Issue #53: Creating Clarity in Complex BusinessesRead this on my website Most of you reading this operate complex (and probably complicated) businesses. Technology, go-to-market, operations, finance, legal—each function has its own priorities and ways of working, yet all must operate in synchrony if the company is to execute well. This is hard enough in stable markets; in uncertain ones, it can be practically impossible. To stitch these pieces together, you need a clear view of the business...
24 days ago • 4 min read
Issue #52: The Importance of FrictionRead this on my website Note: You may have noticed my absence for a few weeks. I've been dealing with a really difficult personal situation, which I reference in today's newsletter. Friction is bad. This is the message that is drilled into us in both professional and private contexts. Friction is inefficient. Friction blocks progress. Friction is something we must strive to remove or overcome! (Ideally with technology, according to large technology...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Issue 16. How Do You Compensate Customer Success People? The advisory work I do on Customer Success almost invariably begins with a process review. We look at what the team is doing and how it is doing it, and then talk about what their goals and ways of working should be. Compensation then follows and is structured to create incentives for desired behavior. But that’s rarely the way these things are set up in the first place. More often than not, the CS team’s goals and priorities are the...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Issue #51: People, Presence, and PrioritiesRead this on my website I spent this past week in the United States. It was the first time I had been back for business for more than two years. My goal was pure business development, and the two events I attended (Restecher Capital Markets Day and IIEX NA Conference) did not disappoint. The advisory work I do is not an easy sell. I am not a growth hacker or brand whisperer or a traditional coach. Instead, I know how to help businesses do the hard...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Issue #50: No Touch. No ChoiceRead this on my website I am obsessed these days with AI, and it's not even because of all the things AI can do, which, even for people who are building AI tools, is impossible to keep up with. I am obsessed because I see the future of the industry I've worked in for the past 20+ years on the cusp of a change that will have a massive impact on a lot of people. I have spoken about the concept of no touch operations in different pieces I've written. Without...
2 months ago • 3 min read
Issue #49: Leadership Is Not the Opposite of ManagementRead this on my website Judging by what I see on LinkedIn and hear from real people, there’s a widely held belief that if you’re approachable, emotionally intelligent and not a tyrant, you’ll be a great manager. But being emotionally intelligent isn’t the same as being a good manager, and mistaking one for the other is where many emerging leaders go wrong. This week’s post was born of a conversation I had with a leader of one of my...
2 months ago • 4 min read
Issue #48: The Pros and Cons of ThinkingRead this on my website I started writing this at around 10pm my time on Friday night, which is awfully late for a newsletter that was supposed to go out in less than 11 hours. I had a conversation with someone late this afternoon, though, that compelled me to scrap this week's topic and write this. The call was just to catch up. We've known each other for several years. This person, who understand the industry back-to-front and subscribes to my...
3 months ago • 4 min read
Issue #47: A Stag, a Rabbit, and a Prisoner Walk Into a Bar 🦌🐇Read this on my website No one loves a leadership analogy drawn from current events more than I do. So let’s talk about those tariffs, shall we? Set aside the fact that even the free-market mandarins of Palo Alto—the former architects and seemingly last conservative-leaning defenders of Pax Americana, the Brooks Brothers–wearing scions of Stanford, the Hoover Institution itself—think Donald Trump’s tariffs are bonkers. Let’s just...
3 months ago • 3 min read
Issue 11. No-Touch Operations That's Not DIY ‘No-touch’ operations should be the goal of any research firm that wants to scale. Not low-touch. Not self-serve. Not a slick UI hiding a battalion of operators or an off-shore project team. Actual no-touch: work that runs on its own once the rules are set. There are precious few assets that firms in our space can build on their own. One of them is indomitable execution. Indomitable execution is not process efficiency. Process efficiency is good,...
3 months ago • 1 min read