On the surface, this sounds like a victory for worker boundaries. Why give your soul to a corporation? Why should your team do more than you are explicitly paid to do?

Economics has a name for this dynamic: The Principal-Agent Problem. It is one of the most studied concepts in business, but we usually look at it through the wrong lens. We treat it as an individual dilemma. In reality, understanding and overcoming this problem is the defining characteristic of high-performing teams. If a group wants to stop feeling like cogs in a micromanaged machine, they must collectively stop acting like agents and start acting like principals.

The Trap of the “Agent” Squad

In economics, the principal-agent problem occurs when one entity (the agent) makes decisions on behalf of another (the principal), but their incentives are misaligned [1]. The principal (the owner) wants to maximize the long-term success of the enterprise. The agent (the employee) naturally wants to maximize their own personal payoff while minimizing their effort and risk.

When a workplace adopts the mantra of “just coming in to do the work,” it fully embraces the agent mindset. But when an entire team operates this way, the results are toxic. A team of agents operates in silos. Their primary goal is avoiding blame. You will hear phrases like, “I did my part, it’s marketing’s fault now,” or “That’s not in my job description.”

Because agents optimize for doing the bare minimum, they signal to leadership teams that they require constant oversight. This is exactly why corporations invent the suffocating bureaucracy, daily stand-ups, and micromanagement structures that make corporate life miserable. Bureaucracy is simply a tax leadership pays to manage teams of agents.

Naval Ravikant and the Ownership Advantage

Entrepreneur and philosopher Naval Ravikant frequently discusses the stark divide between these two mindsets. In his frameworks on wealth creation, Naval notes: “A principal acts like an owner. An agent acts like an employee.” [2]

According to Naval, the most successful people ruthlessly filter their professional lives to work with principals and avoid agents. But the true magic happens when this scales. You do not just want to be a principal; you want to build a team of principals.

When you act like an agent, your upside is capped by your salary. But when a team acts like a principal, they build a reputation for extreme competence and reliability. As Naval points out, if you consistently act like owners, eventually you will become owners—whether by earning equity, being promoted into leadership, or gaining the collective skills and network to spin out your own successful venture [3].

The John Maxwell Paradox: Creating More Value Than You Are Paid For

This brings us to a critical hurdle: why should a mid-level team in a massive corporation act like owners when they don’t have the equity to match?

Leadership expert John C. Maxwell addresses this directly by attacking the “act your wage” mentality. Maxwell teaches a paradoxical rule for success: You should always strive to create far more value than you are currently paid for. [4]

To an agent, this sounds like exploitation. Why give the company free labor?

But to a principal, this is a basic investment strategy. You aren’t giving away free labor; you are building undeniable leverage. If a team strictly trades hours for their exact salary, they remain a commodity. But when a team adopts the Maxwell mindset—routinely delivering outcomes that dwarf their payroll—they cease to be a replaceable expense. They become the vital engine of the business. You can only demand greater autonomy, better projects, and higher compensation after you have delivered the surplus value to justify it.

Why High-Performing Teams Act Like Principals

When a team combines Naval’s ownership mindset with Maxwell’s focus on outsized value creation, the entire dynamic of their daily work changes:

1. They Eradicate Micromanagement: Leadership teams micromanage because they don’t trust agents to prioritize the company’s goals. When a team consistently demonstrates that they own the outcomes—not just the tasks—leadership backs off. The team earns the freedom to dictate their own schedule and methods.

2. They Share the Struggle: In a team of principals, there is no “not my job.” If a project is failing, the whole team swarms the problem [5]. They hold each other accountable, which is far more effective (and less resentful) than top-down managerial discipline.

3. They Attract the Best Work: High-performers want to work with other high-performers. When a squad acts like owners, executives take notice. The best projects, the highest budgets, and the most lucrative opportunities are quietly routed to teams that do not need to be babysat.

Rethinking “Work-Life Balance”

Does a team of principals mean abandoning personal lives and burning out for a corporate overlord? Absolutely not.

True principals do not burn out doing busywork, because they refuse to tolerate busywork. A team of agents will sit at their desks for eight hours to prove to their boss they are “working.” A high-performing team of principals will figure out how to solve a massive structural problem in three hours, automate the rest, and log off early. They know they have delivered outsized value, and they measure their worth in outcomes, not inputs.

The principal mindset is not about working more hours; it is about taking psychological ownership of the results.

The Verdict: Don’t Be a Mercenary

The “Italian strike” and the “just doing my job” mentalities are defensive postures. They are coping mechanisms for people who feel powerless.

If you and your team want to be successful, you must reject the agent mindset entirely. Treat every project, every budget, and every client as if your team owned 100% of the company. Look out for the person sitting next to you, step outside your job description, and focus on delivering more value than anyone expects.

Even if the corporation you work for doesn’t immediately reward you, you are forging the habits of elite operators. Ultimately, you are the principal of your own career. If you choose to act like a mere agent, you are only shortchanging yourself.

Sources

[1] Jensen, M. C., & Meckling, W. H. (1976). Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs and Ownership Structure. Journal of Financial Economics, 3(4), 305-360. (The foundational economic paper defining the Principal-Agent problem and misaligned incentives).

[2] Jorgenson, E. (2020). The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness. Magrathea Publishing. (Compiling Naval Ravikant’s thoughts on wealth creation, leverage, and the necessity of surrounding yourself with principals).

[3] Ravikant, N. (2018). How to Get Rich (without getting lucky). [Twitter thread / Podcast]. (Addressing the necessity of taking on accountability and acting as a principal to gain equity and leverage in business).

[4] Maxwell, J. C. (1993). Developing the Leader Within You. Thomas Nelson. (Outlining the leadership philosophy that true growth and eventual compensation require a dedication to consistently adding more value to others than is expected or immediately compensated for).

[5] Willink, J., & Babin, L. (2015). Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win. St. Martin’s Press. (Demonstrating how teams taking total, collective ownership of outcomes—the core of the team-based principal mindset—builds trust, autonomy, and eliminates finger-pointing).

But is this formalized, corporate recognition actually necessary to build high-performing teams? Or, as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang suggests, is it a bureaucratic “compliance trap” that distracts from actual meaningful work?

Recent scientific findings in organizational psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience are forcing us to rethink the role of recognition. Here is what the science says about the gamification of praise, what actually drives high-performing teams, and why we might be asking the wrong questions on our employee surveys.

The Principal-Agent Problem and the “Compliance Trap”

The traditional corporate view of recognition is transactional: You do X, and I give you Y (a shoutout, a badge, a gift card).

