The Catalyst
Ideas on scaling, leadership, and building businesses that run on systems — not on you.
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You gotta collect 'em all!
Your way of deciding is one method. There are a dozen more walking around out there, and they're free to take.
Your team's mood is contagious.
You'd assume the leader sets the tone. But a resigned team infects the founder who's supposed to be infecting them.
Walk in as a peer
The CFO meets you where you show up. Walk in begging for resources and you'll be treated like a beggar.
What are you choosing not to fix?
The hardest part of transformation is choosing which problems you'll leave broken this quarter.
You're in the Party Planning Business
Speed of sending isn't the same as speed of getting the thing done. Most teams optimize for the wrong one.
Every value has a shadow
Ownership becomes burnout. Transparency becomes chaos. Every value, taken alone, becomes a vice.
The offsite was the easy part
Your OKRs don't need better goals. They need an operating system.
Confident and wrong
I had the right diagnosis. I was solving the wrong problem.
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
The leaders who care most about responsibility are the likeliest to destroy it in others.
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.
Past basic competence skills are a commodity. How you work is what actually gets rewarded.
Be an Offer Maker, Not an Order Taker
Order takers wait to be told which hill. Offer makers pick one and make the case.
The Cost of What’s Unsaid
You can't solve what nobody says out loud, and buried problems compound.
Improve the Time from Insight to Action
The metrics maturity model - four levels, and how each one shortens insight to action.
What I Learned About the Two Kinds of Ambition
One kind of ambition builds and the other consumes. Worth knowing which one you have.
Does heart, mind, or will dominate your leadership?
Heart, mind, or will. Your dominant leadership strength is also your competing liability.
You're Exhausting Yourself on the Wrong Things
Burnout usually isn't too much work. It's energy spent on what you can't control.
Always Happy, Never Satisfied
Staying in the productive middle between being loved as you are and striving to be better.
A lack of appreciation isn't neutral
Appreciation isn't the cherry on top. Withholding it does active harm.
Create "Oh Crap!" Moments
Blended metrics hide the problem. "Oh crap" moments are how insight turns into action.
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?
The question that sidesteps "that's impossible" and gets a team building momentum.
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
The Rule of 3 and 10. What worked at three people breaks at ten, and breaks again at thirty.
Freedom in the Frame
Without frames, your team plays kids' soccer — everyone swarming the same ball.
The Pain of Staying the Same
Greatness has less to do with the skills you build than with how you see the world.
An Introvert's Structured Approach to Networking - Part 3
Part 3: email introductions, running the meeting, and staying in touch over time.
An Introvert's Structured Approach to Networking - Part 2
Part 2: how to find the right people, and what to actually say when you reach out.
An Introvert's Structured Approach to Networking - Part 1
Twenty years of never networking, then 308 meetings in eighteen months. Part 1: why it's worth it.
The First Follower
Following is a form of leadership. Without the first follower, there is no movement.
The Work Around the Work
Administration, coordination, and surprises — and your customers won't pay for any of it.
Lead an Interesting Life
Why I left a twenty-year W-2 career in my mid-forties to go build something of my own.
Drive consensus, or go lone wolf?
Seven decision rights, from lone wolf to full consensus, and when each one is the right call.
What's interesting to your boss should be fascinating to you
Impact is how you get paid. Align yourself to the three things your boss actually cares about.
Your Habits are a Portfolio of Bets
Turning a vision into habits, and treating them like a portfolio you can rebalance.
Design a Future That Gives You Goosebumps
Strategic planning applied to a team of one. Part 1: turning a vision into goals.
...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
Trust isn't binary and it isn't a feeling. Three facets that let you work with it deliberately.
Your GPS Recalculates. Do You?
The self-protective biases that quietly block your learning - and stunt your team's too.
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 😳
Challenger safety is the fourth stage, and the one where innovation actually lives.
Chomp chomp chomp, like a failure-eating Pac-Man
Failure as fuel, and the poster on my wall that makes the point every Friday.
"We're the Bosses"
Agents choose to act rather than be acted upon. Why agency is harder to grow than it looks.
Your body and mind are not like a cracker
Antifragility - some things get stronger under stress, and you are one of them.
