The Catalyst
Ideas on scaling, leadership, and building businesses that run on systems — not on you.
I stole a great move from a flight attendant
Both require a verbal commitment most people aren't ready to make.
When High Responsibility Becomes a Liability
How Productive Teams Speak Differently
Why meetings stall, updates confuse, and work doesn’t move.
Everything Should Have a Home
Why clarity is usually a containment or structure problem, not a thinking problem.
Intuition Is Trained, Not Innate
Intuition as trained pattern recognition - and how to tell when it’s wisdom versus bias.
Magic First. Feasibility Later.
If you plan forward from reality, you’ll get well-executed mediocrity. Try starting with magic instead.
Skills Are Cheap. How You Work Is What Sets You Apart.
Be an Offer Maker, Not an Order Taker
The Cost of What’s Unsaid
Improve the Time from Insight to Action
What I Learned About the Two Kinds of Ambition
Does heart, mind, or will dominate your leadership?
You're Exhausting Yourself on the Wrong Things
Always Happy, Never Satisfied
A lack of appreciation isn't neutral
Create "Oh Crap!" Moments
The Real Reason Your Problems Keep Coming Back
Most leaders end up in firefighting mode. Here’s why quick fixes don’t last, and how systems thinking changes the game.
What needs to be true?
Too Tough or Too Tender? Find the Mean
Keep your leadership in the sweet spot.
Is it the destiny of all large companies to ossify?
How to spot ossification, and the moves to stay flexible.
Everything Changes When You Triple in Size
Freedom in the Frame
The Pain of Staying the Same
An Introvert's Structured Approach to Networking - Part 3
An Introvert's Structured Approach to Networking - Part 2
An Introvert's Structured Approach to Networking - Part 1
The First Follower
The Work Around the Work
Lead an Interesting Life
Drive consensus, or go lone wolf?
What's interesting to your boss should be fascinating to you
Your Habits are a Portfolio of Bets
Design a Future That Gives You Goosebumps
...yet
Fray your limiting beliefs with this tactical intervention.
The Three Questions That Reveal What's Really Going On
Most teams focus on what’s being delivered. But that’s only one-third of the picture. Here’s how to diagnose misalignment before it becomes failure.
Trust is More than a Vibe
Your GPS Recalculates. Do You?
The hard part isn’t thinking, it’s thinking around others.
Learn how to spot four social-context biases in yourself, and what to do about them.
Feel like an imposter? Here's the process I use.
It starts with exposure, honest mirrors, and a willingness to be an imposter - just not for long.
It’s Not Becky. It’s Your Amygdala.
How emotions hijack your thinking, and what to do about it.
Bad Decisions Can Masquerade as Good Ones
Some decisions feel right, but they’re built on flawed thinking. These four biases are the culprits.
Your Team Might Be Scared of Your Eyebrows 😳
Chomp chomp chomp, like a failure-eating Pac-Man
"We're the Bosses"
Your body and mind are not like a cracker
Tactics for Creating Innovation from Bell Labs
Assertive Inquiry
How to get unconsciously competent
How many types of curiosity do you exhibit?
It's all about the inputs
Thinking About Haircuts Can Speed Up Your Decisions
Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two small elephants
Problems can be divided into three classes: simple, complicated, and complex.
Live a Life of Play
Not enough innovation? Contributor Safety might be lacking.
The Art of Performance Management (No PIPs Required!)
I finished this almost at 1AM. I'm almost afraid to look in here and see what I wrote!
Cultivating Confidence
Confidence is the belief that you'll be able to figure it out.
Move Authority to Information
Information and authority don't always sit in the same place. Organizations have to figure out how to bring these two pieces together.
My Toolkit for Retaining Ideas from Everything I Read
Do you ever wish you had a better system for retaining and getting value from your reading and podcasts??
Be unreasonable; break through arbitrary barriers
We are agents in the world, and in order to achieve our goals, we have to bend the world around us.
Are you creating an environment where your team can learn?
Leaders need to create the conditions for learner safety, which is the second stage of psychological safety.
"Let's not get into solutioning"
The phrase "let's not get into solutioning" can have its place when used correctly, but it becomes dangerous when used incorrectly.
Nine essential behaviors to drive business transformation
As leaders we're all in the business of transformation. If we're not transforming our businesses, they're in stasis. Stasis leads to decline.
Say What You Want to Happen, Not What to Avoid
When you need something done, it's more effective to tell people what to do. Not what not to do.
Create a culture of practice if you want performance
How do the people around you react when you mess up at work?
See the world as it is
Our brains put so much distortion around our view. Seeing reality is not passive. It's a skill we have to develop, and actively engage with.
Are you effectively controlling the default assumption?
Being able to set the null hypothesis - the default assumption other people have - is very powerful.
Prune confusion with decision trees 🌳
Decision trees are a useful and visual way to organize complex decisions.
Mental complexity and its impact on leadership
This is a really interesting framework for understanding people.
How Archimedes in a bathtub can help you solve problems at work
How to use combinatory play to achieve breakthroughs.
What's the first stage of psychological safety?
If you want to optimize the performance of your team, you can't ignore psychological safety.
Are you giving all three types of feedback?
Today I'm going to break down feedback into a model of three components; appreciation, coaching, and evaluation.
The Obstacle is the Way
That problem in front of you? That obstacle? It's actually the way forward.
Are you a Multiplier or a Diminisher?
Do you multiply the capabilities of your team, or do you diminish them?
Your new hire's trajectory is like ice → water → steam
Your new hire's growth in their role is similar to how the temperature changes in H2O as it goes from ice to water to steam.
Your business, like Shrek and onions, has layers
Architecture affects the speed with which you can build new things or make changes to old things.
Think of leadership development like a music equalizer
I'm sharing a model of leadership that's been forming in my brain over the years, but until today have never put "on paper."
A 2000 year old idea about the power of action
It's important that you take action, not just *talk* about taking action.
Leadership buoyancy; how pressure influences your leadership level
Every level of promotion in your company will come at a cost.
Flip your org chart upside down
Put your customers at the top, and put the CEO down at the bottom.
To win the game, know what you're playing
The answer to this question will help you define your own version of success.
It's important to GET right, not to BE right
In life and at work, focus on getting right, not being right.
Build a high-performing team by hiring for characteristics
Have you defined the characteristics that make someone successful on your team?
⏰ Back in Time: Travel to the future to improve your strategy today
Mind the Momentum ➡️
Focus on the problem, not the person
Bad strategy is like trying to fix your car's engine with a hammer
How well are you managing the tension between accountability and compassion?
Speed without direction gets you nowhere
What can a game about beer distribution tell us about organizational design?
Good people operating in a bad system create bad outcomes.
How to design your information diet to improve strategic outcomes
The causal chain is information diet –> thinking –> assessments –> decisions –> actions –> strategic outcomes. Be conscious of your diet!
🐩 What a scene from 101 Dalmatians tells us about what your organization looks like
A leader's organization looks like them. This can give your org. large blind spots and weak points, but you can also use this to amplify your impact.
Ask yourself: How am I contributing to the situation I don't like?
I promise you, if you consistently ask yourself this question, seek deep insight, and put in the work, you’ll be unstoppable.
Make better decisions by thinking about your thinking
Metacognition provides protection from cognitive biases and improves decision making.