than what they concluded, and the discussion usually turns on leadership, hypergrowth, organizational culture.
How long should a book club discussion of Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity last?
Most groups run 60 to 90 minutes of actual discussion. That is roughly six to eight questions, not all of them, so pick the ones that suit your group rather than working down the list in order.
What are the main themes in Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity?
Leadership, Hypergrowth, Organizational culture, Execution, Management. Those are the threads most likely to divide a room, which makes them the useful places to steer a discussion that has gone quiet.
Picking the next one? See books like Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity or questions for other book club picks.