Tactics for Creating Innovation from Bell Labs
What six decades at Bell Labs teaches about turning ideas into things that actually exist.
Assertive Inquiry
State your own reasoning clearly and genuinely seek theirs - the active version of strong opinions loosely held.
How to get unconsciously competent
The four stages of competence, and how to get through the one where you don't know you're bad.
How many types of curiosity do you exhibit?
Curiosity isn't one thing. Knowing the types changes how you hire for it and grow it.
It's all about the inputs
Goals are outputs you can't control. Input metrics are the levers you can actually pull.
Thinking About Haircuts Can Speed Up Your Decisions
A fast test for how much deliberation a decision actually deserves.
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
The problem doesn't care whether you frown or laugh at it. You and everyone near you do
Not enough innovation? Contributor Safety might be lacking.
Innovation stalls when people don't feel safe to contribute. That's the third stage.
The Art of Performance Management (No PIPs Required!)
Managing performance without needing a formal performance improvement plan.
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
Travel forward in time mentally to test a decision before you commit to it.
Mind the Momentum ➡️
Momentum is mass times velocity. A large idle team takes enormous energy to move.
Focus on the problem, not the person
Same side of the table, or opposite sides. That choice decides whether the problem gets solved.
Bad strategy is like trying to fix your car's engine with a hammer
A practical framework for strategy, for anyone who has been asked to produce one and got stuck.
How well are you managing the tension between accountability and compassion?
Accountability without compassion breaks people. Compassion without accountability breaks results.
Speed without direction gets you nowhere
Speed without direction is just motion. Velocity is the number that actually matters.
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.
Stress is the difference between what you want and what you have
Stress is the gap between what you have and what you want. You can close it from either side.
Reframing problems as opportunities: The path to becoming even more badass
You will always have problems. Change your relationship to them instead of waiting them out.
You have the most to learn from "idiots"
The people you dismiss are standing in your blind spot. Humility is the way in.
Innovation comes from ideas having sex
Breakthroughs come from ideas meeting other ideas — which means they need other people.
Legacy in your lifetime; are you becoming an ancestor or a ghost?
Every relationship leaves someone better or worse off. Are you an ancestor or a ghost?
Cognitive Judo; taking our irrational biases and using them to our advantage
Your biases aren't going anywhere. Learn to use path dependence instead of fighting it.
Steel sharpens steel; having an enemy can be your greatest ally
You need something to push against. An external enemy brings out your best work.
How "premeditatio malorum" helped me keep my cool when I smashed my phone
Rehearsing what could go wrong takes most of the sting out of it when it does.
How can you use semantic memory to improve your thinking and recall?
How your brain files concepts, and how to file them better so recall gets easier.
What do wreaths, book notes, and tamale pie have in common?
Explore or exploit — every choice commits you to one, and a good life needs both.
What does the car Homer Simpson designed have to teach us about adding value by subtraction?
Every addition can subtract. Homer's car is what happens when nobody is willing to say no.
When too much of a good thing turns bad; how the dose makes the poison
Anything good turns harmful past the right dose. The skill is noticing where your line is.
What cooking taught me about habit formation
Keep the schedule and change the scope — the rule that makes a habit survive a busy week.
On advice and appreciation
Advice and appreciation land where feedback and criticism bounce off the ego.
You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with
The five people you spend the most time with shape how you think, whether you notice or not.
You need honest mirrors
You need people who reflect you back without distortion — and the humility to hear them.
Authorship drives ownership
People own what they write. Hand over authorship if you want real ownership.
The absence is the invitation
What's missing around you is an invitation to become the person who supplies it.
Confidence through competence
You can't self-talk your way to confidence. It comes from competence, and competence from practice.
You fall to the level of your systems
Goals are passive and sit in the future. Systems are the engine that actually gets you there.
Feeling follows action
You don't have to feel motivated before you act. The action produces the feeling.
You have to be bad to get good
Every master produced bad first drafts. Being bad early is the price of getting good.
Adversity Reveals Character
Hard things show you what you're actually made of.
If a human can do it, you can do it.
If it's humanly possible, it's possible for you - a stoic antidote to a vision gone cloudy.
A Fish Climbing a Tree
Some under-performers aren't failing - they're fish being judged on climbing. Coaching can't fix a role mismatch.