This top-down recognition is exactly what Jensen Huang warns against. Huang famously operates Nvidia with a radically flat structure, no traditional 1-on-1s, and no formalized performance reviews [1]. His philosophy is that if you hire smart, ambitious people, you do not need to manipulate them with corporate “gold stars.”

When recognition is tied strictly to managerial approval, it becomes a compliance trap. Employees stop innovating and instead optimize their behavior to please the manager who dispenses the rewards. Science backs this up. According to Self-Determination Theory (SDT), one of the most widely accepted psychological frameworks for human motivation, heavy reliance on extrinsic rewards (like formalized recognition programs) can actually crowd out intrinsic motivation. When employees feel they are being manipulated into performing for a prize, their sense of autonomy drops, and their long-term engagement plummets [2].

The Role of Recognition in High-Performing Teams

If top-down, leadership-mandated recognition is a trap, do high-performing teams need recognition at all?

Yes, but it looks entirely different. High-performing teams do not rely on institutional recognition; they rely on peer-to-peer visibility and psychological safety.

Google’s famous “Project Aristotle,” which studied 180 of its own active teams over two years to find the secret to high performance, found that the number one driver was psychological safety [3]. In these environments, recognition is not a formalized event; it is an ongoing, localized exchange of respect.

Recent research distinguishes between two types of recognition: institutional recognition (top-down, tied to metrics, given by managers) and social recognition (horizontal, spontaneous, based on shared struggle). Studies show that peer-based social recognition is vastly superior, being 35% more likely to have a positive impact on financial results than manager-only recognition because it circumvents the “principal-agent” skepticism and feels authentic [4].

In high-performing teams, the work itself is often the reward. As Huang suggests, giving a team an incredibly difficult problem to solve, and providing them with the context and resources to solve it, is the highest form of professional respect. When the team succeeds, the shared victory is far more powerful than an “Employee of the Month” certificate.

Does Recognition Drive Engagement? (And Should We Survey It?)

Historically, companies use the Gallup Q12 survey, which explicitly asks: “In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.”

But organizational scientists are beginning to question if this metric is archaic. If we define recognition as corporate praise, then no, it is not essential for high engagement. In fact, highly engaged, autonomous experts often find constant managerial praise patronizing.

So, should we stop asking about recognition in employee surveys?

Perhaps we shouldn’t drop the topic entirely, but we absolutely need to change the question. Asking “Do you feel recognized?” positions the employee as a passive recipient waiting for a treat. It reinforces the principal-agent dynamic.

Instead, modern organizational psychologists suggest surveying for impact and visibility [5]:

• Old Question: “Does your manager praise your work?”

• New Question: “Do you clearly see how your daily work impacts the company’s goals?”

• New Question: “Do your peers value your expertise?”

When people can see the impact of their work, they don’t need a manager to artificially manufacture a sense of purpose for them.

The Verdict: Kill the Jargon, Keep the Respect

You are correct to be suspicious of corporate “recognition” programs. When used as a behavioral modification tool, recognition is just a velvet-lined leash designed to enforce compliance.

The science shows that to build true, high-performing engagement, organizations need to stop treating recognition as a transactional program driven by leadership teams. Instead, leaders should focus on hiring great people, giving them difficult, meaningful problems to solve, fostering an environment where peers can trust one another, and getting out of the way.

Real recognition isn’t a badge on a company portal. It is the simple, profound act of treating employees like capable adults.

Sources

[1] Stanford Graduate School of Business. (2024). View From The Top: Jensen Huang. [Video interview]. Stanford University.

[2] Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “What” and “Why” of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227-268.

[3] Rozovsky, J. (2015). “The five keys to a successful Google team.” Google re:Work Blog. (The official published findings of Google’s Project Aristotle, building on the foundational psychological safety research of Amy Edmondson).

[4] Achor, S., Kellerman, G. R., Reece, A., & Robichaux, A. (2018). The Science of Peer-to-Peer Recognition. Harvard Business Review.

[5] Buckingham, M., & Goodall, A. (2019). Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World. Harvard Business Review Press.

We accept without question that elite athletes need coaches to reach their potential. Yet, it’s a strange paradox in the corporate world: we expect our business leaders to simply know how to lead the moment they get a promotion.

We take our best engineers, salespeople, and operators, give them a “Manager” title, and assume they will automatically bring out the best in their teams. But managing and coaching are entirely different skill sets.

A manager ensures the work gets done. A coach ensures the person doing the work gets better.

If you want to build a resilient, high-performing team, you have to transition from being a boss who hands out solutions to a coach who builds capacity. But how exactly do you do that?

Let’s look at the psychology of executive coaching, the mindset shift of powerful questioning, and the legendary framework used by Toyota to build the best problem-solvers in the world.

The “Adding Too Much Value” Trap

Marshall Goldsmith is arguably the most famous executive coach in the world, having advised the CEOs of Ford, Pfizer, and Best Buy. You might assume he gives them brilliant, complex strategic advice. He doesn’t.

In his classic book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, Goldsmith points out a fatal flaw in highly successful leaders: The disease of adding too much value. [1]

Imagine a team member comes to you with a solid idea. Because you are the boss, you instinctively want to improve it to show your expertise. You say, “Great idea, but what if we also did X?”

Congratulations. You just improved the content of the idea by 5%, but you destroyed the employee’s commitment to it by 50%. It’s no longer their idea; it’s your idea.

Goldsmith teaches that the best coaches know when to bite their tongues. Their primary job isn’t to show how smart they are; it’s to facilitate the growth of the person sitting in front of them.

Change Your Questions, Change Your Team

If a coach isn’t supposed to give answers, what exactly are they supposed to do? They ask questions. But not just any questions.

In her brilliant book Change Your Questions, Change Your Life, Dr. Marilee Adams introduces the concept of the “Choice Map.” She argues that when facing a problem, leaders naturally default to one of two mindsets: The Judger or The Learner. [2]

• Judger Questions look for blame and trigger defensiveness: “Why did this happen? Whose fault is it? Why can’t they get it right?”

• Learner Questions look for truth and foster growth: “What happened? What are the facts? What are our options? What can we learn?”

When a boss asks Judger questions, the team learns to hide mistakes and play it safe. When a coach asks Learner questions, the team turns into scientists, running experiments to find the truth.

But how do you make “Learner Questions” a daily, repeatable habit instead of just a nice theory? You need a system.

The Toyota Coaching Kata: Muscle Memory for the Mind

Toyota’s legendary success isn’t just about assembly lines or supply chains. It is based on a core philosophy: Toyota doesn’t just build cars; they build people.

