The Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, Russia

Let me ask you something…

How fast do you think your team can really change?

Because AI isn’t creeping into business anymore.

It’s already here…

• More than 90% of companies started using AI tools last year

• Less than 50% actually trained their people to use them 🧐

Right now, AI is moving faster than your business can keep up with on paper.

• Tools update weekly

• Computer power doubles in months

• What felt advanced in spring is outdated by autumn

But inside most companies, training still looks like it’s 1995.

• One-off workshops

• Slide decks no one remembers

• Change that never sticks

If you want to stay ahead, you need teams who can learn faster than the market shifts.

That’s why the question isn’t “Will my team learn AI?”

The real question is “How fast can they learn anything?”

And there’s a number that keeps coming up: eight weeks.

In this email, I’ll show you exactly how the best in the world do it and how you can apply the same tactics inside your company.

The 8-Week Rule

There’s a number that shows up again and again when you study transformation: Eight weeks.

The Bolshoi Ballet (the toughest dance company in the world) runs eight-week clinics where dancers don’t just refine technique, they rewire themselves for world-class performance.

The Navy SEALs put every candidate through an eight-week crucible. In those weeks, you stop being someone who might quit and become someone who never does.

And science proves it too.

At Massachusetts General Hospital, participants meditated 27 minutes a day.

After eight weeks, brain scans showed permanent structural change (check out the full report here).

Focus sharper. Emotions steadier. Habits rewired.

How to Run It Inside Your Business

Here’s a simple blueprint you can copy into your own org:

Weeks 1–2: Exposure

• Show the art of the possible. Demo new tools, invite experts, run “AI 101” style sessions.

• Example: Microsoft gives teams access to sandbox AI environments so they can play without fear of breaking things.

Weeks 3–4: Experimentation

• Small projects. Pick one business workflow and test AI or new processes.

• Example: Airbnb encourages “hack weeks” where cross-functional teams prototype and pitch solutions in just a few days.

Weeks 5–6: Integration

• Move from side projects to daily work. Bake learnings into regular routines.

• Example: Shopify built internal Slack bots for employees to use daily—turning learning into habit, not homework.

Weeks 7–8: Teaching & Ownership

• Have employees present what they’ve learned to peers. Teaching cements knowledge.

• Example: Atlassian runs “ShipIt Days” where teams not only build but showcase results via peer-to-peer learning at scale.

Most CEOs I talk to are worried about AI replacing jobs.

But in reality, AI won’t replace your people.

A competitor with a team that learns faster absolutely will.

The clock’s already ticking.

All you need is 8 weeks.

👋 Alex

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• Michael Phelps giving a 🐐 pep talk to the Baltimore Ravens (Link)

For Your Team

• Why Zuckerberg doesn’t believe in delegation 🤔 (Link)

For Your Health

• The leading signs of burnout before it happens from Davina McCall’s pod (Link)

Every exec has schleps in their business.

The ugly, complex, bureaucratic problems that eat time and energy (and often get pushed to the bottom of the list).

It’s usually regulation, cross-country complexity or pieces of infrastructure that everyone quietly avoids because it’s slow, political, or just plain boring.

Revolut scaled to 40M+ users and a $25B valuation by doing the exact opposite.

Building a culture that doesn’t just tolerate schleps.

They attack them head-on, solve them better than anyone else, and then codify the solution into a playbook that scales.

That line isn’t bravado. It’s a philosophy of attacking schleps head-on and thriving on the grind.

In this week’s edition, I run through the playbook Revolut (and a handful of other elite companies) used to turn the painful, boring schleps everyone avoids into the very engines of their growth 👇

The Power Of Running Into The Fire

Think about Tesla.

Everyone remembers the cars.

Few remember the schlep: building thousands of charging stations across the US.

That grind was slow, expensive, and thankless but it solved the #1 objection to EVs (“where will I charge?”).

Today, Tesla owns the largest EV charging network in the world.

Airbnb? Same story.

The app was slick, but their moat came from grinding through city-by-city legal battles.

The messy work nobody else wanted to do.

Today they operate in 100,000+ cities and have survived waves of copycats.

Netflix? Their moat was the hundreds of boring, expensive contract negotiations for global content rights.

Painful, but it turned them into a company with 270M+ subscribers in 190 countries.

The key takeaway for me from all these success stories: 

The Four Core Philosophies From Revolut’s Playbook for Relentless Performance 

1. Embrace The Schlep

This is Revolut’s secret weapon.

Most startups dodge the schleps (regulations, payment rails, multi-country complexity) Revolut runs straight at them.

• Instead of avoiding regulation, build a team that thrives on solving it

• Instead of creating custom one-offs for each market, codify repeatable playbooks

• Instead of chasing the shiny, tackle the grind

2. Obsess Over The “Wow” Product

Revolut didn’t want to be another dull banking app.

They obsessed over micro UX touches:

• The satisfying sound of sending money

• Slick real-time currency conversion

• Details that created an emotional connection with users

As a result, Revolut has a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 60+, one of the highest in banking, while most traditional banks average under 20.

Lesson for your team: Tiny details = massive compounding loyalty.

3. Never Compromise On Polish

Where most fintechs rushed out clunky MVPs, Revolut kept the polish bar high from day one.

A confusing, buggy experience wasn’t acceptable because it blurred the signal.

If a feature failed, they wanted to know it was the idea, not the execution.

The impact? 

Revolut’s early traction came not just from product-market fit, but product-delight fit.

Their first viral growth wasn’t paid marketing… it was customers saying: “This feels different to my bank.”

Apple has the same principle.

They never release scrappy “test” products.

They set the bar so high that even the smallest feature like the “slide to unlock” animation feels intentional.

4. Deep-Then-Zoom Thinking

When Revolut decided to launch across multiple countries, they didn’t just slap a “global” label on their app.

Product leaders went painfully deep into the details:

• Local regulations

• Licensing

• Compliance rules

Then they zoomed out to turn those insights into scalable, algorithmic processes.

As a result, Revolut is now licensed to operate as a bank in 30+ countries.

A feat most fintechs wouldn’t touch because of the regulatory grind.

Amazon used the same deep-then-zoom approach to logistics.

They didn’t just think “we’ll do 2-day delivery.”

They dove deep into warehousing, last-mile delivery, robotics, and data.

Then they zoomed out and turned it into Prime": the moat that powers $600B+ in annual revenue.

The leaders who can switch between deep detail and pattern recognition are the ones who win.

Your Challenge for This Week

1. Sit with your team and list the schleps you’ve been avoiding

2. Pick one and attack it head-on

3. Don’t just solve it once, codify it into a playbook so it scales

Big wins rarely come from chasing the shiny.

They come from tackling the schleps everyone else avoids and turning them into moats.

The next breakthrough for your team is probably sitting inside the very schlep you’ve been avoiding.

I’d love to hear from you… what’s the biggest schlep you’re wrestling with right now? Hit reply and tell me.

I’m pulling together the top challenges across this newsletter’s readers.

We all do it.

We cling to jobs, identities, products, even leadership approaches long after they’ve stopped serving us.

It’s a cognitive trap known as the Endowment Effect where we overvalue what we already own.

And as Marshall Goldsmith reminds us in What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, the habits that powered your ascent can derail your next chapter.

Here are three powerful examples of female founders who didn’t succumb to the endowment effect and exactly what they did to break free, pivot, and rebuild stronger 👇

Whitney Wolfe Herd (Bumble): Expanding Beyond the First Win

The Endowment Effect can make a founder stick to the playbook that worked in year one, even when the market’s moved on.

For Whitney Wolfe Herd, that was Bumble’s female-first dating app.

• The model was fresh

• It grabbed market share

• It got Bumble to a multi-billion-dollar IPO

But by early 2025, cracks showed.

Revenue dropped 7.6% year-over-year (from $268.6M to $248.2M in Q2), growth had stalled and paying users fell 8.7% to 3.8M.

In March 2025, Whitney returned as CEO with a plan:

• Cut $100M in costs

• Reduce headcount by 30%

• Pivot toward Bumble BFF: expanding from dating into friendship and community

The acquisition of Geneva gave them the tech to combine groups, events, and messaging into a stickier, more social experience.

The shift reframes Bumble from “a dating app” to “a platform for all relationships”, opened bigger markets and diversified their revenue.

Takeaway: The Endowment Effect tells you to keep defending the thing that made you famous. The leaders who last find the next big market before the old one runs out of steam.

Anne Wojcicki (23andMe): Reinventing Through Radical Ownership Shift

The Endowment Effect hits founders hardest when the thing that made them famous becomes the thing holding them back.

For Anne Wojcicki, that was 23andMe’s direct-to-consumer DNA kit business.

It had been the rocket fuel.

It took the company public at a $3.5B SPAC valuation and peaked near $6B.

But…

• Demand slowed

• The one-off kit model failed to produce recurring revenue

• A 2023 breach affecting 7 million users destroyed trust and cost $30M in settlements

By March 2025, the company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Most founders double down on what’s familiar at this point but that’s the Endowment Effect in action.

Anne didn’t.

She stepped away as CEO, formed a nonprofit (TTAM Research Institute), and outbid pharma giant Regeneron with a $305M offer to buy back the company’s core assets.

The acquisition wasn’t just about ownership. It signalled a strategic reset:

• Moving from a one-off consumer product to a mission-led data and research business.

• Building partnerships with pharma and healthcare organisations for long-term revenue streams.

• Rebuilding consumer trust by operating under a nonprofit structure focused on science, not quarterly earnings.

The market responded and shares jumped 18% after the court approved the sale.

Takeaway: The Endowment Effect makes you cling to the product, process, or identity that built your success. Sometimes, the boldest move isn’t defending it, it’s tearing it down so you can rebuild for what’s next.

Sara Blakely (Spanx): Escaping the One-Product Trap

The Endowment Effect shows up when the thing that made you rich becomes the thing that keeps you small.

For Sara Blakely, that was shapewear.

She built Spanx from her apartment with $5,000 in savings.

It went global.

She became the youngest self-made female billionaire.

But categories mature and competitors flood in.

And a “we’re a shapewear company” mindset would have locked Spanx into slow decline.

Blakely saw it coming so…

• She expanded Spanx into activewear, denim, leggings, loungewear, and menswear.

• She built a strong direct-to-consumer channel early, reducing reliance on department stores.

• Every new product tied back to the core mission - making people feel confident and comfortable, not just chasing revenue.

By 2021, the payoff was clear.

Blackstone bought a majority stake at a $1.2B valuation, more than doubling earlier market estimates.

Blakely stayed as Executive Chairwoman and celebrated by gifting all 750 employees $10,000 and two first-class tickets.

Takeaway: The Endowment Effect tells you to protect your hero product at all costs. The leaders who win protect the mission and let the product evolve.

How to Kill the Endowment Effect in Your Company

1. The “Would I Buy It Today?” Test

Look at every major asset: product lines, team members, marketing channels, processes.

Ask yourself: If I didn’t own this today, would I buy it for what it’s costing me?

If the answer’s no, you’re in Endowment Effect territory.

2. The “One Step Further” Drill

For every core thing you’re attached to, ask: If I had to 10x this, how would I do it?

This forces innovation rather than protectionism.

3. External Audit Team

Once a year, get 3–5 smart, external people to review your business and tell you what they’d cut, change, or double down on.

They don’t share your emotional baggage which means they’ll see the truth faster than you will.

A Challenge For You This Week:

• Pick one underperforming thing you’ve been holding onto

• Give it 90 days to either prove it can be revived (with clear KPIs) or get cut entirely

• Reallocate that time, money, and energy into your highest upside opportunity

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• Behind the scenes: why Manchester United have completed revamped their training round for performance & culture (Link)

For Your Team

• Nick Saban’s phenomenal insight into what you can do to coach your team to perform at a high level (Link)

For Your Health

• An athlete nutrition guide for those chasing peak performance (Link)

Most innovation dies because it tries to grow in the wrong environment.

• Too many approvals

• Too much politics

• Too much fear of rocking the boat

Even Telefónica (a £50B, 100,000-person Spanish telco) saw it happening inside their own walls.

So in 2012, they built a system called Lean Elephants.

It’s one of the most influential intrapreneurship frameworks in the world today.

And there’s a lot in here worth stealing, whether you’re a 10-person agency or a 1,000-person scale-up.

This week I’ll dive into how it works and how you can apply it inside your company to find new growth 🚀

From Slow Dinosaur to Fast Elephant

Back in 2012, Telefónica had two things:

1. Lean Startup methodology on the rise

2. Lots of internal talent with ideas… that kept going nowhere

So they launched Innovation Calls:

That was the birth of Lean Elephants:

A system where internal ideas could be incubated like startups, with VC-style stage gates, mentorship, and the power of Telefónica’s network behind them.

