Coach Dan's Blog

When I’m coaching leaders, I often see them fall into the "Compatibility Trap"—the dangerous assumption that a team’s success is built on how well everyone likes each other or how similar their backgrounds are.  Managers often rely on their "gut" to assemble teams, which is usually just a polite word for affinity bias. They look for "culture fit" but end up creating an echo chamber of people who think, work, and communicate exactly like they do. This doesn't just stifle innovation; it creates a structural weakness where the 3 Es begin to erode. You might have an Engaged group of friends, but you lose Effectiveness and Efficiency because no one is there to challenge the status quo or point out the blind spots in the room. The trouble starts when leaders assume that a high-performing individual in one context will automatically thrive in another without considering the systemic "swirl" of the new team. They ignore (or even be unaware of) the...

tldr; If your retrospectives have turned into a "complain-fest" with no action, you're missing the chance to teach your squads a valuable lesson. Use the 4 Rs (Reflect, Root Cause, Rethink, Retool) to turn data into insights and experiments that actually move the needle for your Squad and Crew. Healthy teams improve and balance their 3 Es: being Effective, Efficient, and Engaged. Agility isn't about getting the team to produce faster; it’s about creating empowered teams that produce results efficiently and indefinitely . I’ve shared before that high-performing teams must balance their 3 Es . They strive to be Effective (delivering the right value), Efficient (delivering with minimal waste), and Engaged (feeling safe and purposeful). But let’s be real—the "daily swirl" of doing can easily knock these pillars out of alignment. When you feel that friction, it’s not a failure; it’s an invitation to get curious. If your squads aren’t finishing retrospectives ...

  tldr;  The  "agile mindset"  means treating suboptimal results, negative feedback, and missed goals not as failures, but as  invaluable data points and opportunities for improvement. Key takeaway:  Leaders must foster a culture o f Psychological Safety  where teams are encouraged, not punished, to be transparent about disappointing results. Actionable steps:  Use "bad news" to get curious, hypothesize, adjust strategy (pivot), and measure outcomes (results) over just outputs (activity). The goal:  Create an environment where there is "no bad news, just news that can help us get better at achieving our goals." Things to try:   Specific action steps a leader can try to improve the team’s Psychological Safety can be found at the end of the article.     I’v e said it before, and I’ll say it again - I am blessed to work with some of the best, most talented people I’ve ever met. I was participating in a Crew meeting this week where...

  “Do not give them a candle to light the way, teach them how to make fire instead. That is the meaning of enlightenment.” ― Kamand Kojouri   It's a fine line- balancing between helping your partners achieve a goal, and teaching them the skills (and building the experience) necessary to achieve their goals over and over and over again.   ⛔ "Just tell us what to do, and we will do it." ⛔ "Provide us the steps or the checklist." ⛔ "How do you want us to do this?"   This language is common, and it suggests to me that the team (regardless of level) has been conditioned to not take risks. To me it means they have learned through experience that their safest course of action is to have someone else solve the problem and instead just do as told.     In other words, they are doing exactly what they have been trained (and incen ted) to do.   Sure- some problems need to be solved right now! There can be an immediate benefit ...

  Struggling with Low Performing Teams? Unit costs going up? Experiencing low employee engagement scores? Seeing an increase in turnover or burnout? It's easy to chase a single metric, especially when we live in a world where the squeaky wheel gets the oil. Ironically our instinct to "laser focus on solving the problem" which is often what causes additional problems, and wastes the investment made on improvement. Savy leaders measure, balance and invest in all three E's of their teams' performance. 💡 Effectiveness - A team's ability to regularly achieve their assigned outcomes (be it business or customer outcomes); often measured by ROI, NPS, Revenue/Profit growth, etc. 💡 Efficiency - A team’s use of their available resources, and their ability to continuously improve their ability create value; often measured by throughput, cycle time, defect rate, or a cost-per metric of some kind. 💡 Engagement - A team's psychological safety, alignment and sense of ...