The Coordination Tax Transistor (https://transistor.fm) https://feeds.transistor.fm/the-coordination-tax The podcast about the invisible cost every organisation pays when the picture at the top stops matching the reality on the ground. In Parallel 7cd46b87-de13-5cb4-9cf9-961c038d3517 yes en Tue, 20 Oct 2026 16:00:25 +0300 Tue, 20 Oct 2026 16:02:28 +0300 https://in-parallel.com https://img.transistorcdn.com/hffKK6jiY9utxG3dsiPbHANC-SFaQVM0YOSYJtnUIA0/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:1400/h:1400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8xZDlh/NDBhM2QzOTBmZTZl/MWVjYjkxYTIxNDU2/YWEyMC5wbmc.jpg The Coordination Tax https://in-parallel.com episodic In Parallel The podcast about the invisible cost every organisation pays when the picture at the top stops matching the reality on the ground. The podcast about the invisible cost every organisation pays when the picture at the top stops matching the reality on the ground.. Technology, B2B, Entreprenurship In Parallel myynti@podcastory.fi No No You Either Manage Change or It Manages You: Richard H. Carson on how change actually works 15 15 You Either Manage Change or It Manages You: Richard H. Carson on how change actually works full f8060097-003a-42c4-8900-be4db3850890 https://share.transistor.fm/s/bf1c1727 Every organization employs someone whose job is to clean up after disasters. Almost none employs someone whose job is to see change coming. Richard H. Carson, PhD — 40-year veteran of county governments, regional planning agencies, nonprofits, and the state of Oregon — argues that this one asymmetry explains most of why organizations lurch between crises instead of adapting. In this conversation, Richard walks through what he learned across four decades of running the kind of organizations most people only complain about.

Richard holds a doctorate in change management and has spent his career inside the organizations academics write books about — county governments in Oregon, Clark County, regional planning bodies, nonprofits, and large private-sector stakeholders including Japanese industrial investors. He has studied every major change management model published since Kurt Lewin founded the field in 1947. His book, available at bookofchange.com, is the culmination of that work: a three-phase, ten-step model built on a diagnostic tool he adapted from the US National Institute of Health.


In this conversation, Richard unpacks why learning to listen is the single hardest skill for ambitious leaders — a lesson that started, embarrassingly, with his own wife — and how he once found an organization where the manager was making people report their activities in 15-minute increments. He walks through why most of the major change management models published since 1947 are “consultant loss leaders” rather than real frameworks, why the real problem in most change initiatives sits with the board or the CEO who commissioned them, and why every organization needs a change manager — a proactive counterpart to the risk manager — looking over the horizon. He talks about why you don’t want yes-people around you, how to be direct across cultures (he spent years learning this with Japanese investors), and why “don’t leave fingerprints” is one of the hardest lessons leaders in high-visibility roles have to learn. He closes on what he got wrong in his 30s and the first thing a leader should do when a change initiative is quietly managing them instead of the other way around.


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[00:57] The lesson Richard learned from his wife — “I want you to listen”
[02:26] The manager who had people report in 15-minute increments
[03:49] Why change management hasn’t changed since 1947
[05:30] Richard’s 3-phase, 10-step model
[06:24] The nonprofit board that was itself the problem
[07:48] Why you don’t want yes-people around you
[10:24] Risk manager vs change manager — the asymmetry nobody notices
[12:40] Keep a low profile — “don’t leave fingerprints”
[14:36] Why 70% of change initiatives fail
[18:00] Change management in government vs private sector
[20:20] Why leaders have to get out of the office
[23:30] Working with Japanese stakeholders — directness across cultures
[25:08] Diagnosing organizations like physicians diagnose patients
[27:48] What Richard got wrong in his 30s
[30:45] What to do when change is managing you instead


Guest & show links:

Richard H. Carson, PhD on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-h-carson-phd-mpa-7030b213/
Book of Change: https://bookofchange.com
In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Every organization employs someone whose job is to clean up after disasters. Almost none employs someone whose job is to see change coming. Richard H. Carson, PhD — 40-year veteran of county governments, regional planning agencies, nonprofits, and the state of Oregon — argues that this one asymmetry explains most of why organizations lurch between crises instead of adapting. In this conversation, Richard walks through what he learned across four decades of running the kind of organizations most people only complain about.

Richard holds a doctorate in change management and has spent his career inside the organizations academics write books about — county governments in Oregon, Clark County, regional planning bodies, nonprofits, and large private-sector stakeholders including Japanese industrial investors. He has studied every major change management model published since Kurt Lewin founded the field in 1947. His book, available at bookofchange.com, is the culmination of that work: a three-phase, ten-step model built on a diagnostic tool he adapted from the US National Institute of Health.


In this conversation, Richard unpacks why learning to listen is the single hardest skill for ambitious leaders — a lesson that started, embarrassingly, with his own wife — and how he once found an organization where the manager was making people report their activities in 15-minute increments. He walks through why most of the major change management models published since 1947 are “consultant loss leaders” rather than real frameworks, why the real problem in most change initiatives sits with the board or the CEO who commissioned them, and why every organization needs a change manager — a proactive counterpart to the risk manager — looking over the horizon. He talks about why you don’t want yes-people around you, how to be direct across cultures (he spent years learning this with Japanese investors), and why “don’t leave fingerprints” is one of the hardest lessons leaders in high-visibility roles have to learn. He closes on what he got wrong in his 30s and the first thing a leader should do when a change initiative is quietly managing them instead of the other way around.


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[00:57] The lesson Richard learned from his wife — “I want you to listen”
[02:26] The manager who had people report in 15-minute increments
[03:49] Why change management hasn’t changed since 1947
[05:30] Richard’s 3-phase, 10-step model
[06:24] The nonprofit board that was itself the problem
[07:48] Why you don’t want yes-people around you
[10:24] Risk manager vs change manager — the asymmetry nobody notices
[12:40] Keep a low profile — “don’t leave fingerprints”
[14:36] Why 70% of change initiatives fail
[18:00] Change management in government vs private sector
[20:20] Why leaders have to get out of the office
[23:30] Working with Japanese stakeholders — directness across cultures
[25:08] Diagnosing organizations like physicians diagnose patients
[27:48] What Richard got wrong in his 30s
[30:45] What to do when change is managing you instead


Guest & show links:

Richard H. Carson, PhD on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-h-carson-phd-mpa-7030b213/
Book of Change: https://bookofchange.com
In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Tue, 20 Oct 2026 16:00:00 +0300 In Parallel In Parallel 2009 Every organization employs someone whose job is to clean up after disasters. Almost none employs someone whose job is to see change coming. Richard H. Carson, PhD — 40-year veteran of county governments, regional planning agencies, nonprofits, and the state of Oregon — argues that this one asymmetry explains most of why organizations lurch between crises instead of adapting. In this conversation, Richard walks through what he learned across four decades of running the kind of organizations most people only complain about.

Richard holds a doctorate in change management and has spent his career inside the organizations academics write books about — county governments in Oregon, Clark County, regional planning bodies, nonprofits, and large private-sector stakeholders including Japanese industrial investors. He has studied every major change management model published since Kurt Lewin founded the field in 1947. His book, available at bookofchange.com, is the culmination of that work: a three-phase, ten-step model built on a diagnostic tool he adapted from the US National Institute of Health.


In this conversation, Richard unpacks why learning to listen is the single hardest skill for ambitious leaders — a lesson that started, embarrassingly, with his own wife — and how he once found an organization where the manager was making people report their activities in 15-minute increments. He walks through why most of the major change management models published since 1947 are “consultant loss leaders” rather than real frameworks, why the real problem in most change initiatives sits with the board or the CEO who commissioned them, and why every organization needs a change manager — a proactive counterpart to the risk manager — looking over the horizon. He talks about why you don’t want yes-people around you, how to be direct across cultures (he spent years learning this with Japanese investors), and why “don’t leave fingerprints” is one of the hardest lessons leaders in high-visibility roles have to learn. He closes on what he got wrong in his 30s and the first thing a leader should do when a change initiative is quietly managing them instead of the other way around.


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[00:57] The lesson Richard learned from his wife — “I want you to listen”
[02:26] The manager who had people report in 15-minute increments
[03:49] Why change management hasn’t changed since 1947
[05:30] Richard’s 3-phase, 10-step model
[06:24] The nonprofit board that was itself the problem
[07:48] Why you don’t want yes-people around you
[10:24] Risk manager vs change manager — the asymmetry nobody notices
[12:40] Keep a low profile — “don’t leave fingerprints”
[14:36] Why 70% of change initiatives fail
[18:00] Change management in government vs private sector
[20:20] Why leaders have to get out of the office
[23:30] Working with Japanese stakeholders — directness across cultures
[25:08] Diagnosing organizations like physicians diagnose patients
[27:48] What Richard got wrong in his 30s
[30:45] What to do when change is managing you instead


Guest & show links:

Richard H. Carson, PhD on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-h-carson-phd-mpa-7030b213/
Book of Change: https://bookofchange.com
In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Technology, B2B, Entreprenurship No You Can't Fix Culture With a Mission Statement: Adam Christing on humor as leadership 14 14 You Can't Fix Culture With a Mission Statement: Adam Christing on humor as leadership full b5ce49e4-345a-498e-8ad3-0b5903e5bdc0 https://share.transistor.fm/s/9e817e44 Most companies describe culture as a statement — values, mission, bios on a wall. Adam Christing — professional master of ceremonies, founder of Clean Comedians, and author of The Laughter Factor — argues that culture is actually a feeling, something you can walk into a room and sense within seconds. And the fastest shortcut to shifting it, he says, isn't a new mission statement or offsite. It's humor — used by leaders who understand that we feel before we think.

Adam has spent more than 30 years in corporate rooms as an emcee, keynote speaker, and comedian. He has delivered more than 4,000 humor presentations across Fortune 1000 companies, runs the Clean Comedians agency, and knows over a hundred professional comedians (most of them, he says, deeply serious people). His book The Laughter Factor is the result of decades of experimenting with how humor actually shifts a room — and what leaders get wrong when they try to be the funniest person at the table instead of the orchestrator of fun.

In this conversation, Adam unpacks why culture is an experience rather than a statement, why the root word of "culture" is "cult" (a shared association around a leader), and why the root word of "humor" is "human." He walks through what he does when he walks into a boardroom and feels something is off, why self-effacing humor is a shortcut to trust, and why leaders don't need to be funny — they need to be the orchestrator of fun, the conductor who puts the spotlight on their team. He shares the dad-jokes-on-3x5-cards exercise he runs with Fortune 1000 teams, the three things never to joke about (politics, prejudice, profanity), and his "if in doubt, leave it out" rule. He closes on AI: why the real danger isn't replacement, it's losing participation — the actual thing humor creates — and the one thing every leader should do this week to shift the culture of their team.

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[01:20] Walking into a boardroom and feeling the culture before you see it
[02:06] "We feel before we think" — culture as experience
[03:42] The root of "culture" is "cult"
[04:47] What a master of ceremonies actually does
[07:37] Humor + heart = authenticity
[09:15] Self-effacing humor as a shortcut to trust
[11:47] The root of "humor" is "human"
[14:00] You don't have to be funny — be the orchestrator of fun
[18:30] The dad-jokes-on-3x5-cards exercise
[20:27] Politics, prejudice, profanity — three to avoid
[23:06] Test your humor like a marketer
[26:13] The danger with AI — losing participation
[28:30] The one thing to do this week — hook their attention

Guest & show links:

Adam Christing on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-christing/
The Laughter Factor + Laugh Language quiz: https://thelaughterfactor.com
Clean Comedians: https://cleancomedians.com
In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Most companies describe culture as a statement — values, mission, bios on a wall. Adam Christing — professional master of ceremonies, founder of Clean Comedians, and author of The Laughter Factor — argues that culture is actually a feeling, something you can walk into a room and sense within seconds. And the fastest shortcut to shifting it, he says, isn't a new mission statement or offsite. It's humor — used by leaders who understand that we feel before we think.

Adam has spent more than 30 years in corporate rooms as an emcee, keynote speaker, and comedian. He has delivered more than 4,000 humor presentations across Fortune 1000 companies, runs the Clean Comedians agency, and knows over a hundred professional comedians (most of them, he says, deeply serious people). His book The Laughter Factor is the result of decades of experimenting with how humor actually shifts a room — and what leaders get wrong when they try to be the funniest person at the table instead of the orchestrator of fun.

