Twenty years of running operations inside heavy equipment, solar EPC, and commercial construction. The patterns I keep seeing in founder-led businesses, why most of them break the same way, and what I've learned about fixing them. Hard-earned thinking, written for operators.
Twenty years operating taught me a lot. The last three months taught me even more. Lessons from construction, heavy equipment, leadership, culture, and why operations break in people before they break in metrics.
Read the piece →A 12:30 AM call from a store manager in the Scottish Highlands. The realization that followed: most of what founders call leadership is actually centralized decision-making in disguise. You cannot evaluate your team's behavior until you've ruled out the possibility that the behavior is a rational response to you.
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