Here are The 5 Foundations of Lean Elephants

Here’s what makes it work and what you can steal too:

1. Lean startup principles baked in

Every idea is validated in the market from Day 1.

• Real users

• Real evidence

• Real experiments

No “PowerPoint MVPs”.

2. Stage-gate funding like a VC

Each idea moves through 5 stages:

Each gate has a decision committee and clear evidence requirements.

They only get more budget after hitting specific milestones.

3. Full-time intrapreneurs

Winners of “Innovation Calls” leave their normal roles and focus fully on their venture.

They’re trained, mentored, and coached so there’s no solo flights.

4. Corporate assets as unfair advantage

They don’t start from scratch.

They use Telefónica’s data, customer base, tech infrastructure, and brand trust to move faster.

5. Talent and culture transformation

The program doesn’t just launch products.

It upskills employees, builds resilience, and creates intrapreneurs with startup mindset inside the corporate machine.

What it’s delivered

Over 800 startups accelerated.

55% of them now commercialised with Telefónica.

They have created internal ventures like:

• Wayra: Their innovation hub, now global

• ElevenPaths: A cybersecurity unit that spun out, scaled up, and re-integrated into Telefónica Tech

• Tootle: A used car marketplace born in Chile

• Geographica: Acquired for AI + geospatial tech

Hundreds of millions in funding and returns, not just innovation theatre.

The ROI hasn’t just been financial, it’s also cultural.

They now have a repeatable system to find, test, and scale ideas, without draining the core business.

Concepts You Can Apply Today

Whether you’re running an agency, SaaS business, or ops-heavy scale-up, this is how you build new growth engines without derailing the core:

1. Create a “10 Fridays” initiative

• Let your team pitch ideas and work on them 1 day/week for 10 weeks

• It’s just enough time and permission to see if there’s something there

2. Use VC-style stage gates

• Set clear milestones for every new idea (customer interviews, NPS, revenue trials, etc.)

• Only unlock more time/budget if those metrics are hit

3. Separate “Explore” from “Exploit”

• Don’t try to run innovation through BAU processes

• Create a sandbox, an internal incubator, or even a skunkworks team

4. Train your team in startup thinking

• Telefónica doesn’t assume intrapreneurs are born ready

• They train people in customer dev, analytics, storytelling, and growth loops

5. Make it matter to the mothership

• From Day 1, teams must align to core strategy so that if they succeed, it’s easy to absorb and scale them

Inside ScaleOS: Applying This Concept In Practise

Most CEOs and founders don’t fail because they don’t have enough ideas.

They fail because they can’t find the time, team, or system to bring those ideas to life without nuking the day-to-day.

That’s why Telefónica (yes, the 100,000-person telco) launched their Lean Elephants model.

So they could test and scale big ideas without suffocating them in process.

If a Spanish telecom giant can do it… you’ve got no excuse.

And if you’re short on 100,000 employees, I’ve got frameworks for that too…

ScaleOS launched this week and will help you build systems like this one from Telefónica but 10x faster and with:

• Daily accountability

• Weekly frameworks

• Team clarity

• No wasted energy

If you want to test your own Lean Elephant approach in your business and build the foundations to scale, the accelerator is open now 👇

99% of businesses never scale… | Alex Ayin

99% of businesses never scale… Everyone thinks the product is the problem. But after working with 100+ founders up close, I’ve seen the real pattern: It’s not the idea that holds things back. It’s the weight of everything else they’re carrying. 👉 Spinning every plate 👉 Putting out fires 👉 Trying to build the team, the culture, and the systems while still running at full speed That’s what quietly becomes the ceiling. The good news? You don’t have to figure this next chapter out alone. I built ScaleOS to help founders step out of the weeds, build high-performing teams, and finally create a business that can scale without them being the bottleneck. We only take 10 founders per ScaleOS cohort. 3 spots gone since last week’s soft launch. You’ll get: 1️⃣ Pre-built tools & proven frameworks I’ve used inside £10M+ companies 2️⃣ Weekly masterclasses to level up your leadership 3️⃣ 1:1 coaching directly with me 4️⃣ A private community of high-performers building alongside you DM me “ScaleOS” and I’ll send you all the details. And if you know someone who’s scaling a business and trying to build a world-class team around them… Please do me a favour and tag them below👇 I’d love to help them shortcut the hard bits and get their team firing faster!! | 99 comments on LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com/posts/alex-ayin_99-of-businesses-never-scale-everyone-activity-7355566216633061377-3Sl8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAc-prMByKPZzlItht0cCCd_rylz6opWpdc

👉 There are 2 spots left in the September cohort.

DM me “ScaleOS” or hit reply and I’ll send you more information.

Big businesses protect the past.

Smart founders invest in the future.

Let’s get building.

— Alex 👋

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• Obama dropping insight on how to become the best in your field (Link)

For Your Team

• British & Irish Lions team talk motivation from a surprise guest… 👀 (Link)

For Your Health

• Cristiano’s Ronaldo’s exact sleep routine when speaking to the Whoop founder (Link)

Most companies obsess over what it takes to deliver a 5-star experience.

Airbnb went one step further and asked:

“What would a 11-star experience look like?”

Let me tell you the quick story because it’s one of the best frameworks I’ve ever seen for levelling up team ambition, product innovation, and customer obsession. 

Back in Airbnb’s early days, when they were still figuring out how to stop people thinking the site was “just Craigslist for couches,” they sat down with Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn founder + PayPal Mafia OG).

He asked:

“How do you create something people can’t stop talking about?”

Brian Chesky’s answer:

They literally mapped it out like this:

• 5★ = You arrive at your clean Airbnb, the host is friendly, everything works.

• 6★ = The host picks you up from the airport.

• 7★ = There’s a welcome gift and personal itinerary.

• 9★ = A parade greets you on arrival.

• 10★ = Elon Musk sends you to space.

• 11★ = You arrive at the airport. 5,000 screaming fans. You’re on a float. It’s Beatlemania. Brian Chesky’s there. You get the key to the city.

Obviously no one builds an 11-star experience but the exercise forced them to rethink the edges of possibility… and reverse-engineer what “remarkable” looked like.

Most teams set goals based on what’s feasible.

The best teams design based on what would blow people’s minds.

Then scale that back until it’s just about buildable.

Adopting a mindset shift of:

This is what gets you out of the average zone.

And when your whole team starts thinking like this?

You stop competing on price or features.

You become the brand people talk about.

How to use the 11-Star Rule inside your company

Here’s how I’ve seen elite founders and operators apply the Airbnb 11-Star rule:

1. Onboarding that people post about

⭐️ “What would an 11★ employee onboarding feel like?”

Forget lanyards and lukewarm intros. Aim for something they’d tell 10 friends about.

Real-world example:

When a new hire joined Notion, they found their favourite coffee waiting on their desk, handpicked books aligned to their career goals, and a personalised welcome message on the company’s homepage for the day.

Ideas you can copy:

→ Create a “First Day Spotify Playlist” curated by their manager & teammates

→ Ship a box of swag with a handwritten note to their home before day one

→ Add a personal Loom video from the CEO saying why they were chosen

2. Make your product moments feel like a concert

⭐️ “What would an 11★ feature launch look like for a customer?”

Most launches are feature lists. Boring.

What if they were experiences?

Real-world example:

Superhuman once manually onboarded every single early user 1-on-1 over Zoom to ensure every workflow was life-changing. Result? The onboarding became the feature people raved about.

Ideas you can copy:

→ Create a VIP beta group with personal invites and lifetime discounts

→ Send users a surprise box when they hit a milestone (like Klarna did when customers hit £1M processed)

→ Drop a cinematic Loom walkthrough for new features, hosted by your founder — à la Apple Keynote style.

3. Turn support into a loyalty machine

⭐️ “What’s the 11★ version of customer service?”

Support usually solves problems. But what if it created raving fans?

Real-world example:

Chewy (the pet brand) sent handwritten condolence cards and flowers when a customer’s pet passed away.

One tweet about it? 70k+ likes and a PR snowball worth millions.

Ideas you can copy:

→ Send flowers or personalised gifts when a customer has a baby, moves office, or closes their first big deal

→ Build a system to track meaningful “micro-moments” and surprise them

→ Give your CX team a £100 discretionary budget per week to go above and beyond

4. Make internal comms feel like storytelling, not reporting

⭐️ “What would 11★ internal updates feel like?”

Instead of lifeless Miro boards or Notion docs, make your company updates experiential.

Real-world example:

At Amazon, senior leaders use 6-page narratives instead of slide decks to pitch initiatives. It forces clarity and creativity. At Shopify, Tobi Lütke’s monthly “Unicorn Board” posts went viral internally and externally, it made vision visual.

Ideas you can copy:

→ Write monthly founder letters that are half strategy, half origin story

→ Embed audio notes or short videos from team leads inside Notion docs

→ Start each all-hands with a 1-minute story that connects the dots between now and next

5. Sales that feels like a tailored Netflix experience

⭐️ “What would 11★ sales feel like?”

Instead of cookie-cutter pitch decks, what if the sales process became the first chapter of the customer journey?

Real-world example:

At Gong, reps build a custom Loom video walking through the prospect’s actual product or site, offering value before the first call. At Drift, prospects get a personalised microsite with relevant case studies and team intros.

Ideas you can copy:

→ Build a “proposal preview” microsite for every new prospect (use Canva or Notion)

→ Include a Loom intro, key ROI stats, and a timeline already mapped out

→ End every deck with a “What 11★ could look like for you” slide

Bonus: Try This In Your Next Leadership Offsite:

💬 Prompt:

Now go build that experience.

Strip it back until it’s executable and suddenly your 5★ service becomes 7★… or more.

If you want to work on your 11 star framework with me, hit reply to this email 🫡

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• Can you give a little more this week..? This experiment will show you can (Link)

For Your Team

• Watch the insane traditions at the game between the two biggest schoolboy rugby rivals in NZ history (Link) - what could you do to get that same energy into your team this week?

For Your Health

• Brb off to work on my conscious breathing after hearing this from Djokovic (Link)

Amazon OP1 Template Example

Quick question people 🙋‍♂️

If I asked your team to write down exactly what they’re aiming for this year, would you get 20 aligned answers or 20 different interpretations?

Amazon figured this out early and built a process to fix it.

It’s called OP1.

And while it might sound like another corporate acronym, it’s actually one of the most useful leadership tools out there, especially if you’re scaling fast or leading across functions.

Let’s unpack what makes it powerful and how to use it inside any business.

What is OP1?

OP1 stands for Operating Plan 1: Amazon’s annual planning process, usually kicked off mid-year and finalised by November.

Unlike typical corporate planning cycles that lean on decks, this is a written process that combines:

• 10× thinking

• Cross-functional alignment

• Ruthless prioritisation

It culminates in a written doc (usually 6 pages) that lays out not just what your team wants to do, but…

• How it will deliver 10x impact

• What support it needs

• What it will take cross-functionally to get there

It’s what makes Amazon… Amazon.

1) Start with 10× thinking (not 10% growth)

Before goals or metrics, Amazon asks each leader:

This breaks teams out of “optimise what we have” mode and pushes them into transformative thinking.

Example from Amazon:

When Amazon Web Services was launching a new service, teams weren’t allowed to pitch small updates.

They had to start with a press release from the future, describing the game-changing launch that would make customers switch instantly.

👉 How to use this:

Run a 10× offsite or internal session with your team. Ask:

• “If we had to 10× revenue / users / impact, what would we stop doing?”

• “What would a competitor build that would destroy us?”

2) Create clear cross-functional (S-2) goals

One of the best parts of OP1? It forces departments to align. Amazon calls these “S-2 goals”, shared priorities that sit above individual business unit targets.

Real-world example:

A cross-functional S-2 goal might be:

That would require:

• Product to scope features

• Engineering to optimise speed

• Marketing to handle rollout and messaging

• Data to define benchmarks and track real-world use

👉 How to apply this:

1. After teams write initial plans, gather leaders to share top-line goals.

2. Identify 1–2 that cut across silos.

3. Make those non-negotiable shared goals for Q3–Q4.

4. Assign dual-ownership (e.g. “Product + Ops” or “Marketing + Customer Service”).

3) Base every plan on 3 clear planning tracks

Amazon structures OP1 around three levels:

• Last year’s results

  What did we hit? Miss? Why?

• What can be achieved with the same resources

  What can we do if headcount + budget stay flat?

• What would we do with significantly more investment?

  What would we build/change to make a 10× leap?

Example:

A logistics team might say:

• With flat resources: “We’ll reduce package error rates from 1.2% to 0.8%.”

• With more budget: “We’d deploy robotics to halve error rates and speed up delivery windows in key regions.”