In this conversation, Adam unpacks why culture is an experience rather than a statement, why the root word of "culture" is "cult" (a shared association around a leader), and why the root word of "humor" is "human." He walks through what he does when he walks into a boardroom and feels something is off, why self-effacing humor is a shortcut to trust, and why leaders don't need to be funny — they need to be the orchestrator of fun, the conductor who puts the spotlight on their team. He shares the dad-jokes-on-3x5-cards exercise he runs with Fortune 1000 teams, the three things never to joke about (politics, prejudice, profanity), and his "if in doubt, leave it out" rule. He closes on AI: why the real danger isn't replacement, it's losing participation — the actual thing humor creates — and the one thing every leader should do this week to shift the culture of their team.

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[01:20] Walking into a boardroom and feeling the culture before you see it
[02:06] "We feel before we think" — culture as experience
[03:42] The root of "culture" is "cult"
[04:47] What a master of ceremonies actually does
[07:37] Humor + heart = authenticity
[09:15] Self-effacing humor as a shortcut to trust
[11:47] The root of "humor" is "human"
[14:00] You don't have to be funny — be the orchestrator of fun
[18:30] The dad-jokes-on-3x5-cards exercise
[20:27] Politics, prejudice, profanity — three to avoid
[23:06] Test your humor like a marketer
[26:13] The danger with AI — losing participation
[28:30] The one thing to do this week — hook their attention

Guest & show links:

Adam Christing on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-christing/
The Laughter Factor + Laugh Language quiz: https://thelaughterfactor.com
Clean Comedians: https://cleancomedians.com
In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Tue, 06 Oct 2026 16:20:11 +0300 In Parallel In Parallel 1909 Most companies describe culture as a statement — values, mission, bios on a wall. Adam Christing — professional master of ceremonies, founder of Clean Comedians, and author of The Laughter Factor — argues that culture is actually a feeling, something you can walk into a room and sense within seconds. And the fastest shortcut to shifting it, he says, isn't a new mission statement or offsite. It's humor — used by leaders who understand that we feel before we think.

Adam has spent more than 30 years in corporate rooms as an emcee, keynote speaker, and comedian. He has delivered more than 4,000 humor presentations across Fortune 1000 companies, runs the Clean Comedians agency, and knows over a hundred professional comedians (most of them, he says, deeply serious people). His book The Laughter Factor is the result of decades of experimenting with how humor actually shifts a room — and what leaders get wrong when they try to be the funniest person at the table instead of the orchestrator of fun.

In this conversation, Adam unpacks why culture is an experience rather than a statement, why the root word of "culture" is "cult" (a shared association around a leader), and why the root word of "humor" is "human." He walks through what he does when he walks into a boardroom and feels something is off, why self-effacing humor is a shortcut to trust, and why leaders don't need to be funny — they need to be the orchestrator of fun, the conductor who puts the spotlight on their team. He shares the dad-jokes-on-3x5-cards exercise he runs with Fortune 1000 teams, the three things never to joke about (politics, prejudice, profanity), and his "if in doubt, leave it out" rule. He closes on AI: why the real danger isn't replacement, it's losing participation — the actual thing humor creates — and the one thing every leader should do this week to shift the culture of their team.

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[01:20] Walking into a boardroom and feeling the culture before you see it
[02:06] "We feel before we think" — culture as experience
[03:42] The root of "culture" is "cult"
[04:47] What a master of ceremonies actually does
[07:37] Humor + heart = authenticity
[09:15] Self-effacing humor as a shortcut to trust
[11:47] The root of "humor" is "human"
[14:00] You don't have to be funny — be the orchestrator of fun
[18:30] The dad-jokes-on-3x5-cards exercise
[20:27] Politics, prejudice, profanity — three to avoid
[23:06] Test your humor like a marketer
[26:13] The danger with AI — losing participation
[28:30] The one thing to do this week — hook their attention

Guest & show links:

Adam Christing on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-christing/
The Laughter Factor + Laugh Language quiz: https://thelaughterfactor.com
Clean Comedians: https://cleancomedians.com
In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Technology, B2B, Entreprenurship No Urgency Isn't Leadership. It's Addiction: Jennifer Recla on the mindset breaking your team 13 13 Urgency Isn't Leadership. It's Addiction: Jennifer Recla on the mindset breaking your team full 41107887-93e4-4e4f-8c10-b409ebe48bd8 https://share.transistor.fm/s/3d81498b Every leader is quietly passing an addiction on to their team — the addiction to urgency. Jennifer Recla — leadership coach who's worked with hundreds of leaders across nonprofits, mission-driven organizations, and large financial institutions — argues that most of what feels like a "busy" workday isn't a workload problem at all. It's a mindset problem. And most leaders have no idea how much of the chaos in their teams they're personally creating.

Jennifer has spent her career coaching leaders across nonprofits, smaller organizations, and larger institutions to build sustainable schedules, healthier team dynamics, and clearer communication. Her clients typically come to her exhausted — working nights and weekends, drowning in emails, without time to think about strategy or develop the people around them. She's built diagnostic tools like the urgency mindset index to help leaders see where they land on the spectrum and how to move.

In this conversation, Jennifer unpacks why the single behavior driving organizational chaos isn't a behavior at all — it's a mindset. She walks through the urgency mindset spectrum (low urgency → strong urgency → urgency addiction), why emails and notifications are the biggest hidden time suck, and why a healthy leader has to consciously leave some work for others to pick up. She reframes managing up as a two-way skill — how helping your leader uncover what they actually mean strengthens trust rather than eroding it, and why doing it too often signals a bigger problem. She shares what mission-driven organizations get right about values and relationships that bigger companies quietly abandon. She closes on AI: why it won't replace people, why leaders now need to ramp up their people skills instead of scaling them down, and the three things every leader who creates clarity actually does — ending with the four questions every leader should ask their team this week.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[00:58] Why leaders create chaos — mindset, not behavior
[01:27] The urgency mindset — what it actually looks like
[02:36] The first diagnostic — audit your workload
[04:22] Why emails and notifications are the biggest time suck
[06:31] The urgency mindset index — where do you land?
[08:04] Side effects when the team can't read the leader
[10:07] Managing up as a two-way skill
[12:58] What smaller and mission-driven organizations get right
[16:38] AI won't replace people — why you need MORE people skills now
[17:55] Three things a leader who creates clarity does
[19:19] The four questions to ask your team this week

Guest & show links:

Jennifer Recla on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferrecla/
Website: https://www.jenrecla.com/
In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Every leader is quietly passing an addiction on to their team — the addiction to urgency. Jennifer Recla — leadership coach who's worked with hundreds of leaders across nonprofits, mission-driven organizations, and large financial institutions — argues that most of what feels like a "busy" workday isn't a workload problem at all. It's a mindset problem. And most leaders have no idea how much of the chaos in their teams they're personally creating.

Jennifer has spent her career coaching leaders across nonprofits, smaller organizations, and larger institutions to build sustainable schedules, healthier team dynamics, and clearer communication. Her clients typically come to her exhausted — working nights and weekends, drowning in emails, without time to think about strategy or develop the people around them. She's built diagnostic tools like the urgency mindset index to help leaders see where they land on the spectrum and how to move.

In this conversation, Jennifer unpacks why the single behavior driving organizational chaos isn't a behavior at all — it's a mindset. She walks through the urgency mindset spectrum (low urgency → strong urgency → urgency addiction), why emails and notifications are the biggest hidden time suck, and why a healthy leader has to consciously leave some work for others to pick up. She reframes managing up as a two-way skill — how helping your leader uncover what they actually mean strengthens trust rather than eroding it, and why doing it too often signals a bigger problem. She shares what mission-driven organizations get right about values and relationships that bigger companies quietly abandon. She closes on AI: why it won't replace people, why leaders now need to ramp up their people skills instead of scaling them down, and the three things every leader who creates clarity actually does — ending with the four questions every leader should ask their team this week.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[00:58] Why leaders create chaos — mindset, not behavior
[01:27] The urgency mindset — what it actually looks like
[02:36] The first diagnostic — audit your workload
[04:22] Why emails and notifications are the biggest time suck
[06:31] The urgency mindset index — where do you land?
[08:04] Side effects when the team can't read the leader
[10:07] Managing up as a two-way skill
[12:58] What smaller and mission-driven organizations get right
[16:38] AI won't replace people — why you need MORE people skills now
[17:55] Three things a leader who creates clarity does
[19:19] The four questions to ask your team this week

Guest & show links:

Jennifer Recla on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferrecla/
Website: https://www.jenrecla.com/
In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Tue, 22 Sep 2026 16:00:00 +0300 In Parallel In Parallel 1267 Every leader is quietly passing an addiction on to their team — the addiction to urgency. Jennifer Recla — leadership coach who's worked with hundreds of leaders across nonprofits, mission-driven organizations, and large financial institutions — argues that most of what feels like a "busy" workday isn't a workload problem at all. It's a mindset problem. And most leaders have no idea how much of the chaos in their teams they're personally creating.

Jennifer has spent her career coaching leaders across nonprofits, smaller organizations, and larger institutions to build sustainable schedules, healthier team dynamics, and clearer communication. Her clients typically come to her exhausted — working nights and weekends, drowning in emails, without time to think about strategy or develop the people around them. She's built diagnostic tools like the urgency mindset index to help leaders see where they land on the spectrum and how to move.

In this conversation, Jennifer unpacks why the single behavior driving organizational chaos isn't a behavior at all — it's a mindset. She walks through the urgency mindset spectrum (low urgency → strong urgency → urgency addiction), why emails and notifications are the biggest hidden time suck, and why a healthy leader has to consciously leave some work for others to pick up. She reframes managing up as a two-way skill — how helping your leader uncover what they actually mean strengthens trust rather than eroding it, and why doing it too often signals a bigger problem. She shares what mission-driven organizations get right about values and relationships that bigger companies quietly abandon. She closes on AI: why it won't replace people, why leaders now need to ramp up their people skills instead of scaling them down, and the three things every leader who creates clarity actually does — ending with the four questions every leader should ask their team this week.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[00:58] Why leaders create chaos — mindset, not behavior
[01:27] The urgency mindset — what it actually looks like
[02:36] The first diagnostic — audit your workload
[04:22] Why emails and notifications are the biggest time suck
[06:31] The urgency mindset index — where do you land?
[08:04] Side effects when the team can't read the leader
[10:07] Managing up as a two-way skill
[12:58] What smaller and mission-driven organizations get right
[16:38] AI won't replace people — why you need MORE people skills now
[17:55] Three things a leader who creates clarity does
[19:19] The four questions to ask your team this week

Guest & show links:

Jennifer Recla on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferrecla/
Website: https://www.jenrecla.com/
In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Technology, B2B, Entreprenurship No HR Is the Last Line of Defense Against Chaos: Barry Wolfe on value-centric leadership 12 12 HR Is the Last Line of Defense Against Chaos: Barry Wolfe on value-centric leadership full c308e129-d9b4-4330-8799-0c3def3d0915 https://share.transistor.fm/s/718b1dbb

Most organizations run on a fiction — that job descriptions describe jobs, that OKRs measure value, that personality tests reveal something real. Barry Wolfe — HR consultant and author of It's All in Your Head — argues that HR is the last line of defense against the chaos this creates, and that the actual foundation of a well-run company is one document, under 300 words, that answers two questions almost nobody bothers to ask.


Barry has spent decades working with HR leaders and business owners to help them build organizations where every role has a clear connection to the value the business creates. His book It's All in Your Head: Why Psychology Doesn't Help Your Employees Deliver Value — and What Can is the culmination of a two-year deep dive into the science, and often the pseudo-science, behind the tools HR uses every day. He is the creator of the value-centric leadership framework and runs Argos HR.

In this conversation, Barry unpacks why HR is the last line of defense against organizational chaos, why OKRs quietly stop at "deliverables" instead of value, and why every role in a company should have 3-5 clear value outcomes — or be reconsidered entirely. He walks through the surprising history of the DISC personality test (invented by William Moulton Marston, the Harvard psychologist who also created Wonder Woman) and explains why business owners buy pseudo-science: they're not really paying for the tests, they're paying for easy answers to hard questions. He introduces the Same Page — a document of fewer than 300 words that should be readable by a machine operator and a CEO alike, and should be the basis of everything the organization does. He closes on AI: why he's sceptical of the "killer robots" narrative, why LLMs cannot write your same page for you, and the one question every leader should reflect on this week.


