Leading healthy teams isn’t a luxury anymore. It’s a necessity. — In today’s complex working environments, people don’t know how to work with each other. When I say that, I get pushback. “What?? I work with people every day! That’s absurd.” “Sure, it’s not perfect, but it works. What’s the alternative?” “Oh another catastrophist. …

Urgency is killing love, but it doesn’t have to — When you step back from the dizzying human carousel you notice something: Slow is nature’s preference. Yet humans are seemingly obsessed with increasing life’s speed. Fast food. Same day delivery. Red eye flights (god forbid we miss a meeting). On-demand dating, AI, etc. All in the name of saving time. …

How to guarantee failure by replacing competence with hubris — Create a tech-first solution in search of a market. When asked if you’re solving an existing problem, proclaim “We’re market makers.” Have a mission to be the world’s best for everyone. And I mean everyone. “This thing has a massive TAM.” Start by telling the press and investors that you’re…

Antifragility and the temporary nature of things — Have you wondered what it would be like to start over? Now imagine you had to start over in your 50’s. It’s not something I imagined I would be doing. None of us really ever think your plans will be destroyed when you’re in the autumn of your life. Yet…

Building a new flywheel doesn’t make the existing flywheel spin any faster — For almost two decades I worked with teams to help them innovate. Startups and large incumbents paid us to find breakthrough ideas that would catapult them into success. Yet, almost every workshop or design sprint revealed the same conclusion: Don’t do the wild new thing you imagine you need, instead…

Why throughput in product companies stalls and what leaders and teams can do about it — Several years ago Mind The Product did a survey on what problems plagued product leaders. Top of the list was prioritization. In the 5 years since that survey, not much has changed. On an almost daily basis I hear from my clients that prioritization is painful. …

In the US our lives have been designed to serving the interests of business, in Europe, life is dedicated to serving the self. — The primary difference between the American way of life and the European way of life is the amount of time spent on working. …

Being focused is a privilege that many don’t have, or haven’t earned yet. — Being focused is undoubtably a great answer to getting things done. We all experience it and it’s a game-changer when you find it. But in the search of focus we’re often overlooking the first step: being unfocused. For me, saying no is a privilege. A privilege that comes from having…

Guilt verses shame — This past few years have given me a lot of time to explore the origins and effects of trauma. After fives years of chemo and radiation treatments my beautiful wife died of cancer. It’s been a little over a year since that day. During those treatments we also had to…