Podcasts about okrs

BONUS: Why More Code Doesn't Mean Better Software — And Where AI Actually Helps Your SDLC Most teams are adopting AI to write code faster. But what if code generation isn't your bottleneck? Mooly Beeri has spent 25 years diagnosing where software organizations actually underperform — from Microsoft to Philips to automotive — and his message is clear: measure before you automate, and tie every AI investment to a business KPI. The Pattern Debugger's Origin Story "I've been identifying patterns way before AI was doing that. One of my first jobs was Microsoft, and I got the opportunity to work in engineering excellence. Every single simple improvement would make the lives of so many people better and the code better and the products better."   Mooly's career started at Microsoft in engineering excellence, where he discovered his passion for finding process areas that need improvement. From there he built the first software centre of excellence for Philips, spawned it into a separate business, and has been doing the same process excellence work across healthcare, telecom, and automotive ever since. His framework: understand where you're bleeding quality, revenue, or budget — then intervene there, not everywhere. Improvement Doesn't Mean Progress "There are too many efforts to improve too many things that don't really matter. The ability to tie a specific improvement to what actually means progress for a business — that, for me, is one critical component that's missing in many transformations."   Mooly's core insight applies directly to AI adoption: everyone has an improvement plan, but few can answer "how does this improvement improve business performance?" If you ask that one additional question, you can probably cancel half your improvement projects — the ones that make people feel good but don't move the needle on time to market, quality, or cost. The Code Generation Trap "It's like saying a book author is more productive because they write more words. The unit of work is not the number of lines of code they produce. The unit of work is a piece of code that works, that is tested, that is fully reliable, that meets a customer expectation, and eventually generates revenue."   Data from Faros AI shows individual developer PRs went up 98% with AI tools — but organizational delivery actually dropped 1.5%. More code, same or worse outcomes. Mooly explains why: most organizations invest in code generation not because it's the most effective thing to improve, but because it's the easiest step to automate. There are 35 steps in the SDLC. Picking code generation gives you a 1-in-35 chance of striking gold. As the saying goes: hope is not a strategy. Where AI Actually Works in the SDLC "The best usages would be in areas of the SDLC where there is a lot of data that needs processing and needs some detection of patterns — where AI is really, really good."   The most successful AI applications Mooly has seen with clients:   Defect root cause analysis — training AI agents on thousands of Jira bugs to find patterns humans can't see. In one healthcare client, AI analysis revealed that "false positive" bugs were actually compromised requirements — the dev team was closing real deviations as unimportant because they didn't have time to fix them Code review enhancement — AI scans incoming defects and generates a live, evolving checklist so reviewers spend their limited time checking for the most probable problems Test generation — unit, component, and functional test creation where AI can leverage existing test patterns and requirement data Requirements review — correlating requirements against strategic objectives, OKRs, and historical defect patterns to find contradictions before coding begins The Thinking Process You Can't Automate "The developers going through the process of converting requirements into code — it's actually a thinking process. It creates a lot of discussions with the product managers, a lot of back and forth, which help refine the requirement. This entire exchange is gone out the window when you have AI generate the code in 5 minutes."   When AI generates code instantly from requirements, it eliminates the human feedback loop that catches contradictions and incomplete specifications. The FDA has recognized this: every AI-assisted step in medical device software must be guardrailed by human activity. If you generate code quickly but still need a human review, the speed gain disappears. The value of coding was never just the code — it was the thinking. Map Every Investment to a Business KPI "If your uncle ran a bicycle repair shop and you said, let's advertise in the local newspaper, the first question he'd ask is: how many new customers will we get? The business logic hasn't evolved so much. If you want to do something — how will this impact your revenue, your customer retention, or your cost of producing goods? If you can't answer these things, don't invest."   Mooly's advice is deceptively simple: before adopting any AI tool in your SDLC, ask yourself which of three business outcomes it will improve — faster time to market, higher quality (fewer customer issues), or better margins (lower execution cost). If you can't draw a direct line from the AI investment to one of those outcomes, you're doing improvement theatre. About Mooly Beeri Mooly Beeri is CEO and co-founder of BetterSoftware, a consulting firm with over 25 years helping companies across healthcare, telecom, and automotive transform how they build software. His work focuses on diagnosing where software organizations underperform and designing targeted interventions — not blanket transformations.   You can link with Mooly Beeri on LinkedIn.

Today I want to talk about the relationship between a CRO and a Chief Product Officer, especially when they share OKRs.The first thing I'll say is that I love shared OKRs. They create accountability, trust, communication, and teamship. They force revenue and product leaders to work through challenges together instead of operating in silos.The challenge comes when the CRO is measured on bookings and revenue while the CPO is measured on adoption and product usage. Both leaders are trying to achieve business growth, but they're often looking at different data and hearing different signals from the market.So how do you solve that tension?For me, it starts with communication. The CRO needs to understand how the CPO prefers to receive feedback and market intelligence. Product teams don't just need complaints—they need patterns, context, and evidence that help them make informed roadmap decisions.This is especially important in HR tech because buyer expectations change quickly. The reasons HR leaders bought software a few years ago may be completely different from the reasons they're buying today.That's why companies need a structured way to gather market feedback and translate it into actionable insights for product teams. When that happens, product leaders gain more trust in revenue feedback, revenue leaders gain more appreciation for product constraints, and both teams become more aligned.At the end of the day, most CRO-CPO conflict isn't about each other. It's about reacting to pressure and trying to hit goals.The best leaders remember that neither side is the enemy. The market is simply providing information, and both teams need to respond to it together.When product and revenue align around what the market is actually telling them, shared OKRs become a true competitive advantage.

Understand how to close the gap between AI experimentation and enterprise production. Shub Agarwal, Founder of the AI Trust Lab at USC and author of Successful AI Product Creation: A Nine-Step Framework, shares his AI product management framework for taking enterprise AI strategy from demo to production, drawing on two decades of product leadership at Amazon and Fortune 50 firms. He breaks down why experimentation must tie directly to business OKRs, the four mindset shifts leaders need to scale AI responsibly, and how the AI Trust Lab is building a benchmark evaluation framework for AI model trust and governance. Key Moments: Why 80% of AI Projects Never Reach Production (02:13): Shub traces the root cause of stalled AI programs to a missing system for moving from demo to deployment. Most teams have no repeatable path to production. Shub's Nine-Step Framework for Building AI Products (06:00): Most AI projects start with a cool model instead of a painful problem. Shub walks through the three phases of his framework: discovery, execution, and excellence. The Case Against "Fix Your Data First" (12:41): Conventional wisdom says clean your data before building AI. Shub challenges that, arguing modern LLMs offer far more flexibility with imperfect data. Four Mindset Shifts for Scaling Enterprise AI (16:35): Shub outlines the four shifts separating organizations that scale AI from those that stall, from measuring AI performance differently to embedding trust from day one. Inside Shub's AI Trust Lab at USC (23:54): Major foundation models are already being benchmarked on trust and safety. Shub explains the lab's mission to build a standardized evaluation framework for AI model governance. Why Enterprise AI Governance Needs Multiple Disciplines (28:36): AI models can be sycophantic, manipulative, or lack candor. Shub argues that building trustworthy AI demands an interdisciplinary approach. Key Quotes: “I think the fundamental problem that organizations are facing today… is not that they have a lack of experimentation in the demo aspect. The challenge is they don't know how to take those demos to production, and that is where I saw the gap.” - Shub Agarwal “I do think data is the fuel for AI… But I think today organizations are crippled by this ‘fix your data, and then we'll build AI', and they never build AI. They never build use cases that are adding value.” - Shub Agarwal “There's no FICO scores for models, so I decided to create one. I built this lab… bringing the computer scientists, the researchers, the applied AI researchers, the policy, and the communication people together to think of what is trust, define it, and ultimately measure and evaluate it.” - Shub Agarwal Mentions USC AI Trust Hub Successful AI Product Creation: A Nine-Step Framework by Shub Agarwal Four Steps to Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products That Win by Steve Blank Masters of Scale podcast with Reid Hoffman Guest Bios  Shub Agarwal is an associate professor of professional practice at the University of Southern California, an industry executive, and an advisor to start-ups and academic institutions. He holds an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and an MS from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). He is the author of two books: Solve Catch-22 of Product Management and Successful AI Product Creation: A 9-Step Framework. He has made significant contributions to the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning, holding several U.S. and global patents for his work, and is also a published author of several technical research papers. With around two decades of extensive experience in product management and leadership, his journey has been marked by a relentless pursuit of leveraging AI technologies to create impactful products that redefine industry standards. His industry experience includes leadership roles at Amazon, Silicon Valley start-ups, and other Fortune 50 firms. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Six companies, seven days, same playbook. Welcome to the modern age where the excuses are interchangeable, the points don't matter, and ALL the strategies are not-so-secretly the same! Listen or watch as Product Manager Brian Orlando and Enterprise Business Agility Leader Om Patel talk through this month's round of layoffs and expose why Cloudflare's AI-first cuts and Fidelity's RTO-to-layoff pipeline aren't strategic decisions at all!What Brian and Om get into:Why Cloudflare cut 1,100 workers the same day they reported 34% revenue growthHow mimetic isomorphism drives CEO herd behaviorIncentive structures that reward confident memosWhy your sprint reviews, OKRs, and retro actions MIGHT be running the same playA diagnostic for catching yourself performing response instead of executing changeBy the end of this episode, you'll be spotting these announcement-as-strategy patterns in real time, maybe even in your own meetings!#CorporateStrategy #TechLayoffs #ProductManagementCloudflare, Fidelity, Coinbase, Meta, Microsoft, Harris School at University of Chicago, Marty CaganLINKSYouTube: https://youtu.be/VTA_y38MXu8Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/362QvYORmtZRKAeTAE57v3Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agile-podcast/id1568557596INTRO MUSICToronto Is My BeatBy Whitewolf (Source: https://ccmixter.org/files/whitewolf225/60181)CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)

Christian Thordal: Managing Cross-Team Dependencies in Scaled Agile, From Planning to Real-Time Coordination Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "When one team's plan failed, the rest collapsed — deliveries and outcomes were delayed across the entire domain." - Christian Thordal   In this episode, Christian Thordal shares the biggest challenge he faced as an Agile Coach working within a large Danish broadcast company's technology division, where 32 teams operate across multiple domains. Within his domain of 10 teams, they plan in three-month cycles using OKRs, but a critical blind spot kept undermining their results: nobody had a clear grasp of the dependencies between teams and sister domains. When one team's delivery slipped in a previous cycle, it triggered a cascade of failures across the organization. Christian and the agile coaching community escalated the issue to the portfolio and delivery department, pushing to synchronize cycle timing across domains. He introduced a "big room planning" approach within his domain to map out which teams they impact and who impacts them, structured around a three-week cadence: define OKRs, align, then commit. A key coaching insight reshaped his thinking: dependencies are not facts — they are decisions. By naming the specific people involved (the person who needs resolution and the person who provides it), teams can manage dependencies in real-time rather than waiting for a program management layer that only addresses problems after escalation. Christian now plans to establish dedicated coordination days during each cycle where teams actively collaborate and resolve dependency issues together.   Self-reflection Question: When dependencies between your teams cause delivery failures, do you treat them as coordination problems to solve in real-time, or do you wait for escalation through a management layer?   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Christian Thordal: How "Fake Kanban" Fooled the Metrics, And What This Agile Coach Did to Fix It Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "The team was like birds in a nest waiting to get fed — completely dependent on the PO for every piece of work." - Christian Thordal   Christian tells us about a team that always appeared busy but was hiding serious dysfunction behind a single healthy metric. When he rated the system across his domain, he found the team scored low in process maturity, effectiveness, and learning — yet their cycle time looked good. The team claimed to practice Kanban, but in reality it meant "we can do whatever we want." Daily standups had become social check-ins. The backlog held over 100 items to do and 50+ in progress, most of them just headlines with no descriptions. Real work assignments happened through 30-minute Slack huddles between the PO and individual developers — pure push, no prioritization. Despite having OKRs, the team could only plan a week ahead. Christian's fix was radical: he restarted the backlog entirely, cutting 150 items down to roughly 30, established WIP limits to create a pull-based system, and brought the team into the process as active participants rather than passive recipients.   In this segment, we refer to Kanban and OKRs.   Self-reflection Question: When was the last time you looked beyond a single "green" metric to understand what was really happening in your team's workflow? Featured Book of the Week: Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet Christian recommends Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet, a former U.S. Navy submarine commander who transformed his crew's performance by replacing permission-seeking with intent-based leadership. Instead of waiting for orders, crew members were expected to say "I intend to..." — transferring ownership and making people accountable for their decisions. Christian says this deeply resonated with his own military background in the Danish Army, where leadership operated on similar principles. The book's core message — stop creating dependency and start building leaders at every level — connects directly to the team story in this episode, where passive dependency on the PO was the root of the dysfunction. You can also listen to previous episodes with David Marquet and explore more on intent-based leadership.   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

Get featured on the show by leaving us a Voice Mail: https://bit.ly/MIPVM This episode explores how business leaders are actually using AI inside organisations, and why adoption of tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot remains low. Chris shares practical insight from the frontline, covering Copilot strategy, Work IQ, agentic thinking, and how AI now enables teams to build internal tools faster than buying SaaS. The focus is not hype, but how to reimagine business models, reduce cost, and unlock new value with applied AI capability.

In this episode we are joined with Mattias Ejbe, project manager, civil engineer and podcast host, to talk about project management, goal-setting and execution. We discuss why clear goals, roles and priorities are essential for turning strategy into real results, and how project management can support OKRs in practice. This episode is about aligning goals and project management to create clarity and better results.  

Heading to Vegas this May? Join Josh at Pulse 2026 and come say hi—your oversized fluorescent daiquiri is on him. No catch.Grab your ticket at gainsightpulse.com and use code UNCHURNED for a special rate.Rob Edmondson, CCO at Ironclad - an AI contracting platform - brings a military-grade operating philosophy to customer outcomes: mission first, people always.In this episode, he breaks down what happened when his team used AI to predict churn — and why the results blew up their assumptions about what "good adoption" actually looks like.Rob reveals how down-market customers who adopted AI features too early actually churned more, why enterprise renewal patterns look nothing like daily usage. He also gets honest about the governance-vs-freedom tension every leader is navigating with AI tools right now.---Timestamps0:00 - Preview & introduction1:40 - Meet Rob Edmondson, CCO of Ironclad4:01 - Rob's career origin story5:03 - "Mission first, people always" - leadership from the military9:15 - How Rob enables a people-first culture across his teams11:05 - Using AI internally to predict churn & the surprising findings14:22 - Building a four-stage maturity model from churn prediction data16:35 - The AI vibe check: governance vs. freedom balancing act20:20 - Can you mandate AI usage? 21:57 - Tying every AI agent to an OKR22:40 - Ironclad's OKRs & Driving AI feature adoption---What You'll Learn- How Ironclad built an AI model that predicts churn six months out- The difference between enterprise and SMB "digital signatures" of healthy customers- How to build a four-stage customer maturity model with measurable adoption gates- Why Rob ties CSM compensation to stage-progression KPIs, not activity metrics- What "mission first, people always" means when translated from the military to SaaS- How Ironclad balances AI governance with giving teams freedom to experiment- What an AI roadmap looks like when every agent is tied to an OKR---Want the playbook, not just the conversation? Subscribe for deep-dive, actionable breakdowns from every episode at unchurned.substack.com.---Where to Find the GuestRob Edmondson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/redmondson/---Where to Find Josh:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/Unchurned Substack: https://unchurned.substack.com/

Glenn Youngkin was the 74th Governor of Virginia. Before politics, he spent nearly 25 years at The Carlyle Group, one of the largest private equity firms in the world, where he rose to co-CEO. During his four-year term, Virginia generated $10B in surplus revenue, delivered $9B in tax relief, attracted $156B in capital investment, and became one of the first states in the country to mandate cell-phone-free classrooms.In this episode of Summation, Glenn and Auren discuss:Why every Virginia state agency got OKRs and how it transformed a 110,000-person governmentWhy decommissioning baseload power was one of the dumbest decisions ever made How Loudoun County gets more than 25% of its tax base from data centersHow a startup used AI to cut more Virginia regulations in 7 months than 3 years of manual workYou can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Glenn Youngkin on X at @GlennYoungkin

https://cansel-soergens.com/ In dieser Episode des Liberating Structures Praxis-Podcasts spricht Christian mit Cansel Sörgens, Strategieberaterin und Strategie-Coach für Vorstands- und Topmanagement-Ebenen. Wir tauchen tief in die Welt der Strategieentwicklung ein und schauen uns an, wie strategische Ziele mit Hilfe von OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) und agilen Prinzipien wirklich in die Tat umgesetzt werden. Cansel teilt ihre praxiserprobten Ansätze, wie Unternehmen einen echten strategischen Fokus für die nächsten 12 bis 18 Monate finden und diesen durch bereichsübergreifende „Shared Mission Teams“ erfolgreich realisieren können. Dabei räumt sie mit dem Mythos auf, dass Strategie ein reines „Einmal-im-Jahr“-Event hinter verschlossenen Türen ist. Ihr klares Motto lautet stattdessen: „10 minutes of strategy a day keeps the trouble away.“ In dieser Folge erfährst du unter anderem: Methoden-Integration: Wie man mit Liberating Structures wie Ecocycle Planning Bestandsaufnahmen macht und den strategischen Fokus schärft. Hierarchien überbrücken: Warum 25/10 Crowdsourcing das perfekte Werkzeug ist, um den „Hippo-Effekt“ zu vermeiden und ehrliche, anonyme Ideen für Objectives aus der Gruppe zu generieren. Mensch vs. Maschine: Warum Künstliche Intelligenz den menschlichen Dialog, das kritische Hinterfragen und gemeinsame Diskussionen in Strategie-Workshops niemals ersetzen wird – und wie man KI stattdessen als kluges Synthese-Tool nutzt. Pragmatismus im Alltag: Warum blinde Regelbefolgung bei Frameworks (seien es OKRs, Scrum oder Liberating Structures) oft scheitert und wie wichtig die pragmatische und kontextbezogene Anpassung ist. Strategie-Routinen: Warum strategische Überprüfungen auf Unternehmensebene nicht nur quartalsweise, sondern mindestens monatlich stattfinden sollten, um den Kurs rechtzeitig zu korrigieren. Event- & Community-Tipps aus der Folge: Besucht die lokalen Liberating Structures User Groups (z. B. in Hamburg, Köln, München, Berlin), um gemeinsam und ehrenamtlich zu üben. Sichert euch Tickets für die LS Connect am 11. September in Köln. https://ls-connect.de/ Wer intensiv an einem Tag Methoden lernen möchte, sollte sich die Workshops von Daniel Steinhöfer (befreiendestrukturen.de) ansehen. Feedback & Kontakt: Lust, im Podcast über deine Praxiserfahrungen zu sprechen? Schreib Christian gerne eine E-Mail an ls.prapraxispodcast@gmail.com oder vernetze dich mit ihm auf LinkedIn. Wenn dir diese Folge gefallen hat, abonniere den Podcast im Podcatcher deiner Wahl und hinterlasse uns eine Bewertung – so hilfst du uns, die Reichweite zu erhöhen und noch mehr Menschen für Liberating Structures zu begeistern!