To build people, they use the Coaching Kata, a framework formally decoded by researcher Mike Rother. [3] In martial arts, a kata is a routine practiced thousands of times until it becomes muscle memory. Toyota applied this to business. They realized managers needed a strict, choreographed script to prevent them from slipping back into “Judger” mode or giving away the answers.

At Toyota, the coaching cycle happens daily, often taking less than 10 minutes. The Coach carries a small printed card and uses a highly specific sequence of questions.

Here is the exact framework. Notice how it acts as the ultimate “Learner Mindset” script:

1. What is the Target Condition?
(Where are we trying to go?) This grounds the conversation in the ultimate goal, pulling the Learner out of the weeds of immediate firefighting.

2. What is the Actual Condition now?
(Where are we today?) The Coach demands facts and data here—not assumptions, emotions, or blame.

🛑 THE CRITICAL REFLECTION PHASE
(Here is where the magic happens. The Coach literally flips the Kata card over to ask four reflection questions about the Learner’s previous actions. This is the core of the scientific method.)

• What was your last step?

• What did you expect to happen?

• What actually happened?

• What did you learn?

Insight: This reflection phase builds immense psychological safety. If an experiment fails, the Coach doesn’t punish the Learner. The only actual failure is failing to learn from what happened.

(The Coach flips the card back to the front)

3. What Obstacles are preventing you from reaching the Target Condition? Which one are you addressing now?
The Learner might have a list of 10 problems. The Coach forces them to pick just one. Focus prevents overwhelm and isolates variables for the next experiment.

4. What is your Next Step? (And what do you expect to happen?)
The Learner proposes a new hypothesis. Again, the Coach does not say, “No, do this instead.” As long as the step won’t damage the company or injure someone, the Coach lets the Learner proceed. Experience is the best teacher.

5. How quickly can we go and see what we have learned from taking that step?
This shrinks the feedback loop. Not next quarter. Not next month. Can we check back this afternoon? Tomorrow morning?

The Ultimate Leadership Shift

Look closely at the Toyota Coaching Kata. There is no room for Marshall Goldsmith’s “adding too much value.” There is no room for Marilee Adams’s “Judger” mindset.

It is a pure, rigorous discipline of guiding another human being through the scientific method.

When you use this framework, you stop being the bottleneck for your team. You stop carrying the exhausting mental burden of having to solve every single problem yourself. Instead, you build a team of autonomous, confident, critical thinkers.

If you want to be a better leader this week, try an experiment. Write the Kata questions on an index card. The next time a team member comes to you with a problem, fight every instinct in your body to give them the answer.

Instead, ask: “What is the actual condition right now? And what did we learn from our last step?”

Change your questions, and you will change your team.

Over to you: Which mindset do you see more often in your workplace: The Judger or the Learner? Have you ever tried structured questioning like the Kata? Share your experiences in the comments! 👇

(Enjoyed this deep dive? Subscribe to get these insights delivered straight to your inbox every week.)

📚 Sources & Further Reading

• [1] Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful. (Explores the behavioral flaws of successful leaders, emphasizing the trap of “adding too much value” and stifling team ownership).

• [2] Marilee Adams, Ph.D., Change Your Questions, Change Your Life: 12 Powerful Tools for Leadership, Coaching, and Life. (Introduces the Choice Map and the critical organizational difference between the Judger and Learner mindsets).

• [3] Mike Rother, Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results. (The definitive guide that decoded Toyota’s management routines into the highly structured Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata).

Take a scroll through LinkedIn today, and you will drown in an alphabet soup of prestige. We have Associate Directors, Senior Vice Presidents, Executive Co-Heads, and Chief Visionary Officers.

In the corporate world, we spend an inordinate amount of time, political capital, and ego fighting over these titles. We believe the title defines our value.

But if you strip away the business cards and the organizational charts, you realize a quiet, uncomfortable truth: Most corporate titles are completely meaningless.

Elon Musk famously summarized this in a 2020 interview, flat-out calling corporate titles “fake” and pointing out that they mean nothing in the context of actually building a great product. (He later legally changed his own title to “Technoking of Tesla” just to prove the absurdity of the whole charade).

If you look at the greatest leaders and the highest-performing teams in the world, they don’t operate on a hierarchy of titles. They operate on a framework of ownership.

In fact, if you want to build a world-class team, there is only one job title that actually matters: Owner.

The “Principal-Agent” Trap

To understand why titles fail us, we have to look at a classic economic dilemma known as the Principal-Agent Problem [1].

Here is the concept in a nutshell: The “Principal” is the owner of a company. They want long-term value, survival, and ultimate success. The “Agent” is the employee hired by the Principal. The Agent doesn’t own the company; they just work there. Therefore, the Agent’s primary incentive is often to maximize their own immediate reward (salary, bonuses, promotions) while taking on the least amount of personal risk.

When things go wrong, the Principal loses their life savings. The Agent just updates their resume.

Corporations invented the ladder of titles (Manager, Director, VP) to try and force Agents to act like Principals. But it rarely works. It just creates a bureaucracy where people hide behind their titles when a project fails. “Well, I’m just the Director of Marketing, the failure of the product isn’t my department.”

Great organizations realize you cannot manage your way out of the Principal-Agent problem. You have to destroy the concept of the “Agent” entirely. You have to make everyone a Principal.

The Nvidia Way: Put a Name on It

Look at Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia. As he built Nvidia into one of the most valuable companies on earth, he became legendary for his disdain for traditional corporate hierarchy. He has dozens of direct reports and hates traditional status updates.

Instead, Huang operates on extreme accountability. He demands that there is a specific, undeniable name behind every single initiative [2].

If there is a project, there is an owner. Period. You cannot hide behind a committee. You cannot hide behind the title of “Senior Manager of Strategic Initiatives.” Are you the owner of this outcome, or aren’t you?

When a team member truly becomes an owner, the entire psychology of the work shifts. Owners don’t say, “That’s not my job.” Owners don’t wait for permission to fix a broken window. Owners have skin in the game [1].

The Soccer Analogy: Owning the Space

This sounds like a paradox. If every single person on a team is an “Owner,” doesn’t that just create chaos? Doesn’t it lead to a clash of egos where everyone tries to be the boss?

Not at all. Because ownership is not about dictating; it is about responsibility.

To visualize this, look at a world-class soccer (football) team.

In elite soccer—especially in systems like Johan Cruyff’s or Pep Guardiola’s Juego de Posición (Positional Play)—the field is divided into a grid. Each player has a pre-designed role and a specific, defined space on the pitch that they are entirely responsible for [3].