👉 How to apply this:

Build these three tiers into your annual team planning template. Force every team to quantify results and set stretch targets with investment options

4) Write, don’t slide.

Bezos banned PowerPoint for a reason. OP1 documents are written and then read silently by all meeting attendees before discussion.

Why?

• Forces clarity of thought

• Makes poor ideas obvious

• Sparks higher-quality debate

👉 Meeting format you can steal:

• 20 mins silent reading

• 40 mins of discussion focused ONLY on what’s written

• Debate logic, assumptions, trade-offs, not presentation skills

5) Include resourcing, risks, and decisions needed

The best OP1 docs don’t just present ideas, they surface bottlenecks.

Example:

This gives execs the info they need to actually make decisions, not just review slides.

👉 How to apply this:

Make it mandatory that every plan includes:

• 3–5 key assumptions

• 1–2 resource asks

• 1–2 known risks + mitigation plan

6) Treat it as a live document, not an event

OP1 isn’t just a one-off planning doc. Amazon revisits it at year-end with OP2 as a checkpoint to ask:

• What actually got delivered?

• What’s delayed or off-track?

• What should be cut or doubled-down?

Example:

A regional launch might get paused in OP2 if sales data showed early signals of failure, freeing up resource to go all-in on another opportunity.

👉 How to apply this:

Block a calendar slot each quarter to revisit team plans. Ask:

• “What’s not working?”

• “What do we need to stop, start, or adjust?”

• “Where are we overcommitted?”

Summary: Your OP1 checklist

✅ Run a 10× planning session

• Challenge current assumptions

• List stretch opportunities

✅ Ask teams to write a 3-part plan

• Baseline / Same Resources / Stretch

✅ Force cross-functional alignment

• Identify 1–2 goals that cut across orgs

• Assign shared ownership

✅ Review in silence. Debate in logic.

• Replace slides with writing

• 20 min read / 40 min discussion

✅ Close with clear asks + risks

• What needs a decision?

• What could break this plan?

✅ Review quarterly

• Use it as a living doc, not a museum piece

Most companies try to scale by doing more.

Amazon scales by thinking bigger and executing sharper.

OP1 is how they do both.

Want a copy of the OP1 template I use with exec teams?

Apply for a spot on the ScaleOS Accelerator as it will be included in the upcoming programme.

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• Mindset rules that athletes swear by (Link)

For Your Team

• Incredible act that Russell Crowe did for rugby player Sam Burgess (Link)

For Your Health

• The most underrated movement for longevity according to Dr. Peter Attia? (Link)

Why setting boundaries is needed to gain the benefits from Parkinson’s Law

Ever feel like your team is busy but not effective?

Chances are, they don’t need more hours.

They need better boundaries.

In this issue, we’re diving into why setting clear limits (on time, on focus, on energy) isn’t restrictive… it’s the secret weapon of every high-performing leader and team.

Parkinson’s Law: Why Boundaries Create Velocity

Parkinson’s Law says:

Translation:

If you give yourself 2 weeks to do something, it’ll take 2 weeks.

But give yourself 2 days, and you’ll likely get it done (sometimes even better).

This is why:

• Tight deadlines often produce sharper execution.

• Smaller teams with fewer resources can sometimes outperform big ones.

• Leaders who say “no” to more, achieve more.

Apple is famous for its product simplicity but that’s only possible because of relentless boundary-setting behind the scenes.

• Steve Jobs once killed 70% of the product roadmap in one meeting.

Bill Belichick, legendary Patriots coach, runs one of the tightest ships in the NFL.

• His success? Ruthless prioritisation and time-bound focus.

• No distractions. His focus was relentlessly on clarity, simplicity, and performance.

Jeff Bezos famously mandated that internal teams should be small enough to be fed by two pizzas.

Boundaries around team size force clarity, accountability and speed.

Military Precision: Boundaries Build Trust and Performance

In elite military units like the U.S. Navy SEALs or British SAS, boundaries aren’t just encouraged, they’re non-negotiable.

• Time limits are enforced on every drill.

• Role boundaries are crystal clear: each operator knows their responsibility and doesn’t overstep or micromanage.

• Mental boundaries are trained: switching on when needed, and switching off for recovery.

These limits reduce decision fatigue, build mutual trust, and allow the whole unit to move with precision under pressure.

As Jocko Willink says:

This 2 min clip is so important. You have the influence as a leader to help your people.

The more structure and boundaries you set, the more freedom your team has to execute with clarity.

The Five Performance Boundaries to Set This Week

Most senior leaders make one of two mistakes:

1. They set no boundaries at all - trying to be everywhere, for everyone.

2. They set walls, not boundaries - shutting off communication, clarity, and collaboration.

High performers set these five smart boundaries:

1. Time Block Your Leadership:

   • Pick 2 x 90-minute windows this week for deep strategic work.

   • Treat them like the most important meeting of your week.

2. Kill 3 Meetings:

   • Find 3 recurring meetings that no longer drive outcomes.

   • Cancel or shorten them to give your team back time.

3. Define a Team ‘No’ List:

   • Agree on 3 things your team will not do this quarter (e.g. custom client work, reactive reporting).

   • Clarity on what you’re not doing is more powerful than what you are doing.

4. Create a Recovery Window:

   • Borrow from elite sports: install a “no meeting” zone after big deadlines or sprints.

   • Let your team come down, reflect, and reset as that’s when insights land.

5. Implement a 48-Hour Rule for Decisions:

   • Encourage team members to hold non-urgent decisions for 48 hours.

   • This boundary kills reactive decision-making and improves quality under pressure.

Most teams don’t need more hours.

They need more boundaries.

Boundaries are like bumpers on a bowling lane.

They keep your team from veering off course.

Set a few.

Make them clear.

Then get out of the way.

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• How to hire A-players with the 4 box rule + the onboarding checklist (Link)

For Your Team

• Adam Grant on how to retain your star status/credibility when you move to a new company (Link)

For Your Health

• The ultimate measure of your fitness (Link)

GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) - The UK’s Intelligence and Security Agency

I had a conversation recently with Laura Raznick, who leads MBA Careers at Bayes Business School.

We were talking about what really separates great leaders from the rest, especially when the pressure’s on.

Her take?

In a world of AI, uncertainty, and constant disruption… strategy isn’t enough. You need a crisis playbook.

She pointed me to the work of Professor Sir David Omand - the former Director of GCHQ and the UK’s top intelligence official during some of the most turbulent moments in recent history.

In his book How to Survive a Crisis, Omand shares frameworks forged in the highest-pressure environments imaginable:

• National defence

• Terrorism response

• Cyber warfare

He’s helped manage everything from 9/11 and the Deepwater Horizon spill to WannaCry and Chernobyl’s long tail.

The big idea?

Put simply: he’s who elite teams call when the stakes are real.

So in this week’s edition, I’ve broken down Omand’s best advice, alongside examples from elite sport, business, and military leadership, so you can build your own high-performance crisis playbook.

1. Crises Are Fast and Complex

The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center collapse on 9/11 created instant complexity:

• Infrastructure shutdown

• Communication blackouts

• Emergency services overwhelmed

The NYPD and FDNY had to act fast with limited information.

Commanders on the ground made life-or-death decisions without waiting for top-down orders.

Crises are defined by two things:

• High complexity (many moving parts)

• High speed (things escalate quickly)

Your usual decision-making models break under that pressure.

In your business, when a key platform goes down or a product launch fails, the window for “thinking time” shrinks.

A great example of this was the Crowdstrike faulty security update that caused a global outage hitting airlines, hospitals, and banks, causing $10bn+ damages and their stock to drop by ~39%.

The CEO’s delayed apology was heavily criticised. 

In digital-era crises, early empathy and communication are as critical as the fix (ideally within the first 4 hours).

Then you need trained people who can move decisively without perfect clarity.

How you can instil this your team today?

Decentralise control.

In fast-moving crises, the bottleneck is usually at the top.

In the military, special forces units like the SAS operate on a “commander’s intent” model.

• They push responsibility outward, not upward.

• The best teams empower every level to act.

Command gives the why and end goal but execution is left to the team in the field.

No micromanagement. Total trust. Speed of action.

• Clear intent > micromanaged instructions.

In a crisis, speed beats accuracy, if your people know the mission.

In your team, check that you’ve given your team clarity on the objective.

Then trust them to execute.

2. Don’t Rely on the Manual

Most crises don’t follow the playbook.

By the time you flip to the right page, it’s already outdated.

When BrewDog faced public backlash for its “toxic culture” exposé, its leadership team initially defaulted to PR spin and denial.

It backfired. Why?

Because the situation didn’t follow the usual rules.

You can find all the details here on how Wiser ran an independent review to learn, take accountability, and move forward constructively following the challenges Brewdog faced around public perception.

The key lesson?

In today’s cancel culture and social media firestorms, reputation crises evolve hourly, not monthly.

You can’t “policy” your way out of it.

Instead of rigid SOPs, build frameworks that help your team:

• Sense emerging problems

• Communicate clearly under stress

• Take action without waiting for orders

Principles > policies.

Phil Knight’s example of how to do this with Nike, still stands the test of time today 👇

The Nike Manifesto is a set of 10 core principles developed by Nike co-founder Phil Knight in 1980 to guide the company's leadership and culture

Then train people to ask:

“What’s the most values-aligned action we can take now?”

3. Plan For The Second Hit

Most damage in a crisis comes not from the first hit, but the second-order failures:

• Systems collapse

• Communication breaks

• Morale drops

In Formula 1, when a crash happens, the best teams don’t just replace the damaged wing, they immediately simulate how that crash affects tyre wear, fuel strategy, and race position.

The initial crisis isn’t what beats you. It’s the knock-on effects.

In 2014, new General Motors CEO Mary Barra publicly acknowledged a decade-long delay on a faulty ignition switch which led to 97 deaths and 2.6 million+ recalled vehicles.

The second hit impact:

• Over 30 million vehicles were recalled

• Kenneth Feinberg was appointed to oversee victim payouts

• 15 senior execs were fired

Anticipate the dominoes. Play out the knock-on effects before they happen.

In your business: If your ad account gets hacked, think beyond restoring access.

• What trust signals have you lost?

• What team strain has it created?

• What’s the new customer journey gap?

Think in systems. Plan for ripple effects, not just the initial wave.

4. Train For Calm In The Chaos

Navy SEALs are famous for their mantra:

They rehearse chaos so often that when the real thing hits, they default to muscle memory, not panic.

Resilience is built in the boring times.

Navy SEALs - trained for missions in maritime, jungle, urban, arctic, mountainous, and desert environments.

High performers don’t magically “rise to the occasion.”

They fall back on relentless reps done under pressure.

Rubens’ core message:

In your team:

• Simulate “crisis sprints” in controlled environments.

• Run mock product recalls. Simulate a key person quitting.

• Reward calm decision-making under artificial stress.

Your Crisis Playbook To Stay Ready

Each crisis was reversed by leaders who:

1. Swung early with full accountability

2. Communicated plainly and empathetically

3. Empowered rapid, values-aligned action

4. Enacted hard fixes at pace

5. Rebuilt trust through transparency, restitution, and cultural recalibration

These aren’t hero journeys, they’re repeatable systems.

Use this as your CEO’s blueprint for “phase zero” crisis readiness.

• Decentralise decisions

• Train the reps

• Lead with values

• Expect ripple effects

• Prepare in peacetime

Drop me a reply to this email if you want access to a full crisis handbook 🤝

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• Senna, Jordan, Lewis Hamilton - “This mindset is actually a pattern of all the great ones” (Link)

For Your Team

• One of the best frameworks for hiring from Morning Brew founder, Alex Lieberman (Link)

For Your Health

• I’m running my first half marathon today in 30 degree London heat so for anyone else out there training in the heat today, follow this checklist (Link)

The Beatles concert at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo on Jul 1, 1966

Let me tell you about a moment.

It’s 1966.

The Beatles are backstage in Tokyo, just before playing Budokan Arena.

Tens of thousands are screaming.

But the band?

They were exhausted.

• Not from the fame.

• Not from the travel.

But from each other.

Years of living in vans, writing at 3am, arguing over lyrics, fighting over girlfriends, dealing with label pressure.

They could barely hear themselves play over the screaming.

And still they walked out together.

And made magic.

That’s what a great team does.

Not perform because it’s easy.

But despite how hard it gets.

The Best Bands Don’t Just Have Talent.

They have something deeper: shared history, strong identity, healthy conflict, and unshakable rituals.

I usually study startups, elite sports teams, and special forces units.

But if you want to understand true longevity, creative endurance, and chemistry under pressure?

You’ve got to look at the most successful bands of all time 👇

1. Fleetwood Mac – Use Tension as Fuel, Not Fire

During the making of Rumours, the band was falling apart: divorces, betrayals, and addiction plagued every member:

• Christine and John McVie had just divorced.

• Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were barely speaking.

• There were fights, addictions, and breakdowns.

But somehow, they didn’t implode.

They made one of the most emotionally raw, bestselling albums in history.

Because they channelled their pain into the mission.

“You can go your own way” wasn’t a lyric. It was therapy.

Fleetwood Mac before the release of Rumours

The Takeaway: Let Creative Conflict Breathe

In business, we avoid hard conversations.

We’re scared of friction.

But friction is what sharpens the edge.

✅ Actionable challenge:

• Do you create space for hard truths in your leadership meetings?

• Do you encourage productive tension or do you shut it down for “harmony”?

• Can your team channel the tension into a mission focused discussion?

• Could your best ideas be hiding behind a conversation your team’s too scared to have?

2. Destiny’s Child – Build for Balance, Not Brilliance

Beyoncé didn’t “carry” Destiny’s Child.

She was one force in a perfectly balanced system.

• Kelly Rowland was the emotional stabiliser = high EQ, warmth, soul. The team’s centre of gravity.

• Michelle Williams brought depth = quiet, introspective, a grounding presence with gospel roots.

• Beyoncé had the edge, vision, and fire = the natural frontwoman.

If you map them using personality archetypes (think MBTI or DISC):

• Beyoncé = Driver/Commander

• Kelly = Harmoniser/Supporter

• Michelle = Thinker/Integrator

Their power wasn’t in similarity, it was in intentional contrast.

They didn’t compete for the spotlight.

The Takeaway: Build Your Starting Five, Not Just MVPs

Most founders hire “the smartest person” or “the high performer.”

But like any band, what matters is how they play together.

✅ Actionable challenge:

• What role is missing from your team? (Not title but function)

• Are you hiring people who amplify the group or just look good solo?

• Have you mapped personalities, not just job descriptions?

3. The Beatles – Earn the Chemistry, Don’t Expect It

Before the fame, they spent 1,200 hours playing together in Hamburg.

Drunk crowds. Cramped venues. No fame, no fans, just reps.

That’s where the real magic started.

That’s where they learned to trust, anticipate, challenge, sync.

They didn’t find their chemistry.

They earned it.

The Takeaway: Do the Hard Reps Early

Trust is built before the big stage.

Most startup teams go remote, jump into execution, and skip the emotional onboarding.

✅ Actionable challenge:

• Have your leaders spent meaningful time solving real problems together?

• Have they faced adversity or only slide decks?

• Are you investing enough in early experiences, not just job responsibilities?

4. Little Mix – Use Identity To Drive Belonging

In 2011, four teenage girls walked into The X Factor as solo contestants.

None of them made it through.

But then the producers did something bold:

They grouped them together on the spot and gave them one last shot.

That wildcard group?

That was Little Mix.

They went on to become the first group to ever win the show, and one of the UK’s most iconic girl bands.

Each member had a different background, story, and energy:

• Jesy’s toughness and vulnerability.

• Leigh-Anne’s boldness and pride.

• Perrie’s powerhouse vocals and relatability.

• Jade’s humour, activism, and edge.

Their fans didn’t just love the music, they saw themselves in the story.

That made them powerful.

That gave them edge.

And when Jesy left, they spoke about it publicly, making mental health a core part of their message.

That honesty made the group even stronger in the eyes of their audience.

Most brands try to look “aspirational.”

Little Mix was relatable.

That’s why it worked.

The Takeaway: Make Your Culture Tangible, Not Generic

Most companies copy-paste values from a Forbes article.

But great cultures are specific. Relatable. Embodied.

Your people don’t rally behind the company logo.

They rally behind what the logo says about them.

✅ Actionable challenge:

• If someone shadowed your team for a day, what would they feel?

• What makes your culture distinct, not just “strong”?

• Could an ideal candidate see themselves in your org?

• If someone left your team… would your values still hold?

• Could your team describe its personality without a slide?

Final Thought

Every great band has a story.

So does every great team.

Not just what they built but how they stayed together.

The arguments. The recommitments. The moments no one else saw.

Because anyone can build a team that works when things are easy.

The real test is who’s still standing when it’s not.

So ask yourself:

Longevity is the ultimate performance metric.

Build deep. Not just fast.

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• This video sums up why Tom Brady became the greatest of all time and what you can do to replicate the same success in your field (Link)

For Your Team

• Select people in your team that follow this principle from Barak Obama (Link)

For Your Health

• 25 years of health mistakes, 25 health tactics, less than 60 secs to watch (Link)

Steve Jobs at work

Steve Jobs had a rule:

Every year, he made a list of the 100 most important people at Apple.

Not the most senior.

• Not the ones with polished MBAs or fancy titles.

• Just the 100 people moving the needle the most right now.

He’d bring them together for a private strategy summit.

And here’s the kicker…

Most execs weren’t invited.

Instead, you’d find:

• A 24-year-old coder who hacked a prototype in 3 days

• A designer who simplified an entire onboarding flow

• A customer support rep whose insight led to a product pivot

Jobs hand-picked this crew based on four things:

1. Creativity

2. Direct contribution

3. Future potential

4. Impact to Apple this year

It wasn’t a pat on the back.

It was a message: You matter more than your job title says.

Competence > Credentials

This wasn’t a team-building offsite.

He wanted these people in a room:

• To cross-pollinate ideas

• To fuel momentum

• To share an important ethos: contribution matters more than hierarchy

It’s no coincidence Apple shipped some of its boldest moves after these gatherings.

Steve Job’s first iPhone presentation

Rumour has it the seeds of the iPhone, the pivot from PowerPC to Intel, and even the original iMac colours came from the energy and collisions in these meetings.

The Org Chart Is Lying To You

Titles are lagging indicators.

Impact is a leading one.

And Jobs knew that companies that stay great don’t manage for status, they manage for momentum.

So instead of asking, “Who runs what?” he asked:

This wasn’t a reward. It was a responsibility.

People left those meetings lit up and under pressure.

They knew they’d been handpicked by Jobs.

You can’t slack after that.

World-Class Companies Replicate Something Similar 

1. Amazon – “Bar Raisers”

Amazon has a hidden class of employees called Bar Raisers.

• They don’t manage teams.

• They don’t report to Bezos.

But they sit on hiring panels and can veto any candidate, including senior execs.

Their only goal? Protect the talent bar.

2. Netflix – Keeper Test

Netflix leaders ask:

If the answer is no… they’re gone. No matter their rank.

It’s radical.

But it keeps the company full of missionaries, not mercenaries.

3. Google – 10Xers and “Founders Within”

Google tracks “10X contributors” e.g. engineers or product leads who create outsized results.

And they incubate internal entrepreneurs with “Founders Within” programs.

What can we learn from these tech giants?

If you’re a leader, your job is to know who your 100 are.

Not the ones with the fanciest titles.

The ones with the fire.

The builders.

The ones shipping, tweaking, creating, obsessing.

How To Use Inside Your Company

1. Make your own “Impact ” list.

• Audit your org/team every 6 months.

• Who’s actually driving progress? Not managing it. Creating it.

• Who are the 5/10/50/100 most important people to this company’s future?

2. Ditch the org chart (for a day).

• Run a summit, dinner, or offsite with your Impact group.

• You don’t need Jobs-level budget… just signal that they matter!

• Get them talking across functions. Make them feel seen.

• The added bonus is they’ll go back and infect the org with momentum.

3. Give them inside access.

• Show them what’s coming.

• Give early access to roadmap.

• Ask them where the bottlenecks are.

• They’ll tell you what your dashboards never will.

3. Use it as a recognition & succession tool.

• Can’t promote everyone right now? No problem. This is the promotion.

• And a way to spot your next wave of leaders.

• Let them launch things. Give them mentors.

• Most companies promote based on stability.

• The best companies promote based on possibility.

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• Jocko Willink with an awesome tactic to become more confident (Link)

For Your Team

• I could run through a brick wall every time I hear coach Nick Saban speak… this one is a goodie when analysing the character of your team (Link)

For Your Health

• A technique that Disney teaches all its staff - try it with those close in your life this week (Link)

This scenario will feel all too familiar…

• You’ve asked your team to do something.

• You’ve reminded them in the all-hands.

• You even pinned it to the top of Slack.

And still… nothing’s changing.

I’ve been there plenty of times which is why I researched this topic so heavily 😅

Before you blame motivation, laziness, or “needing more accountability,” consider this simple but powerful model from Stanford professor BJ Fogg:

This formula is used by companies like Google, elite military teams, and Olympic coaches to engineer desired behaviours.

All human behaviour (whether it’s brushing your teeth or launching a new sales playbook) comes down to three ingredients:

1. Motivation – the desire to do the thing.

2. Ability – how easy it is to do.

3. Prompt – the trigger that tells you: “Do it now.”

If one of those is missing, behaviour doesn’t happen.

If all three align, change becomes almost automatic.

This is the model that explains why:

• You check social media within 30 seconds of waking up.

• Only 10% of people finish online courses.

• Navy SEALs can consistently perform under extreme stress.

• Your team means well but still doesn’t follow through.

Let’s look at how world-class teams use this science to consistently show up and execute.

1. MOTIVATION

Most leaders throw the word “motivation” around like it’s a switch you can flip.

Reality check:

• Not all motivation is created equal.

• Some fades fast. Some lasts forever.

The best leaders know how to pull three different types of motivational levers:

A) Identity-Based Motivation

“I do this because it’s who I am.”

This is the strongest, most sticky form of motivation.

People are irrationally consistent with who they believe themselves to be.

That’s why someone training for a marathon will run in a blizzard. Not because they like pain but because they see themselves as “a runner.”

The All Blacks use this throughout their culture e.g. the famous “Leave the Jersey Better Than You Found It”.

Each player sees themselves as a guardian of the jersey: a custodian of something sacred.

The result?

They sweep their own locker rooms, hold each other accountable, and dominate global competition.

New Zealand All Blacks Winning The Rugby World Cup

What you can do:

Make your team’s identity bigger than the task.

• “We’re not writing code. We’re building the product our grandkids will use.”

Then ask: What identity are you reinforcing every day on your team?

B) Purpose-Driven Motivation

“I do this because it matters.”

This is about meaning and connecting the task to a larger mission.

It’s not about KPIs. It’s about why those KPIs even exist.

Patagonia’s employees in HQ with their mission on the wall in each room.

Patagonia’s mission isn’t to sell outdoor gear, it’s to save the planet.

• Employees aren’t motivated by sales goals.

• They’re motivated by activism, sustainability, and protecting the wild.

The result?

Patagonia once ran an ad telling customers not to buy their jacket to reduce waste.

Sales soared 🚀

What you can do:

Link every task to a deeper “why.”

Even for mundane work, connect the dots:

• “This doc helps us launch 3x faster.”

• “This call helps our clients feel safe.”

• “This system saves 200 hours a year. Hours we now spend with family.”

Don’t assume people know why their work matters. Say it, often.

C) Social/Peer Motivation

“I do this because people like me do this.”

Humans are tribal. We’re wired to seek belonging.

So one of the most powerful motivators is not wanting to let the group down.

At Stripe, engineers don’t brag about their job titles.

They brag about how much they’ve built and shipped.

When you join, you don’t want to look lazy, you want to keep up.

The social norms are the motivation.

Fascinating interview with the Stripe CTO below 👇

What you can do:

Use social cues, not shame.

Normalise high standards through visibility:

• “Team A just shipped their onboarding in 3 days.”

• “Shoutout to John for turning around a client issue in 20 mins.”

• “Everyone at exec level logs 1 insight per week. What’s yours?”

Use recognition to spotlight what good looks like, so others follow.

Why Most Leaders Fail at Driving Change

Most leaders rely only on motivation.

They assume a big enough vision will move mountains.

But motivation is a slippery beast… it comes and goes.

It’s great for one-off sprints, not long-term transformation.

Over 100 million people start an online course every year, but only 10% of them complete them.

Why?

For the same reason that people accumulate unused gym passes in their wallets and dusty vegetable juicers in their basements.

They got caught in a common human mind trap: they overestimated the power of motivation alone. 

They had the aspiration… just not the ability or prompts to follow through.

2. ABILITY

Here’s a truth most leaders forget:

People don’t avoid what matters. They avoid what’s hard.

• If something is easy, people do it.

• If it’s hard, they delay, defer, or quietly quit.

Your job? Lower the bar to entry.

Duolingo doesn’t ask you to “become fluent in French.”

It just asks you to “do one lesson.” Sometimes that’s tapping on one word.

The result?

A streak so addictive that people do it on their wedding day. No joke.

When Ability is Low, Motivation Must Be Sky-High

This is the fundamental tradeoff:

Which is why complex systems, unclear instructions, or cognitive overload kill momentum.