From Surrey Estate to shaping the future of business and technology — this episode is packed with purpose, perspective, and powerful conversation.This week on the Gen C Podcast, we sit down with the brilliant Mushfiqoh Samodien of Aspire Solutions as she shares a deeply personal and inspiring journey of resilience, leadership, family legacy, and building impact that outlives us.Mushfiqoh reflects on growing up in Surrey Estate, navigating life in a divorced household, becoming mature at a young age, and how those experiences built the strength and resilience she carries today. She also honours the influence of her father, who played a pivotal role in establishing the licensing for Voice of the Cape Radio — a legacy of service that helped shape her own mission to uplift community and create meaningful change.

If you know someone who is in Portland and super passionate about impact investing (CDFIs, credit unions, land trusts, financing childcare infrastructure!, community development and/or consulting company operations (standard operating procedures! templates! OKRs!) send them to morrisonicpod at gmail.  I'll have a real job listing by the end of the week.  I'm looking for one or maybe two analysts.

https://youtu.be/vmziYo0mPmE David Steele, serial entrepreneur and Founder and CEO of One Wealth Advisors, is driven by a simple but powerful mission: helping people. Whether through wealth management, hospitality ventures, or advising founders and leadership teams, David sees all of his businesses through one lens—service, care, and improving the lives of the people they touch. We explore David's OKR Goal Setting Framework—a practical system for turning intention into results: identify, articulate, share, measure, and execute. David explains why limiting goals to just a few priorities creates clarity, how articulating and sharing them builds accountability, and why consistent measurement and execution are what ultimately drive outcomes. He also shares how this framework applies differently in life versus business, why simplicity beats complexity in strategic planning, and how a hospitality mindset fuels both growth and long-term client loyalty. — Set Goals in 5 Steps with David Steele  Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast, and my guest today is David Steele, a serial entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of One Wealth Advisors. David, welcome to the show.  Oh, thanks for having me.  Well, great to have you. You have a very interesting career and interesting businesses, and you keep a lot of balls in the air. So I'd like to dig in. I was very interested in what I read on your website about your personal mission and why you do things. So would you mind sharing with our listeners what your personal “why” is and how you are manifesting it in your business and businesses?  My personal why—it's always people. And everything I've done in my life is about figuring out ways that I can help people.Share on X I have done so in what is seemingly different businesses. My primary role is founder and CEO of a wealth management financial planning company called One Wealth Advisors, where we work with a little over 400 families, helping them manage their financial lives. But I’ve also created two restaurant companies that are, I think, involved in the conversation around culture. They’re cool, they’re interesting. They currently have seven restaurants combined, with four more opening over the next six months. And these are seemingly different businesses, but for me, it's really about people. The financial planning company, I see as a hospitality business—we serve people. I’m very skeptical of the majority of the financial services industry, which tries to sell their value proposition on their technical wizardry or perspective on investing or tricks or whatever. And for us, it's like—that's commoditized. Everybody’s doing the same stuff. Our value proposition is that there is nobody who will envelop you with more care, love, service, attentiveness, responsiveness, and proactiveness in the industry than we will.Share on X And we can compete on that. And when I describe my financial planning company that way, and I then talk about restaurants as hospitality businesses—which is not much of a stretch—where we envelop people with deliciousness and great service, the common thread comes through. But maybe the deeper common thread for me is my partners in these different businesses. My role in their lives is to help them—as individuals, as partners in our companies—to live happy, peaceful, productive lives and to feel valued. So for me, I do the same thing every day, all day—but everyone else sees these different weird things. I’m the board of a coffee shop company, another restaurant company, a music band management company, and a music production company. And my view on all of those is that I'm there to provide hospitality and service to the founders and the executive teams of those companies. So for me, it's all about people.Share on X Very interesting. I mean, the hospitality angle and the quality-of-life angle—I saw it on your website. You really don't talk about financial performance there at all. You talk about how to improve the life of your clients. That’s kind of the big theme there. And I like the blogs as well—that also comes back to the quality-of-life theme. So anyhow, I don't want to get too deep into this, because what I'm curious about is frameworks. This is a podcast about frameworks, and I wonder—what is the framework that has worked in your life that is simple to explain, maybe three to five steps, that you could share with the audience? Something they could use to help their own businesses or themselves by implementing or thinking about things in a clearer, simpler way. It's so basic. The key to life, in my mind, is so basic. Identify goals—two to four. More than five is probably too many. And I don't care if it's for your business, your life, a relationship—I don't care what it is. Actually identify those goals. Articulate those goals—clear, concise, as few words as possible. Try to apply some type of measurement to those goals. And then once those goals are articulated, you can measure them, whether they succeed or fail. It becomes pretty clear what a strategic plan might look like to achieve those goals. And I think that goal setting is human magic.  I've written a couple of life plans throughout my life, and I never looked at them again after writing them—until many, many years later. And lo and behold, I achieved everything I’d written on those life plans. I usually don’t look at them for 10 years. And I just think the clear articulation of the goal, sharing the goals with people—because then you become accountable, to yourself and to them—it's out in the world. You're going to achieve those things.Share on X Okay, so identify, articulate, share, measure, and execute—is that the framework?  That’s it.  Yeah. Love it. That’s great. Yeah, I mean, goals do have a magic to them, so if you don’t ever look at them, how do you not forget them?  I think that’s the human magic part. I mean, for a business, I do believe goal setting and strategic planning should be a continual process. For life planning, I think it's probably okay to articulate your goals and maybe not look at them again. And I don’t necessarily think for life planning you need to have a written strategic plan. The human magic part is that if you say you want to do something in life, and you articulate it and you share it with people, the human magic part is it’s now present forever in your subconscious. And so energetically, you’re going to, I think, very naturally orient yourself around those goals just simply in your everyday existence. And I think that’s for maybe for life planning. For businesses, I do think it’s best to have a framework for this, and so my businesses use, and I don’t care what the framework is—we use objectives and key results, OKRs. They're pretty commonly used now. And I don’t care if you use KPIs, OKRs, or whatever it may be. You and your team should sit down each year, and ideally you already have a long-term vision for the company, which should be pretty concise and focused. And then your annual goal setting in between and what I’ll call tactical plans or mini strategic plans that you can then look at each quarter. With the objectives and key results, we assign a leader to each objective. The leader understands that they are tasked with organizing the necessary team members to achieve the goal.Share on X We have key results that we define in our annual strategic planning meeting, and then we have quarterly check-ins. I’m the CEO of the financial planning company, so I check in with each leader every quarter to see how they’re progressing on their objectives and the key results for those objectives. And then for the restaurant companies, I am the executive chairman of both of them and a co-founder. I meet with the CEO, and then the CEO meets with the team to check in on their progress of their goals. So the human magic part is this idea that you can just say, “I want to do this thing,” write it down, and not look at it again. But for business, I do think it requires a more consistent, structured, written approach.  So help me with these OKRs. I mean, I’m familiar with the OKRs, but what I've always wondered is, when you have key results for every objective, then is this not too limiting in terms of having to choose the kind of objective which you can measure with the key results, as opposed to—and maybe this is my blind spot here. Maybe there are objectives that don't really lend themselves to regular measurement of key results, but because they are maybe binary. Either we acquired this new location or we didn’t, there’s not really much key results other than it has to be a size, profitability, whatever. So I don't know—maybe I'm rambling here—but what's your view on this?  Well, I mean, I would push back a little bit on that. Let's say your objective is to acquire—through vertical or horizontal integration—another business. I think a key result could be, over the course of the year: what is the process by which you're identifying potential companies to acquire? What is your vetting process? What is the activity around outreach, vetting, and analysis? Maybe sometimes there's a bit of a square peg, round hole problem with this, but I don’t think there’s a negative to articulating the binary objective, even if it’s imperfect key results that you’re going to be using to measure them. Yeah, I think I need more clarity on this. I always thought of the two sides of the coin is you’ve got the easily measurable things, which typically pertain to the business—growing the business, executing processes, doing sales activities, this kind of stuff, which is working on the present. And then you have those bigger—what do you call them—OKRs or Rocks—those big objectives that is going to build more capacity in your business for the future so that you can expand the business. That might be hiring a key executive to own your marketing function, where key results are maybe trickier to define, but it's really important for the future. Do you see any distinction between these two?  I mean, maybe—but let's go back to the original point. What started this conversation was that I think you should have a framework. I don't really care what the framework is. All I'm arguing for is identifying and articulating goals, and figuring out some kind of strategic planning process to achieve those goals. I actually don’t really care what it is. I've consulted with a number of businesses—helping entrepreneurs start businesses, probably close to eight now—and I'm always surprised that something as simple as writing down goals, articulating them, measuring them, and building a plan around them is not natural to most people. I think if people just start with the basics, they're already ahead of most. And this is about as basic as it gets.  Yeah, that’s true. So what drives growth in your business, in the One Wealth Advisors business?  We're in a very luxurious position, and I tell people I'm the richest person they've ever met. And people are like, “What?” And I say, “Well, I have everything I want, and you can't be richer than that. There's no such thing as richer than having everything you want,” at least the way I define it. And where I'm going with this is—I've tried to espouse a philosophy across the company that every team member should spend less than they make, no matter what. And not overextend themselves with commitments—like a mortgage—that causes stress and anxiety and so forth and so on. So there’s a fiscal discipline and that’s espoused across each team member, and most importantly, me and my brother—we started the company together, and we're the major shareholders. If we take that approach, that’s number one. The second thing is—we don't have any sales, marketing, or business development efforts whatsoever, which is shocking to 99% of business people I talk to. But it's grounded in a philosophy that the greatest salespeople we're ever going to have are our clients—talking to their friends and their network. And if we put literally 100% of our effort into serving our clients for free—they'll spread the word. They’ll be so excited about what we do for them and with them that they will be more than willing that if somebody asks them who they should talk to or work with, the answer is us. We've been doing that for almost 20 years now. The practice started 35 years ago, but we've been operating this way for almost 20 years.  And our annual growth rate is about 20% a year, without any business development or marketing whatsoever. We could probably be growing more than that, but we keep our spending in check. We don’t overextend ourselves, so it doesn't force us to stay on that treadmill. The idea of being on a treadmill—having to grow just to keep up—causes me stress and anxiety, and I don't like that. So that's One Wealth. Now, restaurants are a less good business. My financial planning company will do seven and a half million in revenue this year with 13 employees. My first restaurant company will do $30 million in revenue with 350 employees. It's a much more labor-intensive, harder business. And the people I started the restaurant companies with—just to be blunt—for them to build wealth so they can afford to take care of their families the way they deserve to, for their talents and their creativity, et cetera, et cetera, you need to grow. And so the way we define growth in the restaurant company, just frankly, is through building the organizations so they are ready to scale.  That means having leadership that's trained, has mastery, and understands how to lead each level of layers of management, and then opening new restaurants. Or with one of our companies, it's a line of consumer packaged goods. The Flour + Water Hospitality Group is my first restaurant company, and we've launched frozen pizza in 40 grocery stores, and we have dried pasta in 75 stores now. And we're going to really try to grow that. And that’s measurable, right? It's new restaurants, more grocery stores, more revenue. So we're a bit more intentional about growing those businesses.  That’s really interesting. So when you grow an asset management firm by 20% over 20 years, then maybe half of that comes from the appreciation of the assets, doesn't it? No—and I know where your head went, which is the S&P 500 has grown at about 10% a year over the last 100 years. But the truth is, about 55% of our clients' assets are in equities on average, and about 45% are in bonds. If you're younger, you have more equities; if you're older, you have less. But the average annual return for a portfolio like that is probably closer to about 6.5%. So about a third of our growth has probably come through market appreciation. We don't generally lose clients, so your math is clean, right? If we lost clients, we'd have attrition and would need to replace them, which doesn’t really happen for us. So about maybe two-thirds of our growth has come from referrals.  Yeah, that's pretty cool. I mean, I've also learned that if you have a business with high churn, then you have no time to serve your customers.  And if you’re spending a lot of effort on business development, you’re spending less time on serving your customers, and you’re going to have higher churn.  They're not going to refer you, because they're not getting great service—and then they churn instead of referring. So it's very smart.  We do an annual survey of our clients, and we always score above 95% in terms of satisfaction. We also do an annual survey with our team members, and we score really high there as well. The greatest evidence of that is our turnover is damn near 0% since we launched the company. Generally, people who work with us don’t leave us.  That's awesome. So you're doing a lot of things right. It seems like you have a clear plan, you’ve got strategic planning, you understand what you want, what you need, what you don’t need. What is one thing that you are actively trying to figure out in the asset management business? Well, we launched—unfortunately—a tax practice this year. I say “unfortunately” because we had no interest in competing with CPAs. Historically, we referred our clients to CPAs. But there's a problem in the tax business. My assessment is that taxes are becoming more complex, not less. Less people want to become accountants and there’s a supply-demand problem with accountants. And the existing accountants, in my view, have taken on too many clients, and their service has deteriorated. We get more and more complaints about clients dissatisfaction with their accountants than anything else in our practice. So we finally said, “You know what?  We're going to beta test a tax practice.” We're doing tax returns this year for 15 clients. I never wanted to do this type of business. It actually makes sense, because financial planning and tax are deeply intertwined. The fact that they were ever separate disciplines, in retrospect, doesn't make much sense. So I'm glad I'm being forced into it—but it's a problem. I'm not sure how good we are at it yet. I hope we don't mess it up too much this year with these 15 clients, and I hope we eventually really good at it. But it’s the problem for me, and I’m not happy about it.  So you said there are 13 people in the wealth management, so you have a couple of people on the tax side?  Yeah, we have, call it, one and a half people dedicated to tax. And then we've partnered—well, there's one more variable in tax, which is interesting. I believe AI will eventually do 90-plus percent of the work that an accountant does. There's an intersection—or an inflection point—that hasn't been hit yet, which is: fewer accountants, more complex tax work, and AI hasn't solved it yet. My hypothesis is that we can start to develop the muscle memory and mastery around doing tax. Eventually, AI will be such a strong support that we'll be able to do tax returns for all of our clients with a relatively small number of people. That’s our hypothesis. In the interim, we've partnered with a company called April, which is a venture-backed startup that provides the analysis and tax return preparation. So we have one and a half people who organize the tax work for our client base, but then the actual heavy lifting of the analysis is done by April. And if April is listening to this, it's fine when I say we're perfectly happy to replace April with AI once AI is ready—but it just isn't ready yet. So we're just getting started on something that we believe will eventually become relatively easy. But right now, it's still a bit clunky.  I don't know if it was Warren Buffett or someone else—maybe his partner—who talked about how important tax planning is in actually making money. If you do the right kind of tax planning, it's basically one half of the return you can make just by optimizing your taxes. Would you agree with that?  Well, I don't know that I'd be comfortable making a blanket statement like “one half.” I think the wealthier you are, the higher the probability that with advanced tax planning, the net impact on your wealth over time could be more than half. I mean, think about estate planning. We have a client, for example—a taxable estate is one where your net worth is over, I'm going to simplify, about $13 million per person. So for a married couple, $26 million. Anything over that gets taxed at—again, I'm averaging—around a 50% estate tax when you die. Okay, so what can you do? You can, while you're alive, give away some of that $13 million instead of waiting until you die. How can you do that? Maybe you make investments in your kids' names rather than your own, so it's not part of that $13 million. We had a client, for example, who invested in a company that ended up being worth $60 million. But guess what? That $60 million was not in their name—it was in their kid's name. So it skipped a generation. So what is that worth? Fifty percent of anything over $26 million in estate tax—what is that worth in terms of average annual return? I don't know—you can't really calculate it cleanly. But it's millions and millions of dollars. Yeah, so it's very high leverage—that's the point.  Yeah.  That's amazing. I mean, you shared some really great ideas here. I like the framework: identify your goals, articulate them, share them with other people. I like the sharing because it basically creates some peer accountability, right? And also people are then aligned with what your context is. So that’s great. Then measure and execute—that's great. We talk about OKRs, we talk about tax planning, and the philosophy of building businesses—the difference between a business that needs to grow and one that can grow more organically. That’s amazing. Is there anything else you'd like to share with our audience? And then I’m going to ask you, of course, if people would like to learn more about what you do and would like to learn more about One Wealth Advisors, where should they go and where can they learn more? But first, what's your final message to our listeners? Well, you didn't rehash the first thing I said, which is—it's always about people. It’s always about people. Everything one does in life, in my opinion, should be in the service of others somehow. And I think that's what gives us our greatest sense of satisfaction, self-worth, and place in the world. So I really want to leave people with that message. In terms of reaching me, I have a website I built, because I do a bunch of different things. One Wealth Advisors has its own website, which you can easily search, but I also have davidsteele.xyz, which primarily points to One Wealth, but then points to the other stuff I do, including other businesses I’ve started, and the boards I’m on, and the consulting work that we do. Okay, that's definitely worth exploring. So check it out. And if you enjoyed this conversation and you're listening here, don't forget to subscribe and tune in, because every week I have an exciting entrepreneur coming on the show to share their learnings and insights. Important Links: David's LinkedIn David's website One Wealth Advisors website

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. I'm thrilled to welcome you back to a series I did with my dear friend, Roger Martin. He's the author of the amazing book, Playing to Win. In this episode, we discuss whether OKRs, or Objectives and Key Results, actually help you win or whether they're masquerading as strategy.   THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR…leaders and operators who are frustrated with OKRs, unclear metrics, or goals that feel disconnected from reality and want a smarter way to connect strategy to execution.   TODAY'S MAIN MESSAGE…we often treat OKRs like a magic solution, but according to Roger, they're only as good as the strategy behind them. Too many organizations jump straight from setting big goals (the "O") to measuring results (the "KR") without doing the hard work in between. That missing middle—where to play, how to win, and what capabilities are required—is what actually makes goals achievable.   KEY TAKEAWAYS… OKRs fail when there's no strategy connecting the objective to the results. Measurement helps but not everything that matters can be measured. The "middle three boxes" (where to play, how to win, capabilities) determine success. Many OKRs are unrealistic because they're based on assumptions, not strategy. When goals aren't achievable, adjust the strategy or reset the goal.   WHAT I LOVE MOST…Roger's reminder that metrics don't create outcomes but strategy does. This is such an important shift, especially for teams stuck chasing numbers that were never grounded in reality.   Running Time: 25:36 Subscribe on iTunes     Find Tiffani Online: LinkedIn Facebook X    Find Roger Online: LinkedIn Website   Show Summary on Substack

Marketing feels harder than it should right now. Bigger targets, tighter budgets, AI expectations, more noise everywhere… and somehow it's still “why didn't that email get opened more?”

