Why Companies Keep Reposting Jobs While Great People Can’t Get Hired
Companies keep reposting roles. Candidates keep getting ghosted. It’s not a hiring problem, it’s systemic drift.
Why Your Organization Keeps Fixing Symptoms Instead of Systems (And How Drift Makes It Inevitable)
Different layers feel drift in different ways. This breakdown shows how misalignment shows up across the org, and why everyone thinks they’re living a different problem.
The 3 Archetypes of Leadership Drift
Leadership Drift doesn’t happen overnight, it happens when Vision, Structure, Culture, and Execution fall out of sync. Teams slip into burnout, blurry roles, or constant urgency without realizing the system is drifting. These three archetypes reveal the pattern behind the pain, and how to realign before the drift becomes damage.
The 4 Archetypes of Dysfunction (and What They Reveal About Your Leadership System)
And across hundreds of teams, four dysfunction archetypes show up again and again. They’re not personality types. They’re not labels. They’re not judgments. They’re systemic patterns that emerge when one or more quadrants of the leadership system fall out of alignment: Vision, Structure, Culture, and Execution.
When these quadrants drift apart, the organization starts behaving in predictable (and painful) ways.
“If your title says X but your day is 70% Y…”
“You’re not failing. You’re filling the gaps no one else sees. And the more capable you are, the worse it gets.”
If your title says X but your day is 70% Y… you’re not unfocused, you’re filling the gaps no one else sees.
This post explains why high-functioning operators get pulled into the cracks, how burnout and blame emerge, and what quadrant-aware change actually looks like.
Stop Hiring for One Prospect: The Produce Stand Model for Agency Capability Planning
Stop hiring for one prospect. Learn how to define real capabilities, align your bench, and build a storefront that sells out, not spoils.
Why Most Marketing Budget Advice Is Wrong (And What Actually Determines What You Should Spend)
Most marketing budget advice is wrong. Benchmarks and percentages ignore margins, repurchase cycles, delivery constraints, and ambition. This piece breaks down what actually determines how much you should spend.
The Chaos Cycle: Why Agencies Stay Stuck (and How Leaders Break It)
Agencies and services companies don’t fall apart because of one bad month, they fall into a predictable cycle of overcommitment, overfunctioning, overwhelm, and oversimplification. This piece breaks down why chaos becomes the default operating system in services businesses, how leaders unintentionally reinforce it, and what it takes to finally break the pattern and build a calm, scalable company.
Taking Control of Your Agency: Decisions, Habits, and the Year Ahead
As the new year kicks off, there’s a lot of noise about goals and resolutions. But beneath it all, one idea keeps surfacing: build your plans around the agency you actually have. This blog explores how effectuation, the Serenity Prayer, and strategic habit design can help founders and teams navigate uncertainty without burning out. It’s not about controlling the future; it’s about knowing how to respond when it changes.
KPI Theatre: When Marketing Metrics Steal the Spotlight but Miss the Plot
Your dashboards sparkle. ROAS looks great. CAC is “on target.”
So why isn’t the business growing?
In this provocative blog, we unpack the phenomenon of KPI Theatre; where marketing metrics are optimized for applause, not impact. If you’re a CMO, founder, or exec tired of vanity dashboards and misaligned incentives, this is your wake-up call.
Reframe your metrics. Rewrite the script.
People vs. Idea: The Leadership Tradeoff Behind Tough Talent Calls
When leaders face tough talent decisions, gut instincts aren’t enough. This post explores the People vs. Idea axis: how empathy, strategy, and salary dynamics collide in a real-world dilemma. Learn how quadrant-based leadership helps you move from bias to clarity.
Process vs. Action: Diagnosing a Common Leadership Imbalance
Process vs. Action: Diagnosing a Common Leadership Imbalance
When leaders overuse their strengths (whether structure or speed) they create friction, not flow. This post explores how Growth Spectrum’s quadrant framework and Unified Leadership Model help leaders rebalance and activate more adaptive, outcome-driven behaviors.
The Agency Problem: When Agent Relationships Aren’t Working
Why Your Team Isn’t Growing, Even When Everyone’s “Doing Their Job”
In modern organizations, misalignment isn’t always loud. Sometimes it looks like quiet compliance, polished metrics, or well-dressed meetings that go nowhere. At the heart of this dysfunction is the agency problem: when agents (leaders, employees, vendors) optimize for their own comfort or success instead of the principal’s goals. Whether you're a CEO, founder, or team lead, understanding this breakdown is critical to restoring momentum, trust, and growth.
This post explores the classic principal-agent dilemma through a modern lens, diagnosing misaligned agency incentives across teams, vendors, and leadership, and offering actionable strategies to realign your organization around impact.
Growth Marketing: Skill, Strategy, or Culture?
Is “growth marketing” a mindset, or just a metric loop?
This post explores the disconnect between tactics and transformation, revealing how rigid thinking (what we call Flesh Bot Mode) stalls strategic growth. Learn how organizational incentives, leadership intent, and cultural flexibility shape what growth actually means, and how to activate it. Your definition of growth marketing skills will change.
Stop Overcompensating: The New Development Model Blending Personality, Strengths, and Competencies
The Unified Leader: Integrating Personality Data for Breakthrough Performance
Using a personal case study to show that true development requires synthesizing multiple data sources: personality (the "Why"), strengths (the "What"), and competencies (the "How" and "What Next") to move beyond relying on overused "crutch skills."
These powerful tools together provide a better blueprint for becoming a better leader.
The Income-Driven Strategy for Setting Profitable Growth Targets
A common misconception is that you can (should) set a CAC or ROAS target based on industry standards or preset budget constraints. Through multiple examples we will demonstrate that the most impactful growth targets come from a cycle of understanding your business model and P&L, to evaluating the bid (engagement) market of your activities, testing the outer limits, and constant monitoring and evaluation.