Tactical Examples to Increase Ability

What you can do:

• Every task you assign: make it shorter and clearer.

• Then make the first action laughably easy.

• Let momentum do the rest.

3. PROMPTS

If you want to predict whether a behaviour will happen, the prompt is the most important piece.

Because you can be motivated… and capable…

But if you’re not reminded at the right time? It never happens.

Michael Phelps - The Greatest Swimmer Of All Time

When Phelps was asked how he stayed so consistent…

• He didn’t talk about motivation.

• He didn’t wake up and hope he’d feel like training.

• He had a trigger: the “videotape.”

Every night before bed and every morning before training, he’d mentally rehearse a perfect race, down to the sound of water and the number of strokes.

When the real moment came? He’d already done it in his mind 1,000 times.

The “videotape” was his action prompt.

It told his brain: Now is the time to lock in.

By the time race day came, he wasn’t “motivated.” He was programmed.

The highest performers don’t depend on motivation. They engineer triggers.

Want your team to consistently do the right thing?

Anchor the desired behaviour to something they’re already doing.

This is where prompts become gold.

Fogg outlines three categories of triggers and how to weaponise them for performance:

A) Contextual Triggers (Your Environment)

These are triggers in your surroundings.

• Phone on your nightstand? That’s why you check Instagram first thing.

• Cookie jar on the counter? That’s why your diet’s toast.

• Soap on the sink? That’s why you wash your hands.

Elite teams use these too:

• Dropbox placed sharing reminders in the UI right after file uploads.

• Apple uses ambient red dots to trigger app engagement.

• Great managers use whiteboards, dashboards, or Slack sidebars as visual nudges.

What you can do:

• Make your desired behaviours visible and accessible.

• If you want more 1:1s, make the default calendar template include them.

• Want more feedback? Put a “quick feedback” link in your email signature.

B) Internal Triggers (Your Body/Mind)

These are feelings that spark action:

• You feel hungry → you eat

• You feel bored → you scroll TikTok

• You feel anxious → you check email

But most behaviours don’t come with a natural internal prompt.

There’s no gut feeling to update the CRM or prep for a Quarterly Business Review.

Elite teams know this, so they don’t wait for a feeling.

They build systems that bypass the need for internal willpower.

What you can do:

Build externalised rituals instead of hoping for internal motivation.

• “Every Thursday at 3pm, we update the sales pipeline.”

• “Before any pitch, we use the 3-point checklist.”

C) Action-Based Triggers (Habit Stacking)

This is the gold standard for behaviour change.

You link a new habit to something you already do consistently.

BJ Fogg’s example:

Why does it work?

• No scheduling needed.

• No memory required.

• No motivation necessary.

You already flush. You just stack on top.

Elite Teams do this too:

• Salesforce reps log notes immediately after a call.

• Execs review metrics right before board meetings.

• Devs pull retros right after each sprint ends.

What you can do:

Stack your team’s new habits onto daily workflows:

Starter Steps = Real Momentum

New habits don’t need a motivational speech.

They need a first step that’s so easy it’s laughable.

Want your team to plan their day better?

• Ask them to write one sentence after their morning meeting.

Want more proactive updates?

• Have them drop a 3-word summary in Slack at 4:45pm.

The key is make it so easy it feels dumb not to do it.

The Power Of All Three Together: How the Red Cross Raised $21M in 7 Days

In 2010, a massive earthquake struck Haiti. The Red Cross needed donations and fast.

Their secret? Not marketing. Not guilt. Just a perfect MAP stack:

• Motivation: People saw the devastation. Emotion was high.

• Ability: To donate, you just replied to a text. No credit card needed.

• Prompt: A text message, straight to your phone.

Result: $21M raised in under a week.

While people were at the gym. On the train. At work.

The best-performing teams and businesses don’t use one of these motivators.

They layer all three.

Your Challenge This Week

Here’s your MAP checklist to drive real change:

1. MOTIVATION

   • Is the emotional “why” clear and urgent?

   • Does this task connect to purpose, mastery, or identity?

2. ABILITY

   • Is the task effortless to start?

   • Can they do it in 60 seconds or less?

3. PROMPT

   • Is there a clear trigger?

   • Can you anchor it to an existing behaviour or routine?

Fix the weakest of these three and watch action follow.

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• Steph Curry’s important lesson that applies to any walk of life, not just sport (video)

For Your Team

• Airbnb’s Brian Chesky on how to hire the best people (video)

For Your Health

• Bryan Johnson 🗣️ Why Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) has better impact for you than Ozempic (Diary of a CEO clip)

Owen Eastwood working with the European Ryder Cup Team

Every human craves four things.

• Purpose (why we’re here)

• Autonomy (freedom to make decisions)

• Mastery (getting better)

• Belonging (feeling accepted, valued, connected)

The last one (belonging) is the secret weapon of elite teams.

A Google study (Project Aristotle) found that psychological safety, a fancy term for belonging, was the #1 predictor of team success.

• Not talent.

• Not experience.

• Not resources.

Belonging wins.

The data from Gallup & BetterUp back up the need for “belonging” in your team:

• 27% lower turnover

• 40% fewer safety incidents

• 75% fewer sick days

• 12% higher productivity

• 56% higher job performance

Belonging turns “just doing the job” into “giving it everything you’ve got.”

Today, I’ll show you how the best teams in the world engineer belonging at every stage of the team lifecycle.

The Belonging Whisperer

Ever heard of Owen Eastwood? Probably not.

But you’ve most likely seen the output of his work:

• England Football

• The Ryder Cup Team

• South Africa Cricket

• The Royal Ballet

• NATO

Eastwood’s book Belonging is a blueprint for building world-class teams.

His big idea?

It’s not just theory.

Eastwood’s been inside the locker rooms, the war rooms, the dance studios.

He’s seen what works and what doesn’t.

So today I’ve broken down the tactics he used to turnaround the performance of three teams where he transformed their performance from mediocre to world-class👇

1) England Men’s Football Team

England’s “Golden Generation” was loaded with talent. Still… no finals, no trophies.

Why?

No psychological safety. No belonging.

Eastwood introduced the Māori concept of whakapapa, meaning you’re part of an unbroken chain.

The shirt isn’t yours. You’re a guardian for the next generation.

He shifted the story from pressure → pride.

The Results:

• 2018: England’s first World Cup semi-final in 28 years

• 2021: Euro Final (their first major tournament final since 1966)

• 2024: Reached a consecutive Euro Final

Focusing on what you can do for the team promotes a high-performing culture.

At Netflix, they replicate something similar with this one rule:

No time clocks.

No vacation policy.

No travel approval.

Just what is best for the team.

• Trust = freedom

• Belonging = autonomy + trust

What you could do:

• Build a shared team story that makes every person feel part of something bigger than themselves.

• The shared team narrative should connect past achievements, current goals, and future aspirations.

2) South African Cricket Team (The Proteas)

Post-apartheid, the team was divided by race, history and identity.

The jersey wasn’t unifying; it was a reminder of pain.

Eastwood’s fix?

• He redefined their identity, transitioning from the Springboks to the Proteas to represent a unified nation.

• He introduced the African philosophy of Ubuntu, emphasising shared humanity and interconnectedness, to strengthen team bonds.

Players stood in a circle. Looked each other in the eye. Acknowledged:

• Your success = My success.

• Your pain = My pain.

The team leaders went first to model vulnerability through honest reflection, admitting mistakes, and sharing fears.

Teams follows when they see it’s safe.

The Results:

• The Proteas became world No. 1 in all three formats: Tests, ODIs, T20s.

The best leaders talk with the language:

• “We, us or our”

• Never “I, me, or my”

It’s not “my team,” it’s “our mission”.

Language shapes identity.

Another method that elite teams do is create a shared enemy.

Not a person, but a problem.

For the 49ers, coach Bill Walsh focused on the belief that “West Coast football” couldn’t win.

Shared struggle → shared identity → belonging.

Phil Jackson (coach of the Chicago Bulls & LA Lakers) also leant into this train of thought and took it one step further by creating:

“Never Again Pacts”

After a tough loss, Phil Jackson had players write down:

• What hurt the most?

• What would you do differently next time?

Sharing pain → shared mission to never feel that way again.

It builds emotional connection and collective resilience.

What you could do:

• Build a shared identity - belonging builds when everyone contributes, no matter the role.

• Embrace and celebrate the diverse backgrounds within your team.

• Define the shared struggle or enemy that you can use as motivation.

3) European Ryder Cup Team

They were a team of individual superstars from different countries, struggling to win the infamous trophy from their US competitors.

No shared language, no shared history - just a logo on a polo shirt.

Eastwood’s move when he started working with the team?

He transformed the locker room into a living museum.

• Every past player’s name etched on the walls.

• Seve Ballesteros’s bag in the corner - a reminder of the magic he brought.

• Lockers with personal inscriptions in each player’s own language.

The message? You belong here. This is your time.

The Results:

• 2023: Europe takes back the Ryder Cup in dominant style.

• Players said the locker room felt like “coming home.”

Ryder Cup winning team

Joe Madden (MLB Manger at the Cubs) also decorated their locker room and offices with items that told the story of the team (photos, quotes, memorabilia).

Belonging isn’t just words. It’s felt in the environment.

Inside the Cub’s Office Environment

What you could do:

• Don’t just design a workspace, design an environment that tells your team’s story where every person feels they belong.

• Create rituals and symbols that honour your team’s history and achievements and remind people: “You matter here.”

• Personalise team environments to reflect individual contributions and collective identity.

Your Challenge This Week

Below is a punchy list of the most powerful, practical things elite businesses and high-performing teams do to build belonging at every stage of the employee lifecycle.

Choose 1x thing you can introduce to your team from each section:

Before They Join

1. Share your team story on your website and socials.

2. Involve current team members in interviews.

3. Send a welcome video from the founder.

4. Share your “what we stand for” doc before contracts are signed.

5. Let candidates shadow a team meeting.

Onboarding

1. Pair new hires with a buddy.

2. Celebrate their “First Day” in style.

3. Share the team’s origin story.

4. Ask new hires to share their story.

5. Give them a quick-win project in week one.

While They’re With You

1. Host team storytelling sessions.

2. Celebrate wins (even the small ones).

3. Build rituals (shoutouts, huddles, end-of-project parties).

4. Model vulnerability. Leaders go first.

5. Personalise spaces (photos, names, wins).

6. Revisit the mission regularly.

When They’re Leaving

1. Throw a proper send-off.

2. Write them a personal thank you letter.

3. Invite them into alumni spaces.

4. Ask for their advice and learnings.

5. Capture their story in a doc or video.

Boomerang Hires

1. Celebrate their return loudly.

2. Ask them to share fresh perspectives.

3. Show they always belong.

4. Share their return as a culture case study.

The best teams don’t just hire great talent.

They build belonging.

It’s what turns groups of people into a family that fights for each other and wins.

Hit reply to this email and let me know which idea resonated the most 🤝

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• Why having a spider plant where you work is essential if you don’t want to get sick (Link)

For Your Team

• Ole Mis Rebels women’s basketball team has the best quote I’ve ever heard when it comes to overcoming obstacles (Link)

For Your Health

• Ronaldo spends £1m/year on his health - here are the 8 habits he consistently does to reach elite performance (Link)

There’s a scene that lives rent-free in the minds of every 80s action junkie.

Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Two trucks.

One foot on each.

Engines rev and he holds the split 🤯

It’s also the perfect metaphor for what most companies are trying to do with AI adoption right now.

They’ve got one leg on “Old School Ops” and one foot dangling over “New AI-Powered Workflows”.

Don’t be that company.

If you want your team to actually use AI, this edition is for you!

First, figure out how they really think about it.

Then, steal the exact tactics below from the companies that are making AI adoption a no-brainer.

The 5 Types of AI Mindsets In Your Team

Your ability to get the team onboard is crucial.

AI isn’t a tool problem. It’s a people problem.

When it comes to getting your team to adopt AI, you’ll run into a mix of predictable mindsets according to Rogers’ diffusion theory and BJ Fogg’s behaviour model.

Here’s what you’re up against 👇

1. The Innovators (5%)

🧠 Behavioural Insight:

• Intrinsically motivated early adopters.

• High curiosity, low resistance.

🛠️ How to Manage:

• Give them a sandbox + spotlight.

• Let them experiment, then showcase their wins to the wider team.

Bonus tip: Microsoft launched a Frontier program - an experimental lab designed for early adopters like this to engage with cutting-edge AI tools and agents focused on productivity and work.

It can offer your team the opportunity to test and provide feedback on the latest AI innovations before they become widely available.

Check out more information on the Frontier program here

2. The Early Majority / Achievers (35%)

🧠 Behavioural Insight:

• Outcome-driven, logical adopters.

