Two Roadmaps, One Highway

The Chief Product Office and the Chief Technical Officer share a highway that lays out their respective road maps. They need to be thinking at least 2 steps ahead from both the product, and the technology perspective. The CTO needs to deeply understand the product roadmap to lay out the technical roadmap to get there, and the CPO needs to deeply understand the technical road map to leverage every opportunity that it provides. Neither one should ever come up short waiting for the other. They are linked and supporting each other just in time. Nothing overspent and sitting in inventory burning shelf life. And no surprises. Perfectly timed and synchronized together.

Leadership Vacuum

Failed leadership attracts leadership. Literally.

And it isn’t the good kind of leadership. It’s the bad kind. These random leadership contributions and acts of kindness all trying to fill the leadership vacuum left by someones failure to lead.

People want leadership. They want to succeed. And if leadership is missing they will throw leadership ideas and initiatives at random into the void. They need it. God damn it somebody has to do it. We’re floundering.

All good intentions aside, it’s a disaster. There is no strategy, no weighing of priorities, triage of choices, just bouncing off one contribution to the other. Nothing thought through, sequenced and built upon.

It’s a leadership vacuum that has created a chaotic black hole of random misdirection.

How to identify a dysfunctional team?

How to identify a dysfunctional team;

• Doesn’t ship

• People drama

• Overwork

• Cross team collaboration issues

Have 2 or more of the above intervene fast and hard. If able, correct, but more likely disband and regroup, if necessary fire. Make change immediately. If the team got itself to this state it is very unlikely that the team will be able to independently get itself out of this state. And it is very likely that the situation will only get worse over time. Not better.

Avoidance Leadership

Do not abdicate responsibility for having to make the call to fire someone to the person who should be fired by setting them up to fail with a performance improvement plan or some other process. It’s not their job to bring the situation to a head. It’s yours. Do everyone a favour and do your job - fire the person - without anger, aggression or malice. Be as supportive and empathetic as you can be. Pay them generously for your failing to realize the problems early. Apologize for that. But deal with it. Let the person go.

And if you truly believe the person can be coached to be a valuable contributor, then put reasonable effort into that performance improvement plan and make it happen. But believe in it, don’t use the process to make your point. That is just being an asshole. And if that is what you are doing, do yourself a favour and resign.

Self Determination as an Indicator of Performance

A person who has had plenty of time to have shown reasonable performance will not demonstrate performance in the future assuming all else remains the same. And if you, not they, take the initiative to change the structures and the circumstances with the hope that they will improve their performance, it is possible, but not likely that their performance will improve, as they have not shown the performance habit of self determination, You did.