Tag: Coaching
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You’re Getting Faster. Is Your Team Getting Lonelier?
TLDR; Shifting your team from “doers” to “directors” is the right move — but it comes with a hidden cost nobody is talking about: the social fabric of your team is quietly fraying. New research confirms that adding AI to a human team measurably reduces cohesion, trust, and shared identity. Your next leadership challenge isn’t just what your…
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Are you Sprinting, or just Running?
Are You “Sprinting” Or Just “Running?” TLDR: A Sprint without a Goal isn’t a Sprint — it’s just a random collection of tasks. If you want a team that’s focused, empowered, and actually delivering value (instead of just “checking boxes”), it’s time to stop treating your backlog like a grocery list and start planning with…
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Stop Writing Recipes, Start Building Problem Solvers
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From “Doers” to “Directors”: Evolving Your Leadership for the AI Era
TLDR; In the AI era, leaders must shift from managing “doers” focused on raw output to empowering “directors” who provide strategic judgment and oversight. Success requires redefining psychological safety so teams feel secure challenging AI , while intentionally maintaining human “friction points” to ensure empathy and ethics guide the machine’s speed. Ultimately, a leader’s role…
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The Balancing Act: Protecting Your Team Without Losing the Win
tldr Explore the critical leadership challenge of protecting a team’s psychological health while simultaneously holding them accountable for high-quality delivery. Watch out for the “Nurture Trap,” where over-protection leads to stagnation, and the “Delivery Delusion,” where excessive pressure causes burnout and dysfunction. Instead shoot for a “High Support, High Challenge” mindset, where accountability as an…
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Is your chain of command killing your teams problem solving skills?
tldr; When managers get involved in resolving differences of perspective or opinion, rather than challenge their teams to work together to solve problems – they engage in a game of professional “telephone” that drains efficiency and kills engagement. The reliance on management kills efficiency, builds silos, and prevents team growth. Leaders should stop being “problem…
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The “Vacation Test” Part II: From Hero to Guide
tldr; Awareness is the first step, but action is where the transformation lives. If the “Vacation Test” revealed that you have opportunities to improve, the next step isn’t just to “step back”—it’s to intentionally build the safety and clarity your team needs to step up. Today, we look at how to move from being the…
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The Compatibility Trap: Why “Culture Fit” is Killing Your 3 Es
When I’m coaching leaders, I often see them fall into the “Compatibility Trap”—the dangerous assumption that a team’s success is built on how well everyone likes each other or how similar their backgrounds are. Managers often rely on their “gut” to assemble teams, which is usually just a polite word for affinity bias. They look…
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Use The 4 R’s To Improve Your 3 E’s!
tldr; If your retrospectives have turned into a “complain-fest” with no action, you’re missing the chance to teach your squads a valuable lesson. Use the 4 Rs (Reflect, Root Cause, Rethink, Retool) to turn data into insights and experiments that actually move the needle for your Squad and Crew. Healthy teams improve and balance their…
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Churn Rate: The Silent Killer of Team Efficiency
There are a number of measures we coaches use to identify opportunities for squads and teams to improve and last week I had an opportunity to talk through some of these with a Crew Leader I work with. I know that most of my posts focus on mindset, or ways of thinking and behaving. Today…