How to solve your team’s most embedded problems
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Hi Reader, A few years ago, I worked with the CEO of a fast-growing company. He was deeply committed to his people: Generous with equity, flexible on hours, always available. But his company had a problem. They couldn't kill anything. Every initiative seemed to live forever. Their roadmap was cluttered with half-finished projects. Teams were stretched thin, saying yes to everything and finishing nothing. He kept trying to fix it with reorgs, new prioritization frameworks, or hiring new leaders. But nothing seemed to work. One day I asked him: "When's the last time you said no to something outside of your professional life?" He went quiet. As we talked, a pattern emerged. He had a deep discomfort with disappointing people. He'd say yes to dinners he didn't want to attend, to favors that drained him, and to projects that didn't align, because someone was excited about them. His inability to disappoint had become the company's inability to prioritize. That quarter, we worked on his relationship with the word no. As he got more comfortable with it, something shifted. He started ending initiatives cleanly. His leadership team followed. Within six months, the company had cut 40% of its active projects, and revenue per employee had jumped. Pillar Three: Your team mirrors your inner landscapeI see this pattern play out constantly in companies: What the leader avoids personally doesn’t go away. It becomes institutional. Their self-talk determines how their team communicates. Their boundaries (or lack thereof) become their team's policies. Every place they have a trigger or blind-spot, an oppositional force will grow in their organization. Every leader's consciousness is reflected in their team. This can be uncomfortable to accept, because it means the dysfunction you see out there is connected to something in here. But it's also powerful. Because it means that when you shift your inner world, your team follows. This is a key pillar of the leadership work we do at the Council. And why we go beyond strategy or management techniques. It's about doing the inner work that makes outer change possible. Big Love, Joe |
Art of Accomplishment
Hi Reader, A few years ago, I worked with a leadership team at a Series C software company. On paper, they were perfectly aligned. Strategic plans were approved unanimously. Everyone nodded in meetings. Decisions passed without friction. And yet nothing moved. Projects stalled, timelines slipped, and initiatives that everyone had "agreed to" kept getting quietly deprioritized. The CEO was baffled. How could a team that agreed on everything execute on nothing? When we dug in, we found the...
Hi Reader, In our last email, we explored the first pillar: We all want to be part of something exceptional. The desire to contribute, to win together, to be part of something meaningful are all already there in your people. The work is about unlocking that hunger. Let's dive in to the second pillar of fulling leadership: Pillar Two: Where it hurts is where you'll grow We point to this frequently in terms of self-discovery: Your triggers are a gift. They tell you where your unexamined...
Hi Reader, Over the course of 30 years, I’ve worked with hundreds of leaders. And I often hear the same story: “I feel like I’m alone in this.” So many leaders feel like success depends on them. That at the end of the day, they’re the ones truly responsible for everything. So they work longer hours than anyone else, get involved in every decision, and carry the strategy, the culture, the execution. All based on the quiet belief that no one else will do this if I don't. But when you slow down...