The Good Stuff
Notes from inside real companies: what I actually see, and the one change worth trying on Monday.
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A Don’t Is Half a Rule
I keep meeting leaders proud of a tight Dos-and-Don’ts list who spend half the session listing violations. The list is not being broken so much as completed, one guess at a time, in the worst possible moments.
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Write Down What Good Means
A probation decision with no written criteria was about to become a gut call. The fix was one sheet, and it changed the manager more than the hire.
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The Review Failed Months Ago
Pleasant retrospectives that change nothing are not a candor problem. They are missing one exhibit: the promise that was written down before the work began.
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If You Cannot Ask About It, It Is Decoration
Everyone can recite the values. The review form has never heard of them, and that gap, not your people, is why the words steer nothing.
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The Team Was Fine. The Scoreboard Was Lying.
Five months in, the number looked like a verdict on the people. It was a timing artifact of a setup nobody had updated.
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Fun Is Not a Perk
Most leaders treat enjoyable and high-performing as two dials pointing in opposite directions. I have never seen them behave that way. What actually moves both is duller than culture, and far more fixable.
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Motivation Is an Output
The speaker, the offsite, the bonus pool: all of it pours energy into a setup that quietly drains it. Stop the tax before you buy the stimulus.
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Every Standing Meeting Is a Confession
Your recurring meetings exist because your setup hides information. Read the calendar as an X-ray, build the missing visibility, and let one meeting die of natural causes.
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The Annual Review Is Too Late
Feedback fails as an act of courage and works as a property of the setup: let people see their own work land, weekly, without asking.
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Ten Priorities Is a Refusal to Choose
A list of ten priorities is a to-do list wearing ambition’s clothes. The real strategy is naming the goal that wins ties.