In this episode of The Voice of Retail, host Michael LeBlanc sits down with Rohit Sriram, Senior Vice-President eCommerce at Loblaw Companies Limited, for an exclusive preview of the ideas, strategies, and thought leadership he'll be bringing to the stage at the Retail Council of Canada's highly anticipated STORE Conference this June in Toronto. For retail leaders planning to attend STORE—or those tracking the future of AI in commerce—this conversation offers an early look at how one of Canada's most sophisticated retailers is operationalizing artificial intelligence at scale. Sriram leads one of the most expansive digital ecosystems in the country, spanning eCommerce across Loblaw's grocery banners, Shoppers Drug Mart, Joe Fresh, and the PC Optimum loyalty program. At the core of his approach is a disciplined focus on solving real customer problems—not chasing technology trends. In this discussion, he breaks down how Loblaw cuts through the noise around AI by anchoring every investment in two critical questions: what problem are we solving, and is this solution materially better than what exists today? This pragmatic lens has enabled the company to move beyond traditional personalization toward real-time, context-aware customer experiences powered by advanced data and AI capabilities. Listeners will gain early insight into the themes shaping Sriram's upcoming STORE panel, including the rise of “agentic commerce,” the growing influence of AI-powered discovery platforms, and the evolution of conversational interfaces across both third-party ecosystems and owned retail channels. A key takeaway is the shift from static segmentation to dynamic personalization—where customers are no longer defined by a single identity, but understood across multiple, evolving contexts. This capability is unlocking more relevant engagement, stronger loyalty, and improved conversion across Loblaw's platforms. Sriram also shares how Loblaw's culture of experimentation—grounded in OKRs, rapid testing, and scalable architecture—allows the organization to validate and deploy innovation quickly while maintaining operational discipline. For those attending STORE, this episode serves as a strategic primer. For those unable to attend, it delivers a front-row perspective on the ideas that will shape the conversation on stage. Whether you're a retailer, brand leader, or technologist, this is your opportunity to hear directly from one of the industry's leading voices—before he takes the spotlight. Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fifth year in a row, the National Retail Federation has designated Michael as on their Top Retail Voices for 2025 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail. If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael's cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.

Most agency owners spend a lot of time thinking about growth, clients, and revenue. Far fewer think carefully about the words that define how they actually operate their businesses. In this episode, Chip and Gini dig into five of those words: leadership, management, accountability, responsibility, and authority. Leadership and management aren’t the same thing. Leadership is about vision and getting people to follow you. Management is about making the work happen. Knowing which one you’re stronger at is the first step toward building a team that covers your gaps. Accountability is the wrong place to start when a team member isn’t delivering. You can’t hold someone accountable for something you never clearly assigned, and you can’t hold them accountable if you didn’t give them the authority to get it done. Gini offers a useful comparison: when a client hires you for your expertise and then second-guesses every decision, it’s demoralizing. That’s exactly how your team feels when you delegate the work but not the authority to do it. The episode closes with a simple reminder. If you want more freedom as an owner, you have to be willing to actually let go. And if your team isn’t capable of handling more responsibility, you should be asking yourself why you hired them. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “You can’t really have accountability without the other two things. You can’t go and hold an employee accountable for something that you never told them that they had to do to begin with.” Gini Dietrich: “I think we are all guilty of thinking that management is, oh, we get to boss people around and tell people what to do.” Chip Griffin: “If I want to hold an employee accountable for profitability on something, or for results on a client project, I actually need to give them the responsibility and authority to do what they need to do in order to get that.” Gini Dietrich: “When you try to control everything, when you don’t delegate effectively, when you don’t give your team the authority and responsibility to do their jobs effectively, you are creating an environment that’s not fun to work in.” Turn ideas into action Write down who owns what. Pick three ongoing projects or responsibilities in your agency and write one name next to each. If you can’t, or if the answer is “everyone,” that’s the problem to solve first. Audit one recent accountability failure. Think of the last time a team member didn’t deliver on something. Ask honestly: did they have clear responsibility for it, and did they have the authority to get it done without coming back to you for approvals? Identify the specific gap. Read Chip’s two-part newsletter series on these five words. They cover the concepts in more depth than a single conversation allows. Then write the five words on a post-it and put it somewhere you’ll actually see it. Related 5 words critical to agency management success (part 1) 5 words critical to agency management success (part 2) View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: Gini, I’ve got, uh, I’ve got five words today, and that’s it. And then we’re outta here. Gini Dietrich: F…U… Chip Griffin: Words, not letters! No, we’ve already used more than five words, so. Gini Dietrich: Yep. No, Chip Griffin: I guess Gini Dietrich: you wrote about this. Chip Griffin: I guess we’re probably gonna need to come up with more than five words for this episode. Gini Dietrich: We’re, we should probably come up with several words for each of the five words, but you wrote about this and I thought it was really good. So we’re gonna talk about it. Chip Griffin: Yeah, last fall, as I was sitting there looking for inspiration for my newsletter, I started thinking about some of the language that I frequently use when I’m talking with agency owners. And so it became a two-part series in the SAGA newsletter, about five words that are critical to agency management success. And so, why not talk about them here? Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I think they’re really good. Chip Griffin: We’re always looking for ideas. Might as well pick something that we actually did a little work on. Gini Dietrich: Right. For a change. Chip Griffin: For a change. Gini Dietrich: We’ve got like four weeks in a row where we’ve done a little work. Chip Griffin: I mean, this is, I… dear listeners, please do not get used to this. We are not going to, you know, have actual prepared thoughts in advance of every episode. We just, we cannot handle that. A lot of it just needs to be off the cuff with us reacting to whatever randomly comes to mind in the seconds before I hit record. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Chip Griffin: But this week we can tap into a little bit more depth. Last week, I mean, last week we did a lot of research for episode 300. Gini Dietrich: We did. We spent like days on that. It was a year’s worth of content. Chip Griffin: We did research, we brought AI into it. We started reading through past, I mean Gini Dietrich: mm-hmm. Yep. Chip Griffin: It was, it was truly exhausting, so Gini Dietrich: it was exhausting. I’m still recovering. Chip Griffin: Fortunately this is work that was already done. We’re just retapping into it. So, those five words that we’re going to be talking about today are leadership, management, accountability, responsibility, and authority. And we’re really looking at this through the lens of management of your business. So there’s a lot of other things that have to do with agencies where we can come up with other words perhaps, or other context for these words. But this is really about how you manage the business, how you work with your team, how you work with clients, and all that sort of thing. And that was really what I was trying to get at here when I was trying to drill into these particular concepts. Gini Dietrich: I think the first two leadership and management are really good ones because I think we are all guilty of thinking that management is, oh, we get to boss people around and tell people what to do and, you know, go on about our days. And, I think we also confuse leadership and management. And so I think a good place to start is definitely there, which you did too, because it’s part one of your series. Chip Griffin: I did, I thought those were, yeah, those were big important concepts to get squared away before you get into some of the ones that, you know, later on in the list are, are a little bit more nitty gritty. And really about the functional aspect of it. When you’re thinking about leadership and management, you really have to think about it in my view in, in a couple of different ways and, leadership is more getting people who are willing and interested in following you somewhere. Right? It is, it is defining a path and convincing people, whether that’s prospects that you’re trying to get to become clients or team members who you’re getting to work together. It really is, it’s more about, you know, the ideas and the communication around it and the motivation of people that comes together. Management then becomes more about resources and, you know, and more of the, in the management of it to… management’s more about management. How’s that for…there is a limit how much we prepare for these things. It’s not like I have clear talking points. Gini Dietrich: I would say management’s more in weeds. So like, if I were thinking about it from my, my agency’s perspective. I tend to be more of the leader, so I’m vision, visionary, I’m setting the stage, I’m talking about where we’re going. And then Shelly, who is our chief operating Officer, she’s doing like standard operating procedures. She’s creating process, she’s creating procedures. She’s created an intranet where you get where you get out. Like that stuff to me, I would shoot myself in the head if I had to do that stuff. But she’s really, really good at it and she’s really good at creating the process. Like these are the things, this is how we do our work. And so she allows me to focus on what I’m good at, and I, and then, and she in turn gets to focus on what she’s good at. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And that, and that CEO-COO split is, is a good, you know, sort of simple way of thinking about the difference in leadership and management. It’s not a hundred percent sure, but it’s, it gets you most of the way there in, in how you think it through. I do think that almost all managers at every level need a little bit of both. Yeah, you can’t totally, even if you are a relatively junior manager. If you’ve got anybody reporting to you or you’re managing a project, you still need to have some of the leadership there in addition to the management. So, but they are, they’re really important things to have. They are different things, but you need to be, in order to be successful as an agency business, you need to have both of these in robust amounts within the business. Otherwise, you’ll be rudderless, you’ll be profitless, and you probably won’t be generating results for your clients. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I think it’s, I mean, I personally believe that you’re, you have strengths in one or the other. You can probably do both. Like I can manage the business. I don’t love it, so I’m not great at it. I procrastinate, I can do it. But that’s why I hired somebody to manage those kinds of things. Because I know how important it is. And, but if you can’t, if you don’t, like for many, many years I couldn’t afford to hire a COO. Right? And the business wasn’t big enough to have a COO, right? So what we did instead is we made it part of everybody’s job where I said, okay. As you’re doing this work, I need you to create a standard operating procedure. I need you to jot down the process. And some were great at it and some not so great at it. So we had some that were good and some weren’t. But I will tell you, AI today helps immensely with that. We use Scribe now, I think Scribe now, or Scribe how? One of the two. And it like creates the SOP for you while you do the work, so you just let it capture your screen. So there are lots of ways that you can do both. You can both be a manager and a leader, even if it’s not one of those is not a strength. Chip Griffin: Well look, and at some level we’re all managers, right? Sure. Even if we are a solo and we don’t have any clients or we are just writing a book or something like that. Yep. And just kind of doing it in isolation. Hard to do. But if you, even if you were that, you still need to have a level of management in the activity that you, yourself are doing. So, you know, none of us can give up on that completely. I think it’s really more thinking about the layers of management, and how deep you go. So, you know, there are people who are, you know, pretty good at what I would call executive management. You know, figuring out big picture, what are the, what are the general things that we need to be working on and, you know, providing the rails within which you work and operate. Then there are other people who can make the trains run on time. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: I am very much the former, not the latter. If you want someone to make the trains run on time, I’m way too all over the place with too many different ideas in order to do that effectively. And so, you know, and you have to understand as an individual and as a manager, what are your strengths in these areas? Because if you don’t understand that you are a better leader than manager, you don’t know what to shore up in terms of the team or what things to work on yourself or what safeguards you need to put into place to make sure that you’re not ignoring the important stuff. So like for me, since I’m not great at making trains run on time, I use a lot of software to try to make sure that I record all the little things and put the deadlines in so that I don’t sit there a week later and say, oh, right, I was supposed to file my taxes last week. I guess I should have done that. Right. So you’ve gotta have the systems in place to buffer yourself against the things that you’re not particularly good at to begin with. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Which I think is a really nice lead to accountability, which was your third word. Like we have to…it’s sort of like, you know, people will say to me all the time, gosh, I wish I was as disciplined as you are about exercise. The reason I’m as disciplined as I am is because I have accountability partners. Like if I, there are plenty of mornings where the alarm goes off and I just wanna roll over and go back to sleep for an hour and a half. But I have somebody counting on me, either my coach or somebody that’s waiting for me at the gym or whatever it happens to be. I have the accountability and that’s part of the reason I’m so, so disciplined. And I think we have to take that into our business as well. So even if you don’t have a team that can hold you accountable, there are plenty of resources. You know, there’s Slack communities, the Solo PR Pro community, the Spin Sucks community, the SAGA community on Slack. I think you can hire a coach. Like there are lots of things that you can do to hold yourself accountable. But I think that to your point, is a really good lead-in from leadership and management. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, the reason why I ended up writing about this over two weeks in my newsletter was not just because it was getting long. It was. Gini Dietrich: It was, sure. Chip Griffin: But, also because leadership and management really do fit together. But then the other three, accountability, responsibility, and authority come together, in important ways. And, and one of the things that I have found with a lot of agency owners, when I talk to them about their teams, they’ll ask me, you know, how can I hold my team more accountable for the results that I need for them? And it usually then evolves into a conversation about accountability, responsibility, and authority. Because you can’t really have accountability without the other two things. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And so they, they all are very much interconnected. And if you want to achieve results, particularly with your team, you need to think about how you mix these together. Because look, I mean, employees. Sometimes I say that employees and clients are a little bit like children as far as how you have to coach them and get them to move in a particular direction. But they’re different from kids and, I mean, you can’t just take an employee and put ’em in timeout or send them to their room. I mean, that’s Gini Dietrich: Unfortunately not, no. Chip Griffin: You know, you can try it. It’s, it’s not gonna work out. Gini Dietrich: It’s probably not gonna work. Yeah. Chip Griffin: So honestly, it doesn’t work all that well with kids either. But, you know, sometimes it makes you feel better. You know, my kids are way too old to be sent to their rooms now, so. It is what it is. But when they were little, you, you kind of liked doing that occasionally at least, but you knew it was really never gonna solve anything. It just got them outta your hair for a bit. So, but with employees, you need to think about this because usually accountability is the last place that you go to in order to solve a team problem. You really need to look at responsibility and authority first. Because you can only be accountable if you’ve been given responsibility for something, right? Right. So you can’t go and hold an employee accountable for something that you never told them that they had to do to begin with. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: And that doesn’t mean you need to tell ’em every little detail, right? But you, they’ve got to understand that this is a task or a project for which they are responsible. And one of the things I always say to people, and I’m not original in this, but you can’t have more than one person who is truly responsible for a task or project. Because as soon as two people share responsibility equally, it ain’t gonna happen. It’s just human nature, everybody kind of assumes someone else will pick up the slack. Gini Dietrich: It’s like a group project. Yep. Chip Griffin: So you’ve gotta be clear who has responsibility for this, who is walking outta this meeting with responsibility to get it done. So you start there and then you can start thinking about accountability. But, only if when you give them responsibility, you also give them authority, because this one I see all the time. You assign an employee something, you wanna hold them accountable. Because well, I, I, I told Sally that Sally was responsible for getting this done. But you didn’t give Sally the authority to go and get the resources she needed or to give the approvals herself. You kept all of that to yourself, and so Sally wasn’t able to actually get the job done because Sally was too dependent upon you. So if you want to hold somebody accountable, you’ve got to give them responsibility and authority to get the job done. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, 100%. You know, one of the things that we do internally here is objectives and key results. And so the leadership team will develop, we develop the company ones as a group, and then they develop their team ones. And then they are responsible for having their teams fill in their own. And so that practice alone has been really great from the perspective of helping everybody understand what they’re accountable for. So even if you’re a team of two people, you can still do that, right? Like it’s, and you don’t have to use OKRs, you can use KPIs, you can use whatever kinds of goal setting you prefer. But the practice of setting the goal and helping everybody understand who’s responsible for what, I think is a, it does that. Then of course you have to execute, right? But that’s where the accountability and responsibility comes in. But I think going through the practice of building those goals together really helps build that accountability. So people know, okay, this is what I’m responsible for. This is what so-and-so’s responsible for. This is what happens if I don’t do my job. And they won’t be able to do their part of the job. So it kind of helps them understand how all of the trains work together. Chip Griffin: Absolutely. And as agency leaders and managers, we think about this in client terms all the time, right? We sit there and we say, well, you know, the client wants us to do these things, but they haven’t given us the ability to make decisions around this. Or they haven’t given us the appropriate budget for something. Or they want us to have an impact on sales, but we can’t even talk to the sales team or whatever it might be. So we think about this naturally. All the time with our clients, and we chafe against the restrictions that our clients put in place, but we don’t think twice about putting those same handcuffs on our own employees. And so we need to be thoughtful about that and say, look, if I wanna hold an employee accountable for profitability on something, or for results on a client project, or for leads that they’re generating for the agency, then I actually need to give them the responsibility and authority to do what they need to do in order to get that. Otherwise, I have no business holding them accountable for something that I haven’t given them the flexibility to achieve. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. I think it’s just such a good practice in general, to think about that. And, you’re right, like the shoemaker’s children don’t have shoes. You know, we don’t, we don’t have great websites. We don’t have great content. We don’t have great thought leadership. We don’t do any planning for ourselves. We sort of just wait for the phone to ring, to drive new business. All of the things that we would never do for our clients, like we plan for our clients. We set goals, we measure results, we do all those things. That practice has to make it to your business as well, because if it doesn’t, you don’t have all of these things. You don’t have accountability and responsibility and leadership and management. You don’t have the ability to run a well-functioning, profitable business. You have to do those kinds of things just like you do for your clients. Chip Griffin: Well, and the thing is, if we adhere to these various guidelines that these five words bring to mind, it improves not just the business of the agency, but generally the lives of the agency owner. And as we all know, I’m obsessed with trying to make owners happy in what they do and not just yes, you know, sitting there and feeling tortured by their own business that they decided to create. And so a lot of these things get things off of your plate. It shares the responsibility and accountability across your team. But only if you’re willing to let go, you have to be willing to let go. And we talk all the time about the value in delegating things and all that. But, it really comes down to thinking about not just that I’ve delegated something, but that I’ve done it in a way that sets that team member up for success. And if you’re delegating responsibility and authority, that should allow you to have more freedom and to spend your time differently. Now, if you assign those things, but you’re not really giving it and you’re just micromanaging. What’s the point? That doesn’t help the employee. It doesn’t help you. It doesn’t help the business. So really think about these concepts and how you can internalize them to what the way that you are managing your business, and you’re more likely to see the results that you’re looking for, that your team wants, and ultimately that the clients want as well. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. You know, one of the things that I think is really important for agency owners to understand is that when you try to control everything, when you don’t delegate effectively, when you don’t give your team the authority and responsibility to do their jobs effectively, you are creating an environment that’s not fun to work in. It’s not gonna be fun for your team, and it’s not gonna be fun for you. And one of the things I think that’s really easy for agency owners to, to understand is to put themselves in the shoes. So let’s say that you’re working with a client and they’ve hired you because of your expertise, and you’re really, really good at website development, let’s say. Like really good at it. You understand how AI visibility works. You understand how that fits with SEO, you understand how that works with user experience and website design, like you’re one of the best at this. But the client keeps saying, no, I think you’re wrong, or I don’t wanna do it that way, or, and they don’t take your advice and they don’t use your expertise. They keep talking over you. Or they say like, well, I asked AI and it told me this, and so you’re wrong. How does that make you feel? It doesn’t feel good. That’s how your team feels when you don’t delegate and give them the authority and the responsibility that they deserve to be able to help you grow the business. That’s how they feel, and I think we can all put ourselves in those shoes to understand that doesn’t feel very good at all. So if you’ve hired the right people and they have an expertise to be able to help you grow the business, let them do their jobs. Chip Griffin: And, if they still can’t, then you need to look at a different team, right? Correct. I mean that, yes. You know, because when I talk with owners, a lot of times says, well, so and so isn’t capable of it. Well, who hired so and so? Right? I mean, you did. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: You made that decision. Mm-hmm. You can undo that decision. You can make a better decision next time. Mm-hmm. But you can’t sit here and say that you need to micromanage them because they’re not up to the task. Either they are and you can let go or they’re not, and you need to find a different solution. And usually, if an owner is honest with themselves and they sit down, more often than not, they realize that they can let go more than they thought. Again, we’ve said before it, it may be that they don’t do it exactly the same way that you would do it. It may not be as perfect as you would do it. Not that we’re saying you’re perfect, but you know, you may think you are. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: And so if, if those are things that, that are getting in your way, figure out how to move past them. Because you, you really have to focus on making sure that you’re getting good enough and not perfection, not identical to the way you do it. Because if you do, you’ll never be able to hire anybody and you’ll never be able to delegate and you’ll never be able to live these five words. Because they really, when you think about the list that I put together, it starts from sort of the highest level, the 30,000 foot, the leadership, getting people to follow you, all the way down to that core level of the delegation of authority to get things done across your team. And you really need all of those elements to come together. Yep. If you wanna be sane, happy, and get the results that you want. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Yes. So I know Jen will link to both parts of this. I thought it was really, really well done. So you can read that as an accompaniment and have it as a reminder. Just put it on a post-it. Put those five words on a post-it note, stick ’em to your screen. Chip Griffin: Perfect. Excellent. Well, I hopefully these five words, we gave you more than five words, but we gave you five words… Gini Dietrich: Okay. That’s enough. Yeah. Chip Griffin: Okay. My usual, tortured ending. So. With that, I will delegate the authority to all of you to get on with your days. And, the responsibility to that was live these five words and Okay. We’re, we’re just gonna stop. Okay. With that. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich Chip Griffin: and it depends.

