Category: General

This month, let’s discuss Impact Mapping as the best way to create OKRs. If you’ve ever struggled with setting measurable, outcome-driven objectives, this approach is a game-changer.

Too often, teams treat OKRs as just another to-do list—a collection of tasks rather than a framework to drive meaningful change. But what if we shifted the focus? Impact Mapping, created by Gojko Adzic, helps teams craft OKRs directly linked to business and user outcomes, making them more actionable and effective.

Impact Mapping: The Best Approach to OKRs

Unlike traditional goal-setting methods, Impact Mapping ensures that every OKR starts with why before moving to what and how:

1- Define the Goal – What problem are we solving?
2- Identify the Actors – Who influences the outcome?
3- Determine the Impact – What behavior changes will lead to success?
4- List Deliverables – What actions or features will drive those changes?

📽️ See it in action – I created this video using Narakeet (one of Gojko’s products!) to showcase how Impact Mapping translates strategy into focused execution.

OKRs in Focus – Insights from Experts

To deepen our understanding of OKRs, I’m excited to revisit three episodes of Le Podcast on Emerging Leadership, each offering a unique perspective on how to set and execute OKRs effectively.

🎙 “Build a Product with Gojko Adzic“​
Gojko shares his practical approach to building impactful products, emphasizing:
– How to avoid waste in product development
– The importance of measuring what matters​
– How Impact Mapping clarifies OKRs by focusing on outcomes over outputs

🎙 “Radical Focus with Christina Wodtke“​
Christina Wodtke, the author of Radical Focus, discusses:
– Why clear goals, roles, and norms matter in high-performing teams
– How exploratory OKRs drive innovation​
– The role of accountability groups in making OKRs successful

🎙 “All About OKRs with Bart den Haak“​
Bart den Haak, the author of Moving the Needle, brings over a decade of experience using OKRs in organizations, sharing:
– The difference between OKRs and other goal-setting frameworks (4DX, MBOs, Balanced Scorecard)
– Where to start with OKRs and common pitfalls to avoid​
– How OKRs push teams out of their comfort zones while avoiding burnout

Bringing It All Together

By combining Impact Mapping, Radical Focus, and OKR best practices, you can create objectives that:
– Align with strategy rather than just listing tasks
– Focus on measurable, high-impact changes​
– Encourage collaboration and adaptability​
– Help teams continuously refine and improve their approach

So, as you refine your OKRs for the next quarter:
– How could Impact Mapping help you define more meaningful objectives?
– What behaviors need to change to achieve your key results?
– Are you using OKRs to drive learning and innovation, not just performance tracking?

Let’s discuss! Share your experiences and thoughts—I’d love to hear how OKRs and Impact Mapping have influenced your approach to leadership.

Wishing you a focused and high-impact month!

This month, I want to explore a fundamental yet often overlooked aspect of leadership: recognition and its impact on motivation and team dynamics. Inspired by Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis, the concept of recognition strokes helps us understand how the way we acknowledge or critique others influences engagement, trust, and leadership development.

The Four Types of Recognition Strokes

1. Positive & Unconditional – Appreciation for the person as they are.
   ​Example: “I appreciate you.” “I enjoy working with you.”
2. Positive & Conditional – Praise for a specific action or achievement.
   ​Example: “Great job on this project!” “I admire how you handled that challenge.”
3. Negative & Conditional – Constructive feedback directed at an action, not the individual.
   ​Example: “This approach didn’t work, let’s find a better one.” “I didn’t appreciate how you handled that meeting.”
4. Negative & Unconditional – Criticism aimed at the person rather than their behavior.
   ​Example: “You’re difficult to work with.” “You never do things right.”

How we recognize and challenge others matters. A culture where positive, constructive recognition is the norm fosters engagement and creates a safe space for leadership to emerge at all levels.

Redefining Leadership – A Conversation with Russ Laraway

I enjoyed welcoming Russ Laraway on Le Podcast on Emerging Leadership. Russ is a distinguished leader with 30 years of experience at Google, Twitter, and Candor Inc. Russ shares key insights from his book, When They Win, You Win, offering a fresh, results-driven perspective on leadership and career development.

