Being a new manager can be incredibly overwhelming. As someone who has hire and trained dozens for my companies and for other companies, I understand the feeling of being tasked with a lot of responsibility and not knowing how to handle it. To help you as a new manager feeling overwhelmed, I’d like to share […]
What New Managers Must Do to Develop Self-Management Routines Read More »
You’ve built the decision matrix. You’ve assigned weights to criteria. You’ve gathered stakeholder input. Your framework looks professional, comprehensive, and thoroughly rational. So why are decisions still taking three times longer than they should? The problem isn’t the matrix. The problem is what’s happening around it. The Framework Fallacy Decision frameworks like RACI, decision matrices,
It’s 8:45 AM Monday morning. Your leadership team gathers around the conference room table with their smartphones, coffee, and that familiar look of barely controlled chaos. The agenda says “Strategic Leadership Meeting,” but within five minutes, you’re deep into bug reports, hiring pipeline updates, customer escalations, and budget approvals. Sound familiar? By 10:30 AM, you’ve
In early-stage companies, decision-making is simple. The founder or CEO makes the call, and everyone moves. But as you scale past 100 employees, that model doesn’t just bend—it breaks. Decision rights become the missing infrastructure that nobody built. Without clear decision rights, every question becomes a debate. Every priority becomes negotiable. And every deadline slips
Every growth-stage tech company celebrates the milestones: Series B closed. Headcount doubled. New VP of Engineering onboarded. Market expansion underway. But six months later, something feels off. Decisions that used to take days now take weeks. Teams that once moved in lockstep now seem to be running different playbooks. The CEO or COO who used
The Alignment Tax: Why Growing Companies Slow Down Read More »
If you took a 2-week vacation with no phone access, what would break? Be honest. Would your team know how to prioritize the roadmap without you? Could they approve the budget reallocation? Would they make the hiring decision? Could they handle the customer escalation? Or would everything grind to a halt? If the answer is
Your team keeps asking you to make decisions they should own. Product wants you to prioritize the roadmap. Sales wants you to approve the discount. Engineering wants you to decide on the tech stack. Marketing wants you to choose the messaging. Every. Single. Day. You hired smart, capable leaders. So why are they treating you
The Decision Charter: Stop Being the Tie-Breaker Read More »
Your calendar shows back-to-back meetings. Your inbox has 50+ unread messages—most of them people waiting for your answer. That project you greenlit three weeks ago? Still sitting in limbo because it needs your approval to move to the next phase. And somewhere in the back of your mind, you know this is unsustainable. But you
Decision Velocity: Why Projects That Should Take 2 Weeks Are Taking 6 Read More »
The biggest leadership risk is not lack of effort. It is invisible progress. When progress is invisible, trust drops. People fill the gaps with stories. Meetings multiply. Leaders push harder. Teams get tired. Finish Strong Friday is a weekly ritual designed to make progress legible and repeatable. What the Ritual Solves 1) The “Busy But
Finish Strong Friday: A Weekly Ritual for Leadership Teams Read More »
Even strong teams drift. Not because they are careless. Because the business moves faster than the team’s shared meaning. An Executive Operating System is not a document. It is a set of cadences that produce alignment repeatedly, under pressure. Here are five cadences that consistently reduce drift and increase decision velocity. 1) Outcome Cadence A
When a team is under strain, the temptation is to do everything. New tools. New meetings. New training. That usually adds complexity without improving outcomes. A better approach is to match the intervention to the situation. Choose an Alignment Accelerator When… You need cross-functional agreement, not just individual skill improvement. Common Signals Priorities are debated
