It’s wild how often your writing feels like a first-hand transcript of conversations I’ve been part of. My take is that a lot of this comes down to a lack of accountability from senior leaders: the same who recently pushed for far too many things, often based on promises made to investors.
The CEO’s energy and urgency have value, but without the PM’s realism and the VP’s perspective, it just turns into more chaos. Right now, the PM sees operational issues, the CEO sees market urgency, and the VP sees both but feels trapped. The missing bridge is clear priorities that actually stick long enough for teams to deliver.
And with AI, it’s as if simply asking for things to be “reinvented” will make them happen faster. In reality, it still takes time - usually more than a quarter - and reshuffling priorities every few weeks just resets the clock.
The key issue driving this is that the CEO is refusing to prioritise, while having fantasies about AI and the VPs are too scared to push back, presumably because the CEO fired the last person who did. It's like all the CEO's want to be Elon Musk without realising how toxic and destructive he is.
Lets say that the CEO was good at prioritising org initiatives then we would want them to be good at communicating those priorities to everyone in the organisation and good at consistently allocating the resources to the top priorites that they need. If they did that I think a lot of the orgnaistion toxicity, churn and overwork would go away.
But what would could still remain is bad processes that lead to slow learning and a lot of waste, a pattern of bad decisions based on bad information caused by a culture of fear, lies and sucking up, bad employees, suppliers, clients, products, services and tools that need to be replaced, bad finances that need to be turned around, poor competency and capability in core functions and skills due to minimal investment in relevant coaching, mentoring, training, tools and resources.
Thank you for the interesting thought exercise. Instead of giving each of these people advice, I would ask them some questions based on their statements.
CEO:
“I want us to be bold and push hard….I want it to feel like a startup. I don’t want people who ask for permission before they act.”
• What do you mean by “feeling like a startup”? What behaviors do people exhibit and which behaviors need to be rewarded or reinforced?
• How do you set the conditions for people to act in the right way on the right things instead of asking for permission? What guiding principles or frameworks let them know when and how it’s OK to act?
“It would be one thing if everyone was struggling, but there are people kicking ass right now. They are being proactive and getting things done. So what’s the deal?”
• Instead of focusing on what other teams are doing wrong, why not study what the ass-kickers are doing right?
Product Manager:
“It is like we want to do startup cosplay at scale without making the investments required to limit cognitive load.”
• What do you mean by cognitive load? What investments are required to limit it?
“I have worked at bureaucratic, slow-moving companies where people cared more about how we worked than whether the work was actually effective.”
• How would you know if your work is actually effective? How can you tell if it meets the guiding principles and goals of the organization? How can you tell if it is driving results?
“I know some teams are doing cool things, and I applaud them. But does anyone realize how greenfield those efforts are and how different it is for the rest of us?”
• Instead of focusing on what your team is struggling with, why not learn from what the cool-thing-doers are doing right?
VP:
“I am not sure the teams and front-line managers understand the degree of pressure we are under as a business. The stakes are very high. Or maybe they do understand, and I am overwhelming them by reminding them. It is hard to tell.”
• How would you find out? Who do you need to talk to and establish a good relationship with so you can understand the true situation?
“We had just come off busting our asses during the pandemic, had maybe a year or two of breathing room, and then suddenly everyone needed to be an “A player.””
• Instead of focusing on what the ‘B players’ are doing wrong, why not learn from what the ‘A players’ are doing right?
One final thought: To paraphrase Manager Tools (www.manager-tools.com), leaders at all levels are responsible for two things: Results and Relationships. This exercise shows symptoms that these leaders are all focused on results, and neglecting relationships.
Thanks again for a thought-provoking leadership exercise.
Really interesting perspective, and creative use of frames. Nice!
"How would your understanding change if you assumed each person is doing their best given what they know and what they are facing?"
This is an excellent and under-rated prompt. It is often more true than we like to accept. It's easier to look at the world as good/evil, heroes/villains and assume negative impact always stems from negative intent.
This is a super interesting idea! It's so true how different people at the same company can see things so differently. I really like how you showed that everyone has their own 'slice of reality.' Great food for thought!
It’s wild how often your writing feels like a first-hand transcript of conversations I’ve been part of. My take is that a lot of this comes down to a lack of accountability from senior leaders: the same who recently pushed for far too many things, often based on promises made to investors.