Find the room that changes everything. Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ I’ve been thinking about purpose a lot lately. Not your job title. Not your company’s mission statement. Not your OKRs. Your reason for being. In this solo episode, I challenge the traditional concept of Ikigai — the Japanese framework for finding meaning — and reveal the critical piece that’s been missing from the standard four-circle model all along. I draw from 40 years in this industry, from carrying a bag in the field to leading a $4.6 billion partner business at Microsoft, to a serious accident that stopped me cold and forced me to ask the hardest questions of my life. What came out of that experience changed how I see purpose entirely. My conclusion: purpose is not a solo exercise. You don’t find it in a diagram. You find it in the room — the right room, with the right people, at the right moment. In this episode, I introduce the Fifth Circle — the question every partner leader and ecosystem builder needs to add to their Ikigai: Who am I finding it with? https://youtu.be/_z_QRObCXSc Key Takeaways Ikigai represents your “reason for being” across four circles: what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for — but that’s not the whole picture. The traditional model is almost always framed as a solo exercise. For those of us building partnerships for a living, that framing is incomplete. Proximity is a strategic asset — especially now, in the Decade of the Ecosystem. My accident was the catalyst that clarified everything: my purpose wasn’t in the content I created. It was in the community I served. The best partner leaders don’t treat hyperscalers as vendors or partners as channels — they treat them as co-creators and extensions of their own mission. Nobody does the extraordinary alone. The Fifth Circle asks: Who are you finding it with? If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Key Tags: Ikigai, reason for being, ecosystem builder, partner leader, hyperscaler executive, Microsoft partner business, proximity strategy, decade of the ecosystem, Ultimate Partner, relational leadership, AI marketplace, co-sell, community building, professional breakthrough, career reinvention, mission statement, vision statement, Okinawa centenarians, purpose-driven leadership, networking vs. relationship, boot cast, Bellevue Washington, Ultimate Partner Live, strategic assets, co-creator mindset. Transcript: UP Solocast March 27 [00:00:00] Vince Menzione: Welcome to the Ultimate Partner Podcast. I’m Vince Manzione, your host, and today we have a special treat. I’m going to spend some time with you just one-on-one having a conversation that really I’ve been thinking about quite a bit lately. What is your reason for being not your job title, not your company’s mission statement, not your OKRs? [00:00:30] Vince Menzione: Your reason for being, you see, there’s a Japanese concept that many of us follow or talk about. In fact, I have posted about this before. Ikigai. It means roughly reason for being or reason to wake up in the morning, and it’s represented over four overlapping circles. And I’ve talked about my icky guy extensively because I feel like I just found it over the last few years. [00:00:56] Vince Menzione: An Iki guy is what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. We’re all four of these. Me? That’s your purpose. That’s your icky guy. So I first encountered this years ago. In fact, I was in search for my mission for so long. I spent time with Dr. Michael Vet. In the room trying to understand like where I took my career, where I took all the things that I was good at doing, leading partnerships and the things that I enjoyed doing and all the things that I could help the world doing. [00:01:33] Vince Menzione: But something always felt incomplete about that. In all those conversations and building out my mission statement and my vision statement and some, some other capacities, and it took me, you know, 40 years in this industry, 290 podcast conversations. Dozens of events that I’ve either been on stage or the 10 and 11 that we’ve hosted ourselves and a career that took me from selling in the field, carrying a bag to leading a $4.6 billion partner business at Microsoft. [00:02:06] Vince Menzione: It took me all of that to understand what was missing, and that’s what today’s episode is all about. Let me give you the full, icky guy picture before I tell you what I think is missing. The concept comes from the Okinawa Japan region. Famous for having one of the highest concentrations of centenarians in the world. [00:02:26] Vince Menzione: Researchers have studied these people for a long time to understand why they’ve lived so long, and it comes down to purpose. What was their icky guy? The framework became popular in the west, largely because it gave people a practical tool. Four questions, four circles. Find the overlap. And it works as far as it goes, but I’ve seen executives use it in offsites. [00:02:51] Vince Menzione: Coaches use it for clients. Leaders use it to navigate career transitions, and people talk about it on LinkedIn and on social all the time. The challenge is how it’s framed. It’s almost always framed in a solo exercise. You alone answering these four questions isolated from the people around you, you alone finding that intersection. [00:03:14] Vince Menzione: You alone discovering your purpose. And for many things in life, that’s the right frame. Introspection matters. Self-knowledge matters. But for those of us who are building partnerships for a living, for partner leaders, ecosystem builders, hyperscaler, executives, ISV, founders, MSP operators, and people that build communities like Ultimate Partner, I wanna offer you a different frame. [00:03:41] Vince Menzione: Here’s what I’ve learned, and I don’t say this lightly because it took a long time to articulate it clearly to me, and maybe it was my accident that made this really resonate. You don’t find your purpose alone. You find it in the room, the right room with the right people at the right moment. I can trace almost every significant turn in my career, every breakthrough, every reinvention. [00:04:10] Vince Menzione: Every moment of clarity back to a room, a conversation at a partner conference, a dinner where someone said something that shifted my perspective, a coach that led me to the right conclusions. An event where I met someone who saw what I was building before I fully saw it myself. This isn’t luck, this is proximity. [00:04:35] Vince Menzione: And in the decade of the ecosystem. And during these times of tectonic shifts, which is what I believe we’re living through right now, proximity is a strategic asset. Think about the best results you’ve driven in partnerships. Were they the result of a product strategy as a solo strategy exercise, or were they the product of being in the right relationship at the right time with the right, trusted? [00:05:02] Vince Menzione: I know what your answer is because I’ve heard it 290 plus times. The guests on this podcast, the Tony Voyance, the Greg Serafin, the Jay McBain, the Dr. Michael DVAs, the Nina Hardings in the room, every one of them, when I ask about their greatest moments, they talk about people, they talk about the team, the partnership, the relationships that made it possible. [00:05:28] Vince Menzione: That is the fifth circle, not just what you love. What you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for, but who you find it with. I wanna get personal for a second. Just over a year ago, on March 31st of last year, as you all know, I was in a very serious accident. I won’t go into great details about this, but it was the kind of moment that stopped me. [00:05:55] Vince Menzione: It forced me to look up from the world and ask the hard questions. What am I doing? Why does this matter? Who am I doing it for? I spent a month basically in bed trying to work through getting ready for our event that year in Redmond. And during that time, I had nothing to do but think. And what I kept coming back to again and again, wasn’t the content I’ve created on the podcast. [00:06:24] Vince Menzione: It wasn’t the leaders coming on stage. Oh, of course those were important components of it. It was the people, the community in the room, and when I had to get up on stage again, when I needed to go out to Redmond, it was those people that were calling me back. The leaders I’d sat across from for these five plus years. [00:06:45] Vince Menzione: The conversations that have changed my thinking, the relationships that have made ultimate partners, something real, that was my icky guy. And I hadn’t built it alone. I had built it in the room with the most remarkable collection of partner leaders I could ever imagined when I came back, blue Cast and all, I knew more clearly than ever why I do this, and the answer wasn’t in a four circle diagram. [00:07:14] Vince Menzione: It was in the face of the people that showed up in that room, and I could see them now in front of me to this day. So what does this mean for you as a partner leader, as an ecosystem builder? Someone navigating the tectonic shifts of AI marketplace co-sell and more. It means your Ikigai exercise needs a fifth question, not just what do I love? [00:07:39] Vince Menzione: What am I good at? What does the world need? What can I be paid for, but also who am I finding it with? Let me make this concrete. The best partner leaders I know don’t just have strong strategies. They have strong ecosystems of people, mentors, collaborators, cos sellers, hyperscalers champions, and community members who amplify what they’re building. [00:08:09] Vince Menzione: I see it in my friends that are building their communities like Christine Bonard at the Witt Network. I see it in those rooms. It’s not transactional. They’re relational. They don’t treat the hyperscaler as a vendor. They treat them as a co-creator. They don’t treat their partners as a channel. They treat them as an extension of their own mission. [00:08:32] Vince Menzione: They don’t show up at events to collect business cards. They show up to find their people. That last one. Finding your people is where Ikigai gets activated in the ecosystem world. Proximity to the right people, ideas, opportunities, changes, everything. That’s not a tagline. That’s the operating principle behind everything. [00:08:57] Vince Menzione: Ultimate Partner has built the podcast, the events up live in Bellevue, this May and our community. All of it is about creating the room. Because when you find the right room, when you’re in it, contributing to it, building in it, your purpose doesn’t stay abstract, it becomes real. It becomes results. It becomes the extraordinary. [00:09:28] Vince Menzione: I wanna leave you with this somewhere in your career, maybe it’s already happened, maybe it’s ahead of you. There will be a room where something shifts, a conversation that reframes how you see your work, a relationship that accelerates everything. A community that makes you more than you would’ve been without it. [00:09:51] Vince Menzione: That room doesn’t happen by accident. You have to pursue it. You have to invest in it. You have to show up even when it’s hard, even when you’re wearing a boot cast. Even when the timing isn’t perfect because nobody does the extraordinary alone, that’s what the Ultimate Partner framework is built on. [00:10:15] Vince Menzione: That’s what the book that I’m writing is built on, and that’s what I believe with every conversation I’ve been privileged to have on this podcast and in the rooms at Ultimate Partner events. Find your room, build on it. And be the kind of partner, someone else’s breakthrough. Depends on. Thanks for being here. [00:10:39] Vince Menzione: Thanks for being part of the Ultimate Partner podcast about being part of our mission, being part of our community, showing up in our room. Until next time, we’ll see you in person, hopefully at our next event. Ultimate Partner Live is coming soon, May 11th through the 13th in beautiful Bellevue, Washington. [00:11:02] Vince Menzione: I hope to see you there. [

AI is reshaping product development faster than most organizations can even rethink how they work—and that gap sits at the heart of this conversation with product design guru Jeff Gothelf. Lou and Jeff explore why proven methods like Agile and OKRs so often become “process theater” instead of real change, and what it actually takes to shift organizations from output-driven cultures to outcome-driven ones. Jeff explains that most transformations fail because incentives still reward shipping outputs, not creating real value. Meaningful change tends to emerge only in pockets led by leaders willing to experiment and treat ways of working as something to test and evolve. They also explore how AI is shifting risk upstream—from engineering to vision, validation, and decisionmaking—making design and research more critical than ever. Along the way, they reflect on consulting as organizational therapy, the need to prove design's value in the AI era, and why companies that relentlessly embrace new technology are best positioned to endure.

*Originally released in June 2021Today we're talking with Alex Frommeyer, co-founder and CEO at Beam Dental in Columbus, Ohio. Beam Dental was founded in 2012 by three engineers at University of Louisville, who saw the opportunity to modernize the dental insurance industry by using technology. The first product was the Beam Brush, which was one of the earliest examples of the Internet of Things in healthcare. We had a great conversation about the power of OKRs, Objectives and Key Results. The important thing about OKRs is clearly stating your goals and intentions, and making sure it relates to every single person in your organization so that you can articulate and re-emphasize, and re-state, and reminding everyone, at all times, what they're doing and why they're doing it. If you want a high performance team, you need to master the art of OKRs.