Key Learnings from Russ Laraway:

✅ Leadership Behaviors Drive Success

• Focus on a small set of measurable leadership behaviors that predict engagement and performance.

✅ The Three Buckets of Leadership:

• Direction: Clear goals and expectations.
• Coaching: Ongoing support and feedback.
• Career: Meaningful conversations that align personal and professional growth.

✅ The Career Conversations Framework:

• Life Story Conversation: Uncovering values and pivotal experiences.
• Career Vision Statement: Helping employees articulate their dream job.
• Career Action Plan: A structured roadmap to achieve career goals.

✅ Retention and Work-Life Balance

• Employees stay where they feel valued. Investing in their careers fosters trust and reduces turnover.
• Prioritization is key—subtracting non-essential work creates a sustainable work-life balance.

Leaders who actively shape career paths and acknowledge growth create organizations where people thrive, innovate, and stay engaged.

What This Means for You as a Leader

• Are you intentional about how you recognize and challenge your team?
• How can you integrate career conversations into your leadership approach?
• What shifts could you make to lead through recognition and conscious development?

Let’s continue this conversation—share your thoughts and experiences, and let’s work towards building leadership environments where people feel seen, valued, and empowered to grow.

This month, we focus on a cornerstone of high-performing teams and transformative leadership: psychological safety. In a world where uncertainty and complexity are the norm, creating environments where individuals feel safe to speak up, take risks, and be themselves is no longer a luxury—it’s a necessity.

Psychological safety, as defined by Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, is “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.” In her groundbreaking book, The Fearless Organization, Edmondson emphasizes that psychological safety is not about being nice or avoiding conflict. Rather, it’s about fostering a culture where people feel empowered to share ideas, ask questions, and admit mistakes without fear of embarrassment, rejection, or punishment.

When psychological safety is present, teams thrive. They innovate more effectively, learn from failures, and collaborate with trust and openness. Edmondson’s research shows that psychological safety is a key driver of performance, especially in environments that require creativity, adaptability, and continuous learning.

Google’s Project Aristotle, a multi-year study on team effectiveness, underscores the critical role of psychological safety in high-performing teams. The study, which analyzed hundreds of teams across the company, found that the most important factor distinguishing successful teams was not individual talent, seniority, or even clear goals—it was psychological safety. Teams, where members felt safe to take risks, share ideas, and be vulnerable, outperformed others consistently.

As highlighted in The New York Times article, What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team, Google discovered that the best teams were those where everyone had an equal voice and where interpersonal trust was high. For more on Google’s findings, you can explore their Guide to Understanding Team Effectiveness.

But how do we build psychological safety? Timothy Clark, author of The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety, provides a practical framework for understanding and cultivating this critical dynamic. According to Clark, psychological safety is not a binary state but a progression through four stages:

1. Inclusion Safety: At this foundational stage, individuals feel accepted and valued for who they are. They believe they belong and are treated with dignity and respect.
2. Learner Safety: This stage encourages curiosity and experimentation. Team members feel safe to ask questions, make mistakes, and learn without fear of judgment.
3. Contributor Safety: Here, individuals feel confident to contribute their skills and ideas. They believe their input matters and that they can make a meaningful impact.
4. Challenger Safety: The highest stage of psychological safety, this is where individuals feel safe to challenge the status quo, voice dissenting opinions, and drive change without fear of retribution.

Clark’s framework reminds us that psychological safety is not a one-time achievement but an ongoing process. It requires intentional effort from all team members, whatever their roles, to create and sustain an environment where people can move through these stages and reach their full potential.

Reflections for Leaders:​
– How are you fostering inclusion safety within your team? Are there individuals who may feel excluded or undervalued?
– Are you creating space for learner safety, where mistakes are seen as opportunities for growth rather than failures?
– How can you encourage contributor safety, ensuring that everyone feels their voice is heard and valued?
– Are you open to challenger safety, where team members feel empowered to question assumptions and propose new ideas?

As leaders, we have the power to shape the cultures we lead. By prioritizing psychological safety, we not only unlock the potential of our teams but also create organizations where people can thrive, innovate, and achieve remarkable outcomes.