The CEO’s energy and urgency have value, but without the PM’s realism and the VP’s perspective, it just turns into more chaos. Right now, the PM sees operational issues, the CEO sees market urgency, and the VP sees both but feels trapped. The missing bridge is clear priorities that actually stick long enough for teams to deliver.
And with AI, it’s as if simply asking for things to be “reinvented” will make them happen faster. In reality, it still takes time - usually more than a quarter - and reshuffling priorities every few weeks just resets the clock.
The key issue driving this is that the CEO is refusing to prioritise, while having fantasies about AI and the VPs are too scared to push back, presumably because the CEO fired the last person who did. It's like all the CEO's want to be Elon Musk without realising how toxic and destructive he is.
Say that key issue is ~40% of the challenge. What else?
Lets say that the CEO was good at prioritising org initiatives then we would want them to be good at communicating those priorities to everyone in the organisation and good at consistently allocating the resources to the top priorites that they need. If they did that I think a lot of the orgnaistion toxicity, churn and overwork would go away.
But what would could still remain is bad processes that lead to slow learning and a lot of waste, a pattern of bad decisions based on bad information caused by a culture of fear, lies and sucking up, bad employees, suppliers, clients, products, services and tools that need to be replaced, bad finances that need to be turned around, poor competency and capability in core functions and skills due to minimal investment in relevant coaching, mentoring, training, tools and resources.
Thank you for the interesting thought exercise. Instead of giving each of these people advice, I would ask them some questions based on their statements.
CEO:
“I want us to be bold and push hard….I want it to feel like a startup. I don’t want people who ask for permission before they act.”
• What do you mean by “feeling like a startup”? What behaviors do people exhibit and which behaviors need to be rewarded or reinforced?
• How do you set the conditions for people to act in the right way on the right things instead of asking for permission? What guiding principles or frameworks let them know when and how it’s OK to act?
“It would be one thing if everyone was struggling, but there are people kicking ass right now. They are being proactive and getting things done. So what’s the deal?”
• Instead of focusing on what other teams are doing wrong, why not study what the ass-kickers are doing right?
Product Manager:
“It is like we want to do startup cosplay at scale without making the investments required to limit cognitive load.”
• What do you mean by cognitive load? What investments are required to limit it?
“I have worked at bureaucratic, slow-moving companies where people cared more about how we worked than whether the work was actually effective.”
• How would you know if your work is actually effective? How can you tell if it meets the guiding principles and goals of the organization? How can you tell if it is driving results?
“I know some teams are doing cool things, and I applaud them. But does anyone realize how greenfield those efforts are and how different it is for the rest of us?”
• Instead of focusing on what your team is struggling with, why not learn from what the cool-thing-doers are doing right?
VP:
“I am not sure the teams and front-line managers understand the degree of pressure we are under as a business. The stakes are very high. Or maybe they do understand, and I am overwhelming them by reminding them. It is hard to tell.”
• How would you find out? Who do you need to talk to and establish a good relationship with so you can understand the true situation?
“We had just come off busting our asses during the pandemic, had maybe a year or two of breathing room, and then suddenly everyone needed to be an “A player.””
• Instead of focusing on what the ‘B players’ are doing wrong, why not learn from what the ‘A players’ are doing right?
One final thought: To paraphrase Manager Tools (www.manager-tools.com), leaders at all levels are responsible for two things: Results and Relationships. This exercise shows symptoms that these leaders are all focused on results, and neglecting relationships.
Thanks again for a thought-provoking leadership exercise.
Sounds like everyone’s playing a different game with the same scoreboard - how do you lead when no one agrees on the rules?
I would argue that it is the job of leaders to explain to everyone what's the game and the rules.
That and listen. Easier said than done, of course!
Really interesting perspective, and creative use of frames. Nice!
"How would your understanding change if you assumed each person is doing their best given what they know and what they are facing?"
This is an excellent and under-rated prompt. It is often more true than we like to accept. It's easier to look at the world as good/evil, heroes/villains and assume negative impact always stems from negative intent.
This is a super interesting idea! It's so true how different people at the same company can see things so differently. I really like how you showed that everyone has their own 'slice of reality.' Great food for thought!
man this feels like we work together in the same company ...
As a Platform PM I can totally agree you were inside of my head while writing this piece!
i feel your pain. I managed several platform teams. Its hell on earth.
This is truly excellent, John, thank you
Enjoyed the read. A lot of truth in it.