You don’t have a “Vice President of the Midfield” who delegates tackling to an intern. You have a defensive midfielder who owns the space just outside the penalty box. If the opposing team enters that space, it is the midfielder’s sole responsibility to neutralize the threat. They don’t look to the bench for approval. They act, because that space belongs to them.

A great soccer team is just a collection of eleven individual owners, perfectly interlocked [4]. They trust each other implicitly because they know exactly who owns what.

Redefining Your Career

The business world is slowly waking up to this reality. The era of the “career manager”—someone whose only skill is delegating tasks and curating spreadsheets under a fancy title—is coming to an end.

Whether you are writing code, designing graphics, or balancing the books, you need to stop acting like an Agent renting your time to a corporation.

The title on your LinkedIn profile is just a suggestion. The true measure of your value is the scope of the problems you are willing to own [4].

Forget the C-suite. Become an Owner.

📚 References & Further Reading

[1] Taleb, N. N. (2018). Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life. Random House.

Note: This is the essential modern text on the Principal-Agent problem. Taleb brilliantly argues that systems only function effectively when the people making the decisions bear the direct consequences of their actions (i.e., acting as owners rather than agents).

[2] Slootman, F. (2022). Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity. Wiley.

Note: While Jensen Huang’s specific internal memos are proprietary, Frank Slootman (CEO of Snowflake) captures this exact Silicon Valley “ownership” ethos perfectly. He details the necessity of flattening hierarchies, removing meaningless titles, and demanding a single individual’s name be attached to every major initiative to ensure total accountability.

[3] Wilson, J. (2008). Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Soccer Tactics. Orion.

Note: The definitive book on the evolution of soccer tactics. It thoroughly explains the concepts of spatial dominance and Positional Play, perfectly illustrating how elite teams operate not through rigid corporate hierarchy, but through players taking total ownership of predefined zones on the pitch.

[4] Willink, J., & Babin, L. (2015). Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win. St. Martin’s Press.

Note: The ultimate modern manifesto on the paradox of team ownership. Willink and Babin demonstrate that high-performance teams—whether in combat or business—only succeed when every individual member, regardless of their official rank or title, takes absolute ownership of their specific role and the team’s overarching mission.

You’ll see Kanban boards. You’ll hear people talking about Kaizen events, Six Sigma, Andon cords, and the 5 Whys.

For the last forty years, the whole world has been trying to copy Toyota. And yet, almost everyone fails to replicate Toyota’s sustained, multi-generational success [2]. Why?

Because we fell into the Toolbox Trap.

Western businesses looked at Toyota and saw a collection of highly efficient tools. We copied the artifacts, the spreadsheets, and the flowcharts. But we completely missed the invisible architecture that actually makes the tools work: The Culture.

Here is the fundamental difference: Traditional companies manage results. Toyota manages people, processes, and the interactions between them [3].

To understand how they actually do this, we have to talk about the concept of Kata [1].

The Illusion of “Management by Results”

In a traditional company, leadership is heavily indexed on outcomes. We set KPIs, OKRs, and quarterly targets. If the numbers are green, the traditional manager is happy. If the numbers are red, the traditional manager demands a plan to fix them.

This is “Management by Spreadsheet.” It assumes that if you demand a certain result, the people below you will figure out how to get there. But this creates a culture of hiding problems, gaming the metrics, and taking dangerous shortcuts.

Toyota flipped this paradigm. They realized that results are just lagging indicators of your processes and your people [2]. If you deeply understand the work, build a robust process, and continuously develop the people doing the work, the results will inevitably follow.

But how do you teach an entire organization to think this way? You don’t do it with a mission statement. You do it through practice. You do it through Katas [1].

The Two Katas

In martial arts, a “kata” is a choreographed pattern of movements you practice over and over again until it becomes muscle memory. You don’t practice the kata to use those exact moves in a street fight; you practice the kata to rewire your brain and reflexes.

At Toyota, there are two fundamental Katas that drive their entire culture [1].

1. The Improvement Kata

This is the routine for solving problems and achieving goals. It’s a scientific way of thinking that prevents people from jumping to conclusions. It follows four steps:

1. Understand the Direction: What is the ultimate vision or challenge?

2. Grasp the Current Condition: Where are we exactly right now? (No guessing, go look).

3. Establish the Next Target Condition: What is the next immediate state we need to reach on the way to our goal?

4. Experiment (PDCA): Run small, rapid experiments (Plan-Do-Check-Act) to navigate the obstacles between where we are and the target condition.

Most companies that attempt “Lean” stop here. They try to teach their employees the Improvement Kata.

But the Improvement Kata cannot survive on its own. Without the second Kata, the entire system collapses.

2. The Coaching Kata (The Real Engine)

This is the hidden secret of Toyota. The Coaching Kata is the routine that coach-leaders use to teach the Improvement Kata to their teams [1].

At Toyota, a coach-leader’s primary job is not to hit a quota; their primary job is to develop the problem-solving capabilities of their people [3].

Instead of walking onto the floor and saying, “Why are we behind schedule? Fix it!” a Toyota coach-leader guides the employee through the scientific method. They use a highly specific, repetitive structure known as the 5 + 4 Coaching Kata Questions [4]:

1. What is the target condition?
2. What is the actual condition now?

(Here, the coach-leader pauses. If the employee has taken a step since the last coaching cycle, the coach-leader asks the 4 Supporting Reflection Questions before moving on):

• What was your last step?

• What did you expect?

• What actually happened?

• What did you learn?

(Once the learning is extracted, the core questions resume):
3. What obstacles are preventing you from reaching the target condition? Which one are you addressing now?
4. What is your next step (experiment)?
5. How quickly can we go and see what we have learned from taking that step?

Notice the brilliance of those four reflection questions. The coach-leader is not asking, “Why did you fail?” They are asking, “What did you expect, what actually happened, and what did we learn?”

The coach-leader is not giving the answer. The coach-leader is not focused on the end-of-quarter financial result. The coach-leader is focusing entirely on the interaction between the worker and the process. They are building a scientist.

The Takeaway: Stop Copying the Tools

When we only copy Toyota’s tools—like Kanban or value-stream mapping—we are just rearranging the furniture. Tools rust. Tools become obsolete. Tools are eventually abandoned when a new traditional manager comes in with a new flavor-of-the-month framework.

But when you practice the Katas, you build a culture.

If you want to build a truly resilient, world-class organization, stop staring at the scoreboard. Look at your people, look at your processes, and ask yourself: Am I acting as a dictator of results, or a coach-leader of capability?

References

[1] Rother, M. (2009). Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results. McGraw-Hill.

