The Conversation That Changed My Mind
If you're good at your job and comfortable in it, you might know the feeling. Someone offers you more, and your first thought is, why would I leave this?
Latest
If You Can’t Replay It, You Didn’t Decide It
Clarity on priorities and on “done” is a leadership job, and it starts well before anything ships.
Put the standard in before the tool.
Without a written standard, a tool has nothing clear to enforce.
Miles Vesper and the cool fall day I feel guilty about
Fall afternoons get their own soundtrack, and lately that soundtrack has a name I can't put a face to.
Quality is what you refuse to reopen.
Quality is the decision you refuse to reopen once it exists as a record.
Sad Wings of Destiny at 50
Rocka Rolla didn't land. This one did, and it did the job a second record is supposed to do. It decided who the band was.
What I ask before we add capacity
No standard plus a new tool means the mess moves faster. No standard plus a new person means the same mess, at a higher cost.
Reign in Blood at 40. Music Friday.
The part that gets me forty years in: it still sounds like it came out recently. Not in a retro way. In a "this record has no era" way.
A decision that is not written down is not a decision.
I stopped blaming the people in the room a long time ago. The people are fine. The process is missing one step. Write the decision down in full before anyone leaves.
In My Darkest Hour
Don't bother reading In My Darkest Hour. It is not a must-read, and it is not worth the shelf space.
The Album That Showed Up Finished on Album Two — and Made the Big Three a Four
Forty years later, the bass line still walks into the room like it owns the lease.
Attachment Is Not a Turnaround Plan
Put the attachment aside early. Keep the people who want the next chapter. Make reality show up in order.
Business
Presence is a Leadership System
Leadership presence is built through consistent conversations, difficult moments, and showing up when nothing is urgent but trust is forming.
Musings
One Assassination Under God – Chapter 2
What do you do when the myth requires a corpse and you keep showing up to work?
Business
Culture Is the Performance System You Tolerate
Install the rhythm first. Let the behaviour accumulate. Name what you built last.
Business
Headcount Is No Longer the Growth Proxy
Every seat you add before mapping the value stream inherits the flaws of the old system.
Business
Why Most CEOs Are Flying Blind and Don't Know It
A CEO with situational awareness understands the external market, customers, competitors, financial performance, culture, employee morale, execution capacity, and operational risk.
Musings
Antichrist Superstar Predicted Everything We Pretend to Hate
The part we still refuse to see is the machine doesn't need us to believe in anything anymore.
Musings
Why Chronicle Still Matters: The Case for Restraint
This isn't a label-assembled greatest-hits cash grab. It has atmosphere, menace, and intent.
Business
How I Keep My Team Motivated When Technology Changes Everything
I've watched teams lose motivation during tech rollouts more times than I care to admit.
Business
The Executive Inner Circle Problem Nobody Wants to Admit
When executives who aren't in those pre-meetings start to realize what's going on, they do one of three things: they withdraw, they become political, or they start performing.
Business
The Hidden Cost of Flattening Your Organization
Flattening often feels efficient at first, exhausting later. The work of underwriting commitment still exists.
Business
Why Retail CEOs Are Failing the AI Test
A narrative-driven CEO spends Tuesday managing perception upward. An operator spends Tuesday removing friction downward.
Digital Commerce
When Smart Pricing Becomes Predatory Pricing
We are batteries powering a system built for someone else's benefit.