Call to Action:​
I encourage you to reflect on your own leadership practices and team dynamics. Where can you take steps to enhance psychological safety?

In his latest book, Lizard Optimization: Unlock Product Growth by Engaging Long-Tail Users, Gojko Adzic presents a framework for identifying and harnessing the potential of long-tail user behavior. Much like his previous works, Gojko takes a fresh, often counter-intuitive approach to product management, making this book a must-read for anyone involved in creating and managing software products.

The core concept of Lizard Optimization is deceptively simple: instead of solely focusing on mainstream users, product teams should actively seek out unusual, “weird” user behavior. Businesses can uncover new product opportunities and unlock significant growth by understanding and optimizing for these outliers — the “lizards” in a long-tail distribution.

What struck me the most while reading this book was how Gojko draws inspiration from real-life examples of product pivots that emerged from unexpected user behaviors. One standout example was Flickr’s shift from a multiplayer game to a photo-sharing platform, driven by users’ unforeseen enthusiasm for sharing pictures. Rather than seeing such usage as anomalies, Gojko encourages us to treat these behaviors as opportunities for deepening product-market fit.

Key Takeaways

1. Learn from Unintended Usage: Gojko emphasizes that product growth often lies in the outliers — those who use the product in ways the original designers never intended. Instead of dismissing these users, he suggests digging deeper into why they’re doing what they’re doing and how we can help them succeed. His method for analyzing these behaviors provides a systematic approach to discovering new opportunities.
2. Zero In on Behavior Changes: Gojko introduces a four-step process — summarized with the mnemonic LZRD (Learn, Zero in, Remove, Detect) — to help teams optimize their products for outliers. This structured approach feels practical and accessible for teams of all sizes, offering actionable insights that can be applied immediately.
3. Real-Life Application: Throughout the book, Gojko weaves stories from his experience with products like MindMup and Narakeet. He shares how optimizing for edge cases unlocked exponential growth, demonstrating that paying attention to “weird” user behavior can help find hidden markets and new opportunities.

A Strategic Shift for Product Teams

While many product strategies focus on pleasing most users, Lizard Optimization challenges teams to think differently. This book is precious for product managers, senior engineers, and anyone guiding product development. It offers a compelling argument for looking at usage data to confirm assumptions and discover new user goals that may have been overlooked.

This book stands out because of Gojko’s ability to turn something as serendipitous as a user’s “misuse” of a product into a deliberate growth strategy. It’s not just about preventing churn or reducing inefficiencies; it’s about actively engaging the long tail and treating unexpected user behavior as the key to exponential growth.

Final Thoughts

Lizard Optimization is an engaging, thought-provoking read that will make you question your current approach to product development. Gojko’s method of optimizing for long-tail users offers a practical and innovative toolkit for product managers looking to unlock the next wave of growth for their products. If you’re ready to embrace the weird, the unexpected, and the unplanned, this book is for you.

Learn More from Gojko on Le Podcast on Emerging Leadership

In March 2021, Gojko joined me on Le Podcast on Emerging Leadership for an episode titled Build a Product with Gojko Adzic. We explored his insights on building the perfect product, avoiding waste in software development, and how to apply concepts like Impact Mapping in day-to-day work. His unique approach to product strategy resonated with many listeners, and I frequently refer back to his thoughts from that conversation.

I’m thrilled to share that Gojko will return for a future episode of Le Podcast on Emerging Leadership, where we’ll dive deeper into the strategies behind Lizard Optimization and explore how product managers can unlock growth by engaging with outlier behaviors. Stay tuned for more!

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending Agile2024, the main conference organized by the Agile Alliance. The event in Dallas was a vibrant gathering of thought leaders, practitioners, and enthusiasts dedicated to building on top of the Agile Manifesto. Throughout the week, I had the opportunity to attend numerous sessions, each offering unique insights and practical takeaways. Here’s a summary of the sessions I attended and the valuable lessons I learned.

The Opening Keynote: The Art of Caring Leadership by Heather Younger

The conference started with an inspiring keynote by Heather Younger, author of The Art of Caring Leadership. Heather’s session centered on four behaviors she explores in her book: self-leadership, active listening, empowerment, and team resilience. Her emphasis on a “focus forward” approach resonated deeply with me, particularly as I strive to maintain a solution-focused mindset in my own leadership practice.