We're delighted to welcome Radhika Dutt, product leader, founder, and author of Radical Product Thinking, for a deep dive into her newest work: the OHLA (formerly OHL) Toolkit. In this episode, Radhika joins Matt and Moshe to challenge how product teams set goals, measure progress, and use frameworks, proposing a puzzle‑driven alternative to traditional OKRs and “framework-following” culture.Drawing from her journey from electrical engineering and startups at MIT, through painful “product diseases” like Hero Syndrome and Obsessive Sales Disorder, Radhika shares why recipes and templates alone don't create real progress. Instead, she introduces OHLA as a lightweight but powerful way to cultivate a Jedi mindset, one that keeps teams grounded in first principles, context, and learning rather than chasing vanity metrics and rigid targets.Join Matt, Moshe, and Radhika as they explore:Radhika's path from engineering and founding to Radical Product Thinking and now the OHLA ToolkitWhy classic goal‑setting and OKRs often backfire, creating “alibi progress,” outdated goals, and incentives to hide bad newsOHLA in practice:Observe – what's really happening in your product, team, or marketHypothesize – what might explain it and how you'll test those ideasLearn – what the results actually tell youAdapt – how you'll change course based on evidence“Puzzle setting” vs goal setting: defining puzzles with Observation, Open Questions, and an Objective summary to stay longer in the problem spaceHow OHLA complements design thinking by forcing teams to remain curious and uncomfortable before jumping into solutionsPractical stories, from maritime platforms to enterprise teams, where puzzle thinking led to very different solutions than OKR‑driven targetsHow managers can shift conversations from “Did we hit the number?” to “How well did it work? What did we learn? What will we try next?”A realistic path to transition: starting with your own puzzle, then introducing OHLA within your immediate sphere of influenceAnd much more!Want to explore the OHLA Toolkit or connect with Radhika?OHLA Toolkit: https://www.radicalproduct.com/toolkit/#OHLToolkitRadical Product site: https://www.radicalproduct.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/radhikadutt/You can also connect with us and find more episodes:Product for Product Podcast: http://linkedin.com/company/product-for-product-podcastMatt Green: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattgreenproduct/Moshe Mikanovsky: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikanovskyNote: Any views mentioned in the podcast are the sole views of our hosts and guests, and do not represent the products mentioned in any way.Please leave us a review and feedback ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dave sits down with Evan Campbell to discuss his new book, Adapt to Win: A Framework to Overcome Strategy Decay Using OKRs and Lean Portfolio Management, published by Wiley. Evan shares why most organizations fail to execute on beautifully crafted strategies — and what to do about it. Key Topics Covered Strategy Decay — Evan introduces the concept of "strategy decay," the entropic force that constantly pulls organizations away from their strategic objectives. Studies show only 51% of senior executives can name their company's top three priorities — and that drops to 22% one level down. The Three Sub-Processes of Strategy — Evan breaks down strategy into: (1) formulation, (2) deployment, and (3) execution tracking. Most organizations do the first reasonably well and muddle through the third — but strategy deployment is where the wheels come off. OKRs as the "Steel Thread" — The power of OKRs isn't just top-down goal-setting. The bottom-up element — where teams define their own objectives in response to company goals — drives alignment, understanding, and genuine accountability. Evan distinguishes OKRs (change the business) from KPIs (run the business) using a great airplane instrument cluster analogy. Lean Portfolio Management — The largest section of the book covers enterprise portfolio management practices that Evan says have never been published before. The core idea: treat investments more like a VC would — fund in tranches, set measurable objectives, and be willing to pivot quickly when a better opportunity emerges. Valuing Strategic Initiatives — ROI, IRR, and NPV alone will never fund innovation. Evan explains why organizations need a richer methodology to fairly prioritize strategic bets — and how the book provides one. Types of Portfolios — Enterprise, product, corporate IT, and innovation portfolios each have distinct characteristics and challenges. IT shops tend to struggle with delivery; product organizations tend to struggle with demand management and value prioritization. AI Investment Discipline — Evan flags that 95% of corporate AI spending is producing zero value (citing MIT research) — the same pattern we saw with the internet and agile. The culprit: a lack of directed innovation and strategic clarity. Links from the Podcast Adapt to Win site: https://adapttowin.co Adapt to Win book on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/53kae743 Adaptivity: https://www.adaptivitygroup.com Manifesto for Enterprise Agility: https://www.pmi.org/learning/agile/manifesto-for-enterprise-agility Enterprise Agility Network: https://theagilenetwork.com Contacting Evan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evcampbell/ Contacting Dave Linktree: https://linktr.ee/mrsungo

Most marketers create content and hope it moves deals forward. Katerina Maerefat shows you the exact system to prove it does—then build more of what works.Content becomes powerful the moment you stop treating it separately from your revenue funnel. In this episode, Katerina walks through how to map content performance to pipeline stages, identify which pieces actually influence closed deals, and use that data to shape your next creation priorities.What you'll learn in this episode:- How to structure pipeline metrics that reveal which content types drive closed opportunities- Why "aligning on business objective first" changes which content you build and how you measure it- The content mapping exercise: cataloging type, format, and funnel position to spot gaps worth filling- How to identify white space opportunities by analyzing funnel velocity across industries and personas- Building a cross-functional operations committee to align marketing, sales, and CS on shared initiatives- Why senior alignment on OKRs cascades into bottom-level execution on content that actually moves revenueGuest BioKaterina Maerefat is VP, Growth Marketing at Mediafly. With 15 years of marketing experience—13 of them in PE-backed B2B SaaS companies—she has built growth functions across oil and gas, e-learning, supply chain risk, and revenue enablement. Her career evolved from marketing generalist to specialist in growth marketing, marketing operations, analytics, and marketing technology. She brings both the metrics-driven precision that shapes strategy and deep respect for the craft of content creation. Katerina connects with peers on LinkedIn.Text us what you think about this episode!

This week, Cathy McKnight, Chief Problem Solver at Seventh Bear, is back to share her latest Bear Essentials research. This week, she and our host Ian Truscott dig into her post, "Your KPIs Are Measuring Activity, Not Impact." Highlights from their chat: The “Data Barf Binder”-  where marketing teams measure activity, not impact. Investing in employee communications leads to better outcomes. Awareness metrics can only be useful if connected to outcomes. Quality and context are more important than quantity in content. OKRs help align marketing efforts with business objectives. They also discuss Cathy's podcast, Uncharted Journey, which is currently on hiatus, which shares stories of successful women in marketing.  Ian then joins Robert Rose in the virtual bar, The Rose & Rockstar, for a classic cocktail and a chat, and Robert shares his view on a recent article in AdWeek by Mark Ritson about Anthropic's report on AI's impact on the labor market.  If you have any comments or thoughts on this topic, we would love to hear them! Enjoy! — The Links The people: Ian Truscott on LinkedIn  Cathy McKnight on LinkedIn Robert Rose on LinkedIn Mentioned this week: Uncharted Journey | Podcast Bear Essentials: Your KPIs Are Measuring Activity, Not Impact This Old Marketing - AI Can Now Do Marketing. Now What? (523) Mark Ritson on AdWeek 65% of Marketing Jobs May Not Survive AI Robert's newsletter: Lens, his websites, robertrose.net and seventhbear.com Rockstar CMO: The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday Rockstar CMO on the web and LinkedIn Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM. Track List: We'll be right back by Stienski & Mass Media on YouTube Piano Music is by Johnny Easton, shared under a Creative Commons license You can listen to this on all good podcast platforms, like Apple, Amazon, and Spotify. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Superhuman's Head of Analytics Chris Byington. They break down where analytics should sit inside a company, why dashboards often fail, and how the best teams connect metrics, OKRs, and forecasting to real decisions. Chris also explains why “ship goals” can mislead teams and what CEOs and CFOs should expect from a truly decision-driving data function.—SPONSORS:Tabs is an AI-native revenue platform that unifies billing, collections, and revenue recognition for companies running usage-based or complex contracts. By bringing together ERP, CRM, and real product usage data into a single system of record, Tabs eliminates manual reconciliations and speeds up close and cash collection. Companies like Cortex, Statsig, and Cursor trust Tabs to scale revenue efficiently. Learn more at https://www.tabs.com/runAbacum is a modern FP&A platform built by former CFOs to replace slow, consultant-heavy planning tools. With self-service integrations and AI-powered workflows for forecasting, variance analysis, and scenario modeling, Abacum helps finance teams scale without becoming software admins. Trusted by teams at Strava, Replit, and JG Wentworth—learn more at https://www.abacum.aiBrex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metricsMetronome is real-time billing built for modern software companies. Metronome turns raw usage events into accurate invoices, gives customers bills they actually understand, and keeps finance, product, and engineering perfectly in sync. That's why category-defining companies like OpenAI and Anthropic trust Metronome to power usage-based pricing and enterprise contracts at scale. Focus on your product — not your billing. Learn more and get started at https://www.metronome.comRightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for modern pricing models like usage-based pricing, bundles, and mid-cycle upgrades. RightRev lets companies scale monetization without slowing down close or compliance. For RevRec that keeps growth moving, visit https://www.rightrev.comRillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to close faster without fighting legacy systems. Designed to support complex revenue recognition, multi-entity operations, and real-time reporting, Rillet helps teams achieve a true zero-day close—with some customers closing in hours, not days. If you're scaling on an ERP that wasn't built in the 90s, book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cj—LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsNChris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-byington/Superhuman: https://superhuman.com/CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—RELATED EPISODES:Matt Hudson Episodehttps://youtu.be/_FWGYkzhymQ—TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Preview and intro3:29 Centralized analytics team7:29 Start analytics with problems not tools9:41 Lead with the problem10:14 Align on growth model11:46 Pre-commit to decisions13:14 Sponsors — Tabs | Abacum | Brex16:35 Dashboards need growth context19:10 Where analytics should sit21:18 Pros and cons of analytics in finance23:18 Operations vs revenue org placement24:11 Hub-and-spoke analytics model25:18 What “embedded” actually means26:14 Sponsors — Metronome | RightRev | Rillet29:38 When self-service analytics works32:04 Self-serve pitfalls33:44 Buy vs build BI35:44 Analytics owns metrics38:26 Hero metric example41:41 Outcomes > shipping42:14 Set goals before build43:57 Metrics are outcome proxies46:40 Easy way to say no48:29 Start answers with yes52:17 Proving analytics impact56:19 Credits#RunTheNumbersPodcast

What happens when the cost of intelligence drops to zero? The only thing that matters is knowing how to give the right instructions.In this episode, Andreas Bachmann – co-founder of Adacor, a managed cloud and critical infrastructure provider serving banks, automotive, healthcare, and energy clients across Germany – shares what 22 years of deliberate, founder-led growth actually looks like. We explore the real tension between innovation and zero-tolerance uptime, the co-founder crisis that almost broke the company, and why Andreas believes the primary job of every knowledge worker in five years won't be doing the work – it'll be managing the agents doing it for them.What You'll Discover:[00:01:19] Innovating When Failure Is Not an Option → How Adacor runs experiments for critical infrastructure clients who can't afford a single hiccup – and the mental model that makes it work[00:05:30] The Sustainable Growth Playbook → Why Andreas chose deliberate, step-by-step growth over hypergrowth – and how that decision made Adacor more competitive, not less[00:13:49] The Co-Founder Crisis Nobody Talks About → At 40–50 people, Adacor fractured into silos and the founding team needed “marriage counseling” – what they decided, and who stepped back[00:17:34] Self-Organization Without Chaos → How Adacor implemented OKRs, dailies, and retrospectives in a high-stakes environment – and the one thing that makes retros actually stick[00:23:37] Building a Human-Centered Tech Company → From family compatibility programs to volunteer firefighter support – why Andreas treats the company as the strong one, not the individual[00:27:26] The AI Question: Bullshit or Real? → Why Andreas went all-in on AI in 2022, how Adacor hacked EU innovation grants to build an AI team years early, and why he skipped the GPU commodity race entirely[00:34:16] The Future of Work Is Managing Agents → Andreas's thesis on what happens when intelligence is automated and essentially free – and what human value actually looks like on the other sideKey Takeaways:Sustainable growth is a competitive advantage in high-trust industries – adding people too fast breaks the thing clients pay you for“Fast fashion software”: non-developers are already using AI to write and discard code; this is a glimpse of where all knowledge work is headedThe best retros are useless without a committed “what do we do about it now?” – every retrospective at ATCO must produce 1–3 actionable initiativesThe co-founder transition from parallel silos to one clear direction is one of the most underreported breaking points in company buildingThe new leadership superpower isn't having all the answers – it's knowing when to step back and trust the people who doAbout Andreas Bachmann:Andreas is co-founder and CEO of Adacor, a German managed cloud and critical infrastructure company he's been building for over 22 years with a deliberate focus on stability, human-centered culture, and innovation that doesn't break things. He's also a founding force behind Media Monster, an initiative supporting mental health and work-family compatibility in tech.

How to Scale a Business Without Killing Profit and Cash Flow with Aaron Trahan   Find Rocky Lalvani @ www.ProfitComesFirst.com or email him at rocky@profitcomesfirst.com   Most businesses don't fail because they can't grow; they fail because growth exposes weak priorities, sloppy execution, and fragile cash flow.   In this episode, Rocky Lalvani talks with Aaron Trahan about why revenue can be a "vanity metric," how companies "grow into insolvency," and what to install so scaling improves profit and cash not just topline numbers.   Rocky Lalvani interviews Aaron Trahan, a seasoned executive who was thrust into leading a $100M division at age 24 and later helped operate at a billion-dollar revenue run rate. Aaron explains why revenue growth is often misunderstood: if growth isn't efficient, it can crush profitability, consume cash, and push a business toward insolvency. He shares the "Inc. 5000 rule" (68% of fast-growers fail or stall within 5–7 years) and introduces his "Golden Five" framework—Priority Management, Communication, Focus, Execution, and Accountability—as the operating system that keeps scaling sustainable. The conversation also covers quarterly OKR sprints, the 24/12/6/3 planning protocol, and "red teaming" as a way to stress-test assumptions before they become expensive mistakes.   In This Episode, You'll Learn: If growth dilutes execution, growth becomes the risk.  Revenue without profitable delivery and cash conversion can be dangerous.  Focus is a competitive advantage, but only after priorities are crystal clear.  "Scaling" isn't "doing more", it's getting more outcome per unit of effort/cost.  Install a quarterly cadence so strategy doesn't drift into "someday."  Stress-test assumptions early; weak growth stories break fast under scrutiny.   Big Takeaway: Scaling isn't "more revenue." Scaling is creating more profit and cash flow with better execution. If growth is costing you as much as it's earning (or it's breaking your team's ability to prioritize, communicate, focus, execute, and stay accountable), you're not scaling, you're treading water and increasing risk. Aaron's core message is simple: treat revenue like a vanity metric unless it converts into profitability + cash + operational discipline, and install a cadence (Golden Five + quarterly OKRs + 24/12/6/3 planning) so growth strengthens the business instead of stressing it.   Bio: Big goals don't build great businesses. Great systems do. His mission is helping businesses create the bridge that connects vision to strategy to execution, using systems that scale. Born from real-world experience & lessons learned from scaling a billion-dollar consumer company, He designed a business operating system that takes a system-driven approach to scaling smarter, through enhancing effectiveness in the areas that matter most to any business: Prioritization Communication Organizational Focus Accountability Execution His methodology combines the hard-earned lessons of a seasoned operator with the mindset of a performance coach. The outcome: leaders can scale smarter, teams will execute sharper, and businesses are able to generate sustained high-performance... without the chaos.   Links: Website: https://performancemindsetcoaching.co/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aaron.trahan.664525  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aarontrahancoaching/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aarontrahan/   X: https://x.com/trahanAD   Conclusion: If you've felt like your business is "growing" but somehow getting tighter—more complexity, more firefighting, and less cash—this episode is your reset. Start by validating that leadership can name the same top priorities, then lock in a quarterly execution rhythm with clear OKRs, and pressure-test your growth assumptions through red teaming before betting the company on them. The goal isn't to grow fast—it's to grow sustainably, so profit and cash flow expand with revenue and you build a business that can survive (and thrive) through change.   If you're tired of "growth" that creates more stress and less cash, take one action from this episode and apply it this week: get your leadership team aligned on the top 3 priorities, then set quarterly OKRs that protect execution and cash flow. Sustainable scaling isn't about chasing revenue—it's about building a business that throws off profit and cash while staying operationally disciplined.   #ProfitFirst #CashFlow #Profitability #BusinessScaling #SustainableGrowth #Leadership #OperationalExcellence #OKRs #StrategicPlanning #Accountability #Execution #BusinessOwner #Entrepreneurship #BusinessCoaching #RiskManagement #SmallBusiness #ScalingUp   Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@profitanswerman Sign up to be notified when the next cohort of the Profit First Experience Course is available! Free Copy of the Profit Blueprint Book: : https://lp.profitcomesfirst.com/landing-page-page  Monthly Newsletter signup: https://lp.profitcomesfirst.com/newsletter-signup Relay Bank (affiliate link): https://relayfi.com/?referralcode=profitcomesfirst Profit Answer Man Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/profitanswerman/ My podcast about living a richer more meaningful life: http://richersoul.com/ Music provided by Junan from Junan Podcast Any financial advice is for educational purposes only and you should consult with an expert for your specific needs.

Juan and Tim are back for a LIVE episode with Nachiket Mehta, an experienced data leader who has lived and breathed the “shift left”. In this episode we unpack how ontology, events and culture unlock enterprise AI. We discuss the gap between what your systems think is happening and what's actually happening on the ground and dive into real world examples: a trailer with expensive merchandise sat forgotten in a yard for weeks. $35M in delayed orders. The math added up, but nobody saw it coming. Why? Because we're obsessed with cleaning data and building dashboards, but nobody mapped the happy path vs. the exceptions actually happening on the ground. What is delivery when the customer isn't home? What's "lost in transit" versus "sitting in our own yard"? The solution? Send your ontologist to the fulfillment center. Build tiger teams. Shift your data teams left to act like software product teams. And most importantly: connect the five why's back to your OKRs, or you're just building features nobody needs.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you're a product manager, founder, executive, or even an individual contributor navigating OKRs, AI, and innovation pressure, this episode of Career Sessions, Career Lessons offers a practical reframing of how great products and meaningful work actually get built.Host JR Lowry sits down with Radhika Dutt, author of Radical Product Thinking, to unpack why traditional goals, OKRs, and performance targets often do more harm than good in modern product organizations.Drawing from her experience as an MIT-trained engineer, startup founder, and product leader across industries, Radhika introduces an alternative: puzzle setting and puzzle solving. Rather than optimizing for short-term metrics, she says that the most successful teams spend more time in the problem space asking better questions, learning faster, and adapting intelligently.Together, JR and Radhika explore:Why OKRs and targets could kill curiosity and innovationThe difference between optimizing numbers and solving the right problemHow “puzzle-driven” teams outperform “goal-driven” teamsThe dangers of AI-driven “product slop” and what humans must do better than machinesLeadership lessons on delegation, critical thinking, and psychological safetyAI's impact on recruiting and cultureCheck out the full series of “Career Sessions, Career Lessons” podcasts here or visit pathwise.io/podcast/. A full written transcript of this episode is also available at [insert URL for the transcript of this episode.]Become a PathWise member today! Join at https://pathwise.io/join-now/

Get featured on the show by leaving us a Voice Mail: https://bit.ly/MIPVM  This episode challenges goal-driven thinking in an AI-enabled world through a conversation with Radhika Dutt. The discussion explores why OKRs and vanity metrics often fail, especially when AI accelerates optimisation without understanding. The core insight is a shift from goal setting to puzzle setting. By framing problems clearly, staying in the discomfort, and learning through small experiments, teams can build products that create long-term value. Practical examples show how this mindset helped recover stalled growth, improve trust, and reduce churn while keeping humans central to AI-driven decisions. 