Note: This is the foundational text that formally decoded why Western Lean initiatives fail. Rother introduced the concepts of the Improvement Kata and the Coaching Kata to explain the invisible routines coach-leaders use to drive Toyota’s success.

[2] Liker, J. K. (2004). The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer. McGraw-Hill.

Note: The definitive overview of Toyota’s underlying philosophy. Liker extensively documents how Western management’s obsession with short-term results directly conflicts with Toyota’s focus on long-term philosophy, continuous process flow, and people development.

[3] Liker, J. K., & Hoseus, M. (2008). Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way. McGraw-Hill.

Note: Co-authored by a former Toyota HR executive, this book proves that Toyota’s tools are useless without its human element. It details how the company hires, trains, and uses the coach-leader model to foster a culture of problem solvers.

[4] Rother, M. (2017). The Toyota Kata Practice Guide: Practicing Scientific Thinking Skills for Superior Results in 20 Minutes a Day. McGraw-Hill.

Note: The practical workbook companion to Toyota Kata. It provides the actual frameworks, the famous “5 Questions” pocket card (including the crucial 4 reflection questions on the back), and the exact cycles coach-leaders need to implement the Coaching Kata with their teams.

Pharaohs used them to store bodies, and the Industrial Revolution used them to store power. The logic was simple: thinking happens at the top, doing happens at the bottom. But in a world that moves at the speed of light, the signal from the top takes too long to reach the bottom.

Today, the highest-performing teams aren’t shapes. They are networks.

Here is how we are evolving from the rigid machine to the living swarm—and why the best leaders are destroying the organizational chart.

1. The Traditional Pyramid: “Command and Control”

This is the legacy model. It offered stability and clarity for the Industrial Age.

• The Structure: Rigid hierarchy. Status is the currency. People fight for a better title, a corner office, and a larger budget.

• The Flaw: It separates the brain from the hand. In a pyramid, innovation dies in the middle management layer, and energy is wasted on internal politics rather than external value.

2. The Inverted Pyramid: “The Servant Leader”

The first major crack in the pyramid came from Peter Drucker.
In his seminal work, The Practice of Management, Drucker introduced the concept of the “Knowledge Worker.” He realized that in the modern economy, the worker often knows more about the job than the boss does.

This led to the “Inverted Pyramid” or Servant Leadership model.

• The Concept: The CEO is at the bottom, supporting the managers, who support the frontline employees, who serve the customer.

• The Benefit: It humanizes work. It changes the question from “How do I please my boss?” to “How do I help my team?”

• The Flaw: While it improves the culture, it doesn’t fundamentally change the physics of decision-making. It is still a hierarchy, just a benevolent one.

3. The Network: “The Mission is the Boss”

This is the revolution. In the network model, there are no “employees” and “managers.” There are only members and nodes.

This is the philosophy that powers NVIDIA. Jensen Huang, the CEO of the world’s most valuable company, famously runs a flat organization with over 60 direct reports, rejecting the traditional hierarchy of status.

Jensen’s rule is simple: “The Mission is the Boss.”

When the Mission is the boss, the organizational chart becomes irrelevant. You don’t need to fight for status because status doesn’t get the job done—information does. You don’t wait for permission from a VP; you ask, “Does this serve the mission?” If the answer is yes, you act.

• The “Teal” Effect: In Reinventing Organizations, Frederic Laloux describes this as the Teal Organization. It operates like a living organism. Decisions are made by the people closest to the problem (the “advice process”), not the people with the highest salary.

• The “Swarm” Effect: Rick Falkvinge, in Swarmwise, describes how decentralized networks (swarms) outperform massive, funded hierarchies. In a swarm, nobody fights for titles because titles are irrelevant to the outcome.

Why the Network Wins

In a traditional company, the “Boss” is a person. You negotiate with them, you try to impress them, you fear them. This creates friction.

In a Network like NVIDIA or a Swarm, the hierarchy is fluid. Leaders emerge based on contribution, not position.

The transition is scary. It requires trusting that people are adults who want to contribute. But once you stop managing people and start managing the network, you don’t just get a better team. You get a movement.

References

[1] Drucker, Peter F. The Practice of Management. Harper & Row, 1954. (The foundational text where Drucker defines the Knowledge Worker and shifts the focus from “labor” to “human capital”).

[2] Huang, Jensen. (Philosophy on Management). The NVIDIA Way. See recent interviews (e.g., Acquired Podcast or Stanford GSB) where Huang discusses that “no task is beneath him” and that the “project is the boss,” eliminating the need for 1-on-1s and status reports.

[3] Laloux, Frederic. Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness. Nelson Parker, 2014. (The guide to self-management and “Teal” organizations).

[4] Falkvinge, Rick. Swarmwise: The Tactical Manual to Changing the World. 2013. (A practical guide on leading decentralized networks where the mission drives the activity).

In the corporate world, this is gospel. If you want to cut costs, you track expenses. If you want to grow users, you put a dashboard on the wall. The metric drives the behavior.

But when we apply this logic to our personal lives, it becomes a trap.

The things in life that are easiest to measure are usually the things that matter least in the long run. We can easily measure salary, job titles (ego’s), and the square footage of a house. It is much harder to measure the depth of our relationships, the moral character of our children, or our own integrity.

Because our brains crave the dopamine hit of “improvement,” we naturally gravitate toward the metrics we can track. We optimize for the bank account because the scorecard is visible. We neglect the family dinner because the ROI is invisible.

This is the central tension in Clayton Christensen’s masterpiece, How Will You Measure Your Life? [1]

Christensen, the legendary Harvard Business School professor, noticed a pattern among his brilliant classmates. They were masters of strategy in the boardroom, yet their personal lives were often chaotic or unhappy. He realized they were applying the wrong tools to their lives.

Here are the three business theories he adapts to explain why high achievers fail at life, and how to avoid their fate.

1. Stop Buying Happiness with “Hygiene”

Why do so many ambitious people end up hating their high-paying jobs? Christensen argues that we confuse Hygiene Factors with Motivators.

Drawing on the research of Frederick Herzberg [2], Christensen explains that job satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not opposites—they are separate independent variables.

Hygiene factors are things like status, compensation, and work conditions. If you lack them, you will be dissatisfied. But—and this is the crucial insight—having them does not make you happy. It just makes you “not angry.”

True satisfaction comes from Motivators: challenging work, responsibility, learning, and the chance to help others.

The mistake many of us make is trying to fix a happiness problem with a hygiene solution. We feel unfulfilled, so we chase a promotion or a raise. But money can’t buy satisfaction; it can only buy the absence of financial stress.

