Ditch Annual Reviews

Yearly performance reviews aren't good. You have probably seen neglected and outdated goals in performance reviews in your career. They become irrelevant pretty quickly. Worse, they do more harm than good.

The best teams ditch the annual review cycle. Instead, they focus on:

• Continuous feedback
• Small, actionable coaching
• Growth over grades
• Space for trial, error and mastery

Master small hills to conquer the peak

While preparing for UTA50 (total elevation 2.1km 😱) and doing some hill training, I looked at the elevation profile and got an idea for an illustration.
From this...

Accountability

Accountability gets things done.

As your teams grow, responsibilities get messy. People step on each other’s toes (welcome to the storming phase!), priorities compete, and work starts to drag.

Clear and explicit ownership fixes that.

When someone is accountable for a specific area of a piece of work, it actually gets finished.

Make Feedback Obvious

People think they’re not getting feedback.

But they are—they just don’t recognise it.

A simple way to fix this? Make it obvious. Instead of letting feedback blend into daily conversations, label it: “Here’s some feedback for you.”

That small shift makes a big difference.

From draft to finished

What's shaping? See shaping the work.

Feedback That Builds

Feedback can trigger defensiveness.

If someone misreads your intention they might feel attacked not supported. That’s why be clear. When giving feedback be up front about your purpose. Make it clear you’re here to help not to criticise or tear someone down.

Didn't know this!

The Balmoral tram line in Sydney operated from 1922 to 1958. It was a branch of the larger North Shore tram network, designed to bring people from the city and surrounding suburbs to Balmoral Beach.
The tram line played a significant role in making Balmoral Beach a popular destination during its operation.

The Tech Debt Spiral

Like a snowball rolling downhill, technology debt simply gets bigger.

Cutting corners and patching things up work for a while. But eventually the codebase becomes a mess. Features take longer to build, and bugs pile up. The team becomes nervous about making changes. This triggers leadership demands speed, trapping everyone in a difficult cycle to break.

Strategies evolve in action

No one starts with a perfect strategy. That’s just not how it works.

You set a few goals, spot the obvious roadblocks and take your first steps. How about the rest you might ask? You figure it out along the way. Just keep an eye on the market and overall trends and adjust your strategy as needed. And yeah, unexpected problems will pop up. That’s normal though. They aren’t failures—just part of the process. Every setback teaches you something.

A plan points you in the right direction, but real clarity comes from doing the work. The teams that adapt, adjust, and keep moving—especially when things feel uncertain—are the ones that make real progress.

So don’t wait for the “perfect” plan. Just start. You’ll get there.

Build Thinkers, Not Just Features

To build great products you need to start asking great questions.

A simple question: “What problem are we solving?” will shift a team’s mentality from execution to purpose.
And you can feel the exact moment when task-doers start to solve problems.

It's when they talk less about delivery and shipping features and ask more about business challenges, user pain points and the market.

Questions fuel curiosity and curiosity drives collaboration. Teams that ask deeply create better products.

Results First

Your first responsibility as a manager is to deliver results.

Too many managers focus on processes, meetings and checklists. "Let's just keep things moving; let's be busy," they think. But none of that matters without results.

Set clear goals, align your team and remove blockers for them. Hold both yourself and the team accountable for results.

Chasing Less

You don't need to unlock that new revenue stream or build another new product that will "definitely be a hit".

A lot of leaders fall into the trap of chasing every opportunity, thinking they can manage it all. Then they delegate putting more on the team's plate. The team gets overwhelmed. Bottlenecks get created. The progress stalls.

Instead, focus. Success comes from deliberate, intentional decisions.

Let Go to Move Forward

Centralised decision-making will always create bottlenecks. Sooner or later, this will prevent your company from growing.

Traditional and rigid organisations value hierarchy, and leaders often think they need to control every decision.

But this slows innovation, delays time to market, and prevents teams from learning.

Create a culture of ownership at every level. Empower your team to make decisions within their areas of expertise. Trust fuels faster progress.

Starting Strong as a Leader

Joining a new company as a leader is tricky and sometimes it does feel like stepping into chaos.

There’s so much for you to process – new people, culture, challenges, expectations, competing and unclear priorities and pressure to deliver results.

I like to slow it down. I don’t try to fix everything on day one. I focus on the context, the big picture first, understand the team and what they need my help with. Once I get where we are going and why, I can focus on the culture and processes to get to the destination faster with stronger teams.

Know Your Team

It's crazy how many leaders don't know much about their team. They are not curious about their motivations or aspirations, not only professionally but also on a personal level.

Get to know your team. What are their hobbies? What are they exploring? How are their families? Where are they planning their next trip? What are they watching? What are they reading?

Make it a weekly session. It takes just half an hour but builds a much stronger connection. This is important. Stronger connection = more trust. More trust = better feedback, better communication, higher quality of work and more motivation.

High Standards

Push the people around you - peers, colleagues, and your boss. Hold them accountable. Push yourself even harder.

Start small. Don't force all your standards overnight. Patience wins.

Criticism Fuels Growth

Yes, It’s hard to hear criticism.

When someone points out your flaws, your gut reaction is 'WTF?!'—or in business terms, 'defensiveness.'

Of course, you want to protect your ego. You want to explain yourself, prove them wrong, or even tell them to f* off. Tempting, isn’t it?

But defensiveness kills growth. Pause. Breathe. Ask yourself: 'What can I learn from this—even though I hate it?' Growth starts the moment you listen instead of emotionally react.

Nothing to learn from it? That's also ok but still thank the person who gave you feedback.

I don’t like running in the morning. Or rather, I don’t like the idea of it. What I really want is to have breakfast first, drink my coffee and then, a couple of hours later, think about exercise. But once the run is done, it feels great - like I’ve earned that big breakfast.

This morning, I went for an easy, scenic 10km run. My legs were still sore from Thursday’s hill session, so I didn’t (and honestly couldn’t) push too hard.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with my progress (112km) in January. I’ve built up mileage quickly, especially considering I was struggling to run 3km at the end of December.

The Trust Battery Effect

The concept of a Trust Battery is that it typically starts at 50% and then every interaction charges or drains the trust battery.

It's interesting how, once you pass a certain percentage—let's say 80% (mind you, it's a bit abstract)—on the other person's Trust Battery, a shift happens. Walls drop. And suddenly the next level of collaboration unlocks.

Love these moments.

Progress motivates action

Progress motivates action. It’s not just the reward; it’s the feeling of progress that drives commitment.

Two groups of customers were given punch cards awarding a free car wash once the cards were fully punched. One group was given a blank punch card with eight squares; the other was given a punch card with ten squares that came with two free punches. Both groups still had to purchase eight car washes to receive a free wash; however, the second group of customers—those that were given two free punches—had a staggering 82 percent higher completion rate.

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products