What does it really mean for an HR team to be “strategic” – and how can you make that shift without adding more to your workload?In this solo episode of HR Coffee Time, Fay explores a practical and accessible way to strengthen your team's strategic focus: using OKRs – Objectives and Key Results.If you've ever felt pulled between operational demands and the bigger picture, this episode will help you think differently about how HR goals connect to organisational priorities – and how to make that link clearer for your whole team.Drawing on real examples (including a memorable orange analogy

David C. Baker recently published a fascinating thought experiment about what he’d do if starting an agency from scratch today—and it’s packed with provocative ideas worth serious consideration. His article offers a comprehensive blueprint covering everything from organizational structure to compensation philosophy, and much of it aligns with how Chip and Gini think about building sustainable agencies. But the most interesting conversations happen when smart people disagree, which is why this episode focuses on the handful of points where Chip and Gini see things differently. Not because Baker’s ideas are bad, but because they expose the tension between aspirational agency management and the messy realities of running a business with real budgets, real people, and real client demands. In this episode, Chip and Gini tackle mandatory one-month sabbaticals for every employee, open-book finances published on your website, 360-degree reviews, and incentive compensation structures. They dig into why ideas that sound compelling in theory often create unintended consequences in practice—like how retention-based bonuses can fuel scope creep, or why forced sabbaticals don’t actually solve the single-point-of-failure problem they’re designed to address. The conversation reveals thoughtful nuance on both sides. Gini shares her brutal experience with anonymous feedback that backfired when presented poorly. Chip explains why he sees most performance measurement systems as “performance theater” while still advocating for more financial transparency with teams. They discuss the logistical nightmares of scheduling multiple month-long absences and why backup systems for unexpected departures matter more than planned time off. Throughout, they return to a central theme: what works brilliantly at one stage of growth can be completely wrong at another. The goal isn’t to declare Baker’s ideas right or wrong, but to test assumptions and recognize that even the most well-intentioned frameworks deserve scrutiny before implementation. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “Really to deal with single points of failure, you need to be able to handle those unexpected absences, right? Someone has a family emergency, someone has a health issue. Those are the kinds of things that you wanna make sure you’ve handled.” Gini Dietrich: “When you’re constantly slacking or texting or calling while on vacation, and we don’t give you a response, it makes people angry. But what I’m trying to do is give you the time off because you deserve it and I want you to come back refreshed and ready to work.” Chip Griffin: “When you have incentive compensation, whether that is commissions or for hitting profit targets, the problem that you run into is people tend to focus on the thing that gets them the commission. It doesn’t mean that it’s good revenue. It doesn’t mean that it’s profitable.” Gini Dietrich: “I subscribe to give ongoing feedback. You get feedback consistently. And when we’re in a meeting and I see something that you did really great or I see something that could use some work, I tell you that immediately.” Turn Ideas Into Action Read Baker’s full article and identify your three favorites. Don’t just focus on the disagreements—pull out the ideas that resonate most with your vision for your agency and commit to implementing one of them this quarter. The value in thought experiments like this isn’t picking sides, but using them to clarify what you actually want to build. Spend 30 minutes reading, then schedule time to test one concept that genuinely excites you. Identify your true single points of failure. List every critical role in your agency, then honestly assess what would happen if that person disappeared tomorrow without warning. Focus on unexpected absences—not planned sabbaticals—because those expose the real vulnerabilities. For each critical role, document who could cover the basics for 1-2 weeks while you figure out a longer-term solution. This takes less than an hour and protects you better than mandatory vacation policies. Replace annual reviews with ongoing feedback. If you currently do annual or 360-degree reviews, shift to giving immediate feedback when you observe something—positive or negative. Make it a two-sentence conversation: “That client presentation was excellent because you anticipated their objections” or “When you miss that deadline without communication, it creates problems for the team.” Save annual conversations for compensation changes and goal-setting, not for dumping a year’s worth of stored-up feedback all at once. Resources David C. Baker’s article If I Started A New Firm, Now Related Starting your own agency Should you force employees to take time off? Setting your agency's PTO, vacation, and leave policies Employee compensation essentials for agencies View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, we’re going back to a place that we’ve used for inspiration before. And no, I’m not talking about Reddit this time. Oh, I’m, I’m sorry. Dear listeners, this is not one of our Reddit episodes. Gini Dietrich: I, I’m always scared of the Reddit episodes. Chip Griffin: The Reddit episodes are always, they’re interesting. We’ll leave it at that. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I saw one the other day that I was like, oh boy, okay. In the real world… Chip Griffin: Sometimes I just, I read those posts in the, in the agency subreddit, and I just, I wonder if, if they’re actual, real people posting about real stuff, because some of it just seems so insane that it just couldn’t be real. Gini Dietrich: Yes. And some of it is very junior level entitled frustrations who don’t understand how a business operates. And so some of it you’re just like, Ugh. Okay. Chip Griffin: Yep. But I mean, we were all once those people sort of a little bit Gini Dietrich: Fair, true. Chip Griffin: At one point in time. Gini Dietrich: Yes. So absolutely. Chip Griffin: But that is not what this episode is. We are going to use another source of inspiration for us that we’ve used in the past, and that is David C. Baker. And, in this case, he had a post in his newsletter recently about what he would do if he was starting his own agency today. And it’s a lengthy article that walks through all of the different choices, that he would make strategically and tactically for the business. And there’s a lot of good food for thought in there. It’s, mm-hmm. It’s probably gonna inspire a few additional episodes, down the road as we dig deeper into some of the specific topics there. But, one of the things that I did on LinkedIn was I broke out into four buckets, my perspective on it, and broke it into things that I agree with, things that I agreed to disagree with. It depends because, hey, that’s our motto here, so why not? It does depend. Yes. Yep. And then of course, food for thought. So, there are far too many points for us to cover in a reasonably length podcast episode. So. I figured why not be controversial? Let’s deal with the disagrees that I had on my list and, use that as our jumping off point. And we’ll of course include a link to the article in the show notes that you can go read the full article as well as additional context around what we’re gonna talk about today because there is a lot to, to explore here. Gini Dietrich: And I think the buckets that you, you broke it into are really good. And for the most part I agree with how you’ve compartmentalized them all. But there are some interesting ones on the agree to disagree bucket. So let’s, let’s do that. Let’s start there. Chip Griffin: Alright. Do you have, do you have one that you would like to start with or do you want me to just start calling ones out? Gini Dietrich: Let’s see. Yeah, there’s, well, yes I do. That we require one month annual sabbatical to eliminate single points of failure. Sounds lovely. I would also like a one month sabbatical every year. Chip Griffin: It’s as, as I understood the article, and it is possible, I misunderstood the intent in the article, but as I understood it, he was suggesting that every year, every employee. Gini Dietrich: Everyone. Yes. Chip Griffin: Had to take a full one month sabbatical. Gini Dietrich: Yes. That’s how I read it as well. Chip Griffin: That is, I mean, it’s a nice idea. I think it is highly impractical for most organizations. And look, I think the, stated intent here is truly a good one, which is to avoid those single points of failure, over reliance on any individual team member. Yeah. ’cause this is a giant problem for agencies, honestly, of most sizes until you get to be giant. But it is something that, that you need to be conscious of. I don’t know that you need a full one month sabbatical for every employee every year in order to get there. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I mean, truth be told, like if you’re designing in the agency of the future and you’re starting from scratch today, I don’t know how you do that. I mean, to your point, even in a large organization, I don’t know that how, you do that because it costs a lot of money. Not just resources and time, but it costs money to have people out. And so, you know, if you’re a, you’re an agency of three people or you’re an agency of 50 people, or you’re an agency of hundreds of people, it still costs money. And so requiring that I think is a bit too much. And also, I will say that as somebody who has an extraordinary flexible and generous paid time off plan. There are people who take advantage of those things and you have to adjust to that, unfortunately. And I just don’t think it’s realistic. I don’t think it’s something that you could actually do. I don’t think it’s something you could enforce. I think it would be extraordinarily stressful for the person and for their team, even though it might be nice in writing. I don’t think it’s, realistic in practice. Chip Griffin: Well, I, think you, I mean, you, have a number of logistical issues that come into play here in addition to everything else. And particularly because one of the other, tenants in there that I, disagreed with was, that you would require all employees to take four one week vacations. Over the course of the year. So now you’ve, essentially got all employees out for two out of 12 months. Gini Dietrich: Two outta 12 months. Yes. Chip Griffin: And, that is logistically challenging because how do you do this and make sure that you don’t have too much overlap because inevitably there are certain times where people are going to prefer to do this. I mean, absolutely. If you want to take a one month sabbatical, most people are probably gonna want to do that over the summer months. Yes. When perhaps, you know, family members have access to vacation or those sorts of things. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: Or they may want it end of year around the holidays and those kinds of things. So you, have collisions between people wanting the same time. If, they, can’t get what they want now, they may be frustrated that I gotta, you know, I have to take off a month in February. What good is that gonna do me? I mean, it’s cold, it’s snowy outside. My family can’t take the time off. My significant other won’t go. Like, Gini Dietrich: yeah, Chip Griffin: so what am I just gonna sit around in my house all day for the month. so I think there are some logistical challenges. So I guess what I, this is one of those ones where I’d say the ideal is nice. I’m not sure that it is practical to implement in the vast majority of firms. I would encourage instead that owners look and try to identify single points of failure and make sure that you have backups. Yes, yes. And frankly, those are important, whether you have someone taking a month off or a week off. And my view is that every employee should have a backup who can at least do the, minimum required for that role while they’re out. Particularly if they’re out suddenly, right? Because being able to plan for it. You’ve got a sabbatical, it’s on the calendar, six months ahead of time. You can get some stuff done early, you can push off some deadlines. There’s a lot of things you can do, but really to deal with single points of failure, you need to be able to handle those unexpected absences, right? Someone has a family emergency, someone has a health issue. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: Someone gets an opportunity to go on a game show, I don’t know, whatever it is, that takes them away suddenly. Those are the kinds of things that you wanna make sure you’ve, handled, with single points of failure. So. Nice idea. I just, I, don’t think it’s practical for most firms. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And the other thing I’ll say on the single point of failure piece is one of the things that I experience as an agency owner quite often is that my certain members of my team will take time off, but they can’t… They can’t allow themselves to take time off. So they’re constantly checking in and they’re constantly asking for updates and they’re constantly, and so one of the things I do with them is. You know, ensure A, that you have some backup, and B, that when you’re asking for updates or you’re constantly slacking or texting or calling, that we don’t, we don’t give you a response. And, it makes people angry. But what I’m trying to do is A, give you the time off because you deserve it and, I want you to come back refreshed and ready to work. And B, well, I’ll say C. Actually there’s three, three things, B there, nothing’s going to burn down while one person is out because we have backup and we do have places where there is not a single point of entry. And lastly, it’s really demeaning to your team, like it’s demeaning. And even me as the owner sometimes I’m like, well, don’t you trust me to fall to take care of your clients while you’re gone? Like, come on, seriously. Right. That’s how it makes you feel. So I would say that it’s important from a single point of entry perspective as well to ensure that on the opposite side, that the team feels comfortable taking time off, that they don’t feel angst about taking the time off, that they can take the time off, and that the team behind them is, feels empowered and ready and trusted to do the work. Chip Griffin: Spot on. Alright, well there’s, there’s a lot on this list. So let’s move on to, to something different. How about we talk about open book finances, because this is, one that, I, will say that I disagree with an asterisk. So I, what he’s advocating in his piece is open book finances, including public disclosure of finances on the agency’s website. Gini Dietrich: Nope. Chip Griffin: So, and in general, I am not a fan of full open book either internal or external. Gini Dietrich: Nope. Chip Griffin: However, I do believe that most agency owners would be better off being more transparent than they currently are with their teams. That doesn’t mean being complete open book, but it does mean at a minimum, sharing with them more specifically the trends that are going on with the agency. You know, Even if you take actual numbers out, I like to show charts that show the directionality of revenue, the directionality of expenses. You know, so that you can kind of see those mapped up against each other so that as an employee, you start to understand more about the fundamentals of the business. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And it starts to make you less surprised when you’re seeing growth and less surprised when you’re seeing, you know, a narrowing of the gap, say, between revenue and expenses. So therefore, profit is shrinking. I, think that there does need to be more communication about that with, as I always say, education. You can never provide numbers, whether that’s percentages or charts or actual numbers to your team without helping them to understand the economics of the business. Because otherwise you’re just giving them numbers that they will interpret however they want. But I do think the smarter you make your team about these things, the better they can help to manage project budgets, the better and more realistic they can be about compensation and bonuses. All of these things, information helps, but not in my view all the way to full open books, either internal and certainly not external. No, definitely not. I don’t see enough upside doing it external. Gini Dietrich: Definitely. I, can’t imagine doing it externally because all that does is open up the, an invitation for your clients to say, well, you don’t really need to be that profitable, so let’s, take some, let’s take a percentage off like the No, no, no, no, no. And I also think, if I read it correct, his article correctly, he was advocating for open book on everyone’s salaries too. And no, I mean, we do salary bands, but you, do not know exactly how much every person makes. That’s not, that does not contribute to any sort of morale building inside a culture. Absolutely not. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, the only thing I will say to that is that, I, agree with you. However, the reality is that most people have a pretty good idea of what everybody else in the business except the owner is making anyway. And perhaps other select senior level people depending on, how your organization is structured. But pretty much all the juniors know what all every other junior makes. They all talk. Gini Dietrich: Well, and that’s why we have salary bands ’cause everybody pretty much makes the same Chip Griffin: right Gini Dietrich: amount. Right? Like they all make the same, but I’m still not publishing it. Chip Griffin: Exactly. And salary bands, you know, protect you. On that. And so, I mean, you could make the, case as long as you have tight salary bans. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: Disclosure actually isn’t a problem. But you know, I don’t, I think as long as you have salary bands, you don’t need that. Obviously a lot of states are in here in the US are now requiring more disclosure around salary bands and that kind of stuff. So, you know, we’re headed there as an industry one way or the other. but I do think that salary bands are probably sufficient and, we don’t need to share actual salaries with team members. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I totally agree with that. Chip Griffin: You know, that said, I will say that all of your employees think you make far more than you do. We’ve talked about this before, so there may actually be an upside for, most owners to share what their actual take home is because Gini Dietrich: that like 10 people actually make more than I do. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know a lot of agencies where the owner is making less than team members. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: Which is wild to me, but. Gini Dietrich: There’s also the upside on that though, if, you’re profitable and you make enough money at the end of the year, you get, you get that. But yes, from a salary perspective. Chip Griffin: Right, right. Alright, how about, 360s? My, one of my pet peeves. I consider it performance theater. I think most KPIs and OKRs and all these things, I think it’s all performance theater. I think it has very little to do with what actual performance outcomes you get from your team. But, 360s, you know, they’ve been popular for a couple of decades now. I don’t understand them. You know, I’ve been in organizations that, have done them. I will confess that, that, you know, at various points in time, my own businesses have experimented with them, and most of the feedback that you get from them is borderline worthless. Because most of it falls into the category of nobody wants to say anything really bad about anything else, it’s, you know, at worst it’s lukewarm. But then of course, you always get the random ones who just, they have an ax to grind Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And they’re gonna use the 360 Yep. As their way to grind an ax against a colleague. Yep. Or, or another department. Yep. Or whatever. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And I, I’ve yet to see any, that actually helps to provide good feedback from the employees to the owner themselves. That’s just, I mean, you can tell people it’s anonymous. You can use an outside advisor to organize it, but people are not gonna put in writing. Even if they think it’s anonymous, any perspective about the owner, it just, it doesn’t happen in, the real world. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I agree with you. The only time I’ve, and it this happened to me, the only time I’ve seen it be effective is I, early in my agency life, business life, I hired somebody externally to do interviews. It was all anonymous, it was all verbal, nothing was recorded, and people were absolutely brutal. And the way he presented it to me made me so defensive that I couldn’t take even the kernels of feedback that I needed to hear. And there was some in there, but it was so brutal. And he, the way, and he presented it, I, in retrospect, I think he embellished some of it to make me, I, to make it like more jarring and alarming. Because he thought that that would make me wake up and pay attention. And in fact, it had the opposite effect. It was not, not good at all. And then I didn’t feel good about the people I had hired. Because it was, it was brutal. So I agree that, they’re not great. I subscribe to the give feedback, ongoing feedback. And so I don’t do annual reviews, I don’t do 360 reviews. You get feedback consistently. And when we’re in a meeting and I see something that you did really great or I see something that could use some work, I tell you that immediately. When I’m trying, when I want to coach you on something, I do that immediately and I ask my team to do the same with their team. So there’s, we have the ongoing feedback and then the annual review, quote unquote, is, Hey. We met our goals, we did really, really well. Here’s a raise, or you know what? This year was shitty and it sucked. You did your part in trying to make it better. I’m gonna give you a cost of living raise or whatever it happens to be, right? But it’s not a, here’s all the shitty things that your clients say, and here’s all the shitty things that your colleagues say and more about, I, you already know that you’re doing a great job in these areas. You already know that these are areas that need to be worked on, and we just continue to move forward. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, I’ll say from, an owner trying to get, you know, feedback and perspective from the team there. You know, you, I wouldn’t do it through a, you know, a normal 360 review process, but you know, what, you’ve described part of it, I think the, whoever you hired got it right in having, you know, very anonymous conversations with team members. And I think that bringing an outside advisor who has those kinds of conversations, nothing in writing, it’s just it, you know, it’s dialogue back and forth. I do those for my clients from time to time. I’ll be honest, I, you know, I would say it’s maybe 50/50 whether I feel like I’m truly getting candid feedback. Gini Dietrich: Sure. Chip Griffin: from the team members, because usually I don’t have any prior relationship with them, so they don’t know whether they truly can trust me or not. But you know, it’s, I mean, even 50% in most cases is enough to start, you know, pulling some common threads. But the whole, the way you use that information as an outside advisor, the way you present that. Matters a lot. And so you need to really understand how is it gonna land best with the owner that has hired you. And is that by being blunt, is that by sort of internalizing the knowledge and sometimes I’ll just use it in my ongoing conversations to try to steer things. Yes. To address some of that feedback. Sure. Without even explicitly saying, well, Gini Dietrich: yes, Chip Griffin: you know, the whole team said you’re very bad at X, Y, and Z. Gini Dietrich: Brutal. Chip Griffin: But instead, try to find other ways Yes. To, achieve the same outcome, because then the team starts to feel like it was useful to talk with me, and the owner then starts to feel good about the way the team starts to pull together and all that kind of stuff. But it, is, delicate and, I would say that, you know, the, typical 360 process where it tends to be, you know, written survey feedback form type things, I, just, I think that’s, it’s very difficult to see that working in most cases and in my own experience, it has rarely worked out, the way people would like it to. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, totally agree. Chip Griffin: All right. let’s see. We have time probably for at least one more, or maybe just one more here from the list. I don’t know if there’s something that, that jumps out at you that you would like to have, covered. Gini Dietrich: Let me look, let me look. Uh, maybe we can mush board of advisors and direct access to CEO together. Chip Griffin: Sure. Although they’re, well no, because the direct access to CEO is the CEO of the client. Gini Dietrich: Oh, oh, got it, got it, got it. Chip Griffin: So they, they are, they are separate issues. Got it. But I, mean, I think either, either board of advisors, the other one I would throw out there is a possible one is the, tying all, employee comp to have an incentive component. Oh, yeah. I, think either one of those would be good. So I’ll let you pick between board of advisors or employee comp. Gini Dietrich: Employee comp. Chip Griffin: So, this is, this is one of my pet peeves. And I’m sure that David doesn’t know this, and, if he did that… Gini Dietrich: Ha! He wrote it just because he knew it was your pet peeve. Chip Griffin: But, but his argument was that every employee should have at least some of their compensation effectively at risk as part of a, an incentive compensation plan. And I hate this idea. I hate formulaic, incentive-based compensation for virtually all employees. And I’ll be controversial here, it doesn’t really apply to most agencies, but I don’t think it should apply to most sales reps either. Because I think that when you have incentive compensation, whether that is commissions or for hitting profit targets or you know, other things, the problem that you run into is people tend to the extent that they pay attention to it at all. Right? So. You’ve got a couple of risks here. One is that you’re paying people for things they don’t even care about. Right? Right. You know, I mean, I’ve had sales reps they were gonna sell or not sell, and it had nothing to do with the commission they were getting. Gini Dietrich: Fair. Chip Griffin: Now that’s rare. Most sales reps are incented by their commission and, so they will try harder to get it, but what are they doing? They’re, focused on the thing that gets them the commission, which is the actual signature on the contract and the revenue. It doesn’t mean that it’s good revenue. It doesn’t mean that it’s profitable. It doesn’t mean that it’s a good client. It doesn’t mean you can get results for them. It doesn’t mean any of those things. And you’re now creating tension because if you have more than one sales rep, nobody wants to help each other because then they gotta split the commission. And so, but this goes beyond, you know, sales and other ways of doing incentive compensation. You still have, it’s very difficult to craft a plan. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: That doesn’t have unintended consequences. Yeah. And particularly when you’re outside of the sales realm, my experience is that most employees are not truly motivated to hit specific targets for their incentive comp. They’re either gonna do a good job or they’re not. And it has nothing to do with you saying if you hit this target, you’ll get a little bit extra. But to the extent that it is, it does have those unintended consequences because now they’re fixated on, I mean, let’s say it’s client retention. So now what if, if you’ve got a client retention target and if you have a client retention over 85%, you get a bonus. Sounds great. Right? Because we’re, retaining clients. Except that what are we doing to retain those clients? Right? Oftentimes that means we’re going to go way down the, rabbit hole of scope creep. Yep. And, we’re just gonna be giving them all sorts of freebies to keep them around. And so those are the things we need to think about. And it’s, why in general, I’m opposed to all forms of incentive comp. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, one of the things that we do do is we say you can earn up to a certain percentage of your salary in bonus. It’s the end of year bonus. And here are the, gates, like revenue, profitability, all the things. But most of it is not reliant on the individual. Most of it’s reliant on the company as a whole. And so we all have to work together to achieve those goals. And then they sort of know like, okay, well this, this is where we are, so I’m gonna make 90% of that percentage or whatever it happens to be. So they are they are clear about those kinds of things and they tend, because of that, they tend to ask… They tend to be more engaged and ask more strategic questions about work, and they’re more thoughtful about it. But to your point, we don’t reward scope creep. We don’t reward, you know, keeping a client longer than we should. Those kinds of things. Those, like, we take those pieces out. So we, do it based on, we don’t do it commission or incentive based, but we do do it based on a certain percentage of your salary if we meet certain objectives as an organization. Chip Griffin: I mean, that’s better, but I’ll be honest, I still don’t like it. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. It works for us. It’s highly motivating for us. Chip Griffin: And that’s, the thing. I mean, the, as we say at the end of every, episode, it depends. So even these things where Gini Dietrich: mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: You know, we may disagree, you know, where David has different ideas than we do, that doesn’t mean that, that none of them can work in your agency. Right. and I think that it’s, that’s a point that, that he made in a LinkedIn conversation that, that we had, recently as well. You know, some of these may be good ideas, some of them may be bad ideas. Some of them may be good ideas, but you know, wrong place, wrong time or wrong agency, wrong time. And, some of these ideas are good at different stages of the lifecycle of even your own agency. So something that works when you have two employees may not work when you have 20 or 200. Right. And so, you know, I just, I, love articles like this though, because it gives you that food for thought. It makes you think, it makes you, you know, to test your assumptions. You know that I’m a huge, advocate of curiosity generally. And so, you know, making you think about things is helpful. And so hopefully we’ve made you think just as David made us think. And, so we, appreciate that and, we hope that we’ve given you those insights here that may help you think through decisions for your own agency. And of course, you know, check out the full article for many, many more ideas beyond what we were able to cover today. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, absolutely. It was a really good, really good article. Chip Griffin: Absolutely. So thank you all for joining us. That will conclude this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich, Chip Griffin: and it depends.

