Although crunch time can be powerful for leveraging adaptive pressure, using it to get routine stuff done or cover up poor planning is bad leadership. 👎
In many ways, my sister has spent her whole career fighting this kind of poor structure you just outlined. The problem: the organizations she's worked with are seemingly addicted to the firefighting. She recently walked off a contractor job where she was about to be made permanent due to that gap.
Reading this, I kept thinking that excellence is boring, mundane. To see you reference the book The Mundanity of Excellence was an exciting confirmation! In our dopamine driven world, calm excellence is a rare treasure indeed.
The first step of the process that led to what is the Revenue Flywheel System was going through the “hero work” that was happening. We had great people on the team but we had to enable them to fix the system. A little bit at a time. Not accepting what was the status quo. When we did that we build a system that removed the need for hero work and let our team see even greater success.
I think that distinction is critical, where great people often end up compensating for weak systems, which can hide the underlying issue for a long time.
The danger is that organisations start normalising hero work instead of asking why the work requires heroics in the first place. We saw this over the COVID period where staff going above and beyond became the new norm for leadership.
What you described with the Revenue Flywheel System is the more mature move of
using capable people not just to survive the chaos, but to redesign the conditions creating or dealing with it.
This should be required reading for every leader in tech.
Thanks, Katie.
Although crunch time can be powerful for leveraging adaptive pressure, using it to get routine stuff done or cover up poor planning is bad leadership. 👎
In many ways, my sister has spent her whole career fighting this kind of poor structure you just outlined. The problem: the organizations she's worked with are seemingly addicted to the firefighting. She recently walked off a contractor job where she was about to be made permanent due to that gap.
I'm hearing this story a lot lately.
Few of us can fix the system, but we can certainly address how we respond to it
When organizations praise the rescue but ignore the root cause, they quietly train people to repeat the same crisis.
What gets measured (and rewarded), gets managed.
I see this pattern occur when learning about current events and social issues. Well done!
Thank you, Erin. I do try to ensure my frameworks are evergreen across times and industries.
Reading this, I kept thinking that excellence is boring, mundane. To see you reference the book The Mundanity of Excellence was an exciting confirmation! In our dopamine driven world, calm excellence is a rare treasure indeed.
Oh, it's an absolute competitive advantage, Daniel. It's also a core facet of built resilience - both of systems and people.
Thank you for your comment.
Great insights Peter.
The first step of the process that led to what is the Revenue Flywheel System was going through the “hero work” that was happening. We had great people on the team but we had to enable them to fix the system. A little bit at a time. Not accepting what was the status quo. When we did that we build a system that removed the need for hero work and let our team see even greater success.
Thanks for sharing!
Really appreciate this, David.
I think that distinction is critical, where great people often end up compensating for weak systems, which can hide the underlying issue for a long time.
The danger is that organisations start normalising hero work instead of asking why the work requires heroics in the first place. We saw this over the COVID period where staff going above and beyond became the new norm for leadership.
What you described with the Revenue Flywheel System is the more mature move of
using capable people not just to survive the chaos, but to redesign the conditions creating or dealing with it.