AI Is Not Replacing Scrum Masters. Bad Role Design Is.
Many organizations complain that Scrum Masters do not create enough change. Then you look at the role they designed and realize: change was never really allowed. That is why the...
Leadership and organizational change
Leadership, motivation, decision-making, psychological safety, and why organizational transformations stall.
The Pole Challenge: The Workshop Exercise That Makes Team Dynamics Visible
Some workshop exercises look almost too simple to be useful. The Pole Challenge is one of them. You bring a team together, give them a pole, and ask them to lower it to the grou...
AI Will Help You Build the Wrong Thing Faster
Right now, almost every company is trying to “do something with AI.” AI copilots. AI-generated presentations. AI coding assistants. AI pilots everywhere. Executives are under pr...
Why Companies Keep Turning Great Engineers Into Bad Managers
I keep seeing the same pattern in companies: the best engineers get promoted out of the work they’re brilliant at, then everyone wonders why leadership gets worse and technical ...
Many Organizations Accidentally Train People to Stop Thinking
Many organizations accidentally train people to stop thinking. Not intentionally. Most leaders I meet genuinely want motivated, proactive, innovative people. They want teams tha...
Most Companies Don’t Want Feedback. They Want Confirmation.
Most organizations say they value experimentation, innovation, customer feedback, and learning. But if you observe what actually happens inside many companies, something very di...
Stop Running Your Agile Transformation Like a Secret Change Club
Most agile transformations don’t fail because “people resist change”. They fail because we design the change in a way that produces resistance – by running it like a Secret Chan...
How to Start an Agile Transformation as an Agile Coach
Why I start with people, observation, and evidence – and how that speeds everything up. Most agile transformations start the same way: pick a team. Train them. Coach them. Roll...
Is TDD Slower? Only If You Ignore the Second Half of the Race
This entry is part 5 of 5 in the series Beyond Testing – The TDD Series[Image] Beyond Testing – The TDD Series • If You Think TDD Means Automated Tests, You’re Missing the Poi...
The 75-Year-Old Motivation Study Every Leader Still Gets Wrong
If you ever needed proof that managers and employees live in two different realities, here it is: the top motivators managers believe in, and the top motivators employees actual...
The Strange Discovery of Intrinsic Motivation – And Why Leaders Still Get It Wrong
Most leaders today talk about motivation as if it were obvious: you set targets, attach rewards, maybe add pressure, and magically people perform. But the idea that humans do gr...
The Motivation Gap – Why Leaders Double Down on the Wrong Things
It’s almost impressive how consistently managers get motivation wrong. Ask them what drives people, and you hear the usual list: good pay, stable contracts, career opportunities...
Build Trust to Ignite Motivation
Every leader wants a motivated team. People who care. Who take initiative. Who don’t need to be chased for every deadline. So we try: pep talks, bonuses, team events, motivatio...
The Velocity Cult
(A modern corporate fable about rewarding A while hoping for B) Let me tell you about Sophie. She joined bright-eyed, caffeinated, and carrying just enough imposter syndrome t...
Stop Managing Dependencies. Start Eliminating Them.
Let’s start with a blunt truth: Managing dependencies is a trap. (Yes, I’m looking at you, PI Planning boards with your red strings and sticky-note spiderwebs. 🔍) These boards...
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