Nike

Advocate Yourself Out of a Job

Argue for the company-optimal allocation of your team even when it defunds you — and read the response.

Communication4 steps

Care Deeply, Challenge Directly — The Feedback Script

Three moves that let hard feedback land as care instead of criticism

Strategy5 steps

Category-Attribute Fit

Don't pick a market then decide how to win. Work out what wins there, and only pick markets where that's who you are.

Marketing4 steps

Channel Diversification Before the Drought

A one-channel growth company is always a no-no — turn on the second channel while the first still works.

Entrepreneurship3 steps

Cohort-Gated Private Beta

Onboard early users in small waves so each cohort surfaces new bugs instead of duplicating the last cohort's feedback.

Marketing3 steps

Design as Category-Crowding Leverage

The more crowded and mature a category, the more design and brand become the deciding differentiator.

Innovation5 steps

Designing a Zero-to-One Incubator Inside a Giant

Fix the incentive system and the time horizon first — everything else about internal incubation follows.

Mindset4 steps

First-Principles Thinking as a Hiring Filter

Build your own framework from context instead of importing one — and hire for it deliberately

Flying Formation

Define cross-team roles (DACI) plus operating rhythms before growth ships anything

Full-Stack Relationship Orgs

Replace support, success, research, PR and marketing with two teams that own a human relationship end to end.

Hire People Bigger Than Their Title

Build a small team of high-caliber people who each own more scope than their role, and screen for it with a paid work trial.

Strategy3 steps

Magic and Science Decision-Making

Replace A/B tests and metric goals with deep shared customer understanding, then decide by informed intuition.

Productivity3 steps

Main Quest vs Side Quest Focus Filter

Filter every opportunity by 'does this advance the main quest, and is it important now or later?'

No Bystanders on Product Strategy

Get the CFO, the head of people and sales fingerprinted on product strategy before growth goes negative.

Innovation3 steps

Opinionated Software: Good Defaults Over Flexibility

Ship the one best workflow as a strong default so users spend time on their work, not on configuring your tool.

Innovation4 steps

Optimizing for Feelings

Name the emotion the product must evoke, build to that, and use metrics only as an honesty check.

Influence5 steps

Organic Mentorship Sourcing

Never ask 'will you be my mentor' — pick managers whose success depends on yours, then bring real problems

Entrepreneurship4 steps

Product-Market Fit as Segment Territory

Treat PMF not as a binary but as territory won segment by segment, and double down hard on whatever segment is pulling.

Project-Chosen Leads and the Mutt Hire

PM is a role on a project, not a department — and you staff it with multi-disciplinary makers, not title-holders.

Communication4 steps

Radical Trust Building

Not radical transparency — let people know you as humans, so the permission dialog gets the benefit of the doubt.

Innovation3 steps

Ship-Ugly-Then-Polish Craft Loop

Combine shipping fast with fixing fast: get rough builds in front of real users, reserve polish for general release.

Strategy4 steps

Stamina as the Kill Signal

Projects die of exhausted stamina long before they die of exhausted money — so watch the team, not the runway.

Self-Mastery5 steps

Stretch With an Anchor

Take the role that will hurt you into growth — but only if one or two things in it are already in your wheelhouse.

Strategy5 steps

The D5/D7 Ungameable North Star

One metric that fuses retention, engagement and growth — tracked as growth rate and cohort slope, never absolutes.

Entrepreneurship5 steps

The First Growth Hire as Portfolio Manager

Hire acquisition first, and hire for attributes over channel expertise — expertise causes false precision

The Five Ingredients of a High-Performing Team

Clear goals + a why, results culture, team-first, ownership, and fun — in that order

Innovation4 steps

The Made-Up Name Reset

Give a team or feature a name nobody recognizes, so nobody can skip the argument about what it should be.

Strategy4 steps

The Marketplace Priority Stack

Pre-commit an explicit ranking of who you serve first, so thorny trade-offs resolve themselves.

Strategy4 steps

The Negative-Growth Rehearsal

Growth masks all problems — so ask what you'd do if growth went negative, before it does.

Leadership3 steps

The Ownership Engine

Ownership is manufactured by scope design first, culture second, and leader accountability third

The Prep-Call PM Interview Loop

Coach the candidate before their final presentation — how they use your feedback is the real signal

The Talent Development Lifecycle

Develop people across five stages: fit, ramp, early wins, visibility, lifelong relationship

The Team Is the Product

Choose the company you want to build first, pick a problem worthy of it, then treat every hire as a product launch.

Values as a Mirror

Don't author values. Interview the whole team, harvest their exact words, and write them back as a story.