Topics 16 essays
Leadership.
- November 1, 2026
Telling Them No
The most success-oriented answer to a customer's request is sometimes no. The Feedback Cycle is on the shelf, with the log.
- November 1, 2026
One, Three, Seven
Every client-facing team I have led has run on the same three numbers: the same day, three days, seven days. Here is the standard, and why each number is where it is.
- November 1, 2026
Able to Do This Themselves
Every Customer Success team eventually writes the same line in an account's notes: they all need to be retrained. The Adoption Workshop is on the shelf, with the planner.
- November 1, 2026
Resolve to Steady State
When an account's problems pile up, the customer doesn't see five cases in three queues. They see one problem: that we aren't handling it. The Success Initiative is on the shelf, with the tracker.
- October 31, 2026
The Ending Depends Upon the Beginning
Finis origine pendet: the ending depends upon the beginning. Churn is baked in during the first ninety days, and a customer is paid for long before they are earned. The Customer Journey is on the shelf, with the map.
- October 29, 2026
Healthy Customers Are Successful
A health score is not a number. It is four questions that can each fail, asked against what a good customer looks like at this stage — and a play for every answer. The Customer Health Score is on the shelf, with the scorecard.
- October 29, 2026
A Document You Hand the Customer
In 2016 I wrote down, for our largest customers, how we would work together — and handed it to them. The Engagement Framework is on the shelf, with the document itself.
- October 28, 2026
Fifteen Minutes
The annual review answers none of the three questions a leader actually has about a person. The nine box answers all three in fifteen minutes — and it is now on the shelf with its template.
- October 28, 2026
Two Letters Struck Through
The shelf's last section opens with a model: objectives and key results, which are management by objectives with the ceiling removed — and the weekly check-in that makes any of it work.
- October 28, 2026
Capacity and Margin
Two instruments for a services business — how many hours you have, and whether the project you are about to sell will make money — and the spreadsheet that carried a hundred projects.
- October 28, 2026
The Voice of the Customer
A score is a number you report. A voice is a signal you act on. The first instrument on the shelf — CSAT and NPS, kept apart and administered properly.
- October 28, 2026
Models and Plays
Two more playbooks on the shelf, and a distinction the shelf needed: a model says how the organization is built; a play says what a person does on Tuesday.
- October 27, 2026
Performance Against Potential
For a decade I have measured people with the same instrument: not where they have been, but the distance between how they perform and what they are capable of. Today it goes on the shelf, free to take.
- April 3, 2025
Liberation
On April 2nd, 2025, President Trump stepped back onto the global stage and did what few leaders have dared to do in the modern era: he lit a match and threw it directly into the towering haystack of globalization. With…
- October 6, 2024
WordPress is entering its "end-stage founder" period
It takes a special personality to bring something into existence: grit, passion, vision. But most Founders lack the self-awareness to embrace the limitations to scale their creations. That's where people like me
- February 13, 2024
The Check-In
"This meeting could have been an email," goes the professional's lament these days. Far too many leaders in business waste valuable time and money on pointless meetings with their direct reports. The Check-In should be…