When you disagree with someone in words while being truly agreeable in demeanor, many people will match your conduct. They will discuss with you rather than attack you.

The problem that big, established companies get into is what is referred to as the strategy tax. This is basically the fact that they have to sort of fit their next big thing into their existing agenda. And they often compromise in the process.

Setup a rotation Invite one person of the team to lead the initiative each time

Engineers, although they may have better ideas or insights, their communication style generates resentment that will limit how much impact they can have in the future. Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.

Your management chain is responsible for ensuring the success of your projects. “Trust yet verify” is the magic phrase which accounts for this type of ownership. You preferably trust your employees, but you need to verify that things are going well.

If you’re trying to make a cultural change, I’ve found it’s much easier to reinforce desired behaviours than to focus on feedback on undesirable behaviours.

We knew time to market was a priority and wanted to shield the team from noise.

In all cases, you should push decisions as far down your org chart as they can go. Consider how much pain and inefficiency you’re willing to take, in exchange for people feeling ownership over their goals and mission. I’d enjoy dictating exactly how our new dashboard should operate, but it’s in our organization’s best interest to let the dashboard team make those decisions. If I dictate their work, they’ll execute on it.

The best way to undercut a strategic initiative is to make it someone’s part-time job.

The sooner you make someone feel responsible and confident that they can do something, the better. Then, you wait to see if they respond. Then you know you have chosen the right one.

Some decisions are consequential and irreversible or nearly irreversible – one-way doors – and these decisions must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, with great deliberation and consultation. If you walk through and don’t like what you see on the other side, you can’t get back to where you were before. We can call these Type 1 decisions. But most decisions aren’t like that – they are changeable, reversible – they’re two-way doors.

When people are placed in positions slightly above what they expect, they are apt to excel.

What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon. How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice? What is new in your approach, and why do you think it will be successful? Who cares? If you are successful, what difference will it make? What are the risks? How much will it cost? How long will it take? What are the mid-term and final “exams” to check for success?

It is much easier to imagine negative consequences than the positive possibilities of a change. Humans are wired to first think about the risks as a survival trait.

Progress begets progress, which is why celebrating milestones and team culture in the form of stories and surprises that become folklore are critical. This is the stuff that keeps a team together long enough to figure it out. Without these elements of adventure, building a company or any other bold project feels like you’re on a treadmill and will be harder. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/10-thoughts-running-leading-teams-building-products-scott-belsky/?trackingId=8qfNtJKfSI%2BhaJO9%2BNLhmg%3D%3D

Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else requires leadership.

‘Who’ questions to ask when leading change: The included: Who else could be or needs to be included in what I’m doing? The informants: Who has done things like this in the past that I can lean on for support? The advisors: who could I get advice from or interview to get more insight? The creatives: Who comes from a different field of work, and could add a creative angle to my change?

Employees are smart enough to know that if a measure is used to evaluate them, then they should optimize that measure. This is captured by Goodhart’s Law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”