• Motivated by reward and reputation.

🛠️ How to Manage:

• Tie AI use directly to performance metrics.

• Make it a lever, not an experiment.

3. The Skeptics / Risk Managers (20%)

🧠 Behavioural Insight:

• Anchored in loss aversion and fear of error.

• Want control, not chaos.

🛠️ How to Manage:

• Show safety nets, not just features.

• Give them tools with audit trails, explainability, and guardrails.

4. The Bystanders (25%)

🧠 Behavioural Insight:

• Not anti-AI, just ambivalent.

• Lack of trigger or ability.

🛠️ How to Manage:

• Make AI the path of least resistance. 

• Bake it into their existing workflow.

• Don’t ask them to “learn,” just let them “use.”

5. The Resistors / Identity Defenders (15%)

🧠 Behavioural Insight:

• See AI as a threat to autonomy, competence, or status.

🛠️ How to Manage:

• Reframe AI as augmentation, not replacement.

• Highlight how it supports their expertise, not erodes it.

Bonus: The Social Influencers

• They exist in any persona group and are very influential.

• Make up about 10–15% of your workforce.

• Winning these people early is the unlock for faster org-wide adoption.

🧠 Behavioural Insight:

• Highly influential peers, often not in leadership roles.

🛠️ How to Manage:

• Enlist them early.

• If they adopt and endorse it, the rest follow faster.

Steal This Simple AI Adoption Strategy:

1. Target Innovators + Influencers first → let them spark momentum.

2. Then enable the Early Majority with structured use cases + rewards.

3. Slowly nudge Skeptics and Bystanders with education + ease.

4. For Resistors? Reframe. Protect their identity. Show them AI doesn’t replace, it enhances.

How The Best Companies In The World Are Approaching The Challenge

Most companies are playing with AI.

A few are winning with it.

Here’s exactly what the winners are doing, plus and the numbers to back it up 👇

1. Shoosmiths: Incentivising AI Usage with a £1M Bonus Pool

• UK-based law firm Shoosmiths introduced a £1 million bonus pool to encourage staff to collectively use Microsoft Copilot one million times within a fiscal year.

• AI is now integrated into their daily workflows, enhancing client service and operational efficiency.

2. San Antonio Spurs: Streamlining Operations with ChatGPT

• The San Antonio Spurs have adopted ChatGPT to enhance data analysis and community engagement.

• It is currently saving employees over 1,800 work hours each month.

3. Mastercard: Revolutionising Fraud Detection and Personalisation

• Mastercard employs AI to safeguard over 159 billion transactions annually, significantly enhancing fraud detection rates.

• They are using AI tools like Shopping Muse and Agent Pay to improve customer experiences through personalised product recommendations and secure transactions.

4. ANZ Bank: Boosting Developer Productivity with GitHub Copilot

• ANZ Bank conducted a six-week study involving approximately 1,000 software engineers to assess the impact of GitHub Copilot - check out the results 👇

  • Engineers using Copilot completed tasks 42% faster than those who did not.

  • Participants reported a notable boost in productivity and code quality.

  • The tool positively influenced their ability to perform specific functions, although improvements in code security were not statistically significant.

5. Dell Technologies: Launching the AI Factory with NVIDIA

• At Dell Technologies World 2025, Dell unveiled the AI Factory in collaboration with NVIDIA, aiming to simplify and accelerate AI adoption for enterprises.

• The AI Factory reduces setup time by up to 86% compared to traditional methods.

• It is offering a comprehensive suite of AI solutions, including agentic AI capabilities and streamlined deployment processes.

The best companies aren’t just dabbling AI, they’re embedding systems around it.

Don’t wait for the perfect AI strategy.

Steal what’s working, start small, and build the muscle.

Your Challenge This Week

If you want to avoid the Van Damme split and stay standing, here’s the exact framework I use to help high-performing exec teams with AI adoption:

1. Start with “Jobs To Be Done”

Don’t start with the tool. Start with the job.

• Ask: What’s one thing that takes too long, costs too much, or blocks growth?

• Then ask: Can AI make this 10x faster or cheaper?

👉 Example: Klarna saved $40M by replacing 700 copywriters with AI.

2. Create a Playground

People don’t learn AI by reading PDFs. They learn by playing.

• Give your team “AI Fridays” (1hr a week to explore).

• Incentivise wins. “First person to automate a task with AI this month gets dinner on the company.”

👉 Example: HubSpot gave teams a 30-day challenge: Use AI to automate one part of your job. No pressure, just play. Result? Internal AI usage shot up 200%.

3. Assign AI Champions (Not IT)

Every team needs an “AI Captain”. This is someone who’s 10% ahead of the curve and pulling others forward.

• Ops has one. Sales has one. CS has one.

• Make it a badge of honour, not a chore.

👉 Example: At Bain & Co, AI champions were embedded in departments. They weren’t from IT. They were peers with credibility which meant adoption skyrocketed.

4. Measure Behaviour, Not Just Output

Track:

• % of team using AI weekly

• % of AI-driven process changes

• Time saved per department

👉 Example: Microsoft measured Teams meetings after rolling out Copilot. The stat? 29% fewer meetings and 1.2hrs saved per person per week. That’s the metric that gets execs excited.

Good luck and let me know how you get on 🫡

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• DoorDash CBO’s “how to work with me” doc is a must for any senior leader (LinkedIn)

For Your Team

• Microsoft CPO on how your teams can become even more valuable by using these AI best practises (Podcast)

For Your Health

• Brain Expert Daniel Amen on what foods are linked to brain fog, memory loss nd long-term cognitive decline (DOAC clip)

If you’ve ever felt like your team is busy but not moving the needle, this one’s for you.

It’s usually not a talent problem.

It’s a structure problem.

Great teams don’t just happen. They’re designed.

So today, I’m breaking down 5 high-performance team models used by the likes of Amazon, Stripe, Apple, Netflix, Super.com, Spotify, GitLab, and Atlassian.

Some are laser-focused.

Some are wildly collaborative.

All of them are built for clarity, ownership, and speed.

Pick the one that fits your company stage and leadership style best and watch how much faster (and calmer) things start moving.

1. Single-Threaded Leaders (STLs)

The idea:

One person. One mission. 100% focus.

Clear ownership = clear execution. No hiding in the crowd.

They own a specific initiative end-to-end, like a startup inside your company.

Examples:

• Amazon used STLs to launch AWS (Andy Jassy) and Prime (Greg Greeley)

• Shopify spun up “startup teams” inside the org like one STL who led their POS product line

• Stripe empowered product GMs to run entire verticals as P&Ls

• Apple implements a DRI (Directly Responsible Individual) model so meetings and projects aren’t done until the DRI signs off

Why it works:

• Accountability is crystal clear

• Speed goes up (no more endless coordination)

• Focus drives better results

How to use it:

1. Choose a high-priority initiative (ideally 1 per STL)

2. Assign one leader to own it - no shared responsibilities

3. Give them autonomy, a team, and KPIs

4. Get out of their way

 2. Mission-Aligned Teams (MATs)

The idea:

Michael Abramovich of Super.com popularized Mission-Aligned Teams (MATs).

Instead of having one person lead the charge, you align an entire team around one mission regardless of function.

Think SEAL Team 6 rather than marketing vs. product vs. engineering.

Examples:

• Super.com uses MATs to focus teams on LTV, retention, or core growth goals

• Spotify builds “squads” aligned to customer problems (e.g. Discover Weekly)

• Airbnb organised around user journeys (Host Onboarding, Guest Experience)

At Gong, product teams work in small, autonomous pods (PM, designer, engineers, plus a few key roles).

Each pod owns a specific outcome, like improving forecasting or engagement, and runs the full development process.

They move fast, stay focused, and build with customers in the loop, getting feedback from 12–20 design partners as they go.

The result?

95% of features get used due the constant validation that keeps the product on track.

Why it works:

• Cross-functional collaboration = less dependency bottlenecks

• Faster execution from idea to shipped product

• Everyone knows the goal

How to use it:

1. Define a clear mission (e.g. “10x onboarding conversion”)

2. Assemble a cross-functional squad (PM + Eng + Design + Marketing)

3. Align incentives to the mission (not function)

4. Ship fast, iterate faster

3. Netflix’s “Freedom & Responsibility” Framework

Core idea:

If you want more autonomy and speed, you’ve got to trust your team and give them the freedom to experiment.

The leader’s job isn’t to watch every move.

It’s to create an environment where smart people can do great work without waiting for permission.

The tradeoff is worth it: higher velocity, better morale, and more impactful products.

Hire A-players, give them context, then get out of their way.

How it works:

• No vacation policy, no 9–5, minimal approvals

• Leaders provide the “why,” and teams figure out the “how”

• Radical candour is encouraged; mediocrity isn’t tolerated

Example:

Netflix’s culture deck went viral for a reason. Their talent density model → fewer people, more results.

Click here for the full deck

Why it works:

• High trust = high speed

• Removes bureaucracy

• Self-managing teams

How to use it:

1. Stop managing hours. Start managing outcomes

2. Clarify expectations, then give freedom within the framework

3. Only use if your team is made of killers, not coasters

4. GitLab’s “Handbook-First Culture”

Core idea:

Make everything explicit. No guesswork. No tribal knowledge.

How it works:

• Every process, policy, and decision is documented

• The company wiki is the single source of truth

• Everyone contributes to improving it, like a living playbook

Example:

GitLab (fully remote, 1,000+ employees) scaled globally without confusion because every new hire had a manual on “how we work.”

Why it works:

• Transparency across the company

• Onboards new people fast

• Reduces dependency on individuals

How to use it:

1. Create a Notion or Slite workspace and start documenting how your company works (decision frameworks, onboarding, campaign playbooks, etc.)

2. Assign “maintainers” for each section so it doesn’t go stale

5. Atlassian’s “Team Health Monitor”

Core idea:

Make team performance a regular check-in, not a post-mortem.

How it works:

• Teams rate themselves on 8 attributes: 1) shared understanding, 2) clarity of roles, 3) decision making, 4) dependencies, 5) delivery health, 6) team support & inclusion, 7) value & outcomes, 8) learning and improvement

• Done monthly or quarterly as a team retro

• It’s not a performance review, it’s a self-diagnosis tool

Example:

Atlassian built this into how their product, engineering, and even sales teams operate. It’s like doing a team-level therapy session… that actually helps.

Why it works:

• Builds trust and reflection

• Surfaces problems early

• Gives teams tools to self-correct

How to use it:

1. Use Atlassian’s free Health Monitor toolkit or create your own

2. Run it quarterly. Discuss, don’t debate

3. Then act on the lowest-scoring category

🛠️ Your Challenge This Week

There’s no perfect org chart.

But there are systems that remove friction, improve clarity, and help great people do their best work.

Execution is just a system.

Spend 60 minutes redesigning how your team can operate at its full potential.

Step 1:

Pick one of the 5 models in this email that fits your next big initiative.

Step 2:

Sketch how it would look with your current team (who owns what, where are the gaps, what would change).

Step 3:

Run a one-hour workshop or Loom walkthrough with your leadership team to propose the new model. Don’t overthink it, prototype it.

Reply to this email to let me know which model you go with…

I’ll personally send you a few bonus templates and playbooks to speed up your rollout 🤝

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• Why Michael Jordan purposefully never looked at what the score was during games (Video)

For Your Team

• A 5-layer hiring hierarchy which most senior leaders get wrong by reviewing candidates in reverse order (Full list)

For Your Health

• The BEST air fryer banana bread recipe for great morning energy (thank me later 🤤 - recipe here)

At 94 years old, after more than six decades running Berkshire Hathaway, the most legendary investor in modern history has finally closed the chapter on his active leadership role.

He will step down as CEO at the end of this year.

The scoreboard speaks for itself:

1. Buffet took over Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 when it was a failing textile company worth $18/share

2. Built it into a $900 billion conglomerate

3. Delivered a compound annual return of ~19.8% for shareholders over nearly 60 years (vs. ~10.2% for the S&P 500)

4. Reinvested billions into household names like Apple, Coca-Cola, GEICO, and American Express

5. Oversees a portfolio of 60+ wholly-owned companies, with over 400,000 employees

6. Personally amassed a net worth of $134+ billion, while pledging 99% of it to philanthropy

He has spent decades proving that high-performing teams aren’t built on IQ or MBAs but on character, trust, and autonomy.

At Berkshire Hathaway, no one gets hired for charisma or credentials.

This wasn’t luck. It wasn’t timing.

It was systems thinking, radical trust, and world-class leadership.

In today’s email, I’ll break down the systems behind one of the world’s most successful business empires and how you can apply it to your team this week 🤝

1) The Three Traits Buffett Demands in Leaders

Buffett and Munger spent decades refining their vision for selecting, motivating, and retaining great leaders.