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[01:08] HR as the last line of defense against chaos
[04:00] The first signs HR isn't doing its job
[05:34] Why OKRs stop short of actual value
[08:03] The two questions every leader must answer
[10:06] Why every role needs 3-5 value outcomes
[14:10] The strange history of the DISC test (and Wonder Woman)
[17:20] Why business owners keep buying pseudo-science
[18:09] The Same Page — a 300-word document that runs everything
[21:13] Whether AI will actually replace jobs
[23:16] Why AI can't tell you what your same page is
[29:35] The one reflection every leader should do this week

Guest & show links:

Barry Wolfe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barryrwolfe/
It's All in Your Head on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Its-All-Your-Head-Psychology-ebook/dp/B0FD84SNGG
Argos HR: https://www.argoshr.com/
In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]>

Most organizations run on a fiction — that job descriptions describe jobs, that OKRs measure value, that personality tests reveal something real. Barry Wolfe — HR consultant and author of It's All in Your Head — argues that HR is the last line of defense against the chaos this creates, and that the actual foundation of a well-run company is one document, under 300 words, that answers two questions almost nobody bothers to ask.


Barry has spent decades working with HR leaders and business owners to help them build organizations where every role has a clear connection to the value the business creates. His book It's All in Your Head: Why Psychology Doesn't Help Your Employees Deliver Value — and What Can is the culmination of a two-year deep dive into the science, and often the pseudo-science, behind the tools HR uses every day. He is the creator of the value-centric leadership framework and runs Argos HR.

In this conversation, Barry unpacks why HR is the last line of defense against organizational chaos, why OKRs quietly stop at "deliverables" instead of value, and why every role in a company should have 3-5 clear value outcomes — or be reconsidered entirely. He walks through the surprising history of the DISC personality test (invented by William Moulton Marston, the Harvard psychologist who also created Wonder Woman) and explains why business owners buy pseudo-science: they're not really paying for the tests, they're paying for easy answers to hard questions. He introduces the Same Page — a document of fewer than 300 words that should be readable by a machine operator and a CEO alike, and should be the basis of everything the organization does. He closes on AI: why he's sceptical of the "killer robots" narrative, why LLMs cannot write your same page for you, and the one question every leader should reflect on this week.


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[01:08] HR as the last line of defense against chaos
[04:00] The first signs HR isn't doing its job
[05:34] Why OKRs stop short of actual value
[08:03] The two questions every leader must answer
[10:06] Why every role needs 3-5 value outcomes
[14:10] The strange history of the DISC test (and Wonder Woman)
[17:20] Why business owners keep buying pseudo-science
[18:09] The Same Page — a 300-word document that runs everything
[21:13] Whether AI will actually replace jobs
[23:16] Why AI can't tell you what your same page is
[29:35] The one reflection every leader should do this week

Guest & show links:

Barry Wolfe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barryrwolfe/
It's All in Your Head on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Its-All-Your-Head-Psychology-ebook/dp/B0FD84SNGG
Argos HR: https://www.argoshr.com/
In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Tue, 15 Sep 2026 16:00:00 +0300 In Parallel In Parallel 2047

Most organizations run on a fiction — that job descriptions describe jobs, that OKRs measure value, that personality tests reveal something real. Barry Wolfe — HR consultant and author of It's All in Your Head — argues that HR is the last line of defense against the chaos this creates, and that the actual foundation of a well-run company is one document, under 300 words, that answers two questions almost nobody bothers to ask.


Barry has spent decades working with HR leaders and business owners to help them build organizations where every role has a clear connection to the value the business creates. His book It's All in Your Head: Why Psychology Doesn't Help Your Employees Deliver Value — and What Can is the culmination of a two-year deep dive into the science, and often the pseudo-science, behind the tools HR uses every day. He is the creator of the value-centric leadership framework and runs Argos HR.

In this conversation, Barry unpacks why HR is the last line of defense against organizational chaos, why OKRs quietly stop at "deliverables" instead of value, and why every role in a company should have 3-5 clear value outcomes — or be reconsidered entirely. He walks through the surprising history of the DISC personality test (invented by William Moulton Marston, the Harvard psychologist who also created Wonder Woman) and explains why business owners buy pseudo-science: they're not really paying for the tests, they're paying for easy answers to hard questions. He introduces the Same Page — a document of fewer than 300 words that should be readable by a machine operator and a CEO alike, and should be the basis of everything the organization does. He closes on AI: why he's sceptical of the "killer robots" narrative, why LLMs cannot write your same page for you, and the one question every leader should reflect on this week.


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[01:08] HR as the last line of defense against chaos
[04:00] The first signs HR isn't doing its job
[05:34] Why OKRs stop short of actual value
[08:03] The two questions every leader must answer
[10:06] Why every role needs 3-5 value outcomes
[14:10] The strange history of the DISC test (and Wonder Woman)
[17:20] Why business owners keep buying pseudo-science
[18:09] The Same Page — a 300-word document that runs everything
[21:13] Whether AI will actually replace jobs
[23:16] Why AI can't tell you what your same page is
[29:35] The one reflection every leader should do this week

Guest & show links:

Barry Wolfe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barryrwolfe/
It's All in Your Head on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Its-All-Your-Head-Psychology-ebook/dp/B0FD84SNGG
Argos HR: https://www.argoshr.com/
In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Technology, B2B, Entreprenurship No You Can't Sword-Fight a Bullet: Alberto Torres on surviving disruption 11 11 You Can't Sword-Fight a Bullet: Alberto Torres on surviving disruption full f8a778cc-accc-4699-a256-86768b229aa1 https://share.transistor.fm/s/20a8f12f

Every disruption looks like a peace-time problem until the swordsman meets the bullet. Alberto Torres — former Nokia executive, ex-McKinsey partner, and author of The Z Curve — sat inside one of the most famous corporate collapses of the last two decades. In this conversation he walks through what actually happened at Nokia, why great peace-time leaders quietly fail in war-time, and what every company facing AI right now should learn from the companies that got disruption right (and the ones that didn't).

Alberto has spent his career at the sharp end of disruption. He joined Nokia in 2009 as part of the leadership team trying to turn the ship around, ran Vertu (Nokia's luxury phone business) and the accessories group before that, and later held roles at Opera, Bang & Olufsen, and Adobe, where he now works. Before Nokia he was a partner at McKinsey. His book The Z Curve was written to give managers facing disruption today — especially around AI — a more aggressive playbook for surviving it.

In this conversation, Alberto unpacks why Stephen Elop wasn't the only culprit in Nokia's collapse, why empowerment is the right leadership model in peace-time and the wrong one in disruption, why "you don't get radical action by averaging opinions," and why the people who vote for continuity are always right — until they're not. He walks through his S-curve/Z-curve framework for reading a disruption in real time, the sword-vs-bullet metaphor at the heart of the book, and the two companies (Adobe and Netflix) that got self-disruption right by cannibalising their own successful business. He closes on AI: why he thinks it's the next internet-scale disruption, why "the winners will be picked in the next few years," and the one thing every leader should do this week if they suspect their company is at the start of a Z-curve.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[01:26] Stephen Elop wasn't the only culprit — an insider view of Nokia's collapse
[04:57] Why organizations live in split reality
[07:12] The swordsman and the bullet
[10:16] Peace-time leadership vs war-time leadership
[10:57] 400 beautiful hardware models — and no software strategy
[13:22] Joining Nokia in 2009
[16:15] The S-curve theory and why we couldn't see it coming
[19:55] Continuity voters, fatalists, and the muddled middle
[25:36] Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo — the peace-time CEO
[26:40] "You don't get radical action by averaging opinions"
[27:00] The Z-curve — the ignored half of the S-curve
[34:24] The Dreams framework — how Adobe transformed
[38:15] Netflix cannibalising itself — how to disrupt yourself
[40:07] AI is the next Nokia moment
[46:02] What to do this week if you're facing disruption


Guest & show links:

Alberto Torres on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/torresalberto/
The Z Curve on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Z-Curve-Alberto-Torres/dp/1917391676

In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report


]]>

Every disruption looks like a peace-time problem until the swordsman meets the bullet. Alberto Torres — former Nokia executive, ex-McKinsey partner, and author of The Z Curve — sat inside one of the most famous corporate collapses of the last two decades. In this conversation he walks through what actually happened at Nokia, why great peace-time leaders quietly fail in war-time, and what every company facing AI right now should learn from the companies that got disruption right (and the ones that didn't).

Alberto has spent his career at the sharp end of disruption. He joined Nokia in 2009 as part of the leadership team trying to turn the ship around, ran Vertu (Nokia's luxury phone business) and the accessories group before that, and later held roles at Opera, Bang & Olufsen, and Adobe, where he now works. Before Nokia he was a partner at McKinsey. His book The Z Curve was written to give managers facing disruption today — especially around AI — a more aggressive playbook for surviving it.

In this conversation, Alberto unpacks why Stephen Elop wasn't the only culprit in Nokia's collapse, why empowerment is the right leadership model in peace-time and the wrong one in disruption, why "you don't get radical action by averaging opinions," and why the people who vote for continuity are always right — until they're not. He walks through his S-curve/Z-curve framework for reading a disruption in real time, the sword-vs-bullet metaphor at the heart of the book, and the two companies (Adobe and Netflix) that got self-disruption right by cannibalising their own successful business. He closes on AI: why he thinks it's the next internet-scale disruption, why "the winners will be picked in the next few years," and the one thing every leader should do this week if they suspect their company is at the start of a Z-curve.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[01:26] Stephen Elop wasn't the only culprit — an insider view of Nokia's collapse
[04:57] Why organizations live in split reality
[07:12] The swordsman and the bullet
[10:16] Peace-time leadership vs war-time leadership
[10:57] 400 beautiful hardware models — and no software strategy
[13:22] Joining Nokia in 2009
[16:15] The S-curve theory and why we couldn't see it coming
[19:55] Continuity voters, fatalists, and the muddled middle
[25:36] Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo — the peace-time CEO
[26:40] "You don't get radical action by averaging opinions"
[27:00] The Z-curve — the ignored half of the S-curve
[34:24] The Dreams framework — how Adobe transformed
[38:15] Netflix cannibalising itself — how to disrupt yourself
[40:07] AI is the next Nokia moment
[46:02] What to do this week if you're facing disruption


Guest & show links:

Alberto Torres on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/torresalberto/
The Z Curve on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Z-Curve-Alberto-Torres/dp/1917391676

In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report


]]> Tue, 08 Sep 2026 12:45:18 +0300 In Parallel In Parallel 2955

Every disruption looks like a peace-time problem until the swordsman meets the bullet. Alberto Torres — former Nokia executive, ex-McKinsey partner, and author of The Z Curve — sat inside one of the most famous corporate collapses of the last two decades. In this conversation he walks through what actually happened at Nokia, why great peace-time leaders quietly fail in war-time, and what every company facing AI right now should learn from the companies that got disruption right (and the ones that didn't).

Alberto has spent his career at the sharp end of disruption. He joined Nokia in 2009 as part of the leadership team trying to turn the ship around, ran Vertu (Nokia's luxury phone business) and the accessories group before that, and later held roles at Opera, Bang & Olufsen, and Adobe, where he now works. Before Nokia he was a partner at McKinsey. His book The Z Curve was written to give managers facing disruption today — especially around AI — a more aggressive playbook for surviving it.

