-
In-abiliy
When we feel inability, our mindset is usually focused on our circle of concerns, in the things that are outside our influence. The funny thing is that the answer to overcoming the sense of inability is hidden right in front of our eyes, in the term itself 🙂 In-ability = our inner ability Our inner…
-
Why should anything change next quarter?
As Albert Einstein noted, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Yet as we plan our next quarter, we tend to ask, “What should we do differently this quarter?” instead of asking, “How should we be thinking differently this quarter?”. In other words, we are planning next…
-
Do we really know our co-founders?
Though I coach co-founders as a team, my primary tool is 1×1 coaching which gives me a unique perspective into who they really ARE. Realizing the gaps between founders’ values and belief systems makes me sometimes amazed teams function. These gaps, when the occur, are “surfaced” in the form of arguments, disagreements, growing misalignment and…
-
May you “have a birth today”
When I was a teenager I was a volunteer medic at MDA, Israel’s national rescue organization. We used to accompany the ambulance team to all kinds of medical emergencies. Like any job we had cases we were excited to attend and others we liked less… but the pinnacle of every volunteer medic was delivering a home…
-
Alignment is the “API” of empowerment
When we read the definition of alignment in the dictionary we get the sense of how it feels to work in a command & control mindset: Cogs in a machine, expected to align in a straight line and travel a predefined course… And most of all to agree. Alignment in a command & control environment…
-
No Pause Button
I lost my voice this today. A coach without a voice? 🙁 I started losing my voice during the weekend but when the week started I kept coaching. I couldn’t make myself pause. Today it reached a point that it was impossible for me to go on. I canceled the rest of the sessions this…
-
GPS Question
How do I know I’m going in the right direction? One of the questions I find myself asking repeatedly is “What would you ask yourself at the end of each week, before the weekend arrives, to know that you did a great job this week?” The question never fails because when we look for that…
-
! → ?
If language is magic then the question mark is the magician’s wand. It is the one character that makes everything possible. Don’t believe me? Try it… Think of 3 things that you deeply believe are impossible… Then at the end of every statement add an exclamation mark. Now read them aloud to yourself. For example:…
-
Reset
Teams, like individuals, tend to get caught in their self-perception and narrative of who they think they are. It’s a huge blocker of growth. In people, these self-narratives tend to develop in the early formative years of the company and are very hard to change. Last week I asked one of the product people I…
-
What’s your insight?
Every change we create, every growth we drive, starts with a change in our perception and beliefs. We first have an in-sight (an updated internal image of a possible reality) and it is that internal image that drives our action as we pursue to close the gap between our in-sight(vision) and our external-sight (reality). Insights…
-
Goals that reach the eyes
Too often it feels like goals are “fed” to people. When they describe their goals they feel like an external force that drives them instead of a fire that fuels them from within. The difference between the two can be seen in the eyes of the people who discuss their goals. There is an expression…
-
The craft
My first job out of college was as an apprentice to a picture framer. It was 25 years ago and in many ways, it has shaped who I am as a professional to this day. When I got my bachelor’s degree in fine arts in 1996 I wanted to frame a few of my works.…
-
OKR ourselves first
OKRs (or any other focus framework) are treated by leaders like tools instead of the “mindset interfaces” they are. Leaders are looking at the integration of OKRs as an implementation challenge when in fact it is a mindset shift challenge that, like any other mindset shift, starts with leadership by example. There’s a story about…
-
Recalculate route
We all want a sense of confidence that we know exactly where we’re going. But if there is one thing I painfully learned in more than 20 years of PMing is that we product people don’t really know 🙁 This need for a sence of confidence in our direction birthed the concept of roadmaps. The…
-
12–1
So… 1st 2021 month out of 12 has passed. How many times during Jan did your team manage to impact the goal they’re driving? How many times during Jan were your teams able to point at a release that drove your company metrics? What’s your prediction for Feb? I’m not talking about what you predict…
-
The knowing zone vs. the doubting zone