Often in ways that challenge conventional corporate wisdom.

Buffett didn’t care if you had an MBA.

He didn’t care if you went to Harvard.

He didn’t even care if you’d run a billion-dollar business before.

He looked for three things and one of them mattered more than all the rest:

Think about that.

A genius without integrity will outsmart your systems.

A hard worker without integrity will run fast in the wrong direction.

And your business will pay the price.

Berkshire learned this lesson the hard way when a rogue trader at Salomon Brothers had bent the rules, just enough to cause a near-collapse.

The CEO knew, did nothing and suddenly, Congress was involved.

Markets panicked and the world watched.

Buffett didn’t rush to act or blame anybody but instead took a different approach.

He came out publicly with just one sentence:

The fallout reinforced Buffett’s belief that integrity is non-negotiable.

He learned to spot integrity like a hawk and to only build around people who passed the test.

2) Why Berkshire Pay Is Dead Simple

Now here’s where Buffett zigged while every other CEO zagged.

Berkshire doesn’t use stock options.

They don’t do long-term incentive plans.

They don’t bury bonuses inside a 10-tab spreadsheet with “strategic milestones” no one understands.

They pay people based on what they can actually control.

Take GEICO for example.

Bonuses are tied to how many policies get sold and how well they’re managed. That’s it.

• No tricks.

• No moving goalposts.

• No politics.

• No hoops to jump through.

Each business sets its own plan, tied to real outcomes. Nothing more.

As Charlie Munger once said:

Translation? If your comp plan requires a PhD to understand, you’ve already lost the game.

At Berkshire, they stripped it down to the essentials and performance soared.

3) Delegation That Borders on Abdication

Imagine this…

You run a $900B company.

You’ve got 400,000 employees across dozens of industries.

How many people do you think work at HQ?

• Not two hundred.

• Not two thousand.

• Only twenty-five!

That’s Buffett’s whole approach: delegation that borders on abdication.

It’s radical trust.

He finds incredible operators (people who know their business better than he ever could) and he gives them the wheel.

Buffett constantly reminds leaders to only operate within their circle of competence e.g. what they truly understand and to stay brutally honest about what they don’t.

Take Rose Blumkin.

She was in her 80s when Buffett bought Nebraska Furniture Mart.

• She didn’t use consultants.

• She didn’t have a board.

• She just sold furniture better than anyone alive.

Buffett didn’t give her new direction or a big strategy deck.

He gave her space.

The results? Record-breaking.

Her retail empire now pulls in over $1.6 billion a year.

Incredible achievement when you think she started out with a mere $500 and a hustle no one could match.

Why it works:

Autonomy attracts high-agency operators, the ones who want freedom and accountability, not hand-holding.

Here’s an interesting data point: A 2021 Gallup study found that companies with high-autonomy cultures see 43% higher productivity and 27% higher profitability.

if you want to attract elite talent:

—> Give them autonomy and get out of the way.

4) Build A Culture That Outlives You

Here’s the part that makes CEOs uncomfortable.

Most founders build a company around themselves.

Buffett did the opposite: he built a system that won’t need him.

He’s not interested in legacy tied to his name.

He’s obsessed with legacy tied to behaviour.

That’s why his successor isn’t a “mini Buffett”, he didn’t need one. He needed leaders who understood the culture.

This is exactly how the All Blacks think.

The most successful rugby team in history doesn’t just train for the next match. They live by a cultural code:

“Leave the jersey in a better place.”

That’s what Buffett’s built at Berkshire.

Every manager, every operator, every leader is expected to preserve the values and elevate the standard, not reinvent the wheel or carve their name into the wall.

He built a culture where:

• Incentives are clear and fair.

• Integrity is the entry ticket.

• Power is distributed, not hoarded.

• People act in ways that will still make sense in 20 years.

It’s not about Buffett anymore. It never really was.

Just like the All Blacks, the jersey (e.g. the company) matters more than any one person wearing it.

That’s the kind of culture that compounds.

The kind of stuff no stock option can buy.

That’s the kind of culture you want.

⚔️ YOUR CHALLENGE THIS WEEK

You’re not Warren Buffett. Neither am I.

But you can still steal a few moves from his playbook.

Here’s your challenge this week:

1. Ask yourself: Who on my team has all three: integrity, energy, intelligence?

No excuses. If someone’s missing integrity, it’s time to act.

2. Pick one team or department and simplify their incentives.

What are they actually in control of? Bonus them on that. Nothing else.

3. Hand off something scary.

Pick one important decision this week, and don’t be the final say. Let someone else own it, fully. Watch what happens.

💭 FINAL THOUGHT

We love to romanticise Buffett as a financial wizard.

But his true genius?

He understands human nature better than anyone else in business.

He bets on people. He keeps things simple.

Buffett’s legacy won’t be his net worth.

It’ll be the way his company compounds without him.

That’s the real win.

Because the best test of leadership isn’t what happens when you show up.

It’s what happens when you don’t have to.

So ask yourself:

Are you building a team that works without you?

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• 2-time Olympic marathon champion and former world record holder Kipchoge has a fascinating take on resilience and embracing “pain” (Check it out here)

For Your Team

• Wisdom from Barak Obama 💡How can you expose your team to more experiences so they feel like they belong at the top tables? (Watch the clip)

For Your Health

• The core health & fitness predictors that will enable you to live a longer life (Dr. Peter Attia)

UnitiQ’s Model For Employee Motivation

If you want to get more out of your team, stop thinking like a manager and start thinking like a biologist.

Humans don’t wake up excited about KPIs.

• We’re not wired for quarterly goals

• We’re wired for survival, connection, and meaning

Motivation isn’t a management problem.

It’s a brain problem.

The limbic system runs the show.

Fast, emotional, and ancient.

It scans for danger, reward, and belonging, not strategy decks or slide charts.

The rational brain? That’s the intern. Smart, but slow.

It understands goals, but only acts when emotion gives it the green light.

That’s why most motivation fails.

We explain before we connect.

We aim for logic but forget the limbic.

So, how do you tap into the most powerful human motivators?

The 4 Human Drives Behind Motivation

Behavioural science has shown we’re driven by:

1. Autonomy – We crave control over our work

2. Mastery – We want to get better at something that matters

3. Purpose – We need to feel part of something bigger

4. Belonging – We need to feel seen and safe with others

Motivation happens when work is designed to tap into all four.

I’ve spent this week researching how world-class leaders actually do this 👇

Real-World Playbook: How the Best Do It

Here are some of the most unique and inspiring ways great leaders have used behavioural psychology to create extraordinary teams:

1. Jos de Blok at Buurtzorg (Autonomy)

In 2006, the Dutch healthcare system was drowning in red tape.

Nurses were overworked. Patients were rushed.

And most of the workday was spent filling out forms, not caring for people.

Then a former nurse named Jos de Blok asked a radical question:

As a result, he founded Buurtzorg (which means “neighbourhood care” in Dutch) with a small team of just four nurses and a radically simple vision:

Each team of 10–12 nurses was autonomous.

They decided:

• Which patients to take

• How to structure their day

• Who needed more time or less care

• How to coordinate with families and local communitie

There were no checklists or quotas.

Just one North Star:

Do what’s best for the patient.

The Results?

• 30% fewer hospital visits among Buurtzorg patients

• Improved recovery times

• Highest employee satisfaction in the sector

• Lowest overhead costs (because no bloated admin layer)

• And today: over 10,000 nurses, still operating in small, self-directed teams

All without a single traditional manager.

Buurtzorg didn’t just improve healthcare.

They proved something bigger:

• When people feel trusted, they act like professionals

• When people feel controlled, they act like robots

2. Satya Nadella at Microsoft (Mastery)

When Nadella took over in 2014, Microsoft was broken.

• Teams were competitive, not collaborative

• Employees feared failure and hid mistakes

• Curiosity was punished and arrogance was rewarded

Nadella fixed this by installing a growth mindset and making learning the metric.

He made vulnerability the leadership model.

He shifted the culture from “prove yourself” to “improve yourself.”

Practical Playbook:

• He gave everyone a copy of Mindset by Carol Dweck

• Managers were trained to praise effort, not just outcomes

• Meetings began with “What did we learn this week?” instead of KPIs

This activated mastery and safety.

People stopped covering up problems and started solving them.

He shifted the company from a “know-it-all” to a “learn-it-all” culture.

3. Angela Ahrendts at Burberry (Purpose)

Burberry was stale and disconnected in 2006. The brand was diluted and employees were disengaged.

But CEO Angela Ahrendts didn’t start with product.

She started with purpose and storytelling.

She asked one powerful question:

She reminded employees they weren’t selling coats.

They were curating British heritage.

They were protecting people from the elements in style.

She connected teams to the story of craftsmanship, British heritage, and modern protection.

The result of this focus and company culture shift resulted in one of my favourite ever brand ads 👇

Her Playbook:

• Every retail employee was trained as a “storyteller,” not a seller

• Headquarters were redesigned to feel like fashion theatres

• Internal newsletters featured customer journeys, not spreadsheets

When you give people a mission worth showing up for, they’ll go the extra mile because they believe in it.

4. Indra Nooyi at PepsiCo (Belonging)

During her time as CEO, Nooyi made one unusual move:

She wrote over 400 letters to the parents of her senior team, thanking them for raising such remarkable children. Watch the full interview here.

This simple act activated belonging and purpose. It built emotional loyalty and emotional loyalty builds real momentum.

Her Playbook:

• At annual meetings, she read some of those letters aloud

• She asked execs to bring their family to milestone celebrations

• She pushed for flexible working years before it was trendy

• She tied employee goals to societal impact, not just profit

The result?

• Emotional buy-in

• Deep loyalty

• Fierce motivation

This is what happens when belonging becomes strategy.

“You can lead with strategy. But you win with love.”

She turned personal recognition into a leadership advantage.

The Secret Glue = Recognition

You can give people autonomy.

You can give them purpose.

You can give them mastery and a tribe.

But if you never recognise them, it won’t stick.

It turns fleeting motivation into long-term momentum.

It says: “I see you. What you do matters.”

And the science backs it up:

• In a global Gallup study, employees who said they were “recognised regularly” were 4x more likely to be engaged.

• In Daniel Kahneman’s research, one of the biggest drivers of motivation was feeling acknowledged for your work.

• In BJ Fogg’s behaviour model, recognition acts as a reinforcing reward, cementing identity and effort.

This isn’t about pizza parties and plaques.

The most powerful recognition is:

1. Timely — within moments or days of the behaviour

2. Specific — name the exact thing that mattered

3. Sincere — keep it direct and honest

4. Public (sometimes) — amplify belonging when the setting is right

Remember to stay conscious of your own bias and what actions you like and be more objective about who deserves praise.

One method that has worked extremely well for public recognition is sharing a Typeform with the whole company to get them to share a peer nomination for someone that has lived the company values this week:

An internal comms email is then created and shared every Friday which usually gets a minimum of 20 nominations for each value so you get insights into the great work and behaviours people are showing across the business.

Give it a whirl 🤝

Your Challenge This Week

People aren’t algorithms.

They’re animals: emotional, tribal, and driven by meaning.

The leaders who win aren’t just good at strategy. They’re students of human nature.

If you want more from your team, stop managing performance.

Start designing motivation.

Pick one action you can do this week from the examples above to improve on the one you selected 🫡

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• A tactic to solve the biggest mistake people make with their work performance (X post)

For Your Team

• Coach K 🗣️ an interesting way to approach culture (X post)

For Your Health

• Japan’s secret behind 4.5% obesity rate + hack to improve your cardiovascular fitness by 2x (LinkedIn post)

I spotted a fascinating approach to team performance from the VP of EMEA Sales Jorge Bestard in his recent LinkedIn post here.

At the start of every quarter, he implements a “cool down week”.

Anyone that has worked in a commercial role or is responsible for company revenue will know the pressure at the end of each quarter.

He recognised this and applied the same principle from sports performance that I wrote about in this article which helped Roger Bannister break the 4 minute mile record.

The result? His team has never missed their quota.

In elite athletics, they call this a deload week and it’s not optional. It’s baked into the training cycle because rest is a multiplier on performance.

The same applies in business.

He had four goals from this cool down week:

1. Take zero internal meetings (except one leadership readback)

2. Reflect on previous quarter performance

3. Strategically plan their approach for the next quarter

4. Restore mental and physical energy

When you alternate periods of intense focus with purposeful rest, you create a system that’s built to last.

Let me tell you a quick story.

A few years ago, I had coffee with a friend who worked at a hyper-growth tech company.

He told me he hadn’t taken a full day off in over 4 months. I asked why.

He laughed and said, “Because I’m crushing it.”

Fast forward six months: burned out. Shorter temper. Worse decisions. Underperforming. Eventually? Gone.