In this conversation, Alberto unpacks why Stephen Elop wasn't the only culprit in Nokia's collapse, why empowerment is the right leadership model in peace-time and the wrong one in disruption, why "you don't get radical action by averaging opinions," and why the people who vote for continuity are always right — until they're not. He walks through his S-curve/Z-curve framework for reading a disruption in real time, the sword-vs-bullet metaphor at the heart of the book, and the two companies (Adobe and Netflix) that got self-disruption right by cannibalising their own successful business. He closes on AI: why he thinks it's the next internet-scale disruption, why "the winners will be picked in the next few years," and the one thing every leader should do this week if they suspect their company is at the start of a Z-curve.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[01:26] Stephen Elop wasn't the only culprit — an insider view of Nokia's collapse
[04:57] Why organizations live in split reality
[07:12] The swordsman and the bullet
[10:16] Peace-time leadership vs war-time leadership
[10:57] 400 beautiful hardware models — and no software strategy
[13:22] Joining Nokia in 2009
[16:15] The S-curve theory and why we couldn't see it coming
[19:55] Continuity voters, fatalists, and the muddled middle
[25:36] Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo — the peace-time CEO
[26:40] "You don't get radical action by averaging opinions"
[27:00] The Z-curve — the ignored half of the S-curve
[34:24] The Dreams framework — how Adobe transformed
[38:15] Netflix cannibalising itself — how to disrupt yourself
[40:07] AI is the next Nokia moment
[46:02] What to do this week if you're facing disruption


Guest & show links:

Alberto Torres on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/torresalberto/
The Z Curve on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Z-Curve-Alberto-Torres/dp/1917391676

In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report


]]> Technology, B2B, Entreprenurship No Your Leadership Doesn't Know What's Going On: Olivia Montgomery on where decisions belong 10 10 Your Leadership Doesn't Know What's Going On: Olivia Montgomery on where decisions belong full 21a910c9-a3d0-4d50-a884-d2076b14a13f https://share.transistor.fm/s/9f5064fe

Every organization over 20 people has the same instinct: when things get harder, add layers, add meetings, add controls. Olivia Montgomery — principal analyst at Data Frame and former Gartner researcher — argues that every layer up the org chart actually knows less about what's really going on, not more. And the fix isn't more visibility for leadership. It's pushing decisions down two or three levels, to an uncomfortable place.

Olivia has spent more than a decade researching how project management, PMOs, and organizational design actually work — first at Gartner, now at Data Frame. Her research has consistently shown that formal PMOs improve project delivery and success, that emotional intelligence in project leaders correlates with better outcomes, and that most "coordination fixes" companies deploy are quietly making things worse.

In this conversation, Olivia unpacks why leadership's perception of clarity is almost always wrong, what the Monday-morning test looks like for teams that are actually clear on what they own, why mixing meeting types (status vs. brainstorm vs. decision) is one of the most common quiet destroyers of time, and the simple first test to apply to any meeting or process: is this alleviating uncertainty? She walks through her Gartner-era research on why PMOs work, why emotional intelligence in project leaders isn't a soft skill but a measurable performance driver, and why AI tools built for engagement are silently eating the productivity gains their vendors promise. She closes on the one thing every leader should do this week: identify the decisions that require the most meetings, and ask honestly why the team doing the work can't make them.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[01:08] Meetings and tools aren't the problem — misuse is
[02:26] Nokia — every layer up knew less
[04:19] Push decisions down two or three levels
[05:59] The Monday-morning clarity test
[07:25] Stop mixing meeting types
[11:32] The first test: is this alleviating uncertainty?
[13:37] Why PMOs actually work — the Gartner research
[18:41] Emotional intelligence in project leaders — 10 years of data
[22:57] Why a strict KPI focus creates dishonesty
[25:40] AI tools are designed to keep you talking
[30:55] Companies need a conscious AI vision, not a vendor-driven one
[32:23] "You built a tool for yourself" — the product-research problem
[35:21] Closing advice — the one thing to do this week

Guest & show links:

Olivia Montgomery on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivia-montgomery/
Data Frame: https://dataframe.consulting/
In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com — we build the shared context layer for teams. Try our AI notetaker for free.

]]>

Every organization over 20 people has the same instinct: when things get harder, add layers, add meetings, add controls. Olivia Montgomery — principal analyst at Data Frame and former Gartner researcher — argues that every layer up the org chart actually knows less about what's really going on, not more. And the fix isn't more visibility for leadership. It's pushing decisions down two or three levels, to an uncomfortable place.

Olivia has spent more than a decade researching how project management, PMOs, and organizational design actually work — first at Gartner, now at Data Frame. Her research has consistently shown that formal PMOs improve project delivery and success, that emotional intelligence in project leaders correlates with better outcomes, and that most "coordination fixes" companies deploy are quietly making things worse.

In this conversation, Olivia unpacks why leadership's perception of clarity is almost always wrong, what the Monday-morning test looks like for teams that are actually clear on what they own, why mixing meeting types (status vs. brainstorm vs. decision) is one of the most common quiet destroyers of time, and the simple first test to apply to any meeting or process: is this alleviating uncertainty? She walks through her Gartner-era research on why PMOs work, why emotional intelligence in project leaders isn't a soft skill but a measurable performance driver, and why AI tools built for engagement are silently eating the productivity gains their vendors promise. She closes on the one thing every leader should do this week: identify the decisions that require the most meetings, and ask honestly why the team doing the work can't make them.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[01:08] Meetings and tools aren't the problem — misuse is
[02:26] Nokia — every layer up knew less
[04:19] Push decisions down two or three levels
[05:59] The Monday-morning clarity test
[07:25] Stop mixing meeting types
[11:32] The first test: is this alleviating uncertainty?
[13:37] Why PMOs actually work — the Gartner research
[18:41] Emotional intelligence in project leaders — 10 years of data
[22:57] Why a strict KPI focus creates dishonesty
[25:40] AI tools are designed to keep you talking
[30:55] Companies need a conscious AI vision, not a vendor-driven one
[32:23] "You built a tool for yourself" — the product-research problem
[35:21] Closing advice — the one thing to do this week

Guest & show links:

Olivia Montgomery on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivia-montgomery/
Data Frame: https://dataframe.consulting/
In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com — we build the shared context layer for teams. Try our AI notetaker for free.

]]> Tue, 01 Sep 2026 11:59:59 +0300 In Parallel In Parallel 2215

Every organization over 20 people has the same instinct: when things get harder, add layers, add meetings, add controls. Olivia Montgomery — principal analyst at Data Frame and former Gartner researcher — argues that every layer up the org chart actually knows less about what's really going on, not more. And the fix isn't more visibility for leadership. It's pushing decisions down two or three levels, to an uncomfortable place.

Olivia has spent more than a decade researching how project management, PMOs, and organizational design actually work — first at Gartner, now at Data Frame. Her research has consistently shown that formal PMOs improve project delivery and success, that emotional intelligence in project leaders correlates with better outcomes, and that most "coordination fixes" companies deploy are quietly making things worse.

In this conversation, Olivia unpacks why leadership's perception of clarity is almost always wrong, what the Monday-morning test looks like for teams that are actually clear on what they own, why mixing meeting types (status vs. brainstorm vs. decision) is one of the most common quiet destroyers of time, and the simple first test to apply to any meeting or process: is this alleviating uncertainty? She walks through her Gartner-era research on why PMOs work, why emotional intelligence in project leaders isn't a soft skill but a measurable performance driver, and why AI tools built for engagement are silently eating the productivity gains their vendors promise. She closes on the one thing every leader should do this week: identify the decisions that require the most meetings, and ask honestly why the team doing the work can't make them.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[01:08] Meetings and tools aren't the problem — misuse is
[02:26] Nokia — every layer up knew less
[04:19] Push decisions down two or three levels
[05:59] The Monday-morning clarity test
[07:25] Stop mixing meeting types
[11:32] The first test: is this alleviating uncertainty?
[13:37] Why PMOs actually work — the Gartner research
[18:41] Emotional intelligence in project leaders — 10 years of data
[22:57] Why a strict KPI focus creates dishonesty
[25:40] AI tools are designed to keep you talking
[30:55] Companies need a conscious AI vision, not a vendor-driven one
[32:23] "You built a tool for yourself" — the product-research problem
[35:21] Closing advice — the one thing to do this week

Guest & show links:

Olivia Montgomery on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivia-montgomery/
Data Frame: https://dataframe.consulting/
In Parallel: https://www.in-parallel.com — we build the shared context layer for teams. Try our AI notetaker for free.

]]> Technology, B2B, Entreprenurship No ou Don't Get to Be the Rock Star Anymore: Craig Denison on the founder's hardest transition 9 9 ou Don't Get to Be the Rock Star Anymore: Craig Denison on the founder's hardest transition full 38c16d6a-26a7-43d8-9918-36ea998e1cba https://share.transistor.fm/s/1225f135 Every founder hits the moment when execution stops running through their brain. The systems that got them here don't work anymore, but the founder is still the bottleneck. Craig Denison — head of growth at The Table Group (Patrick Lencioni's firm) and founder of Green Thumb Consulting — walks through what actually breaks in the "getting organized" stage, and why 99% of the time, the founder is the one creating the dysfunction they're trying to fix.

Craig runs growth for Patrick Lencioni and the Table Group, co-owns a floral design business with his wife, and through Green Thumb Consulting helps founders through the transition William Bridges called getting organized — the stage after you've launched a venture but before you've built an institution. Before consulting, Craig ran a 50-person business as CEO and lived the shift he now walks his clients through.

In this conversation, Craig unpacks why founders create the very dysfunction they blame their teams for, how team cohesion (in Lencioni's 5-dysfunctions frame) is the actual foundation execution sits on, and why honesty is a shortcut to almost every problem teams try to solve with more infrastructure. He walks through his own hardest founder moment — realizing everyone on his executive team was better at their function than he was, and having to grieve the loss of being "the rock star" — and how that reframe from how good am I to how effective are these people around me changed the whole job. He closes on the two practices every founder should run: fighting about what's right for the company rather than who's right, and the last-ten-minutes-of-the-meeting discipline that fixes most commitment and accountability failures.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[00:45] The founder-as-bottleneck moment
[02:34] What "getting organized" actually means
[05:07] Monday morning when the founder isn't essential
[06:30] Team cohesion and the five dysfunctions
[09:15] Why honesty saves you from building unnecessary infrastructure
[12:45] "I don't get to be the rock star anymore" — the founder's identity shift
[15:39] Diagnostics — when it's time to get organized
[18:06] Productive conflict — fighting about what's right, not who's right
[23:00] Why committed C-level players beat uncommitted A+ players
[25:51] 99% of the time, the founder is the problem
[27:25] The last-ten-minutes-of-the-meeting discipline

Guest & show links:

Craig Denison on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigdenison/
Green Thumb Consulting: https://www.greenthumb.consulting/
The Table Group (Patrick Lencioni): https://www.tablegroup.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Every founder hits the moment when execution stops running through their brain. The systems that got them here don't work anymore, but the founder is still the bottleneck. Craig Denison — head of growth at The Table Group (Patrick Lencioni's firm) and founder of Green Thumb Consulting — walks through what actually breaks in the "getting organized" stage, and why 99% of the time, the founder is the one creating the dysfunction they're trying to fix.

Craig runs growth for Patrick Lencioni and the Table Group, co-owns a floral design business with his wife, and through Green Thumb Consulting helps founders through the transition William Bridges called getting organized — the stage after you've launched a venture but before you've built an institution. Before consulting, Craig ran a 50-person business as CEO and lived the shift he now walks his clients through.

In this conversation, Craig unpacks why founders create the very dysfunction they blame their teams for, how team cohesion (in Lencioni's 5-dysfunctions frame) is the actual foundation execution sits on, and why honesty is a shortcut to almost every problem teams try to solve with more infrastructure. He walks through his own hardest founder moment — realizing everyone on his executive team was better at their function than he was, and having to grieve the loss of being "the rock star" — and how that reframe from how good am I to how effective are these people around me changed the whole job. He closes on the two practices every founder should run: fighting about what's right for the company rather than who's right, and the last-ten-minutes-of-the-meeting discipline that fixes most commitment and accountability failures.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[00:45] The founder-as-bottleneck moment
[02:34] What "getting organized" actually means
[05:07] Monday morning when the founder isn't essential
[06:30] Team cohesion and the five dysfunctions
[09:15] Why honesty saves you from building unnecessary infrastructure
[12:45] "I don't get to be the rock star anymore" — the founder's identity shift
[15:39] Diagnostics — when it's time to get organized
[18:06] Productive conflict — fighting about what's right, not who's right
[23:00] Why committed C-level players beat uncommitted A+ players
[25:51] 99% of the time, the founder is the problem
[27:25] The last-ten-minutes-of-the-meeting discipline

Guest & show links:

Craig Denison on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigdenison/
Green Thumb Consulting: https://www.greenthumb.consulting/
The Table Group (Patrick Lencioni): https://www.tablegroup.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0300 In Parallel In Parallel 1850 Every founder hits the moment when execution stops running through their brain. The systems that got them here don't work anymore, but the founder is still the bottleneck. Craig Denison — head of growth at The Table Group (Patrick Lencioni's firm) and founder of Green Thumb Consulting — walks through what actually breaks in the "getting organized" stage, and why 99% of the time, the founder is the one creating the dysfunction they're trying to fix.

