INSIGHTS, IDEAS & STRATEGIES

Most "People Problems" Are Communication Problems Confession: for the first few years of doing fractional COO and interim ops work, when a client told me "we have a people problem" on a specific team, I mostly believed them. Personality clash. Attitude. Lack of ownership. Somebody just wasn’t a "team player." I’d usually recommend some mix of coaching, restructuring, or in the worst cases, a managed exit. A decade in, I don’t believe that framing nearly as often. What I’ve le

(and Vice Versa) Strategy tells you where to go. Operations gets you there. Most founders are excellent strategists. They can see the market opportunity, articulate a differentiated position, and build a compelling growth narrative for investors. Where things break down isn't the thinking. It's the execution layer underneath it. The false comfort of a good strategy A strategy document, however sharp, does not run itself. It becomes real through decisions made every day: who o