2. Your Strategy Is Not What You Say It Is

In business, a company might claim “Innovation is our priority,” but if they pour all their budget into protecting legacy products, their actual strategy is stagnation. This is a core concept from Christensen’s work on disruptive innovation [3].

He argues that your strategy is not determined by your aspirations, but by your Resource Allocation Process.

High achievers are addicted to immediate feedback loops. If you ship a project at work, you get a bonus now. If you spend 30 minutes reading to your toddler, you don’t see the result for 20 years. Because our brains crave achievement, we unconsciously allocate our resources (time and energy) to work, while starving our relationships.

You can say your family is your priority, but if you look at your calendar and your bank statement, they will tell you the truth. That is your actual strategy.

3. The “Just This Once” Trap

In finance, we are taught to think in terms of “Marginal Cost”—the cost of producing just one more unit. Usually, the marginal cost is low, so the deal makes sense.

But applying marginal-cost thinking to your integrity is fatal. This is a lesson Christensen drew from his study of why successful companies fail to innovate [4].

The voice in your head says: “I know I shouldn’t do this unethical thing, but it’s just this once. The marginal cost of breaking my rule one time is low.”

Christensen warns that while the marginal cost of the first offense seems low, the full cost is infinite. Why? Because you have broken the boundary. You are no longer the person who never does that. You are the person who sometimes does that, depending on the price.

It is easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time. 100% is a bright line; 98% is a slippery slope.

The Final Calculation

Christensen ends with a challenge to that opening quote: “What gets measured gets improved.”

If you measure your life by the metrics the world gives you—dollars, titles, awards—you will improve those metrics. You will be rich and famous. But you might arrive at the end of your life to find you have been optimizing the wrong dashboard entirely.

Christensen, a man of deep faith, concluded that when his life ended, God wasn’t going to ask him how high he rose in the org chart. He concluded that the only metric that matters is: “How many individual people have I helped to become better people?”

Measure that.

References

[1] Christensen, Clayton M., Allworth, James, and Dillon, Karen. How Will You Measure Your Life?. HarperBusiness, 2012. (The primary text connecting management theory to personal philosophy).

[2] Herzberg, Frederick, Mausner, Bernard, and Snyderman, Barbara Bloch. The Motivation to Work. John Wiley & Sons, 1959. (Specifically the “Two-Factor Theory” regarding hygiene vs. motivators).

[3] Christensen, Clayton M. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Harvard Business Review Press, 1997. (Specifically the chapters regarding resource allocation).

[4] Christensen, Clayton M. and Raynor, Michael E. The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth. Harvard Business Review Press, 2003. (Specifically the concept of “marginal cost” thinking vs. full cost thinking).

Well... until recently.

Have you ever watched a basketball game? The intensity is high, the clock is ticking, and suddenly one team starts to fall apart. What happens next? If the coaches followed standard corporate feedback “theory,” the coach of the losing team would wait for a weekly 1:1 meeting to discuss the issue, right?

Of course not. The coach of the losing team nervously slams the buzzer for a timeout. The whole team gathers for 20 seconds to listen to a sharp, corrective speech. There is no sandwich method. There is no fluff. A player might even get benched immediately.

In the corporate world, we would call this “demotivating” or “unsafe.” But in sports, it makes perfect sense. Why the disconnect?

We have been taught that there are fundamental, unbreakable principles of management:

• Keep the ratio of positive to corrective feedback at 4:1.

• Never use the word “negative”—call it “developmental.”

• Always give positive feedback in a forum, but keep corrective feedback behind closed doors to protect feelings.

• Wait for the “right moment” (the so-called feedback curve).

That approach worked for a long time. It worked in a stable, slow-moving environment designed to respect our egos above our output. But in the meantime, the world accelerated exponentially. The margin between being the best and the mediocre became microscopic. Companies started looking for any edge they could find. Suddenly, we all ended up playing an intense, high-speed sport.

The change in the science of feedback resembles the shift from Newtonian physics to Quantum physics.

In this new reality, fast course correction, rapid adjustment, and “feedforward”—giving information that influences future behavior immediately—became critical success factors. The biggest companies in the world have realized this. It is a philosophy driven by Silicon Valley giants like Netflix and NVIDIA.

The Netflix Approach: Silence is Disloyal

At Netflix, Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer describe a culture where withholding feedback is considered an act of disloyalty to the company. In their book No Rules Rules, they outline a culture of extreme candor. They argue that if you see something that could be better and you don’t say it immediately, you are letting your team down [1].

This requires a high degree of psychological safety. You have to trust that the person giving the feedback isn’t attacking you, but attacking the problem. When feedback is normalized as a daily operational habit rather than a frightening “event,” the fear dissipates.

The NVIDIA Way: The Value of Public Correction

Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA, takes this a step further, challenging the old management adage of “praise in public, criticize in private.”

Jensen runs a famously flat organization and often delivers corrective feedback in the middle of meetings with dozens of people present. This sounds terrifying to the average manager, but Jensen argues that keeping criticism private deprives everyone else of the learning opportunity.

As discussed in recent analyses of NVIDIA’s management style, Jensen views feedback as a problem-solving mechanism [2]. If one person makes a mistake in logic or strategy, it is likely others are thinking the same way. By correcting it openly, he isn’t shaming the individual; he is synchronizing the collective brain of the company. It transforms a personal error into a scalable lesson for everyone.

The Framework: Radical Candor

How do we implement this without creating a toxic environment? We look to Kim Scott’s framework in Radical Candor.

Scott argues that high-performance cultures live in the upper-right quadrant: High Care combined with High Challenge [3].

• If you challenge without caring, you are just being aggressive.

• If you care without challenging, you are engaging in “Ruinous Empathy”—keeping people comfortable while they fail.

The basketball coach screams from the sideline because he cares about winning and he cares about the player’s development. Jensen Huang critiques the strategy in public because he cares about the company’s survival.

Conclusion

We need to stop viewing feedback as a “management tool” and start viewing it as a real-time guidance system.

Whether you are on the court, on a Netflix production set, or in an NVIDIA engineering review, the rule is the same: Transparency creates speed.

Don’t wait for the quarterly review. Call the timeout. Say what needs to be said. And then, get back in the game.

References

[1] Hastings, Reed, and Meyer, Erin. No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention. Penguin Press, 2020. (Specifically the chapters regarding the “Keeper Test” and the culture of candor).

[2] Evaluation of Jensen Huang’s Management Style. See: The New Yorker profile “How Jensen Huang’s Nvidia Is Powering the AI Revolution” (2023) or various interviews where Huang discusses that “no task is beneath him” and that information must flow freely without hierarchy.