Craig runs growth for Patrick Lencioni and the Table Group, co-owns a floral design business with his wife, and through Green Thumb Consulting helps founders through the transition William Bridges called getting organized — the stage after you've launched a venture but before you've built an institution. Before consulting, Craig ran a 50-person business as CEO and lived the shift he now walks his clients through.

In this conversation, Craig unpacks why founders create the very dysfunction they blame their teams for, how team cohesion (in Lencioni's 5-dysfunctions frame) is the actual foundation execution sits on, and why honesty is a shortcut to almost every problem teams try to solve with more infrastructure. He walks through his own hardest founder moment — realizing everyone on his executive team was better at their function than he was, and having to grieve the loss of being "the rock star" — and how that reframe from how good am I to how effective are these people around me changed the whole job. He closes on the two practices every founder should run: fighting about what's right for the company rather than who's right, and the last-ten-minutes-of-the-meeting discipline that fixes most commitment and accountability failures.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[00:45] The founder-as-bottleneck moment
[02:34] What "getting organized" actually means
[05:07] Monday morning when the founder isn't essential
[06:30] Team cohesion and the five dysfunctions
[09:15] Why honesty saves you from building unnecessary infrastructure
[12:45] "I don't get to be the rock star anymore" — the founder's identity shift
[15:39] Diagnostics — when it's time to get organized
[18:06] Productive conflict — fighting about what's right, not who's right
[23:00] Why committed C-level players beat uncommitted A+ players
[25:51] 99% of the time, the founder is the problem
[27:25] The last-ten-minutes-of-the-meeting discipline

Guest & show links:

Craig Denison on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigdenison/
Green Thumb Consulting: https://www.greenthumb.consulting/
The Table Group (Patrick Lencioni): https://www.tablegroup.com
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Technology, B2B, Entreprenurship No You Don't Have a Training Problem: Dr. Christy Vanorsdale on the L&D order-taker trap 8 8 You Don't Have a Training Problem: Dr. Christy Vanorsdale on the L&D order-taker trap full 6c3e6f52-67ff-4e7b-80d7-00d34e2b2c22 https://share.transistor.fm/s/c0729841 Companies are spending more on training than ever. So why does execution keep getting worse?

Dr. Christy Vanorsdale — founder of Vanorsdale Learning Lab, cognitive multimedia learning researcher, and fractional Chief Learning Officer — explains why L&D keeps solving the wrong problems, and what happens when you treat it as a strategic partner instead of an order taker.

Christy has spent 15 years dragging L&D out of order-taker mode and into being a strategic partner for business. She holds a doctorate in cognitive multimedia learning and today runs Vanorsdale Learning Lab, working with mid-market scaleups and B2C training companies to redesign their learning ecosystems from the ground up.


In this conversation, Christy walks through why most L&D teams get treated as content-makers rather than strategic partners — and why that misdiagnosis quietly costs companies. She unpacks the "order taker" problem, the trap of promoting subject-matter experts into training roles when they lack a background in how people actually learn, why working memory is limited in space AND time (and why the "make it TikTok-length" fallacy is wrong), how to measure L&D effectiveness through business goals rather than completion rates, and the true story of the IT specialists who were "failing at product knowledge" — until she went and asked them, and it turned out the real problem was they'd never been trained on the customers on the other end of the phone. She closes on the discovery process every L&D leader should run before designing a single module.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[00:57] The "order taker" problem
[03:21] The subject-matter expert trap
[08:44] Working memory — limited in space and time
[13:21] The TikTok fallacy
[16:02] Why L&D isn't at the strategy table
[19:59] L&D as the translator across organizational silos
[20:47] When an emerging scaleup should engage L&D
[22:22] How to actually measure L&D working
[26:00] The IT specialists story — a real misdiagnosis
[29:55] The discovery process every L&D leader should run

Guest & show links:

Dr. Christy Vanorsdale on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christievanorsdale-learning/
Vanorsdale Learning Lab: https://www.vanorsdalelearninglab.com/services
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Companies are spending more on training than ever. So why does execution keep getting worse?

Dr. Christy Vanorsdale — founder of Vanorsdale Learning Lab, cognitive multimedia learning researcher, and fractional Chief Learning Officer — explains why L&D keeps solving the wrong problems, and what happens when you treat it as a strategic partner instead of an order taker.

Christy has spent 15 years dragging L&D out of order-taker mode and into being a strategic partner for business. She holds a doctorate in cognitive multimedia learning and today runs Vanorsdale Learning Lab, working with mid-market scaleups and B2C training companies to redesign their learning ecosystems from the ground up.


In this conversation, Christy walks through why most L&D teams get treated as content-makers rather than strategic partners — and why that misdiagnosis quietly costs companies. She unpacks the "order taker" problem, the trap of promoting subject-matter experts into training roles when they lack a background in how people actually learn, why working memory is limited in space AND time (and why the "make it TikTok-length" fallacy is wrong), how to measure L&D effectiveness through business goals rather than completion rates, and the true story of the IT specialists who were "failing at product knowledge" — until she went and asked them, and it turned out the real problem was they'd never been trained on the customers on the other end of the phone. She closes on the discovery process every L&D leader should run before designing a single module.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[00:57] The "order taker" problem
[03:21] The subject-matter expert trap
[08:44] Working memory — limited in space and time
[13:21] The TikTok fallacy
[16:02] Why L&D isn't at the strategy table
[19:59] L&D as the translator across organizational silos
[20:47] When an emerging scaleup should engage L&D
[22:22] How to actually measure L&D working
[26:00] The IT specialists story — a real misdiagnosis
[29:55] The discovery process every L&D leader should run

Guest & show links:

Dr. Christy Vanorsdale on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christievanorsdale-learning/
Vanorsdale Learning Lab: https://www.vanorsdalelearninglab.com/services
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Tue, 18 Aug 2026 11:59:00 +0300 In Parallel In Parallel 1964 Companies are spending more on training than ever. So why does execution keep getting worse?

Dr. Christy Vanorsdale — founder of Vanorsdale Learning Lab, cognitive multimedia learning researcher, and fractional Chief Learning Officer — explains why L&D keeps solving the wrong problems, and what happens when you treat it as a strategic partner instead of an order taker.

Christy has spent 15 years dragging L&D out of order-taker mode and into being a strategic partner for business. She holds a doctorate in cognitive multimedia learning and today runs Vanorsdale Learning Lab, working with mid-market scaleups and B2C training companies to redesign their learning ecosystems from the ground up.


In this conversation, Christy walks through why most L&D teams get treated as content-makers rather than strategic partners — and why that misdiagnosis quietly costs companies. She unpacks the "order taker" problem, the trap of promoting subject-matter experts into training roles when they lack a background in how people actually learn, why working memory is limited in space AND time (and why the "make it TikTok-length" fallacy is wrong), how to measure L&D effectiveness through business goals rather than completion rates, and the true story of the IT specialists who were "failing at product knowledge" — until she went and asked them, and it turned out the real problem was they'd never been trained on the customers on the other end of the phone. She closes on the discovery process every L&D leader should run before designing a single module.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[00:57] The "order taker" problem
[03:21] The subject-matter expert trap
[08:44] Working memory — limited in space and time
[13:21] The TikTok fallacy
[16:02] Why L&D isn't at the strategy table
[19:59] L&D as the translator across organizational silos
[20:47] When an emerging scaleup should engage L&D
[22:22] How to actually measure L&D working
[26:00] The IT specialists story — a real misdiagnosis
[29:55] The discovery process every L&D leader should run

Guest & show links:

Dr. Christy Vanorsdale on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christievanorsdale-learning/
Vanorsdale Learning Lab: https://www.vanorsdalelearninglab.com/services
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Technology, B2B, Entreprenurship No AI Is Quietly Eating Your Week. You Just Haven't Noticed Yet. 7 7 AI Is Quietly Eating Your Week. You Just Haven't Noticed Yet. full 2b17f714-b70e-463a-934e-0fb7aa4ae248 https://share.transistor.fm/s/6d7fd3b4

How much of your workweek is actually work?

In this special solo episode of The Coordination Tax, Kristian Luoma — co-founder of In Parallel — walks through the newly published Coordination Tax Index 2026: the first quantitative measure of how much of a modern manager's week actually goes to managing the work, versus managing the work about the work. The Index reads 31 out of 100 — meaning nearly a third of management capacity is consumed by coordination overhead before any real work happens.

Kristian is the co-founder of In Parallel and co-author, with Markku Mäkeläinen, of the Coordination Tax Index 2026. The report surveyed 247 managers across five countries — the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Germany — and nine industries. It moves past how people feel about meetings and actually measures where the hours go.


In this episode, Kristian walks through the headline: 16.5 hours a week per manager lost to coordination overhead — roughly two full working days. The perception gap that hides those hours — managers self-report losing 21% of the week, but when they itemise the hours, it's actually 41%. Where the time goes: status meetings, re-explaining context to someone who already had it, and hunting for decisions that already exist somewhere. Why tool count is the strongest structural multiplier — from 13 hours a week at 1–3 tools to 32 hours at 10+. Why the heaviest AI users are carrying more coordination load than non-users, not less. And what the data rules out about how to fix it: you cannot train your way out, you cannot buy your way out with another system of record, and you cannot prompt your way out.


📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Intro — 31 out of 100
[01:54] Why we built the Index
[03:50] Where the 16.5 hours actually go
[05:35] The perception gap — and the dark matter of the P&L
[06:47] Why it's structural, not behavioural
[07:56] Tool count — the strongest multiplier
[09:21] The AI paradox — heaviest users pay the most
[11:22] The shared-context dividend
[12:52] What managers would do with the time back
[13:46] Three things the data rules out
[15:26] What to do on Monday

Host: Kristian Luoma (In Parallel)


Show links:

Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]>

How much of your workweek is actually work?

In this special solo episode of The Coordination Tax, Kristian Luoma — co-founder of In Parallel — walks through the newly published Coordination Tax Index 2026: the first quantitative measure of how much of a modern manager's week actually goes to managing the work, versus managing the work about the work. The Index reads 31 out of 100 — meaning nearly a third of management capacity is consumed by coordination overhead before any real work happens.

Kristian is the co-founder of In Parallel and co-author, with Markku Mäkeläinen, of the Coordination Tax Index 2026. The report surveyed 247 managers across five countries — the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Germany — and nine industries. It moves past how people feel about meetings and actually measures where the hours go.


In this episode, Kristian walks through the headline: 16.5 hours a week per manager lost to coordination overhead — roughly two full working days. The perception gap that hides those hours — managers self-report losing 21% of the week, but when they itemise the hours, it's actually 41%. Where the time goes: status meetings, re-explaining context to someone who already had it, and hunting for decisions that already exist somewhere. Why tool count is the strongest structural multiplier — from 13 hours a week at 1–3 tools to 32 hours at 10+. Why the heaviest AI users are carrying more coordination load than non-users, not less. And what the data rules out about how to fix it: you cannot train your way out, you cannot buy your way out with another system of record, and you cannot prompt your way out.


📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Intro — 31 out of 100
[01:54] Why we built the Index
[03:50] Where the 16.5 hours actually go
[05:35] The perception gap — and the dark matter of the P&L
[06:47] Why it's structural, not behavioural
[07:56] Tool count — the strongest multiplier
[09:21] The AI paradox — heaviest users pay the most
[11:22] The shared-context dividend
[12:52] What managers would do with the time back
[13:46] Three things the data rules out
[15:26] What to do on Monday

Host: Kristian Luoma (In Parallel)


Show links:

Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Fri, 07 Aug 2026 15:59:19 +0300 In Parallel In Parallel 1001

How much of your workweek is actually work?

In this special solo episode of The Coordination Tax, Kristian Luoma — co-founder of In Parallel — walks through the newly published Coordination Tax Index 2026: the first quantitative measure of how much of a modern manager's week actually goes to managing the work, versus managing the work about the work. The Index reads 31 out of 100 — meaning nearly a third of management capacity is consumed by coordination overhead before any real work happens.

Kristian is the co-founder of In Parallel and co-author, with Markku Mäkeläinen, of the Coordination Tax Index 2026. The report surveyed 247 managers across five countries — the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Germany — and nine industries. It moves past how people feel about meetings and actually measures where the hours go.