I found that doubt, or the absence of it, is great leading indicator of personal and company growth. When I wake up and my doubts are “not there” or I realise they haven’t been there for a while I know I drifted into my “knowing zone”. The zone where I operate with high levels of…
-
Care Bears
Startup founders are expected to create something new and original in this world that often requires a new way of thinking, sometimes a complete human paradigm shift. They are funded to think differently. To be different. The irony is that the second these founders raise the money they find themselves under pressure to lead their…
-
Praise vs. Encouragement
Without belief, no change can happen. This is what makes encouraging such an important coaching/leading/parenting skill. But there is a huge difference between praising and encouraging that is overlooked. As a result in many cases, we end up praising (hint: It’s a bit useless) when what we really intended to do was to encourage. What…
-
We don’t really understand each other
One of the things that amazed me as I started coaching was the realization of how subjective we humans are. Before I coached I used to be much less curious and humble in the sense that I assumed I know what people meant. So if someone said a sentence like “We really need to create…
-
Separating the road from the map
As the rate of change in the world is growing, there is a growing need for truly autonomous teams that can move faster and scale our organization’s “change-velocity”. Autonomous teams need to be led and less managed. They require a direction instead of a directive. They expect trust in their ability to guide us to…
-
Have you made yourself redundant yet?
There are multiple reasons why building autonomous teams is challenging for leaders, but there is one aspect of the challenge that we’re ignoring. Regardless of the challenges of building the required trust, frameworks, and processes that foster autonomy, creating autonomous teams is a form of making yourself gradually “redundant”. I suspect that this feeling of…
-
What would change in the next 90 days?
Have YOU clearly communicated to your company and each team what is the change they are expected to drive in the next 90 days? In most startups, we have 2–8 quarters of funding left at any given moment of time. That’s it! We can’t really afford to have a quarter drive by us without maximizing…
-
Inner conflict vs. choice
Having an inner conflict and having a choice to make sounds similar but they are very different. Inner conflict is actually a form of avoiding making real choices. The cost of avoiding choices I see this all the time. Startup founders, who know, exactly, in their hearts what is most valuable for them, but for…
-
Is your vision compelling (you to act)?
When was the last time you SAW your vision? Seriously, when was the last time you found yourself PULLED from the present into the future? Do you remember the last time you faced a serious dilemma in the present and felt your vision was guiding your present choices? If the answer is “I can’t remember”,…
-
“Data-driven” isn’t about the “data” it’s about the “driven”
When we talk about being “data-driven” what we usually focus on is the “data” part. The focus is on ensuring data drives our decisions. By doing so we are missing the whole point which is the “driving” part of being data-driven. What DRIVES us? In his book Drive Daniel Pink discusses what truly drives people in our…
-
Burning the boats — Resisting the pull of the old you
One of the hardest things about pivoting our company or our career is resisting the pull of the past. The fact that we have decided to change our value proposition doesn’t mean the world recognizes that yet, and as a result, people and companies will come knocking at our door looking for the “old you”.…
-
Never forever
There are two imaginary words humans invented that are holding us back as individuals, as companies, and as a species. We created them back in the days out of necessity but they have become so prominent in the way we see the world that instead of serving us they now threaten our existence. FOREVER &…
-
Do you know what’s YOUR next x1.5 domino?
(This post is inspired by Gary Keller’s The One Thing which is one of my favorite books) Watching dominos fall is addictive. But there is a little known secret about dominos that will change the way you think about creating and executing on your vision… The power of x1.5 The incredible fact about dominos is that a…
-
No attachment
When I was an art student almost 30 years ago I studied under the guidance one of Israel’s greatest artist Yaakov Dorchin. He wasn’t a man of many words but still somehow with the little words he did use he taught us much more than many others teachers did with a million words. In our first…
-
“We tried it it doesn’t work!”
How would the world look if babies would decide walking wasn’t worth it after trying once or twice and failing? There is a silent vision killer I have seen in action more times than I can count. It is true for personal vision and for company/product visions alike. It is called the “We tried it…