TBM 422: Exception, Presence, Delegation
The piece revisits a management triad—exception, presence, delegation—as a framework for navigating today’s leadership fatigue and AI‑driven overload. It shows how the three motions interact through Mintzberg’s organizational configurations and real‑world cases such as Alan Mulally at Ford, Brian Chesky’s founder‑mode at Airbnb, and Jensen Huang at Nvidia. The author argues that without a balanced loop, dashboards become noise, presence turns into micromanagement, and delegation devolves into hollow empowerment. AI tools, while promising lighter workloads, often exacerbate the problem by flooding leaders with signals lacking context.
TBM 421: Minimally Viable Consistency (Part 3)
The article expands the minimally viable consistency framework by defining three distinct approaches—sharp consistency, flexible consistency, and legible variety—and shows how each balances coordination benefits against over‑standardization costs. It argues that organizations must deliberately choose which elements to standardize, adapt,...
TBM 417: Before You Fire All Your Glue People Because of AI
The article warns against indiscriminately firing "glue people"—those who handle coordination, judgment, and informal knowledge—by assuming AI can replace their work. It explains that AI excels at automating repetitive, friction‑laden tasks but fails to capture the nuanced decision‑making, trust‑building, and...
TBM 416: Investment Stewardship (As Habit)
The article argues that measuring engineering ROI is less about precise formulas and more about cultivating a continuous stewardship habit. Companies often rely on vanity metrics like revenue per engineer, but true insight comes from leading indicators, disciplined hiring, and...
TBM 402: The Real-World Journey to Value and Product-Centricity
In this episode the host maps a non‑linear journey that organizations take from focusing solely on delivery predictability to becoming truly product‑centric and value‑driven. The discussion walks through five narrative "acts"—starting with reducing work‑in‑progress and improving flow, then layering early...