I used to think that “Escalation” was a sign of failure. I told my team: “You’re senior engineers; figure it out with the other team.” I thought I was encouraging “High Agency,” but I was actually trapping them in a Circular…
I used to think that “Efficiency” meant a team working on one thing until it was 100% finished. I pushed for “Single-Threaded Execution” because I wanted to avoid the Focus Leaks I’ve written about before. I was wrong. In a…
I used to think that “Ownership” meant staying in your own lane. I told my team: “We build the app, the Platform team builds the infra, and the Security team writes the policies.” I thought I was creating clear boundaries…
I used to think that as long as my team was working on the company’s “Top Priority,” everyone else would naturally fall in line to help us. I assumed that “P0” was a global constant across the entire organization. I…
I used to think that “Agility” meant being ready to pivot at a moment’s notice. I thought that if a project hit a snag, a smart engineer would just figure it out on the fly. I was wrong. What I…
I was wrong. That isn’t collaboration; it is Tight Coupling. It is the human equivalent of two software modules that can’t compile unless they are both 100% complete. The Logic of the BlockIn software, we solve this with an Interface—a contract that…
I see it constantly: I build a high-velocity team, I patch their focus, I protect their energy, and then I watch them park their “Race Car” at an Organizational Toll Booth. It is as if I have a high-performance application that…