Look before you lead

It’s true, anyone can lead.

In twenty years I’ve watched people grow into leaders, helped a few get there, and grown into the role myself. How far each of us got depended on the trust, backing and incentives around us as much as on what we brought.

Before you say yes to a lead role, find out who will stand behind you when the decisions get hard.

The Best Consultancies Make Themselves Less Necessary

I’m preparing for a talk with Equal Experts, and it’s got me thinking about consultancy.

I’ve worked for consultancies, alongside them, and inside companies while consultancies have come in to assess them.

Some experiences have been brilliant.

Others have made me uncomfortable.

And the more I’ve seen, the more I think the difference between a good consultancy and a bad one often has little to do with technical ability.

It comes down to culture, honesty, empathy and transparency.

But above all, it comes down to incentives.

Every consultancy has to make money. Of course it does.

But how it makes that money matters.

Good products die when people become resources

Throughout my career the one thing I’ve watched kill good products is a single word: resource.

Once a company calls its people resources, it starts treating them like resources. It adds them, rotates them, splits them across teams.

The product is the first thing to suffer.

Yes, you want a team. The dynamic of that team decides far more than the org chart admits.