Article · design ·
Design Taste Needs a Strategy
Now that AI can build almost anything, designers are calling taste the moat. Taste that isn't tied to a where-to-play and how-to-win choice sets the designer apart, not the business.
Articles
Leadership
How to lead people well: building trust, shaping culture, making hard calls, and helping teams do the best work of their lives.
Leadership
Kedron Rhodes
Article · leadership ·
Twenty Percent a Quarter
At Gordon Food Service my team moved customer accounts to online ordering 20% a quarter, three quarters running. The target kept leadership investing. It also meant every new account landed on problems we had chosen to leave for later.
Article · design ·
When Building Gets Cheap, Deciding Gets Expensive
AI makes screens and prototypes cheap to build, so the scarce skill on a product team is choosing what deserves to exist. That choice belongs to design leadership.
Article · leadership ·
Culture Reality
Culture can deliver or destroy strategy. A distribution company's sales culture shows how resistance to change can undo a customer experience transformation.
Article · leadership ·
Competition and Cost Realities
When leaders refuse to choose—between legacy and future, service and scale, investment and cost—they fall into the tradeoff trap.
Article · leadership ·
Capability Reality
Organizations often treat new capabilities as upgrades. But unless they align with existing strengths and beliefs, they create internal conflict.
Article · leadership ·
Customer Reality
When sales and CX teams define their customers differently, strategy breaks down. A distribution company's experience shows why those differences need to be resolved.
Article · leadership ·
How a Strategy With All the Right Pieces Still Failed
A distribution company's failed CX transformation taught me why strategy must align with five realities: customers, capabilities, competition, costs, and culture.
Article · Leadership ·
The Dangerous Conflation of Strategy and Marketing
Strategy creates competitive advantage; marketing communicates and reinforces it. Why confusing their roles leads to poor choices about capabilities, costs, and customers.
Article · leadership ·
Cancer Didn't Win - It Made Me More Generous Instead
After a cancer diagnosis, I was shown a simple line chart that forever changed my perspective on life.
Article · leadership ·
Balance or Bust - Why Growth Shouldn't Eclipse Your Strategy
Growth opportunities should support your competitive strategy. Chasing expansion at the expense of strategic focus can cost momentum and differentiation.
Video · leadership ·
Leadership Lessons From 2020
2020 taught me a lot about myself and my own personal leadership. Here are 3 things I'm leaving behind in 2020, and 3 things I'm picking up in 2021.
Article · leadership ·
My Quarantine 2020 Podcast Recommendations
Podcasts have become a source of connection, inspiration, and professional development. Here are my podcast companions for 2020.