1. Self-Leadership: Heather highlighted the importance of leading by example and being accountable for one’s actions. She stressed that effective leaders must first master themselves before they can effectively lead others. Heather succinctly put it, “We cannot give what we cannot have,” emphasizing the need for self-care and the importance of tending to our own emotional well-being.
2. Active Listening: Another key point was creating an environment where team members feel heard and valued. Heather shared practical strategies for fostering a listening culture. She advised against merely parroting back what was said and instead encouraged paraphrasing with both what was said and felt, to mirror and be 100% present with the speaker truly.
3. Empowerment: Another crucial behavior discussed was empowering team members by giving them the autonomy to make decisions and take ownership of their work. Heather illustrated how empowerment leads to increased engagement and innovation within teams. The idea, she emphasized, is to help people shine and realize their full potential.
4. Team Resilience: Lastly, she addressed the importance of building resilient teams that can adapt and thrive in the face of challenges. Heather’s insights on fostering resilience were particularly timely, given today’s work environment’s dynamic and often unpredictable nature. She emphasized the importance of a forward-focused mindset to navigate and overcome obstacles.

Heather’s keynote set a powerful tone for the rest of the conference, reminding us all of the importance of caring leadership in driving team success and organizational growth.

Agile Games – Energizers Session by Dennis Wagner and Veit Richter

I had a lot of fun during the “Agile Games – Energizers Session” facilitated by Dennis Wagner and Veit Richter. One particular energizer, “the boss worker,” stood out to me as it effectively raised awareness about the superiority of expressing intent over giving orders.

Agile Games for Leadership by Dennis Wagner and Veit Richter

Following the energizers’ session, I stayed for a second session with Dennis Wagner and Veit Richter on Agile Games for Leadership. During this session, I tested a few games, including one I brought to the group: “tap and guess.” This game was well-received and provided a fun and interactive way to highlight the main bias that we have when communicating with others. If you’re interested, I can share more details about how “tap and guess” works and its benefits.

Unmasking the Secrets of Agile Facilitation – Discover the Science Behind Personal Engagement by Evelien Acun-Roos

In the second session, Evelien Acun-Roos unveiled the science behind personal engagement through her insightful presentation on the 5Ps of facilitation. She began with the Primacy-Recency effect, emphasizing what happens first and last in a session and maintaining the right rhythm and energy in the room. Evelien stressed the need to Pay attention by incorporating novelty, meaning, and emotion into facilitation practices. Another critical point was encouraging participants to Participate actively through inclusion, co-creation, and innovative approaches. She also highlighted the significance of Psychological safety, ensuring everyone feels included and has the freedom to engage or pass as they choose. Finally, Evelien underscored the Play aspect, advocating for a playful environment to achieve extraordinary results.

Autonomy in Action: Strategies for Energized Teams and Exceptional Results by Damon Poole and Gillian Miranda Lee

In this workshop, Damon Poole and Gillian Miranda Lee introduced us to three engaging activities to foster autonomy within teams. The first activity, owning the retrospective, involved providing teams with a choice between three activities for each step of the retrospective process, enhancing their sense of ownership and engagement. The second activity, journey map, involved creating an agile journey map from traditional to agile and identifying individual, team, and organization behaviors to pinpoint the next steps in evolving those behaviors. Lastly, the ADKAR for agile activity applied the ADKAR change model to raise awareness about problems and opportunities, fostering a desire to change. I particularly liked the idea of using dot voting on topics that team members believe are significant issues, as it effectively highlights areas for improvement.

Agile Identity: Embracing the Chaos by John Miller

John Miller’s session, “Agile Identity: Embracing the Chaos,” encouraged deep reflection on implementing frameworks like Scrum. He warned of the pitfalls of “dark scrum,” where practices are followed mechanically without understanding Agile values and principles. Instead, John advocated for “bright scrum,” where these values and principles are fully embodied. The discussions at the different tables were particularly energizing, as participants shared insights and strategies for truly living Agile in their teams and organizations.