[3] Scott, Kim. Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity. St. Martin’s Press, 2017. (The foundational text on combining caring personally with challenging directly).

In stark contrast, consider this advice: “Stop thinking you have to be perfect. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be great. You just have to be better than the guy on the other side of the net.” These are the words Brad Gilbert spoke to Andre Agassi during a critical slump in 1994. This conversation is widely considered the turning point in Agassi’s career, ultimately propelling him to become the #1 tennis player in the world [2].

Isn’t this a contradiction? Isn’t it common sense that a team must strive for perfection to reach excellence? Can you reach the moon if you do not shoot for the stars?

But wait—how many times have entire teams, or even massive companies, spent months developing a “perfect” product or service, only to see a competitor launch something similar first? Maybe the competitor’s product was slightly less “perfect,” but it was already out there. This is the classic dilemma between the concept of “first time right” versus “good enough and improve.” Perhaps it is more logical to launch an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) before pouring more effort into the creation of mastery.

I experienced this dilemma firsthand at Philips, where we had a company-wide competition for “best projects.” At the time, I was a young engineer and had gathered a small “self-improvement team” to introduce a new idea as a DMAIC project for the competition. As the leader, one of my tasks was to prepare the PowerPoint presentation. Striving for perfection, I spent hours mastering every detail of every slide. I organized multiple “feedback sessions,” after which I received even more comments on what to fix.

At a certain point, the slides became more important than the improvement itself—the actual content of the project. I eventually learned that even if I put in ten more hours, the slides would only be marginally better. I should have stopped earlier; I had lost too much time. It was my personal lesson that perfection is not always the way.

So, which strategy should we follow when building High Performing Teams?

The answer is that these are not opposing strategies. In fact, one is a supplement to the other. If we want to be the best we can be, the image of “perfection” is a powerful tool. It serves as a direction and a compass; it is an antidote against settling for temporary success or mediocrity. This mindset provides the fuel to keep going because there is always a way to make things better.

On the other hand, the idea of perfection should not stop our progress. Sometimes we simply need to present our current best to the world, get feedback, learn, and improve—one step at a time. Progress is often more important than initial velocity.

As NBA legend Bill Russell discussed in his philosophy on winning, you must commit to learning and improving every single day [3]. You set the standard high, but you focus on the work. Surfing on that edge—between the pursuit of the ideal and the reality of the game—is where the fun and energy truly live.

References

[1] Lombardi, Vince. (Quote attributed). See also: Phillips, Donald T. Run to Win: Vince Lombardi on Coaching and Leadership. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2001. (Lombardi’s philosophy on perfection is a central theme throughout his biographies and recorded speeches).

[2] Agassi, Andre. Open: An Autobiography. Knopf, 2009. (The specific conversation with Brad Gilbert takes place in Chapter 16, where Gilbert explains that Agassi’s need for perfection is causing him to lose to inferior players).

[3] Russell, Bill, and Branch, Taylor. Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man. Random House, 1979; or Russell, Bill. The Russell Rules: 11 Lessons on Leadership from the Twentieth Century’s Greatest Winner. Dutton, 2001. (Russell frequently wrote that consistency and psychological resilience were more important than occasional flashes of perfect play).

If you look at a dog resting in the sun, you see a creature perfectly content. It does not worry about its legacy. It does not ask why the sun is warm. It has “arrived.”

Humans, however, are incapable of arrival.

Do not confuse this state with stoicism or nirvana. Even if you learn to accept that some things are as they are and that is OK, you still probably have that something what keeps you going. And even if you found a way to arrive at nirvana, you are not necessarily just want to stay there.

Biologically, the human brain is not designed for the destination; it is designed for the pursuit. Neuroscience tells us that our dopamine systems—the primary drivers of motivation—are triggered not when we achieve the goal, but when we see ourselves moving toward it [1]. We are teleological beings. We need a target to organize our energy.

This biological reality creates a paradox for leaders: We often try to make our teams “happy” by removing friction and solving every problem. But in doing so, we may be violating our fundamental nature.

The Danger of Paradise

We often fantasize about a work environment with no stress, unlimited resources, and total comfort. But history and science suggest that a life without struggle is not paradise—it is a trap.

In the famous “Universe 25” experiment, researcher John B. Calhoun created a literal utopia for mice. He provided unlimited food, water, and safety, removing all predators and struggle. Instead of flourishing, the colony collapsed. Without a reason to struggle—to forage, to build, to protect—the mice lost their social cohesion. A group dubbed “The Beautiful Ones” emerged, who withdrew from society entirely, leading to the colony’s eventual extinction [2].

The lesson? Comfort without purpose leads to chaos.

When a team lacks a clear “Why,” they don’t become content; they become complacent. They turn inward. They fight over petty internal politics because there is no external mission to unite them.

The Psychology of Drive

So, if comfort isn’t the fuel for performance, what is?

In his research on motivation, Daniel Pink argues that the old operating system of business—”carrots and sticks”—is outdated. For complex work, humans require three things: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose [3]. We are not just “profit maximisers”; we are “purpose maximisers.” We yearn to do work that matters.

But knowing we need purpose is different from knowing how to lead with it. This is where Simon Sinek’s framework becomes essential.

Sinek argues that most companies communicate from the outside in: they start with What they do, then How they do it. But inspiring leaders and High Performing Teams work from the inside out. They “Start with Why.” [4].

• The What: We build software. (Logic)

• The Why: We believe in challenging the status quo to make life simpler. (Emotion)

Sinek notes that this isn’t just marketing; it’s biology. The “Why” speaks directly to the limbic brain—the part that controls behavior, decision-making, and loyalty. If you want a team that is truly committed, you cannot just give them a plan (The What). You must give them a belief (The Why).

The Alchemy of Pain

Why is this belief so critical? Because it allows us to process pain.

In any ambitious project, there will be pain. There will be late nights, failed prototypes, and difficult feedback.

• Without a Why: This pain is just suffering. It leads to burnout.

• With a Why: This pain becomes sacrifice. It is necessary context for the victory.

As psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote after surviving the holocaust, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how” [5].

In a High Performing Team, the “Why” acts as a shield against entropy. It transforms the stress of the work into the meaning of the work.

The Leader’s Job

If you are building a High Performing Team, your job is not to build a “Universe 25” where nothing goes wrong. Your job is to define the Noble Struggle.

You must articulate a goal that is just out of reach. You must give your team a burden worth carrying.

• A clear Purpose aligns disparate skills into a single vector.

• A clear Purpose proves that we are not just “existing” like the dog in the sun.