In this episode, Kristian walks through the headline: 16.5 hours a week per manager lost to coordination overhead — roughly two full working days. The perception gap that hides those hours — managers self-report losing 21% of the week, but when they itemise the hours, it's actually 41%. Where the time goes: status meetings, re-explaining context to someone who already had it, and hunting for decisions that already exist somewhere. Why tool count is the strongest structural multiplier — from 13 hours a week at 1–3 tools to 32 hours at 10+. Why the heaviest AI users are carrying more coordination load than non-users, not less. And what the data rules out about how to fix it: you cannot train your way out, you cannot buy your way out with another system of record, and you cannot prompt your way out.


📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Intro — 31 out of 100
[01:54] Why we built the Index
[03:50] Where the 16.5 hours actually go
[05:35] The perception gap — and the dark matter of the P&L
[06:47] Why it's structural, not behavioural
[07:56] Tool count — the strongest multiplier
[09:21] The AI paradox — heaviest users pay the most
[11:22] The shared-context dividend
[12:52] What managers would do with the time back
[13:46] Three things the data rules out
[15:26] What to do on Monday

Host: Kristian Luoma (In Parallel)


Show links:

Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Technology, B2B, Entreprenurship No What Really Happened to the Spotify Model: Hosanna Ouellette and Nora Bereczkei on autonomy, agents, and the 26 rocket ships 6 6 What Really Happened to the Spotify Model: Hosanna Ouellette and Nora Bereczkei on autonomy, agents, and the 26 rocket ships full 1855080c-a96a-4a2c-a711-c2474b2b0293 https://share.transistor.fm/s/28d8d8bf Why does a 10× productivity gain for the individual translate into only a 1.7× gain for the organization?

Hosanna Ouellette and Nora Bereczkei ran the operating model rebuild inside Spotify. They explain why autonomy stopped scaling, how they stopped shipping the org chart to users, and why agents break the purposeful ambiguity every operating model quietly relies on.

Nora has built the delivery backbone inside Spotify, the BBC and now at Gusto. Hosanna spent her career moving ideas through one of the largest matrix firms on the planet, and today deploys autonomous agents into live commercial workflows. Together they led the rebuild of Spotify's product operating system — and lived through what the coordination tax actually costs when hundreds of squads try to ship one unified experience to millions of users.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[01:31] What "operating system" actually means to Hosanna and Nora
[04:49] Don't ship your org chart to the user
[08:49] Horizontals vs verticals — the tension every scaling org faces
[11:13] The Airbnb story — low to high coordination tax, on purpose
[14:12] The Spotify model — culture, not structure, was the problem
[18:21] Autonomy at scale — when dependencies grow geometrically
[20:36] The Porsche stopped at a red light — why team velocity is the wrong metric
[23:19] Hard APIs between teams — getting systems of record in sync
[33:12] Why agents can't work with the purposeful ambiguity operating models rely on
[35:35] "Everyone arrives with 26 rocket ships"
[36:41] Productivity era vs outcome era for agents
[39:39] 10× for the individual, 1.7× for the organization
[40:04] The human ceiling on organizational complexity is gone
[46:27] Closing advice — "you can do anything, but you cannot do everything"

Guest & show links:

Hosanna Ouellette on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hosanna-ouellette/
Nora Bereczkei on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/norabereczkei/
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Why does a 10× productivity gain for the individual translate into only a 1.7× gain for the organization?

Hosanna Ouellette and Nora Bereczkei ran the operating model rebuild inside Spotify. They explain why autonomy stopped scaling, how they stopped shipping the org chart to users, and why agents break the purposeful ambiguity every operating model quietly relies on.

Nora has built the delivery backbone inside Spotify, the BBC and now at Gusto. Hosanna spent her career moving ideas through one of the largest matrix firms on the planet, and today deploys autonomous agents into live commercial workflows. Together they led the rebuild of Spotify's product operating system — and lived through what the coordination tax actually costs when hundreds of squads try to ship one unified experience to millions of users.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[01:31] What "operating system" actually means to Hosanna and Nora
[04:49] Don't ship your org chart to the user
[08:49] Horizontals vs verticals — the tension every scaling org faces
[11:13] The Airbnb story — low to high coordination tax, on purpose
[14:12] The Spotify model — culture, not structure, was the problem
[18:21] Autonomy at scale — when dependencies grow geometrically
[20:36] The Porsche stopped at a red light — why team velocity is the wrong metric
[23:19] Hard APIs between teams — getting systems of record in sync
[33:12] Why agents can't work with the purposeful ambiguity operating models rely on
[35:35] "Everyone arrives with 26 rocket ships"
[36:41] Productivity era vs outcome era for agents
[39:39] 10× for the individual, 1.7× for the organization
[40:04] The human ceiling on organizational complexity is gone
[46:27] Closing advice — "you can do anything, but you cannot do everything"

Guest & show links:

Hosanna Ouellette on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hosanna-ouellette/
Nora Bereczkei on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/norabereczkei/
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Tue, 04 Aug 2026 11:59:00 +0300 In Parallel In Parallel 2886 Why does a 10× productivity gain for the individual translate into only a 1.7× gain for the organization?

Hosanna Ouellette and Nora Bereczkei ran the operating model rebuild inside Spotify. They explain why autonomy stopped scaling, how they stopped shipping the org chart to users, and why agents break the purposeful ambiguity every operating model quietly relies on.

Nora has built the delivery backbone inside Spotify, the BBC and now at Gusto. Hosanna spent her career moving ideas through one of the largest matrix firms on the planet, and today deploys autonomous agents into live commercial workflows. Together they led the rebuild of Spotify's product operating system — and lived through what the coordination tax actually costs when hundreds of squads try to ship one unified experience to millions of users.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[01:31] What "operating system" actually means to Hosanna and Nora
[04:49] Don't ship your org chart to the user
[08:49] Horizontals vs verticals — the tension every scaling org faces
[11:13] The Airbnb story — low to high coordination tax, on purpose
[14:12] The Spotify model — culture, not structure, was the problem
[18:21] Autonomy at scale — when dependencies grow geometrically
[20:36] The Porsche stopped at a red light — why team velocity is the wrong metric
[23:19] Hard APIs between teams — getting systems of record in sync
[33:12] Why agents can't work with the purposeful ambiguity operating models rely on
[35:35] "Everyone arrives with 26 rocket ships"
[36:41] Productivity era vs outcome era for agents
[39:39] 10× for the individual, 1.7× for the organization
[40:04] The human ceiling on organizational complexity is gone
[46:27] Closing advice — "you can do anything, but you cannot do everything"

Guest & show links:

Hosanna Ouellette on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hosanna-ouellette/
Nora Bereczkei on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/norabereczkei/
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Technology, B2B, Entreprenurship No The Hidden Cost of Leading: Robert Siegel on AI, cross-pressures, and outdated leadership playbooks 5 5 The Hidden Cost of Leading: Robert Siegel on AI, cross-pressures, and outdated leadership playbooks full 5aa53ae2-b0a6-4569-b42a-ebf4521c6f2b https://share.transistor.fm/s/edeea7d6 Why are the managers using AI the most also carrying the highest coordination load?

Robert E. Siegel — partner at XSeed Capital, lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and author of The Systems Leader — explains the hidden cost of coordination, why context has become a leader's most valuable asset, and what every CEO should rethink on Monday morning.

Robert has spent his career at the intersection of Silicon Valley and Stanford. He worked on Andy Grove's research team for Only the Paranoid Survive at Intel, is now a partner at XSeed Capital, and teaches at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where his Systems Leadership course became the foundation for his latest book, The Systems Leader. He is currently working on a new book revisiting Michael Porter's The Competitive Advantage of Nations for a world where business and government are becoming increasingly intertwined.

In this conversation, Robert reacts to In Parallel's Coordination Tax Index — which found that managers lose 16.5 hours every week to coordination overhead and that the heaviest AI users carry the greatest coordination burden. He explains why truth equals facts plus context, explores the five cross-pressures every modern leader must hold at once, discusses what he calls "unserious behaviours in a serious world," and ends with a practical challenge: audit your own calendar, because your team is watching what you actually prioritize.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[00:42] Robert on Andy Grove and Only the Paranoid Survive
[01:09] Why we need a different thesis than 1996 — constant crisis, not one-time inflection
[03:03] The five cross-pressures + the Kathy Mazzarella story
[05:33] Grace under fire — highest highs and lowest lows in the same career
[07:57] "Unserious behaviours in a serious world" — the Zuckerberg vs Musk cage match
[10:15] The Coordination Tax Index — 16.5 hours a week per manager
[11:04] Truth = facts + context — the leader's real job
[13:16] Why AI users are carrying more coordination load, not less
[15:26] Signal from noise — the phone-notifications analogy
[22:40] Monday-morning move: audit your own calendar
[24:56] Your teams are watching where you spend your time
[26:47] The next book — revisiting The Competitive Advantage of Nations

Guest & show links:

Robert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertesiegel/
Book (The Systems Leader): https://www.robertesiegel.com/the-systems-leader
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Why are the managers using AI the most also carrying the highest coordination load?

Robert E. Siegel — partner at XSeed Capital, lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and author of The Systems Leader — explains the hidden cost of coordination, why context has become a leader's most valuable asset, and what every CEO should rethink on Monday morning.

Robert has spent his career at the intersection of Silicon Valley and Stanford. He worked on Andy Grove's research team for Only the Paranoid Survive at Intel, is now a partner at XSeed Capital, and teaches at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where his Systems Leadership course became the foundation for his latest book, The Systems Leader. He is currently working on a new book revisiting Michael Porter's The Competitive Advantage of Nations for a world where business and government are becoming increasingly intertwined.

In this conversation, Robert reacts to In Parallel's Coordination Tax Index — which found that managers lose 16.5 hours every week to coordination overhead and that the heaviest AI users carry the greatest coordination burden. He explains why truth equals facts plus context, explores the five cross-pressures every modern leader must hold at once, discusses what he calls "unserious behaviours in a serious world," and ends with a practical challenge: audit your own calendar, because your team is watching what you actually prioritize.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[00:42] Robert on Andy Grove and Only the Paranoid Survive
[01:09] Why we need a different thesis than 1996 — constant crisis, not one-time inflection
[03:03] The five cross-pressures + the Kathy Mazzarella story
[05:33] Grace under fire — highest highs and lowest lows in the same career
[07:57] "Unserious behaviours in a serious world" — the Zuckerberg vs Musk cage match
[10:15] The Coordination Tax Index — 16.5 hours a week per manager
[11:04] Truth = facts + context — the leader's real job
[13:16] Why AI users are carrying more coordination load, not less
[15:26] Signal from noise — the phone-notifications analogy
[22:40] Monday-morning move: audit your own calendar
[24:56] Your teams are watching where you spend your time
[26:47] The next book — revisiting The Competitive Advantage of Nations

Guest & show links:

Robert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertesiegel/
Book (The Systems Leader): https://www.robertesiegel.com/the-systems-leader
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Tue, 28 Jul 2026 11:59:00 +0300 In Parallel In Parallel 1694 Why are the managers using AI the most also carrying the highest coordination load?

Robert E. Siegel — partner at XSeed Capital, lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and author of The Systems Leader — explains the hidden cost of coordination, why context has become a leader's most valuable asset, and what every CEO should rethink on Monday morning.

Robert has spent his career at the intersection of Silicon Valley and Stanford. He worked on Andy Grove's research team for Only the Paranoid Survive at Intel, is now a partner at XSeed Capital, and teaches at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where his Systems Leadership course became the foundation for his latest book, The Systems Leader. He is currently working on a new book revisiting Michael Porter's The Competitive Advantage of Nations for a world where business and government are becoming increasingly intertwined.

In this conversation, Robert reacts to In Parallel's Coordination Tax Index — which found that managers lose 16.5 hours every week to coordination overhead and that the heaviest AI users carry the greatest coordination burden. He explains why truth equals facts plus context, explores the five cross-pressures every modern leader must hold at once, discusses what he calls "unserious behaviours in a serious world," and ends with a practical challenge: audit your own calendar, because your team is watching what you actually prioritize.

