tl;dr:John calls out the counterpoints to wisdom often cited in common phrases we hear: (1) "Be customer-obsessed.” (2) Teams need clear objectives!” (3) "Think big. Start Small.” (4) "You can’t improve what you don’t measure." (5) "Focus on outcomes, not outputs."
tl;dr:“When trying to understand where a team or company is at, one of the first things I do is talk to people about how they spend their time and energy. Words like empowered, feature factory, and outcome-oriented are squishy and can mean a million things. Behaviors don't lie. There are only so many hours in a week, and we have finite energy to do thoughtful work.” John shares where teams that are further along their product journey spend time.
tl;dr:“What do leaders who are skilled at navigating complexity know how to do? What do they do differently? What would you observe if a leader had these skills?” The authors asked these questions, and answered them using general behaviors they’ve observed first. These include: (1) Accepting they are part of the problem and have contributed to the current situation. (2) Encourage new interaction patterns and not simply remove individuals. (3) Patient divergence by resisting the urge to converge on a path forward prematurely.
tl;dr:John discusses how to go from risky assumption to next steps using a single phrase. “One of the significant challenges was what to do with all of the discomfort and anxiety-inducing assumptions. Teams understood the theory — why it might benefit them to surface assumptions, designate “operating assumptions”, prioritize risky assumptions, and make plans to reduce uncertainty where it counts.”
tl;dr:“Most conversations about problems, and causes, are negotiations — negotiations about identity, reputation, controlling the narrative, and spheres of influence and control. People look for the "definition" they can live with and process. Deciding how much to constrain the collection of root causes — from one cause to a whole graph of related causes — is as much a political decision as a factual or solution-oriented one.”
tl;dr:"Imagine two people - Person A acknowledges the complex problem, and focuses. Person B doesn’t see the complex problem, and simplifies." Both approaches may seem very similar at first glance. "Focus looks like simplification. Simplification looks like focus." But when things go wrong, as they tend to do, Person B will make bad decisions. They’ll pick bad strategies and tactics and spread the lack of context awareness to their team.
tl;dr:"The unlock, I think, is realizing that you can confidently communicate a coherent strategy that also acknowledges uncertainty. You know what you know. You assume what you assume. You believe what you believe." John explains that the reason this tends not to happen is we fear showing that we lack clarity, and lean towards displaying certainty.
tl;dr:"We cover topics like leadership, becoming a better listener, the role of middle management, career and self identity, stubbornness, calendar theater, and treating your dashboards as products."
tl;dr:John came up with nine "levels" of work, "ranging from very specific, to very general." calling them Mandate Levels, "to capture the idea of a sphere of authority and autonomy." He discusses how they operate here.