That story isn’t rare. It’s the norm.

In high-performance environments, most leaders still believe the old script: grind equals greatness.

But here’s the truth:

Recovery isn’t a reward. It’s the foundation.

And some of the best companies in the world are getting this right.

I’ve pulled together my favourite examples below that might inspire a new initiative with your team 👇

WHAT ELITE COMPANIES ARE DOING THAT MOST LEADERS FORGET

1. Salesforce: Trailblazer Ranch

Imagine this: a retreat nestled in the California redwoods.

No Slack pings. No endless Zooms. Just connection, quiet, and culture.

That’s Salesforce’s answer to burnout.

While specific visit frequencies aren’t publicly detailed, Salesforce welcomes approximately 10,000 employees per year.

Each visit typically lasts about two nights, though durations may vary based on the program. 

Salesforce Trailblazer Ranch

What they do:

The retreat is primarily intended for:

• New Employees: To facilitate onboarding and immerse them in Salesforce’s culture.

• Employees in Transition: Such as those who have shifted roles, come from acquired companies, or experienced recent reorganisations.

• New People Leaders: To support their development and integration into leadership roles.

These groups are prioritised to help them build connections and align with the company’s values.

At Trailblazer Ranch, employees engage in various activities aimed at promoting well-being and connection, including:

• Guided nature walks

• Restorative yoga sessions

• Garden tours

• Group cooking classes

• Art journaling

• Meditation

Why it works:

It’s rooted in a simple truth from elite performance: you can’t build strong teams without psychological safety.

You can’t create safety if everyone’s in fight-or-flight mode.

The ranch slows the nervous system down. It recalibrates the team.

And it signals: we care more about how we work than how fast we go.

2. Whoop: Pay People to Sleep

This one is wild… and brilliant.

Whoop, the performance wearable company, pays employees a $100 bonus every month if they hit 85% of their optimal sleep target.

Watch the full episode with Whoop founder on Diary of a CEO here

Read that again: they incentivise sleep like most companies incentivise sales.

What they do:

• Every team member who opts in wears a Whoop band.

• Their sleep, recovery, and strain scores are tracked (privately).

• If you prioritise rest and recovery, you get paid for it.

Why it works:

Because they practice what they preach. They build performance tools and live by them internally.

But more importantly: they flip the cultural script.

In most companies, pulling an all-nighter makes you a hero.

At Whoop, being well-rested makes you a high performer.

That’s how you build a system where people sustain output over decades, not burnout in months.

3. YuLife: The Game of Wellness

YuLife, a UK-based insurance company, gamifies wellness.

Every walk, every meditation session, every healthy choice earns “YuCoins”.

These are digital tokens employees can cash in for vouchers or charity donations.

Why it works:

They’ve gamified recovery.

They’ve made the act of resting and recharging into a competitive advantage.

And they tap into something deep: intrinsic motivation + a sense of progress.

We thrive when we feel like we’re moving forward even in how we care for ourselves.

4. Epic Systems: Sabbaticals for Global Exploration

Epic Systems, a healthcare software company, offers employees a five-week paid sabbatical every five years, encouraging them to travel internationally.

The program aims to provide employees with a break from work to explore new cultures and experiences.

Check out all the examples of the sabbaticals employees have taken here

Why It Works: 

Extended time away from work allows employees to recharge, gain new perspectives, and return with renewed creativity and enthusiasm.

Encouraging travel can also foster cultural awareness and personal growth, which can translate into more empathetic and innovative workplace interactions.

YOUR CHALLENGE THIS WEEK

If you’re leading a team, try this:

• Run a cool-down week at the start of each quarter.

• Build in full-team breaks where everyone logs off.

• Incentivise behaviour that leads to long-term performance: sleep, movement, mental stillness etc.

• And when people come back, run deep debriefs. Look at what worked. What didn’t. Where to go next.

You don’t build a high-performing team by pushing harder.

You build it by knowing when to push and when to pause.

—

Reply to this email if you want help mapping out a cool-down model for your team.

These strategies aren’t just feel-good perks.

They’re how the best in the world stay the best 🚀

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• James Clear (The godfather of systems thinking) with the tweet of the year about winning 👏 (X)

For Your Team

• The Navy SEALs 🗣️ secret to the highest performing team in the world and the importance of role clarity (YouTube)

For Your Health

• A behind-the-scenes look at NFL star Christian McCaffrey’s recovery day (YouTube)

One of my closest friends recently shared a fascinating concept from 1982, when two criminologists (James Q. Wilson and George Kelling) proposed something deceptively simple:

If a window in a building is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will assume no one cares and soon, more windows will be broken.

Leave one window shattered, and before long, the whole building is in ruins.

This became known as the Broken Windows Theory and while it was born out of crime prevention, it’s one of the most important ideas in leadership, culture, and team performance.

Let me show you how 👇

The Japanese Football Team and the Empty Locker Room

After Japan’s emotional win in the group stages of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the cameras caught something unexpected; not on the pitch, but in the locker room.

The team had already left.

But the dressing room?

Spotless.

Japanese players leave dressing room spotless after Germany World Cup victory

Not a scrap of trash. Towels folded. Floors cleaned. A handwritten note left behind:

“Thank you” in Arabic.

Nobody asked them to do it. No one would’ve noticed if they hadn’t.

But that’s the point. Culture isn’t what you do when everyone’s watching. It’s what you do when no one is.

They weren’t just cleaning a room.

They were reinforcing their identity:

That’s not a nice-to-have. That’s a competitive advantage.

Culture Is Built in the Margins

In elite teams, culture doesn’t collapse in big, dramatic moments.

It erodes slowly. One unchecked behaviour, one broken window at a time.

• A star player rolls their eyes in a team meeting. No one addresses it.

• A top performer misses a deadline. No one holds them accountable.

• A new hire shows up late. Everyone looks the other way.

Each time, a silent message is sent:

“We don’t really care about the small stuff.”

But here’s the thing: The small stuff is the culture.

The Rise and Fall of WeWork

Remember WeWork?

At its peak, it was valued at $47 billion. A few years later, it filed for bankruptcy.

Yes, there were complex financial issues and a wildly unsustainable business model, but if you peel back the layers, it’s a classic Broken Windows story.

WeWork is a masterclass in what happens when broken windows are left unfixed.

• Employees partying in the office at 10 a.m.

• Leaders burning millions on private jets and tequila fountains.

• No accountability. No standards. No consequences.

At first, it looked like eccentric startup fun. But beneath the surface, a slow rot was setting in.

By the time it unraveled, the culture had already collapsed.

From the outside, the broken windows were obvious.

Internally, they were ignored… until the whole house collapsed.

Elite leaders don’t wait for chaos to fix culture.

They operate like gardeners, not firefighters.

They tend to the environment before weeds take root.

What Elite Leaders Do Differently

Here’s what great leaders understand intuitively:

The little things aren’t little. They’re early warning signs. They’re culture indicators.

Think about one of the most successful head coaches of all time - Nick Saban at Alabama. His entire system is built around what he calls “The Process.”

Every detail matters.

How you walk into a room. How you tie your shoes. How you practice on a Wednesday.

Because if you let one thing slip, what’s next?

The scoreboard takes care of itself.

But only if you take care of the standards.

3 Tactical Plays to Protect Your Culture

If you’re building an elite team on the pitch or in the boardroom, here’s how to apply the Broken Windows principle:

1. Fix The First Window Immediately

• If you see something off (behaviour, standards, language) address it immediately.

• Silence is permission. Action is leadership.

2. Reinforce Standards Relentlessly

• Have clear standards, and repeat them until your team can say them in their sleep.

• More importantly: live them. Your example is the loudest message of all.

3. Celebrate The Right Things

• Don’t just reward results. Celebrate habits, consistency, integrity.

• Show the team what “good” really looks like, even when no one’s watching.

The Big Takeaway

The Broken Windows Theory isn’t about crime, it’s about culture.

Leave the small stuff unchecked, and you’ll wake up one day wondering why your team is slipping, your standards are gone, and your best people are leaving.

If you let one broken window slide, it’s never just one.

But fix it quickly and publicly and you will build something that can’t be broken.

Excellence is contagious. So is apathy.

As the leader, you get to choose which one spreads.

—

Want to discuss how to reinforce the right standards in your team? Hit reply. Always happy to trade notes.

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• Tim Grover (Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant’s trainer) on Jimmy Fallon sharing killer insights on how to become the best in your field (YouTube)

For Your Team

• A tearjerking video showing the importance of believing in your team from NBA head coach Greg Popovich (Instagram)

For Your Health

• A fascinating Swedish experiment on females that highlights the impact of sunlight on your mortality/lifespan (Instagram)

Here is a story I love.

It’s 1962. JFK is touring NASA for the first time.

He walks past a janitor holding a mop and casually asks, “What do you do here?”

Without missing a beat, the janitor replies,

“I’m helping put a man on the moon.”

That line has echoed through time not because of what he did, but because of how he saw what he did.

He wasn’t just cleaning a floor. He was part of a mission.

This is the power of dovetailing:

When you get it right, you create something magical:

• A sense of ownership.

• A sense of pride.

• A deep, intrinsic drive.

You go from compliance to commitment.

And your team might even rewrite history too.

Neil Armstrong on the moon

HOW MODERN GIANTS ARE IMPLEMENTING THIS TECHNIQUE

Fast forward to today.

At SpaceX, engineers often work brutal hours. Why?

Because they believe in Elon Musk’s mission: “To make life multi-planetary.”

One engineer said:

Their personal aspirations (innovation, legacy, exploration) dovetail with the company’s world-changing goals.

A Patagonia store employee once shared:

Their mission-driven brand attracts people who care about climate, so working at Patagonia becomes an extension of their identity.

None of these roles are glamorous. But they’re meaningful.

Because the individual saw themselves in the mission.

YOUR CHALLENGE THIS WEEK: CREATE THE DOVETAILING EFFECT IN YOUR TEAM

As leaders, it’s easy to focus on performance goals, KPIs, and strategy.

But we miss the human behind the role.

And we forget that meaning is a multiplier.

Here’s the challenge for you this week:

1) Find out their personal “why”

What drives your team? What are they trying to become?

Few truly know what their people want to become.

Most leaders know what their company wants to achieve.

If you don’t know someone’s personal goals, how can you help them connect to the mission?

👉 Example: Google’s “20% Time”

Google famously allowed employees to spend 20% of their time on projects they cared about.

That policy gave birth to Gmail, Google Maps, and AdSense.

Why? Because it gave people space to pursue their own “why” inside the broader company context.

👉 Example: Netflix Culture Deck

Netflix encourages managers to ask:

Then they try to create that opportunity inside the company.

👉 Action:

Start your 1:1s with a non-work question:

Help them write a ‘Personal Mission Statement.’

Build that into development conversations.

2) Connect their personal why to the mission

How does their role move the big picture forward?

• Look for the overlaps with your company’s mission.

• Show how their role contributes to the bigger vision.

That intersection point is where the magic happens.

The goal isn’t just to get your people to work harder.

It’s to help them believe that the work matters.

Because when they believe that, you won’t need to push them.

👉 Example: Tesla Production Staff

On Tesla’s production floor, Elon Musk regularly reminds workers that they aren’t just “installing parts,” they’re accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable energy.

It’s not a job, it’s a revolution. That framing matters.

👉 Action:

In team meetings, connect updates back to impact:

Create internal comms rituals (like monthly “Mission Moments”) to reinforce this narrative.

3) Make it visible

Celebrate impact, not just performance.

What you celebrate becomes what people believe matters.

👉 Example: Airbnb “Hero Moments”

Airbnb highlights stories of employees going above and beyond to protect the community, not just hit targets.

These stories become folklore and folklore shapes culture.

👉 Example: Microsoft’s “Hack for Good”

Employees are encouraged to work on socially impactful projects.

Microsoft employees working on a Hack For Good project

These aren’t side projects. They’re celebrated, showcased, and often implemented into core products.

People feel seen for who they are, not just what they do.

👉 Action:

Start a “Spotlight” series in Slack or in your all-hands.

Celebrate stories of mission-alignment, not just metrics.

Ask: “Who lived the mission this week?” then tell that story loud.

The best cultures don’t just run on discipline.

They run on belief.

You can’t force belief.

But you can design for it.

And the best way to do that?

Dovetail your people’s personal dreams with your company’s big mission.

When the two align, effort becomes effortless.

MY TOP FINDS OF THE WEEK 🏆

For Your Performance

• The best graphic you will see all week on performance (The Champion’s Path)

For Your Team

• Great analogy to use when analysing the makeup of your team (Bad apples vs energy givers)

For Your Health

• Why pomegranate is often the missing ingredient for a healthy diet (7 New Year Health Hacks)