Held on 27 October 2022
Hurry Up and Do Nothing
One of the hardest skills I had to learn as a new CTO was letting my team fail. After all, for years in school I'd had unbroken success through my own efforts, and viewed any missed result as a total disaster to be avoided at all costs. How could it be my job now to set others up for failure?
But controlled, limited failure is the best thing for team growth. Toyota speeds up the production line when there aren't enough "andon pulls" signalling failure, and you can use the same metric to validate that your team is learning from non-catastrophic negative results. As a result, you'll be doing much less doing and much more watching, which is exactly where you should be. Stop equating busy-ness with business and start being strategically lazy!
Join me on this free livestream to discuss:
- Defining clearly what you won't do (your "negative space") and the power of disappointing people helpfully.
- How to steer your team with frequent corrections, rather than strapping them into a rocket, lighting the fuse, and hoping they reach Mars.
- The high-leverage tasks you should reserve for yourself and the high-learning tasks your team should take on—and how to know the difference.