Send a textIn this episode of Joey Pinz Discipline Conversations, Joey Pinz sits down with Michaela Anderson, founder of LoyaltyOps™, to unpack why so many organizations stall—not because of strategy, tools, or talent—but because people aren't aligned on how to think, behave, and decide together.Michaela breaks down the real difference between leaders and managers, why culture exists whether you design it or not, and how misalignment quietly destroys execution. Drawing from her experience as a Division I athlete, business founder, and organizational advisor, she explains how performance becomes predictable when teams operate with shared standards—not heroics.The conversation dives deep into why popular frameworks like EOS and OKRs often fail to create consistency, what AI can (and can't) fix inside organizations, and why loyalty—defined as commitment plus action—may be the missing ingredient behind sustainable growth.This episode is a must-listen for founders, executives, and leaders who feel stuck firefighting, drowning in meetings, or frustrated that “great people” aren't producing great results. You'll walk away with a clearer understanding of how leadership, culture, and systems must work together—especially as companies scale. ⭐ Top 3 Highlights

In this episode of The People Dividend Podcast, Mike Horne interviews Radhika Dutt, author of 'Radical Product Thinking'. They discuss the limitations of traditional success metrics like goals and OKRs, and how these can lead to performance theater rather than genuine progress. Radhika introduces the concept of puzzle setting as a more effective approach to measuring success and fostering innovation. She shares insights from her work with organizations, demonstrating how a focus on learning and problem-solving can lead to significant business improvements.   Key Points: Goals and targets can create performance theater. Metrics should be tools for insight, not evaluation yardsticks. Organizations can achieve better results without traditional goals and Radhika's methodology has dramatically transformed companies' performance.  Radhika emphasizes the importance of shifting from traditional goal-setting to a puzzle-solving mindset, which encourages teams to explore problems deeply and collaboratively, leading to more innovative solutions.   Links:  Learn more about Mike Horne on Linkedin Email Mike at mike@mike-horne.com Learn More About Executive and Organization Development with Mike Horne Twitter: https://twitter.com/mikehorneauthor  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikehorneauthor/,  LinkedIn Mike's Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6867258581922799617/,  Schedule a Discovery Call with Mike: https://calendly.com/mikehorne/15-minute-discovery-call-with-mike     Learn More about Radhika Dutt: https://rdutt.com/  #peopledividendpodcast #podcastepisode #podcastrecommendations #RadicalProductThinking #Innovation #PerformanceTheater #PuzzleSolving #BusinessSuccess

Confirm uses organizational network analysis to surface hidden high performers and toxic actors that traditional performance reviews miss - identifying the quiet contributors everyone relies on and the problematic employees who manage up effectively. In this episode of BUILDERS, I sat down with David Murray, Cofounder & CEO of Confirm, to dissect their most painful go-to-market lessons. David shares why leading with methodology superiority torpedoed their early sales, the specific discovery framework that flipped their win rate, and how they segment the four distinct HR buying motions that require completely different sales approaches. Topics Discussed: Why traditional performance reviews are 60% manager bias according to research by Maynard Goff How organizational network analysis identifies introverted high performers and manages-up toxic actors The catastrophic early GTM mistake: positioning against existing processes Discovery frameworks for conservative buyers in compliance-heavy functions Talk ratio targets and silence techniques from clinical psychology applied to enterprise sales Channel testing methodology that identified LinkedIn ads as their primary acquisition driver The four-quadrant framework for HR sales: CHRO vs line manager, company-wide vs HR-only tools Messaging strategies that balance shock factor with substantive education GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Discovery trumps differentiation in category creation: Confirm's design partner had promoted toxic employees and lost quiet high performers in the same cycle—a perfect case study for their ONA methodology. But when they pitched other HR leaders with "here's why your approach is broken," they hit walls. The shift: stop selling methodology, start diagnosing pain. Reference what you've observed at similar companies—"Some folks at your size tell us they struggle with X, is that true for you?"—then let prospects surface their version of the problem. Only after they've articulated their pain do you map your differentiated approach to their specific context. Target buyer timing, not just buyer titles: Confirm identified a specific trigger: HR leaders in their first 1-2 months at a new company. These leaders are hired to make change and need early wins. The outreach question: "How are you looking to make your mark?" This surfaces whether they're hungry for innovation or managing political capital. A newly hired CHRO has different motivations than a 5-year veteran protecting their process choices. Map your outreach to career timing, not just seniority. Enforce 50/30/20 talk ratios in discovery: David's target: prospects speak 60-80% of discovery calls, with 50% being acceptable. If you're talking more than half the time, you're pitching, not discovering. The clinical psychology technique: positive encouragers ("yeah," "huh") plus deliberate silence after open-ended questions. Prospects will fill silence with the real issues—budget constraints, political dynamics, past vendor failures. This intel is gold for multi-threading and objection handling later. Test channel-message fit with minimal spend: Confirm's approach: "do everything a little bit and see what sticks." They found LinkedIn ads with precise targeting (title, company size, recent job changes) delivered qualified pipeline cost-effectively, while other channels didn't. The framework: allocate 10-15% of budget across 5-6 channels for 60 days, measure cost-per-qualified-meeting, then concentrate spend. Plan for 3-6 month creative refresh cycles as audiences develop ad fatigue—this isn't set-and-forget. Map your product to the HR buying matrix: David identifies four distinct quadrants: (1) CHRO buyer, company-wide deployment = traditional enterprise sale, 6-18 month cycles, heavy multi-threading required; (2) CHRO buyer, HR-only tool = shorter cycles but still executive selling; (3) Line manager buyer, company-wide = requires bottom-up adoption mechanics; (4) Line manager buyer, HR-only = SMB-style transactional sale. Confirm operates in quadrant 1—the longest, most complex sale. Most founders don't explicitly map which quadrant they're in, leading to mismatched sales motions and blown forecasts. Use provocative messaging with technical substance: "One-click performance reviews" generated meetings because it triggered both excitement (managers hate writing reviews) and concern (is AI replacing human judgment?). The key: the shock factor gets the meeting, but you need depth on the call. Confirm's explanation: the AI aggregates data from Asana, Jira, OKRs, peer feedback, and self-reflections to reduce recency bias, then generates a draft managers edit. The dystopian concern becomes a feature when you explain the data anchoring. Surface-level shock without technical credibility burns trust. Adjust for organizational risk tolerance by function: HR and healthcare share conservative buying cultures due to compliance, documentation, and legal requirements. David contrasts this with selling to CTOs or engineers who "kick tires and want to break things." This affects everything: longer evaluation cycles, more stakeholders in legal/compliance, emphasis on security and data handling, reference checks weighted heavily. If you're selling to risk-averse functions, adjust your content (white papers, compliance documentation), your timeline expectations, and your change management positioning. Reframe education as extraction, not instruction: David's mental model shift: "I need to learn from them" replaced "I need to educate them." In practice: "I've heard from others that calibration meetings consume 10+ hours per cycle with unclear outcomes. They tried approaches like forced ranking or manager-only decisions. Have you experimented with either?" This positions you as a pattern-matcher across their peer group, not a lecturer. They become receptive to alternatives because you've demonstrated you understand their world through other customers' experiences. // Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe. www.GlobalTalent.co // Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM

In this episode, Jeff Mains sits down with Radhika Dutt, author of Radical Product Thinking, to challenge the conventional wisdom around goal-setting, KPIs, and OKRs. Radhika reveals why chasing metrics can actually distort behavior and undermine long-term growth, introducing a powerful alternative: treating growth like a puzzle rather than a scorecard.The conversation explores how well-intentioned targets create perverse incentives, why measures should be tools for insight rather than evaluation, and how a curiosity-driven approach—using the OHLA framework (Observe, Hypothesize, Learn, Adapt)—helps teams make smarter decisions in real-world conditions. Radhika shares compelling examples from OpenAI, maritime SaaS platforms, and robotics companies to illustrate how puzzle-solving beats goal-setting for sustainable growth.Whether you're drowning in dashboards or hitting targets while feeling like something's off, this episode offers a refreshing lens on progress, leadership, and building momentum without the performance theater.Key Takeaways[0:00] - Episode introduction and overview of why goal-setting may be backfiring[4:48] - The fundamental problem with KPIs and OKRs: Goodhart's Law and Campbell's Law explained[6:28] - Dutt's Law: "A measure is only useful as a tool for insight, not a yardstick for evaluation"[7:16] - Real-world example: How OpenAI's user engagement targets led to dangerous "sycophantic AI"[10:37] - The hidden dangers of hitting targets while ignoring negative indicators[11:44] - Introduction to puzzle-setting vs. goal-setting mindset[12:09] - The OHLA framework explained: Observe, Hypothesize, Learn, Adapt[17:51] - Case study: Why improving filters wouldn't have solved the real problem[28:47] - The performance theater trap: Why jumping to solutions feels comfortable but fails[30:28] - How to get customer meetings when people say "you should already know this"[33:00] - Why in-person observation matters more when mental models differ[36:27] - Growth comes from matching user mental models, not forcing adoption of yours[37:47] - The Tesla UI example: When "cool" design ignores user mental models[37:47] - Top-down vs. bottom-up: How to introduce puzzle-solving in organizations[39:27] - Why leaders fear losing control and how to address it[43:01] - Vision-driven vs. iteration-led: Crafting a detailed, actionable vision statement[45:41] - Example vision statement that tells the whole story without mentioning the product[48:03] - Why detailed visions create ownership better than memorable slogans[50:01] - One mindset shift founders can make this week to reduce performance theaterTweetable Quotes"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. We've known this since 1975, yet we keep setting goals for metrics.""A measure is only useful as a tool for insight, not a yardstick for evaluation. That's the critical mindset shift.""When you set targets, everyone's incentive is to show you they've hit that target. You don't look at the negative numbers to see what's actually happening.""Puzzles trigger curiosity and questioning. If you already know the answers, there's no puzzle. That's the...

The OKR Illusion, Why Structure Without Direction Is Just NoiseOKRs (Objectives and Key Results) have gained significant traction over the past decade, especially after being widely adopted and championed by companies like Google. Originally developed at Intel, OKRs are a simple yet powerful framework for setting and tracking goals. At their core, OKRs are about defining what you want to achieve (Objectives) and how you'll measure progress (Key Results). While the concept is simple, the impact lies in how OKRs align teams, create focus, and connect everyday work to meaningful, measurable outcomes.How to connect with AgileDad:- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

What if your OKRs are actually holding you back? Radhika Dutt flips goal-setting on its head, showing why most leaders chase numbers instead of progress. She unpacks performance illusion when teams look successful but quietly stall and how a puzzle-based approach creates real ownership and innovation. We dive into her Dutt's Law ("metrics are for insight, not evaluation"), why curiosity beats control, and how to run teams that tell the truth instead of gaming the numbers. This episode isn't anti-goals – it's about building smarter ones that actually grow your people and your business. Timestamps: 00:00 — Cold Open & Intro 03:42 — Turning OKRs on Their Head (Where Goals Really Came From) 06:55 — Performance Illusion: When Numbers Lie to Leaders 07:35 — Goals vs Puzzles: A Simple Question That Changes Everything 12:49 — Dutt's Law: Metrics Are for Insight, Not Evaluation 17:28 — The Avid Story: Hitting Targets While Losing the Market 21:19 — The Infinite Game: How to Stay Curious and Keep Growing 23:19 — Fear of Losing Control: Leaders and the Puzzle Mindset 31:02 — The O-H-L-A Method: Objectives, Hypotheses, Learnings, Adaptation 31:23 — Psychological Safety: Getting the Truth from Your Team 38:13 — Why Big, Hairy Goals Are Bullshit Website: www.radicalproduct.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/radhika-dutt

This week’s guest is Radhika Dutt. Ron and Radhika discussed OKRs, Toyota Kata, the target mentality, the OHLA puzzle framework, and more. An MP3 audio version of this episode is available for download here. In this episode you’ll learn:  Radhika’s favorite quote (3:13) Her background (4:26) What OKR stands for (6:46) What happens when you set goals and targets (7:47) The Toyota Kata framework (10:20) About the target mentality (23:46) How goals make us feel (26:37) About the OHLA puzzle framework (33:56) Measuring people (38:53)  Her final words of wisdom (43:35) Podcast Resources Right Click to Download this Podcast as an MP3 Radhika on LinkedIn Radhika’s Website Get All the Latest News from Gemba Academy Our newsletter is a great way to receive updates on new courses, blog posts, and more. Sign up here. What Do You Think? What are your thoughts on OKRs?