📥 Download the Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report


CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open + intro
[00:42] Robert on Andy Grove and Only the Paranoid Survive
[01:09] Why we need a different thesis than 1996 — constant crisis, not one-time inflection
[03:03] The five cross-pressures + the Kathy Mazzarella story
[05:33] Grace under fire — highest highs and lowest lows in the same career
[07:57] "Unserious behaviours in a serious world" — the Zuckerberg vs Musk cage match
[10:15] The Coordination Tax Index — 16.5 hours a week per manager
[11:04] Truth = facts + context — the leader's real job
[13:16] Why AI users are carrying more coordination load, not less
[15:26] Signal from noise — the phone-notifications analogy
[22:40] Monday-morning move: audit your own calendar
[24:56] Your teams are watching where you spend your time
[26:47] The next book — revisiting The Competitive Advantage of Nations

Guest & show links:

Robert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertesiegel/
Book (The Systems Leader): https://www.robertesiegel.com/the-systems-leader
Coordination Tax Index 2026: https://www.in-parallel.com/coordination-tax/#report

]]> Technology, B2B, Entreprenurship No Jeroen Kraaijenbrink on why the CEO is the last to know 4 4 Jeroen Kraaijenbrink on why the CEO is the last to know full 3363fea8-de26-462e-beab-861ea0ddb5d9 https://share.transistor.fm/s/21aad99f In this conversation, Jeroen Kraaijenbrink unpacks why CEOs are usually the last to know — how information travels sideways through rumors and gossip but rarely up the org chart, because speaking up vertically comes with real career risk. He shares the finding that only about 1% of employees feel confident voicing concerns in crucial moments, and tells the story of a hundred-year-old company where the CEO stared at two green dashboard numbers while the top thirty managers underneath him described a "sick company," a "sick culture," and "the black period in history." He walks through PACE — Purpose, Awareness, Connection, Energy — one pillar at a time, tells the story of the confidential email a CEO forwarded to the person it was about, and closes on the single uncomfortable conversation every leader has to have first: the one with themselves.

Jeroen Kraaijenbrink is a strategy author, teacher, and independent consultant with more than twenty years in the field — writing, teaching, and working directly with the executive teams trying to actually make their strategies work. His current argument, after all of it, is that most companies don't have a strategy problem at all. They have an honesty problem. And nobody in the building is willing to name it out loud. He is the author of several books, including The One Hour Strategy, and he has developed a diagnostic framework called PACE — Purpose, Awareness, Connection, Energy — to check whether the human conditions for honesty are actually in place before a company writes another plan.

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open — Jeroen on the "honesty problem"
[01:01] Why CEOs are the last to know — rumors travel sideways, not up
[01:32] The truth doesn't travel vertically
[02:23] Strategy isn't strategy — it's analysis, and 100 frameworks in a textbook
[04:28] "Brains at the top, hands at the bottom" — where that idea comes from
[05:47] The One Hour Strategy — everyone in a company owning their piece
[06:51] 50–90% of strategy execution fails, and only 13% of workers engaged
[07:56] Only 1% feel confident voicing concerns in crucial moments
[09:11] Coordination is part of the problem — and part of the solution
[10:13] The dashboard CEO vs. the sick company — a hundred-year-old company in denial
[11:55] Why history gets into the DNA — new leaders can't always break the past
[13:15] The red flags — the first three seconds on Teams, and the forwarded confidential email
[14:56] PACE — Purpose, Awareness, Connection, Energy
[15:47] Purpose: why people only speak up if they care about the cause
[16:36] Awareness: knowing your own blind spots and biases
[17:00] Connection: no psychological safety, no honesty
[17:51] Energy: fear mode, ego, and the split between work and home
[19:57] The one uncomfortable conversation a leader needs to have — with themselves
[22:37] "Just like in airplanes" — start with yourself, then help the rest
[24:11] Be the drop in the water — the ripple effect

Guest: Jeroen Kraaijenbrink · Host: Kristian Luoma (In Parallel)

GUEST & SHOW LINKS

Jeroen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeroenkraaijenbrink/
Jeroen's website: https://www.jeroenkraaijenbrink.com/

]]> In this conversation, Jeroen Kraaijenbrink unpacks why CEOs are usually the last to know — how information travels sideways through rumors and gossip but rarely up the org chart, because speaking up vertically comes with real career risk. He shares the finding that only about 1% of employees feel confident voicing concerns in crucial moments, and tells the story of a hundred-year-old company where the CEO stared at two green dashboard numbers while the top thirty managers underneath him described a "sick company," a "sick culture," and "the black period in history." He walks through PACE — Purpose, Awareness, Connection, Energy — one pillar at a time, tells the story of the confidential email a CEO forwarded to the person it was about, and closes on the single uncomfortable conversation every leader has to have first: the one with themselves.

Jeroen Kraaijenbrink is a strategy author, teacher, and independent consultant with more than twenty years in the field — writing, teaching, and working directly with the executive teams trying to actually make their strategies work. His current argument, after all of it, is that most companies don't have a strategy problem at all. They have an honesty problem. And nobody in the building is willing to name it out loud. He is the author of several books, including The One Hour Strategy, and he has developed a diagnostic framework called PACE — Purpose, Awareness, Connection, Energy — to check whether the human conditions for honesty are actually in place before a company writes another plan.

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open — Jeroen on the "honesty problem"
[01:01] Why CEOs are the last to know — rumors travel sideways, not up
[01:32] The truth doesn't travel vertically
[02:23] Strategy isn't strategy — it's analysis, and 100 frameworks in a textbook
[04:28] "Brains at the top, hands at the bottom" — where that idea comes from
[05:47] The One Hour Strategy — everyone in a company owning their piece
[06:51] 50–90% of strategy execution fails, and only 13% of workers engaged
[07:56] Only 1% feel confident voicing concerns in crucial moments
[09:11] Coordination is part of the problem — and part of the solution
[10:13] The dashboard CEO vs. the sick company — a hundred-year-old company in denial
[11:55] Why history gets into the DNA — new leaders can't always break the past
[13:15] The red flags — the first three seconds on Teams, and the forwarded confidential email
[14:56] PACE — Purpose, Awareness, Connection, Energy
[15:47] Purpose: why people only speak up if they care about the cause
[16:36] Awareness: knowing your own blind spots and biases
[17:00] Connection: no psychological safety, no honesty
[17:51] Energy: fear mode, ego, and the split between work and home
[19:57] The one uncomfortable conversation a leader needs to have — with themselves
[22:37] "Just like in airplanes" — start with yourself, then help the rest
[24:11] Be the drop in the water — the ripple effect

Guest: Jeroen Kraaijenbrink · Host: Kristian Luoma (In Parallel)

GUEST & SHOW LINKS

Jeroen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeroenkraaijenbrink/
Jeroen's website: https://www.jeroenkraaijenbrink.com/

]]> Tue, 21 Jul 2026 11:59:00 +0300 In Parallel In Parallel 1500 In this conversation, Jeroen Kraaijenbrink unpacks why CEOs are usually the last to know — how information travels sideways through rumors and gossip but rarely up the org chart, because speaking up vertically comes with real career risk. He shares the finding that only about 1% of employees feel confident voicing concerns in crucial moments, and tells the story of a hundred-year-old company where the CEO stared at two green dashboard numbers while the top thirty managers underneath him described a "sick company," a "sick culture," and "the black period in history." He walks through PACE — Purpose, Awareness, Connection, Energy — one pillar at a time, tells the story of the confidential email a CEO forwarded to the person it was about, and closes on the single uncomfortable conversation every leader has to have first: the one with themselves.

Jeroen Kraaijenbrink is a strategy author, teacher, and independent consultant with more than twenty years in the field — writing, teaching, and working directly with the executive teams trying to actually make their strategies work. His current argument, after all of it, is that most companies don't have a strategy problem at all. They have an honesty problem. And nobody in the building is willing to name it out loud. He is the author of several books, including The One Hour Strategy, and he has developed a diagnostic framework called PACE — Purpose, Awareness, Connection, Energy — to check whether the human conditions for honesty are actually in place before a company writes another plan.

CHAPTERS

[00:00] Cold open — Jeroen on the "honesty problem"
[01:01] Why CEOs are the last to know — rumors travel sideways, not up
[01:32] The truth doesn't travel vertically
[02:23] Strategy isn't strategy — it's analysis, and 100 frameworks in a textbook
[04:28] "Brains at the top, hands at the bottom" — where that idea comes from
[05:47] The One Hour Strategy — everyone in a company owning their piece
[06:51] 50–90% of strategy execution fails, and only 13% of workers engaged
[07:56] Only 1% feel confident voicing concerns in crucial moments
[09:11] Coordination is part of the problem — and part of the solution
[10:13] The dashboard CEO vs. the sick company — a hundred-year-old company in denial
[11:55] Why history gets into the DNA — new leaders can't always break the past
[13:15] The red flags — the first three seconds on Teams, and the forwarded confidential email
[14:56] PACE — Purpose, Awareness, Connection, Energy
[15:47] Purpose: why people only speak up if they care about the cause
[16:36] Awareness: knowing your own blind spots and biases
[17:00] Connection: no psychological safety, no honesty
[17:51] Energy: fear mode, ego, and the split between work and home
[19:57] The one uncomfortable conversation a leader needs to have — with themselves
[22:37] "Just like in airplanes" — start with yourself, then help the rest
[24:11] Be the drop in the water — the ripple effect

Guest: Jeroen Kraaijenbrink · Host: Kristian Luoma (In Parallel)

GUEST & SHOW LINKS

Jeroen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeroenkraaijenbrink/
Jeroen's website: https://www.jeroenkraaijenbrink.com/

]]> Technology, B2B, Entreprenurship No Jason Barnaby — The Golden Spreadsheet in the Locked Drawer 3 3 Jason Barnaby — The Golden Spreadsheet in the Locked Drawer full f5388cb6-ed08-48a4-af9a-d04fdffe3cdd https://share.transistor.fm/s/8ce59b84 What does it actually cost a company when the CEO keeps running sales long after they should have let go?

Jason Barnaby runs Fire Starters Inc., and companies pay him to do the job their founder is already doing badly — running sales. A fractional sales leader, Enneagram-certified coach, and storytelling sales trainer, Jason has worked with teams ranging from 50-person shops to 100,000-person enterprises. Before all of it he was a college professor, a corporate sales leader, a ski bum in Colorado, and the owner of a coffee shop in Poland. He hosts The Sales Spark Podcast and has strong opinions — and, as he puts it, the older he gets the less he cares who agrees with them.

In this conversation, Jason walks through the “toy box” handoff founders give a new sales leader, the golden spreadsheet locked in a drawer that only one person has the key to, the $20M pipeline he audited that was really closer to $10M (with half the deals already past their close date), why hiring one sales-enablement person can lift sales in a single quarter, how the Enneagram exposes what your best rep does when they go quiet under stress, and the caveman logic of paying a salesperson more than the CEO — “what they kill, we eat.” It closes on an unusually honest exchange about depression, psychological safety, and why the people who look most “on” are often the loneliest in the building.

CHAPTERS  
00:00 Cold open — “if you don't like my opinions, keep scrolling”
01:33 Founder-led sales: the two sides of the business, and when it gets sticky
03:50 Why a fractional leader in 8–12 hours beats a founder's 40
05:00 “You're my VP of sales” — the client who did it right
06:40 Giving busy executives a week of their life back every month
08:16 The breaking points: access to leadership and the “toy box” handoff
10:54 Who owns what? Mapping the internal process
11:55 One approver for every quote, $500 to $500,000 — the bottleneck
12:20 The invisible buyer process: why “yes” doesn't mean three weeks
14:17 Territoriality and the golden spreadsheet in the locked drawer
15:40 When collaboration breaks down — binders are where information goes to die
16:30 The 15-minute room: agree on the three things, then let go
18:16 Hire one sales-enablement pro, own the data, watch sales rise
20:00 The $20M pipeline that was really $10M — closed dates in the past
22:27 Stages vs. gates: “you're not in negotiations until you're redlining”
23:20 The Enneagram: core drivers and how people behave under stress
25:05 The micromanaging story — three weeks of a teammate thinking “does Jason not like me?”
27:30 When your best rep goes dark, pick up the phone
30:04 Compensation as a coordination tool — and job-shadowing every role
32:18 The birthdays missed, and “throwing the grenade over the fence”
33:23 “I'm okay with my salesperson out-earning me” — what they kill, we eat
35:57 The human layer: depression, meds, and dropping the mask
40:00 Psychological safety and the “me too” moment in the room
43:13 Closing advice: run a time audit — if you're not doing monthly 1:1s, the smoke is already there

Guest: Jason Barnaby (Fire Starters Inc.) · Host: Kristian Luoma (In Parallel)
  
GUEST & SHOW LINKS  
Jason on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jason🔥-barnaby-252a68/
Fire Starters Inc.: firestartersinc.com
The Sales Spark Podcast: firestartersinc.com/the-sales-spark-podcast/

   

]]> What does it actually cost a company when the CEO keeps running sales long after they should have let go?

