Leadership
38 posts tagged “Leadership”
Writing about the practical work of leading people and building companies: hiring, delegation, accountability, feedback, decision-making, organizational design, team culture, and change. These are lessons I've learned as a startup founder and CEO, product executive, executive coach, and occasionally from getting things very wrong.
If you're working through a leadership challenge, here's more about my executive coaching practice.
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The Identity Shift After Selling Your Company
What selling Reaction Commerce taught me about identity, grief, relief, and learning to lead inside a company I no longer owned.
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Flexing our Feedback Muscles
On practicing feedback before the stakes get high, learning to be specific, and checking that what we mean is what the other person hears.
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Accountability Needs Friction
A stalled website project, an AI that's happy to agree with me, and why accountability sometimes starts with the question I'd rather not answer.
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From Producer to Builder: My Journey as a Product Manager Through the Web
My journey through product management's evolution, from Web 1.0 producer roles and the mini CEO era to startup capital, the unbundling of product work, and the AI-native builder era.
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Managers Aren't the Overhead. They're the Point.
AI makes good management more important: building trust, coaching people through change, and turning faster output into meaningful outcomes.
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The Lies We Tell by Leaving Things Out
On the truths we leave unsaid, the fears behind them, and the small acts of openness that help trust deepen.
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Season 1 of The Intentional Organization Podcast
Mathias and I are sharing conversations about leadership, building teams, and doing the everyday work of running organizations with intention.
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On Failure and Leadership
A hiring mistake I made as a first-time CEO, and what Amy Edmondson's research on failure taught me about telling basic failures from intelligent ones.
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"The Intentional Organization" is Now Available For Preorder
The Intentional Organization, the leadership book I co-wrote with Mathias Meyer, is now available for preorder — and the story of how it came to be.
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Leadership Lessons From Adopting a Semi-feral Cat
Adopting a scared, semi-feral rescue cat named Raven taught lessons about patience, trust, and meeting someone where they are as a leader.
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Hello world, please meet The Intentional Organization
Announcing The Intentional Organization, a book and consultancy I'm launching with my former business partner and CTO Mathias about building organizations around clarity, communication, and inclusivity.
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On Origin Stories
The story of recruiting Mathias Meyer as Reaction Commerce's CTO after seeing his tweet, and how their partnership was built on intentional, personal connection.
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Inclusivity Evaluation
On taking personal responsibility for a lack of diversity at my company, and the concrete outreach steps I took to find and hire underrepresented talent.
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On Unplugging
Notes on rolling out a new Vacation and Time Off Guide at Reaction Commerce, and why time away and outcomes over output matter for a healthy culture.
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What Amazon's Six-Page Memos Made Me Rethink About Meetings
On Jeff Bezos's Amazon shareholder letter and trying its six-page memo format in a meeting to make discussions more efficient.
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On Walking 1:1s
A short case for walking one-on-one meetings, backed by research on how walking sharpens thinking.
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I'm Hiring an Executive Assistant
A job posting for an Executive Assistant at Reaction Commerce, along with a reflection on how undervalued and essential that role really is.
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Please Star Reaction on GitHub
A direct appeal for readers to star Reaction Commerce on GitHub, explaining why open source, JavaScript, and a modern commerce platform matter.
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Jeff Bezos's Annual Letter: Disagree and Commit
A quick recommendation of Jeff Bezos's annual shareholder letter and its 'disagree and commit' framework for decision making.
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Meet Reaction v1.0.0: Our General Availability Release!
Announcing Reaction Commerce's v1.0.0 general availability release, marking the end of its beta period.
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On Reference Calls
A detailed approach to running reference calls for hires, covering the networking mindset, back channel references, question lists, and how to surface blind spots.
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The Chatham House Rule Applies
On discovering the Chatham House Rule at a founders event, and how anonymity in discussion encouraged more honest, open conversation.
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This is Focus (Year Three Startup Thoughts)
Reflecting on Reaction Commerce's third year, with lessons on staying focused, building a diverse team, systemizing prioritization, and trusting my instincts.
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They’d Just Build Their Own Solution
Pushing back on a VC's rejection that merchants would just build their own ecommerce platform at scale, and making the case for open source solutions like Reaction instead.
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Open Source and Business
An argument for why open source and profitable business are not just compatible but a powerful partnership, drawing on Reaction Commerce's own model.
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On Slow Recruiting
On treating every coffee meeting as 'slow recruiting,' building relationships through curiosity and consistency rather than transactional networking.
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This is Interesting (Year Two Startup Thoughts)
A year-two Reaction Commerce update on growth metrics, the challenges of fundraising as a female founder in my 40s, and building a vision-driven team.
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On Public Speaking
The story of preparing for and delivering a Creative Mornings talk on collaboration, and what the nerve-wracking experience taught about why public speaking is rewarding.
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On One-on-Ones
A detailed guide to running meaningful one-on-ones, covering consistency, active listening on video calls, note-taking, and building trust over time.
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Playing Moneyball With a Lean Startup Budget
Drawing on Moneyball and NBA glue guy Shane Battier, I explore how a lean startup can find undervalued, unselfish hires instead of chasing superstars.
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Welcome to Technollywood: How Funding a Startup is Like Producing a Movie
Comparing startup fundraising to pitching a movie in Hollywood, and drawing on Kathryn Bigelow's and Howard Schultz's early rejections for encouragement as a founder.
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Positive Psychology at Work: Creating a Happy and Engaged Workforce
Drawing on Gallup workplace data and Shawn Achor's positive psychology research, I argue that hiring happy people and fostering a culture of happiness builds stronger, more engaged teams.
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Part 2: Reaction Commerce: A Powerful Leap Forward for Ecommerce
Why existing ecommerce platforms are outdated, and how Reaction Commerce is using JavaScript, Meteor, and Node.js to build real-time merchandising and pricing without page reloads.
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Part 1: Ecommerce is Heading Toward a Major Upheaval (and Reaction Commerce is Ready to Fill the Void)
A history of ecommerce and its platforms, arguing the industry is overdue for major upheaval that Reaction Commerce is positioned to fill.
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Will Native Apps For Ecommerce Go the Way of the Dinosaur?
Arguing that native mobile apps for ecommerce will eventually give way to web apps, drawing on Meteor's new mobile tools, Steve Jobs's early web-app vision, and Facebook's HTML5 misstep.
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Being the Boss vs. Working for the Boss Thoughts from the founding CEO of a 365-day-old startup
One year into founding my startup, weighing the emotional highs and lows of being the boss against the safety net and clarity of working for someone else, drawing on 20 years at companies like Yahoo and Etsy.
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This is Fun: Thoughts on Positive Psychology From a Startup CEO
On discovering positive psychology's research on happiness and optimism, and why I believe hiring happy, optimistic people is the foundation of a good company.
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This is Hard (Year One Startup Thoughts)
Six months into building Reaction Commerce, an honest look at how hard bootstrapping, remote teamwork, and being a first-time founder really are.
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