Keynote Panel: Reimagining Agile by Sanjiv Augustine, Jim Highsmith, Jon Kern, Heidi Musser, and Ellen Grove

The keynote panel on “Reimagining Agile,” featuring Sanjiv Augustine, Jim Highsmith, Jon Kern, Heidi Musser, and Ellen Grove, kicked off the third day, which was dedicated to an open space format. I particularly appreciated Jon Kern’s emphasis on the need for exemplars to showcase the success of Agile practices. His call to action for providing beacons of hope resonated with me, and I committed myself to contributing at least one such example to inspire others in their Agile journeys.

Open Space Sessions

During the Open Space, I participated in four enlightening sessions. One session with Jon Kern focused on discussing the exemplars of successful Agile practices mentioned in the keynote panel.

Another session addressed the agile training needed for executives and managers. I shared a few strategies based on the agile awareness programs we deliver at Pearlside. These include connecting with what people already know about Agile, leveraging the 1-2-4-All technique for inclusive dialogue, starting with the Agile Manifesto, exploring the values and principles using the matrix of principles, and helping teams assess and improve their agility.

In another session I proposed, we discussed the emerging leadership navigator, and all people were interested in taking the assessment!

Additionally, I participated in a session on how to get people to accept change when they crave stability. I introduced the polarity map approach, which helps people see the value in balancing stability and change rather than viewing them as opposing forces. By identifying early warning signs of over-relying on one side, we can aim to achieve the benefits of both.

It was a fantastic day filled with rich discussions and actionable insights.

Productize Your Organization! by Jeff Patton

Jeff Patton’s session on “Productize Your Organization!” was a highlight for me. Jeff’s product thinking approach, coupled with the practical exercise using his canvas, sparked deep discussions at our table. His assertion that “every company is a product company” resonated strongly with me. Jeff emphasized that organizations should move beyond the confines of projects and focus on understanding and addressing the needs and impacts on users and choosers. This perspective is crucial for fostering a more user-centric and impact-driven approach within organizations.

Emotions at Work: Enabling Spaces for High-Performance People by Celeste Benavides

Celeste Benavides’ session on “Emotions at Work: Enabling Spaces for High-Performance People” was deeply impactful. The talk addressed the importance of acknowledging and managing emotions in the workplace. Celeste warned that ignoring emotions leads to underperforming teams and can even drive leaders to seek new opportunities. The interactive sections of the talk were particularly engaging, prompting us to reflect on how we bring (or fail to bring) our whole selves into our interactions.

Discover the Emerging Leadership Navigator by Alexis Monville

I had the pleasure of delivering a talk on “Discover the Emerging Leadership Navigator.” The session received great feedback and sparked considerable interest in the approach, which energized me. The positive response reinforced my commitment to continue working on my upcoming book, further developing and refining emerging leadership concepts. Sharing my insights and connecting with others who are passionate about leadership was a highlight of the conference for me.

Closing Keynote: From Cautious to Courageous: A Live Rollerskating Journey by Melissa Boggs

The closing keynote, “From Cautious to Courageous: A Live Rollerskating Journey” by Melissa Boggs, was an inspiring and dynamic conclusion to the conference. Melissa’s journey from cautious to courageous on roller skates was a powerful metaphor for personal and professional growth. She illustrated how fear often keeps us safe and how stepping into new spaces with curiosity and courage can lead to significant progress. Melissa encouraged us to see the possibilities and take small, experimental steps forward. Her question about the kind of community we could build to become role-changers was particularly thought-provoking and left a lasting impression on me.

Overall, Agile2024 was a fantastic conference! I am grateful to have met many amazing people and participated in such enriching and inspiring sessions. The insights and connections made will undoubtedly influence my work moving forward.

The Problem: Meeting Overload

In many organizations, there is a growing perception that employees are burdened with too many meetings. This perception is not unfounded, as research indicates that executives now spend nearly 23 hours a week in meetings, a significant increase from the 1960s when it was less than 10 hours[2]. This increase in meeting time can lead to several negative outcomes, including decreased productivity, employee dissatisfaction, and burnout.