Jason Barnaby runs Fire Starters Inc., and companies pay him to do the job their founder is already doing badly — running sales. A fractional sales leader, Enneagram-certified coach, and storytelling sales trainer, Jason has worked with teams ranging from 50-person shops to 100,000-person enterprises. Before all of it he was a college professor, a corporate sales leader, a ski bum in Colorado, and the owner of a coffee shop in Poland. He hosts The Sales Spark Podcast and has strong opinions — and, as he puts it, the older he gets the less he cares who agrees with them.

In this conversation, Jason walks through the “toy box” handoff founders give a new sales leader, the golden spreadsheet locked in a drawer that only one person has the key to, the $20M pipeline he audited that was really closer to $10M (with half the deals already past their close date), why hiring one sales-enablement person can lift sales in a single quarter, how the Enneagram exposes what your best rep does when they go quiet under stress, and the caveman logic of paying a salesperson more than the CEO — “what they kill, we eat.” It closes on an unusually honest exchange about depression, psychological safety, and why the people who look most “on” are often the loneliest in the building.

CHAPTERS  
00:00 Cold open — “if you don't like my opinions, keep scrolling”
01:33 Founder-led sales: the two sides of the business, and when it gets sticky
03:50 Why a fractional leader in 8–12 hours beats a founder's 40
05:00 “You're my VP of sales” — the client who did it right
06:40 Giving busy executives a week of their life back every month
08:16 The breaking points: access to leadership and the “toy box” handoff
10:54 Who owns what? Mapping the internal process
11:55 One approver for every quote, $500 to $500,000 — the bottleneck
12:20 The invisible buyer process: why “yes” doesn't mean three weeks
14:17 Territoriality and the golden spreadsheet in the locked drawer
15:40 When collaboration breaks down — binders are where information goes to die
16:30 The 15-minute room: agree on the three things, then let go
18:16 Hire one sales-enablement pro, own the data, watch sales rise
20:00 The $20M pipeline that was really $10M — closed dates in the past
22:27 Stages vs. gates: “you're not in negotiations until you're redlining”
23:20 The Enneagram: core drivers and how people behave under stress
25:05 The micromanaging story — three weeks of a teammate thinking “does Jason not like me?”
27:30 When your best rep goes dark, pick up the phone
30:04 Compensation as a coordination tool — and job-shadowing every role
32:18 The birthdays missed, and “throwing the grenade over the fence”
33:23 “I'm okay with my salesperson out-earning me” — what they kill, we eat
35:57 The human layer: depression, meds, and dropping the mask
40:00 Psychological safety and the “me too” moment in the room
43:13 Closing advice: run a time audit — if you're not doing monthly 1:1s, the smoke is already there

Guest: Jason Barnaby (Fire Starters Inc.) · Host: Kristian Luoma (In Parallel)
  
GUEST & SHOW LINKS  
Jason on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jason🔥-barnaby-252a68/
Fire Starters Inc.: firestartersinc.com
The Sales Spark Podcast: firestartersinc.com/the-sales-spark-podcast/

   

]]> Tue, 14 Jul 2026 12:00:00 +0300 In Parallel In Parallel 2679 What does it actually cost a company when the CEO keeps running sales long after they should have let go?

Jason Barnaby runs Fire Starters Inc., and companies pay him to do the job their founder is already doing badly — running sales. A fractional sales leader, Enneagram-certified coach, and storytelling sales trainer, Jason has worked with teams ranging from 50-person shops to 100,000-person enterprises. Before all of it he was a college professor, a corporate sales leader, a ski bum in Colorado, and the owner of a coffee shop in Poland. He hosts The Sales Spark Podcast and has strong opinions — and, as he puts it, the older he gets the less he cares who agrees with them.

In this conversation, Jason walks through the “toy box” handoff founders give a new sales leader, the golden spreadsheet locked in a drawer that only one person has the key to, the $20M pipeline he audited that was really closer to $10M (with half the deals already past their close date), why hiring one sales-enablement person can lift sales in a single quarter, how the Enneagram exposes what your best rep does when they go quiet under stress, and the caveman logic of paying a salesperson more than the CEO — “what they kill, we eat.” It closes on an unusually honest exchange about depression, psychological safety, and why the people who look most “on” are often the loneliest in the building.

CHAPTERS  
00:00 Cold open — “if you don't like my opinions, keep scrolling”
01:33 Founder-led sales: the two sides of the business, and when it gets sticky
03:50 Why a fractional leader in 8–12 hours beats a founder's 40
05:00 “You're my VP of sales” — the client who did it right
06:40 Giving busy executives a week of their life back every month
08:16 The breaking points: access to leadership and the “toy box” handoff
10:54 Who owns what? Mapping the internal process
11:55 One approver for every quote, $500 to $500,000 — the bottleneck
12:20 The invisible buyer process: why “yes” doesn't mean three weeks
14:17 Territoriality and the golden spreadsheet in the locked drawer
15:40 When collaboration breaks down — binders are where information goes to die
16:30 The 15-minute room: agree on the three things, then let go
18:16 Hire one sales-enablement pro, own the data, watch sales rise
20:00 The $20M pipeline that was really $10M — closed dates in the past
22:27 Stages vs. gates: “you're not in negotiations until you're redlining”
23:20 The Enneagram: core drivers and how people behave under stress
25:05 The micromanaging story — three weeks of a teammate thinking “does Jason not like me?”
27:30 When your best rep goes dark, pick up the phone
30:04 Compensation as a coordination tool — and job-shadowing every role
32:18 The birthdays missed, and “throwing the grenade over the fence”
33:23 “I'm okay with my salesperson out-earning me” — what they kill, we eat
35:57 The human layer: depression, meds, and dropping the mask
40:00 Psychological safety and the “me too” moment in the room
43:13 Closing advice: run a time audit — if you're not doing monthly 1:1s, the smoke is already there

Guest: Jason Barnaby (Fire Starters Inc.) · Host: Kristian Luoma (In Parallel)
  
GUEST & SHOW LINKS  
Jason on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jason🔥-barnaby-252a68/
Fire Starters Inc.: firestartersinc.com
The Sales Spark Podcast: firestartersinc.com/the-sales-spark-podcast/

   

]]> Technology, B2B, Entreprenurship No The Honest Picture: Jim Fielding on Disney Store, Fox, and what really happens inside big companies 2 2 The Honest Picture: Jim Fielding on Disney Store, Fox, and what really happens inside big companies full 4b26c7ec-c991-41e4-bae3-efcb1dc39476 https://share.transistor.fm/s/23519fbb How do you keep a global organization aligned when the numbers say everything's fine but the reality on the ground says otherwise? 

Jim Fielding — former President of Disney Stores Worldwide, CEO of Claire's, and President of Consumer Products & Innovation at 20th Century Fox — walks through what actually keeps big organizations honest about what's happening. 

Jim Fielding took over Disney Store during the 2008 financial crisis and reinvented its global footprint across Europe, North America and Japan. He went on to serve as CEO of Claire's — a $1.5B specialty retailer across 3,500+ stores in 44 countries. Then Global Head of Consumer Products at DreamWorks Animation. Then President of Consumer Products & Innovation at 20th Century Fox, where he hired a five-SVP leadership team before he'd even started. Today he's Founder of the League of Radical Kindness, Executive Coach at The ExCo Group, and author of All Pride, No Ego. 

In this conversation, Jim walks through the airplane-hangar prototype behind the Disney Store turnaround, the "glocal" model that let stores feel local while sharing most of their catalog, the two sentences that kill innovation inside any company, and the diagnosis he gives every founder who tells him "my team can't execute" — a diagnosis most CEOs don't want to hear. 

Chapters: 
Taking over Disney Store in 2008
Coordination through travel, listening, and physical presence
The airplane hangar prototype and 350 tours
'Glocal' — 70–75% global, 20–25% local
Test-and-scale: Japan plush → global bestseller
Building Fox Consumer Products with 5 SVPs
'All Pride, No Ego' — controlling ego, not erasing it
The best leaders aren't the smartest people in the room
Truth tellers, vulnerability, and the open-door discipline
The two phrases that kill learning
Diagnosis for the founder whose team 'can't execute'
Closing advice: phone a friend

Jim in LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jimfielding/ 
Book (All Pride, No Ego): https://www.amazon.com/All-Pride-Ego-Executives-Authentically-ebook/dp/B0CF823KM8

]]> How do you keep a global organization aligned when the numbers say everything's fine but the reality on the ground says otherwise? 

Jim Fielding — former President of Disney Stores Worldwide, CEO of Claire's, and President of Consumer Products & Innovation at 20th Century Fox — walks through what actually keeps big organizations honest about what's happening. 

Jim Fielding took over Disney Store during the 2008 financial crisis and reinvented its global footprint across Europe, North America and Japan. He went on to serve as CEO of Claire's — a $1.5B specialty retailer across 3,500+ stores in 44 countries. Then Global Head of Consumer Products at DreamWorks Animation. Then President of Consumer Products & Innovation at 20th Century Fox, where he hired a five-SVP leadership team before he'd even started. Today he's Founder of the League of Radical Kindness, Executive Coach at The ExCo Group, and author of All Pride, No Ego. 

In this conversation, Jim walks through the airplane-hangar prototype behind the Disney Store turnaround, the "glocal" model that let stores feel local while sharing most of their catalog, the two sentences that kill innovation inside any company, and the diagnosis he gives every founder who tells him "my team can't execute" — a diagnosis most CEOs don't want to hear. 

Chapters: 
Taking over Disney Store in 2008
Coordination through travel, listening, and physical presence
The airplane hangar prototype and 350 tours
'Glocal' — 70–75% global, 20–25% local
Test-and-scale: Japan plush → global bestseller
Building Fox Consumer Products with 5 SVPs
'All Pride, No Ego' — controlling ego, not erasing it
The best leaders aren't the smartest people in the room
Truth tellers, vulnerability, and the open-door discipline
The two phrases that kill learning
Diagnosis for the founder whose team 'can't execute'
Closing advice: phone a friend

Jim in LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jimfielding/ 
Book (All Pride, No Ego): https://www.amazon.com/All-Pride-Ego-Executives-Authentically-ebook/dp/B0CF823KM8

]]> Tue, 07 Jul 2026 11:55:00 +0300 In Parallel In Parallel 2059 How do you keep a global organization aligned when the numbers say everything's fine but the reality on the ground says otherwise? 

Jim Fielding — former President of Disney Stores Worldwide, CEO of Claire's, and President of Consumer Products & Innovation at 20th Century Fox — walks through what actually keeps big organizations honest about what's happening. 

Jim Fielding took over Disney Store during the 2008 financial crisis and reinvented its global footprint across Europe, North America and Japan. He went on to serve as CEO of Claire's — a $1.5B specialty retailer across 3,500+ stores in 44 countries. Then Global Head of Consumer Products at DreamWorks Animation. Then President of Consumer Products & Innovation at 20th Century Fox, where he hired a five-SVP leadership team before he'd even started. Today he's Founder of the League of Radical Kindness, Executive Coach at The ExCo Group, and author of All Pride, No Ego. 

In this conversation, Jim walks through the airplane-hangar prototype behind the Disney Store turnaround, the "glocal" model that let stores feel local while sharing most of their catalog, the two sentences that kill innovation inside any company, and the diagnosis he gives every founder who tells him "my team can't execute" — a diagnosis most CEOs don't want to hear. 

Chapters: 
Taking over Disney Store in 2008
Coordination through travel, listening, and physical presence
The airplane hangar prototype and 350 tours
'Glocal' — 70–75% global, 20–25% local
Test-and-scale: Japan plush → global bestseller
Building Fox Consumer Products with 5 SVPs
'All Pride, No Ego' — controlling ego, not erasing it
The best leaders aren't the smartest people in the room
Truth tellers, vulnerability, and the open-door discipline
The two phrases that kill learning
Diagnosis for the founder whose team 'can't execute'
Closing advice: phone a friend

Jim in LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jimfielding/ 
Book (All Pride, No Ego): https://www.amazon.com/All-Pride-Ego-Executives-Authentically-ebook/dp/B0CF823KM8

]]> Technology, B2B, Entreprenurship No