In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Bruno Annicq, CFO of Wellhub (formerly Gympass), to unpack a practical finance playbook built around cash discipline, sustainable growth, and simplicity. Bruno explains how he rebuilt forecasting using an AI-driven, probabilistic ensemble model, moving teams beyond single-scenario planning. They also dig into his EMPOWER planning framework, usable OKRs, and why tighter alignment between finance, HR, and wellbeing is becoming a durable lever for long-term performance.—SPONSORS:RightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for modern pricing models like usage-based pricing, bundles, and mid-cycle upgrades. RightRev lets companies scale monetization without slowing down close or compliance. For RevRec that keeps growth moving, visit https://www.rightrev.comRillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to close faster without fighting legacy systems. Designed to support complex revenue recognition, multi-entity operations, and real-time reporting, Rillet helps teams achieve a true zero-day close—with some customers closing in hours, not days. If you're scaling on an ERP that wasn't built in the 90s, book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cjTabs is an AI-native revenue platform that unifies billing, collections, and revenue recognition for companies running usage-based or complex contracts. By bringing together ERP, CRM, and real product usage data into a single system of record, Tabs eliminates manual reconciliations and speeds up close and cash collection. Companies like Cortex, Statsig, and Cursor trust Tabs to scale revenue efficiently. Learn more at https://www.tabs.com/runAbacum is a modern FP&A platform built by former CFOs to replace slow, consultant-heavy planning tools. With self-service integrations and AI-powered workflows for forecasting, variance analysis, and scenario modeling, Abacum helps finance teams scale without becoming software admins. Trusted by teams at Strava, Replit, and JG Wentworth—learn more at https://www.abacum.aiBrex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metricsMetronome is real-time billing built for modern software companies. Metronome turns raw usage events into accurate invoices, gives customers bills they actually understand, and keeps finance, product, and engineering perfectly in sync. That's why category-defining companies like OpenAI and Anthropic trust Metronome to power usage-based pricing and enterprise contracts at scale. Focus on your product — not your billing. Learn more and get started at https://www.metronome.com—LINKS:Bruno on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bannicq/Wellhub: https://wellhub.com/CJ on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com—RELATED EPISODES:“Run Toward a Tough Market” — Developing the Hard and Soft Skills To Be a Great Finance Leaderhttps://youtu.be/iNHbkcG7YEo—TIMESTAMPS:00:00:00 Preview and Intro00:02:19 Sponsors — RightRev, Rillet, Tabs00:06:43 Accidental CFO Origin Story00:07:34 Consulting to Operations Pivot00:08:12 Why Finance Clicked for Bruno00:09:28 McKinsey Prioritization in Real World00:10:02 Eisenhower Matrix and Prioritization00:11:08 Investing in Non-Urgent Work00:13:30 Lessons From AOL Reinvention00:16:10 Sponsors — Abacum, Brex, Metronome00:20:01 Career Growth Through Hard Problems00:20:52 Broadening Skills Through Change00:23:12 Five Core Finance Principles00:24:02 Cash Is King00:25:14 Driving Sustainable Growth00:26:01 No Surprises and Forecasting00:26:07 Finance as Business Enabler00:27:22 Less Is More Philosophy00:28:47 Hardest Principle: Less Is More00:29:46 Deterministic vs Probabilistic Forecasting00:31:11 Marketplace Volatility and Forecast Error00:32:10 Ensemble Models Explained00:33:37 Forecast Accuracy Gains00:34:53 Building Models In-House00:36:46 Why Explainability Matters00:37:48 Empower Framework Introduction00:47:47 Urgency, Compounding, Long-Term Thinking00:48:10 Advice to Younger Self00:50:06 Finance Stack and Expense Stories00:52:51 Credits#RunTheNumbersPodcast #CFO #FinanceLeadership #Forecasting #AIinFinance This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cjgustafson.substack.com

What if the secret to staying focused, aligned, and genuinely excited about your goals wasn't a 20-page annual plan, but a simple monthly sprint? Nikki and Jason pull back the curtain on how PeopleForward Network uses OKRs and monthly sprint goals to spark team momentum.

We're always talking about how to create strategic plans and then execute them with intention for immediate action and measurement. As we like to do on this show, we bring forth many different approaches and ways of thinking, because we know not every tool is a one-size-fits-all. Today, that focus is on the OKR framework aka Objectives & Key Results. We wanted you to learn from an expert who knows OKRs better than anyone, so we welcomed on Philipp Schett. He's the Founder of Wave Nine, the #1 OKR consulting firm. You'll also love their free OKR Crash Course. For more about ForthRight Business by ForthRight People or for 1:1 consultation, check us out at ForthRight-Business.com And as always, if you need Strategic Counsel, don't hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/forthrightpeople.marketingagency INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/forthrightpeople/ LINKEDIN https://www.linkedin.com/company/forthright-people/ RESOURCES https://www.forthright-people.com/resources VIRTUAL CONSULTANCY https://www.forthright-people.com/shop

In this episode of Building the Billion Dollar Business, Ray Sclafani explores why New Year's resolutions fail inside advisory firms and what high-performing advisory teams do differently when designing kickoff meetings. Drawing on behavioral research and real-world coaching experience, Ray explains that the early breakdown of resolutions is not a motivation problem, it is a design problem.Ray introduces the concept of positive intent, a practical leadership approach that replaces vague resolutions with clear statements of what a team will do, how it will do it, and why it matters. He emphasizes that effective kickoff meetings begin before the meeting itself, with leaders building trust through one-on-one conversations that connect personal goals to professional alignment.The Five-Part Kickoff Meeting Framework for High-Performing Advisory TeamsRefine Annual OKRs to Align Advisory Team Outcomes Define clear objectives and measurable key results that improve client experience, advisory firm performance, and team effectiveness—starting with outcomes, not activity.Set Clear Advisory Firm Priorities With a Strong “Why” Identify the top priorities for the year and state each with positive intent, linking daily decisions to client value and long-term advisory firm strategy.Celebrate the Prior Year to Reinforce Team Performance Recognize wins, reflect on lessons learned, and reinforce behaviors that contributed to advisory team success and sustainable growth.Reinforce Advisory Firm Values Through Shared Team Experiences Bring firm values to life by highlighting real behaviors and building trust through meaningful shared experiences that strengthen advisory team culture.Align Individual Growth and Development With Team Objectives Encourage team members to state clear personal and professional growth intentions that directly support advisory firm priorities and client outcomes.Key TakeawaysMost New Year's resolutions fail within the first six to eight weeksPositive intent provides operational clarity around what will be done, how, and whyLeaders strengthen teams by connecting personally before aligning professionallyKickoff meetings should start with outcomes, not activitiesTeams grow sustainably when individual development aligns with team goalsQuestions Financial Advisors Often AskQ: Why do New Year's resolutions fail in advisory firms?A: Resolutions tend to fail early because they are often vague, reactive, and focused on avoidance rather than progress. According to research referenced in the episode, most resolutions break down within the first six to eight weeks, indicating a design problem rather than a lack of motivation.Q: What is “positive intent” in a kickoff meeting?A: Positive intent is a clear statement of what the team will do, how it will do it, and why it matters. Unlike resolutions, positive intent provides operational clarity and helps teams sustain momentum throughout the year.Q: What should be included in an advisory firm kickoff meeting?A: High-performing advisory teams include five parts: refining OKRs, setting clear priorities with a clear why, celebrating the previous year, reinforcing values through shared experiences, and aligning individual growth with team objectives.Q: Why is celebrating the previous year important?A: Recognition reinforces effective behavior, and reflection turns experience into learning. High-performing teams take time to acknowledge what worked and what did not before moving forward.Find Ray and the ClientWise Team on the ClientWise website or LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeTo join one of the largest digital communities of financial advisors, visit exchange.clientwise.com.

Molly Graham has worked for some of tech's most effective leaders, including Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, Chamath Palihapitiya, and Bret Taylor. Today she leads Glue Club, a community for leaders navigating rapid scale, growth, and change. She's best known for her “Give away your Legos” framework and her collection of practical mental models for leading through hypergrowth.We discuss:1. “Give away your Legos”: a framework for scaling yourself as a leader2. “J-curves vs. stairs”: the two paths of career growth, and why you should pick the scarier path3. “The waterline model” for diagnosing team problems (and why you should “snorkel before you scuba”)4. Six rules for creating effective goals (and aligning everyone around them)5. Rules of thumb for leading through rapid scale and change6. Her biggest leadership lessons from Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Sheryl Sandberg, and Bret Taylor—Brought to you by:DX—The developer intelligence platform designed by leading researchersBrex—The banking solution for startupsGoFundMe Giving Funds—Make helping a habit—Transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-high-growth-handbook-molly-graham—My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/182877855/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation—Where to find Molly Graham:• X: https://x.com/molly_g• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mograham• Substack: https://mollyg.substack.com• Website: https://glueclub.com—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Molly Graham(04:28) Molly's background at Google, Facebook, Quip, and CZI(11:29) The “Give away your Legos” framework(16:44) Managing your inner monster(19:49) When not to give away your Legos(21:28) Embracing a long career(23:25) The J-curve vs. stairs approach to career growth(32:00) The gift of knowing yourself(34:28) Learning to be a professional idiot(38:30) The waterline model: snorkel before you scuba(47:16) Six rules for creating strong alignment around goals(57:15) Rules of thumb for leading through rapid scale(01:07:49) Investing in high performers vs. low performers(01:10:54) Lessons from Zuckerberg, Sandberg, and Bret Taylor(1:21:15) Pivoting from ambition to purpose(1:26:32) Finding stability in instability(01:29:44) Final thoughts—Referenced:• Making an impact through authenticity and curiosity | Ami Vora (CPO at Faire, ex-WhatsApp, FB, IG): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/authenticity-and-curiosity-ami-vora• Sheryl Sandberg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheryl-sandberg-5126652• Elliot Schrage on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elliotschrage• Quip: https://quip.com• He saved OpenAI, invented the “Like” button, and built Google Maps: Bret Taylor on the future of careers, coding, agents, and more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/he-saved-openai-bret-taylor• Chan Zuckerberg Initiative: https://chanzuckerberg.com• 10 contrarian leadership truths every leader needs to hear | Matt MacInnis (Rippling): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/10-contrarian-leadership-truths• ‘Give Away Your Legos' and Other Commandments for Scaling Startups: https://review.firstround.com/give-away-your-legos-and-other-commandments-for-scaling-startups• The Muppets: https://muppets.disney.com• Sara Caldwell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saramcaldwell• J-Curves vs. Stairs: Two Approaches to Career Growth: https://mollyg.substack.com/p/j-curve• Forget the corporate ladder—winners take risks: https://www.ted.com/talks/molly_graham_forget_the_corporate_ladder_winners_take_risks• Chamath Palihapitiya on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chamath• Lori Goler on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lori-goler-6b96921• Joseph Campbell's quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/192665-the-cave-you-fear-to-enter-holds-the-treasure-you• Zevi Arnovitz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zev-arnovitz• Peopling 101: The Waterline Model: https://christinehaskell.com/blog/peopling-101-the-waterline-model• Introduction to NVC: https://www.cnvc.org/learn/what-is-nvc• I hate OKRs... and other thoughts about goal setting: https://mollyg.substack.com/p/i-hate-okrs-and-other-thoughts-about• Lessons from scaling Stripe | Claire Hughes Johnson (former COO of Stripe): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-scaling-stripe-tactics• James Clear's quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9614600-problem-1-winners-and-losers-have-the-same-goals• Founder mode: https://paulgraham.com/foundermode.html• Stripe: https://stripe.com• Patrick Collison on X: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickcollison• John Collison on X: https://x.com/collision• Seth Godin's best tactics for building remarkable products, strategies, brands and more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/seth-godins-tactics-for-building-remarkable-products• Eric Antonow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonow—Recommended books:• The Artist's Way: https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary/dp/0143129252• Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building: https://www.amazon.com/Scaling-People-Tactics-Management-Building/dp/1953953212• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones: https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/0735211299—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

Steve Martin: Making Scrum Master Success Visible with OKRs That Actually Work Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.   "It is not the retrospective that is the success of the retrospective. It is the ownership and accountability where you take improvements after the session." - Steve Martin   The biggest problem for Scrum Masters isn't just defining success—it's being able to shout it from the rooftops with tangible evidence. Steve champions OKRs as an amazing way to define and measure success, but with a critical caveat: they've historically been poorly written and implemented in dark rooms by executives, then cascaded down to teams who never bought in. Steve's approach is radically different. Create OKRs collectively with the team, stakeholders, and end users. Start by focusing on the pain—what problems or pain points do customers, users, and stakeholders actually experience? Make the objective the goal to solve that problem, then define how to measure progress with key results. When everyone is bought in—Scrum Master, engineers, Product Owner, stakeholders, leaders—all pulling in the same direction, magic happens. Make progress visible on the wall like a speedometer, showing exactly where you are at any moment. For an e-commerce checkout, the problem might be too many steps. The objective: reduce pain for users checking out quickly. The baseline: 15 steps today. The target: 5 clicks in three months. Everyone can see the dial moving. Everything should focus on the customer as the endpoint. The challenge is distinguishing between targets imposed from above ("increase sales by 10%") and objectives created collaboratively based on factors the team can actually control. Find what you can control first, work with customers to understand their pain, and start from there.   Self-reflection Question: Can you articulate your team's success with specific, measurable outcomes that everyone—from developers to executives—understands and owns? Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: Post-Retro Actions and Ownership The success of a retrospective isn't the retrospective itself—it's what happens after. Steve emphasizes that ownership and accountability matter more than the format of the session. Take improvements from the retrospective and bring them into the sprint as user stories with clear structure: this is the problem, how we'll solve it, and how we'll measure impact. Assign collective ownership—not just a single person, but the whole team owns the improvement. Then bring improvements into the demo so the team showcases what changed. This creates cultural transformation: the team themselves want to bring improvements, not just because the Scrum Master pushed them. For ongoing impediments, conduct root cause analysis. Create a system to escalate issues beyond the team's control—make these visible on another board or with the leadership team. Find peers in pain: teams with the same problems can work together collectively. The retrospective format matters less than this system of ownership, action, measurement, and visibility. Stop retrospective theatre—going through the motions without taking action. Make improvements real by treating them like any other work: visible, measured, owned, and demonstrated.   [The Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast Recommends]

GenAI now sits inside content workflows, SDR outreach, and competitive intelligence. Marketing teams are seeing real wins and real growing pains, and the open question is where to focus next. To answer that, Drew brings together Kelly Hopping, John McKinney (Cornerstone Licensing), and Brian Hankin (Altium Packaging) to share the AI plays they are running right now and how they're leading the charge. Here's how: In this episode: Kelly shows how AI weaves through content, SDR workflows, web chat, product work, and SEO, plus how OKRs and certifications lift AI fluency across the team. John uses AI agents for competitor tracking, outbound support, and coding, and treats AI as a sparring partner for strategy before it reaches the C suite. Brian runs an AI campaign engine that builds multi-touch programs in minutes and tracks lifts in engagement, qualified leads, proposals, and wins. Plus: How AEO connects to SEO and what needs to shift for LLM-driven discovery How leaders model AI use with internal knowledge bases and cross-functional pilots How to structure AI readiness Where CMOs can start Tune in if you want AI use cases you can put to work now and a clearer view of where to point your team next. For full show notes and transcripts, visit https://renegademarketing.com/podcasts/ To learn more about CMO Huddles, visit https://cmohuddles.com/

Hi! Ever felt like you're on a Disney ride through every big-company headache imaginable? Think lawyers, bankers, finance goons, stale conference rooms, staid conversations and the creeping sense that the machine is running you, not the other way around.Big companies exist for good reason. They build real things - consistently. They deliver at scale. But they also can suffocate the people who want to tinker, experiment, break stuff, and dream. The renegades. The builders. The ones who get hives at the prospect of OKRs, KPIs and strategery. On this episode of Unsolicited Advice, we get into what it actually takes to keep creativity alive when the machine takes over. How small groups can save big companies. How to protect the spark from the process. How to build something real without getting crushed by the weight of everyone else's need for control, accuracy and uniformity. If you've ever felt yourself wither in a big org or wondered why your best ideas show up in small rooms, this one is for you.This is WORK: Unsolicited Advice! Watch full episode on YouTube. Get full access to WORK at erikaayersbadan.substack.com/subscribe

Ever wonder why most companies struggle to scale real culture as fast as they grow? What if the right blend of purpose, freedom, and radical alignment could make your team unstoppable?In this Fan Favorite episode, Cameron Herold sits down with Kshitij Minglani, co-founder of Mindvalley Quests and serial entrepreneur, to unpack the proven playbook behind building a revolutionary “cult-like” workplace where high-performers thrive, politics die, and radical innovation flourishes. They explore OKRs that spark action, mantras that force clarity, remote team magic, and how Gen Y talent fuels explosive, sticky growth. You'll hear mind-blowing lessons on hiring, self-driven learning, and operational rhythm that you won't get in any MBA.Listen now, because the pain of missing these atomic insights is real: most companies will burn out, fragment, or plateau if they skip what you'll learn here. This is your exclusive shortcut to building a thriving team before you get left behind.Timestamped Highlights[00:00] – The real secret to “Second in Command” chemistry and why skillset complement matters more than ego[00:03:33] – How Mindvalley went from selling meditation courses to teaching 10 million people a year[00:07:00] – Proven tactics to attract Gen Y talent from 54 countries—bootstrapped, not VC-fueled[00:09:45] – Why career pages, values, and strategic interviews pull “cult-like” high performers (and kill politics)[00:12:16] – The radical power of OKRs, failing 50%, and how competition keeps teams sharp[00:16:14] – Outward thinking and self-driven learning: fueling growth with global hackathons and TED talks[00:18:05] – How “OODA Loops” from the military weaponize CEO-COO alignment[00:21:05] – The epic failures: when Mindvalley ignored customers and missed the subscription revolution[00:29:09] – Minimum Viable Product mentality—shipping fast, fighting perfection, and keeping teams hungry[00:35:08] – How Lifebook and conscious parenting keep remote teams human, connected, and loyalAbout the GuestKshitij Minglani is the Co-Founder of Mindvalley Quests, a global leader in education and personal growth, serving millions from 54 countries. Known for his mastery in scaling startups, building culture-first organizations, and strategic innovation, he's been behind some of Mindvalley's most explosive pivots. Kshitij specializes in operations, growth, and high-velocity hiring, giving him unique authority for COOs and aspiring leaders alike.