Leadership

Software engineers love design patterns. Factory, Observer, Strategy-we have names for recurring solutions to recurring problems. Management has patterns too. Not organizational structures or methodologies, but specific, repeatable practices that work across different contexts. Here are patterns I’ve seen work in startups, scale-ups, and enterprises. Pattern 1: The Written Decision Record Intent: Make decisions visible, reversible, and learnable. Context: Teams waste time relitigating old decisions, or worse, making decisions without knowing why previous choices were made. ...

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy stood before the American people and did something remarkable for a politician: he admitted total failure. The Bay of Pigs invasion-a CIA-backed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro-had been an utter disaster. Over 1,400 Cuban exiles were captured or killed. It was a humiliating defeat, just three months into Kennedy’s presidency. Kennedy didn’t deflect. He didn’t blame his predecessor. He didn’t hide behind classified briefings. ...

You’re in a meeting at Apple. The agenda has 12 items. Next to each item is a name. iOS notification improvements: Sarah Chen Battery optimization: Marcus Rodriguez App Store review process: Jennifer Wu That name isn’t the person who does all the work. It’s the person who is directly responsible for that outcome. One person. Completely accountable. Not a committee. Not a team. One person. If it succeeds, they get credit. If it fails, it’s on them. ...

In 1968, psychologists Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson walked into an elementary school in San Francisco with a devious plan. They told teachers they had developed a new test that could predict which students were “intellectual bloomers”-kids on the verge of rapid intellectual growth. They administered the test, then gave teachers a list of students who supposedly scored highest. These students, they said, would show remarkable gains in IQ over the coming year. ...

We were going to launch the feature on Tuesday. Everyone on the team knew it wasn’t ready. The code was buggy. The UX was confusing. We hadn’t tested the edge cases. One of our engineers literally said in standup, “I’m not sure this is going to work well,” but immediately followed it with, “but I guess everyone else thinks it’s fine.” The PM wanted to hit the deadline. The CEO was excited about the demo. The team had momentum. So we all nodded along. ...