• A clear Purpose confirms that we are building something that outlasts us.

We are not built for ease. We are built for a mission.

And maybe the best summary of that is in the work of David Deutsch [6] who clams that humans are the universal explainers? And the big purpose needs to be not only explained but also solved?

References

[1] Huberman, A. (2021). Dopamine, Mindset & Drive. Huberman Lab Podcast. Stanford University School of Medicine.

[2] Calhoun, J. B. (1973). “Death Squared: The Explosive Growth and Demise of a Mouse Population”. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 66(1 Pt 2), 80–88.

[3] Pink, D. H. (2009). Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Riverhead Books.

[4] Sinek, S. (2009). Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. Penguin Group.

[5] Frankl, V. E. (1946). Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press.

[6] Deutsch D. (2011). The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World. Penguin Group.

They present this problem as a logic-based riddle or philosophical observation regarding the nature of freedom and decision-making:

• “One choice is robot”: This refers to having no alternative. If you are only given one option, you are essentially programmed to follow it, much like a robot.

• “Two choices are dilemmas”: When presented with exactly two options, you are often caught in a dilemma, as choosing one typically requires the sacrifice of the other, creating internal conflict or a “lose-lose” scenario.

• “Multiple choice is freedom”: This suggests that having multiple options provides the true opportunity for transformation and agency. Just as in the fairy tale, the “multiple choice” represents the potential to evolve from a limited state (the frog) into a realized, empowered state (the prince) through the exercise of genuine preference.

Think about it for a while. Is it in the conflict with having a “one model”? Even within one model there can be multiple options as more abstract and high level the topic is. On the other hand if we go down to the best known first principles they work in a very specific way. Gravity on earth will always cause things to fall. It is an excellent example of the first principle logic.

So i want to invite you to explore the High Performing Team model constructed by the first principle coming from 35 years of experience, “own research”, and supported by external publications, studies, research and successes demonstrated by organizations that used those principles. At the end if we still have a choice, its not the first principle.

Find your model, find your first principles, keep challenging and re-defining the “laws” until they are true.

Roman Empire proverb

“All roads lead to Rome” says the old roman proverb.

Maybe not all… not anymore, but for sure there are many ways to reach to Rome…to achieve “a goal”. And if you are a leader, a member of a team, one of your goals is to create and be part of the Great Team.

It is a bit like selecting a restaurant for a special occasion. You don’t search for “mediocre Italian food.” You don’t want a 3-star experience where the service is slow and the food is cold. You go for the best. You check the Google ratings. You want the place where excellence is the standard.

So why do we settle for “mediocre” when building our teams?

Charlie Munger, the legendary partner of Warren Buffett, famously said that we live our lives by following our mental models.

If you are a leader, you already have a mental model for how to lead—whether you realize it or not.

I want to share mine with you and also invite you to start shaping and making it stronger and better together… because no matter how good the model is, it always can be better.

Mine i named the “HPT (High Performing Team) model”. It has 5 pillars and 18 key elements:

1. THE NORTH STAR (Alignment)

Start with Why.

• Mission: Mission is the boss.

• Values: Holds us together and give direction.

• High Bar: Standards that feel uncomfortably high.

2. THE FILTER (Focus)

How we decide what matters.

• Add Value: Is it good for Customers’ and the World?

• Say No, Say Yes: The art of focus on Priority

• Challenge: Why requirements and processes. Seek a better way

3. THE ENGINE (Execution)

The mechanics of how we work.

• Roles and Responsibilities: Radical clarity. Who is doing what?

• Empowerment: Decisions as close to the “process” as possible.

• Go to Gemba: Go to the place of process

• Status: Brutal honesty about where we are (leading indicators).

4. THE FUNDAMENT (Culture)

The environment where humans thrive.

• One Team: Team over Ego. One for all, all for one.

• Safety: A safe environment to fail and “pull the Andon” without fear.

• Energy: A high level of vitality coming from within.

5. THE MOMENTUM (Growth)

The active behaviors that make us faster and better.

• Radical Feedback: Everyone to Everyone. Real-time.

• Sense of Urgency: Keep the momentum going.

• Problems: Essential to learn.

• Continuous Improvement: An obsession with being 1% better every day

• Reinvention: Break the status quo, think outside the box for radical leaps

The whole idea of this blog is to keep challenging this model. Keep finding the holes in it and make it stronger. To share the process of doing it. To invite you to start to master your own model. Put the “ego” aside, its not about (only) you, but it is about the team you are maybe leading or you are a vital part of. So.. lets Go!

It took me a while to understand that the real success is a product of a team effort rather than an individual. Our ego-driven culture worships the individual. We call them “heroes.” History books are filled with stories of kings, generals, and inventors.

But this is a distortion of reality. While an individual can spark a change, sustained success is the product of a Team.

There is an old saying that has guided my career:

“If you can do it on your own, the challenge probably isn’t big enough.”

Yes, we need leaders. But I am convinced that the long-term success in our infinite game of progress lies in the hands of High Performing Teams.

The Search for the Formula
Most successful people will tell you that success is not a matter of sheer luck or brute force. It is a formula.

Naval Ravikant famously said: “You can put me in any given English-speaking country and within 10 years I will be wealthy again.”[1] He has a set of “first principles”[2] for wealth.

I am looking for the First Principles of Teams.

In a world where everything seems to have been said, I still could not find a comprehensive, engineering-grade answer to the question: What is the Formula for a High Performing Team?

Who am I?
This newsletter is my lab, not the lab where you experiment, but the lab where you master the game. It is where I document what I have learned from studying the world’s best leaders, best teams and best companies, combined with my own research. I love reading books, i love listen to the podcasts and i learnt that many of my friends and colleagues do not have time for it…or whatever the reason is… they do not do it.

I have spent the last 35 years testing these principles in the real world—from the days I played basketball with my friends, to my current role as a father, a husband, a coach, a player, a founder, and leader of operations at global companies.

Whether on the court or in the boardroom, I am interested in mechanics: What makes a group of people function as one team. Where, like in quantum world, the conventional laws of physics change and where 2+2 is not 4, but can be 5, 10, or even a 100.

What you can expect?

An overview, a study of what are the ingredients that create those High Performing Teams, those Best Teams. I do hope that you will also help this by sharing your personal experiences. Maybe you had a chance to be part of that great team? Maybe you managed to create one? I want to share my experience, my learnings, my current “mental model” and i put it in public to share it and also to have it challenged, at the end to make it stronger, better, more complete. Lets go!

[1] “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness” by Eric Jorgenson

[2] “Elon Musk” by Walter Isaacson

Subscribe now