Causes of Excessive Meetings

Several factors contribute to the proliferation of meetings:

1. Lack of Trust: In some workplaces, a lack of trust among team members leads to frequent check-ins and updates, resulting in numerous meetings [3].
2. Over-Reliance on Meetings for Communication: Some organizations default to meetings as the primary mode of communication, even when other methods might be more efficient [3].
3. Micromanagement: Inexperienced entrepreneurs or managers may micromanage their teams, leading to unnecessary meetings [3].
4. Lack of Clarity: Lack of Clarity: When goals, objectives, roles and expectations are not clearly defined and communicated, meetings are often used to repeatedly clarify and align on tasks, leading to an overload.

Impact and Satisfaction

With Michael, we picked the subtitle of our book, I am a Software Engineer and I am in Charge, to reflect what we believed were the most important things to achieve. The subtitle is The book that helps increase your impact and satisfaction at work. It appears clearly that excessive meetings led to the exact opposite.

Excessive meetings lead to employee dissatisfaction and burnout, as they often feel their time is wasted and their work is neglected. This not only reduces job satisfaction but also disengages employees from their roles.

Moreover, poorly timed or managed meetings can severely hinder productivity, preventing employees from completing their tasks efficiently.

Toxic One-on-One Vicious Circle

When a leader distributes context and information solely through one-on-one meetings, it can create a toxic cycle. These meetings often expand to include additional tasks and allow direct reports to voice complaints about their peers. In an attempt to address these issues, the leader may conduct even more one-on-one meetings, which can lead to mistrust and dysfunction within the team. This approach fosters a lack of transparency, as important information is not shared openly with the entire team, and it can create an environment where gossip and backchannel communications thrive. Ultimately, this cycle undermines team cohesion, erodes trust, and hampers overall effectiveness.

Strategies to Reduce Meeting Overload

I often experiment with strategies to reduce meeting overload with leaders and leadership teams.

First, identify the categories of meetings you currently have. Reviewing your last quarter calendar, consider the following categories and feel free to add any additional categories relevant to your organization:

• Leadership Team Meetings: Regular meetings with the team to discuss progress, issues, and team dynamics. Define the details of these meetings for clarity.
• One-on-One Meetings: Individual meetings between managers and their direct reports for personalized feedback, coaching, and development.
• Issue Resolution: Meetings addressing specific problems, challenges, or crises.
• Client/Stakeholder Meetings: Meetings with customers or external stakeholders.
• Social/Team Building: Informal meetings or activities to build team cohesion and morale.
• Information Sharing: Meetings primarily focused on disseminating information, updates, or announcements without significant discussion or decision-making.
• Networking/Industry Events: Meetings aimed at networking, attending industry conferences, or engaging with the broader community.

Second, analyze your time invested in each category during the last quarter.

Third, consider what you want instead of the current situation based on this observation.

Fourth, determine the first step to take to achieve this future state.

About the Future State

Here are a few things to consider when reflecting on the future state:

• Understand Meeting Categories: Clarify the meeting categories and assess their necessity.
• Use Collaboration Tools and Work Asynchronously: Share documents and gather feedback using collaboration tools to reduce the need for lengthy review meetings AND Get a clear agreement on how to use those tools [5]
• Delegate and Ensure the Right People Are in the Room: Delegating and ensuring that only essential participants attend meetings can enhance efficiency, promote better decision-making, and ensure the time spent in meetings is productive and focused.
• Clear Agendas and Time Limits: Ensure every meeting has a clear agenda and set time limits to keep discussions on track [4].
• Avoid Back-to-Back Meetings: Continuous meetings without breaks deprive individuals of downtime, reduce focus and attention, limit time for reflection and follow-up, contribute to overloaded schedules, diminish creativity, and lower motivation [1].

Citations:
[1] https://www.touchpoint.com/blog/too-many-meetings/
[2] https://hbr.org/2017/07/stop-the-meeting-madness
[3] https://tms-outsource.com/blog/posts/too-many-meetings/
[4] https://hbr.org/2022/03/dear-manager-youre-holding-too-many-meetings
[5] https://blog-alexis.monville.com/en/2016/03/09/let-us-code/

Photo de Jon Tyson