Founder Mode, lobster dinner with a toddler, and how orgs communicate
A summer digest of tasty treats for your prefrontal cortex
Hey good lookin’!
Summer brought an unexpected break from work stuff when basement leaks and snotty noses knocked our plans into the sea.
We’re back at the desk now, blowing the cobwebs off our brains and working on longform pieces going deeper into strategy and innovation. (Part 3 of the Vision Chasm series is in the works, peering behind the curtain of the deceptive vision. Stay tuned.)
In the meantime I wanted to share a few things with you that you can pop into your eyes, ears or diaries.
Read: Founder mode
Listen: Lobster dinner with a toddler
Watch: How organisations communicate
Join: 2 free events in September
Work with us: 4 ways we can help you make progress
We knew “Founder Mode” was coming, and now it’s here …
Have you heard the buzz about Founder Mode? A recent Paul Graham article sparked a bunch of beef on Linkedin.
My beefy take is that – having worked with many founders now – I can think of several who were trying for founder-mode and it was not working. Evoking Founder Mode is a bit like telling a room full of wannabe artists, “just have great taste!”.
Now, I didn’t predict the name, but I did predict the overall trend back in Dec 2023. In this article I frame Airbnb’s “getting rid of product managers” on my 2x2 diagram, dig into what it means to have taste, and advise that we prepare for snake oil salesmen peddling the “new thing”.
Read: We need to talk about Airbnb
Podcast episode 070: Lobster dinner with a toddler
Q. What do these three situations have in common: taking a friend for a lobster dinner, business strategy workshops, and personal coaching?
A. They all feature in this episode as examples of how constraints, constructors and actors play out.
As always, this is a raw, unedited, sometimes-punctuated-by-baby-babble rollercoaster of a chat where Corissa and I think through a topic out loud. Buckle up!
Listen: Lobster dinner with a toddler
And a shout out to reader and listener
who said:I found my way to the podcast [Tom] does with his partner . It is very entertaining (lobster with toddlers) and unpacks how to get started with complex methods better than anything I have ever encountered.
We’ll be sharing more podcast episodes by email as we release them.
How orgs communicate (or not)
I enjoyed this conversation with
so much that he and I are planning another one soon.Kristine said:
Happened upon your YouTube video with Ben Sauer on how orgs communicate (and all the other threads that were equally as thought provoking) and have really enjoyed it! Like really really. So much so I am rewatching it to take notes on ideas and concepts.
2 free events in September
This evening at 5pm UK time, via Pip Decks: How to navigate innovation fog
I’ll walk everyone through the Innovation Tactics Strategy System, and share the 3 most powerful cards in the deck for when you’re getting started. Expect lots of ideas that you can try out tomorrow.17th September at 5pm UK time: Lean coffee – navigating uncertainty and ambiguity
A lean coffee style event where we’ll discuss topics around navigating uncertainty and complexity, referencing an article I co-authored with John Cutler.
What can we help you with?
A ton of new subscribers joined this list over summer. In case you’re one of them, hello and thanks! And by way of introduction, we should probably tell you that at Trigger Strategy Group, we work with folks in the following ways. We start with a no-pressure coffee chat to figure out if we might have a positive time working together. Just hit reply and send me an emoji.
Training & transformation
You’ll practise some tools and skills for sense-making in complexity. And together, we’ll look at the constraints in your organisation and figure out how to shift those to enable change to emerge.
Diagnostics
You get your product strategy pickle … unpickled. We’ll dig in with fresh eyes, unearth the puzzles you need to tackle head on, and design a pragmatic plan to get ‘em sorted, fast.Innovation & strategy support
Wondering how come you’re doing all the right stuff but it’s not working as well as it should? Questioning what kind of innovation you need in the first place? Or hoping to get more of the right things happening more often?
Speaking
I love to share inspiring stories of learning and leave you with pragmatic tips you can use right away. Ideal fodder for company events, conferences or away days. My current talks include:Sneaking agility back into agile – how to make plans that please a CFO, while adding adaptiveness for when reality punches your plans in the face.
The complexity gap – what goes wrong when you race towards a vision, and a fast, cheap and powerful alternative that helps vision emerge more naturally.
Until next time,
Tom & Corissa x