Hey there,
We're slowly but surely getting up to speed in this new year. The different cycle projects are all in motion now, each with their own throughput time but consistently progressing together. People are responding better compared to the end of the year when everyone was rushing to finish things up. There's a palpable shift in energy.
The Machine Warms Up
What's becoming clear is just how well our system works when given time to breathe. We've built something that applies Shape Up methodology and pours it into a fixed rhythm. That rhythm creates certainty about when and how things get picked up.
The beauty is in how it cascades through different time scales. Yearly rhythms draw from military strategising frameworks. Quarterly rhythms align with the seasons. Monthly rhythms follow our six-week Shape Up cycles. Weekly rhythms are designed around flow state maximisation.
The weekly system centres all mandatory meetings on Mondays and Fridays. Monday syncs check progress on cycle projects, align priorities, and lift blockers. Fridays host rotating organisational meetings on topics that need structural attention: Source Work and Money Work alignment, continuous improvement of processes, tuning into higher quarterly goals.
Something fascinating keeps happening with these Friday meetings. The topics that need urgent discussion seem to synchronistically align with whatever's scheduled. Beyond that, knowing there's a follow-up in a month creates soft deadlines that shape behaviour. Money-related proposals get reviewed in time for effective consent decision-making meetings. We make the best use of our valuable group time together because everyone comes prepared.
The Friction Points
The Friday meetings work because they're well prepared. The Monday syncs? Not yet.
We're witnessing teams genuinely starting to collaborate on shared projects instead of the fragmented activities that characterised most of our first year. That's fantastic to see. But we need to get significantly better at async work to keep these thirty-minute syncs as succinct and effective as the Friday sessions have become.
Currently, we end up in rabbit holes that eat time. Discussions that could be settled through video explanations and Slack threads instead consume precious synchronous attention. The pattern is clear: when async preparation happens, syncs fly. When it doesn't, syncs bloat.
I did a quick bottleneck assessment on why async isn't happening organically. Three culprits emerged.
First, we're too tired to think about it after a high-quality working session. The cognitive load of deep work leaves little energy for communication planning.
Second, it's awkward to record yourself. We might be afraid of getting judged. Putting yourself on camera feels vulnerable, especially with colleagues you're still building trust with.
Third, we don't really know how to communicate effectively within the intentional five-minute limits of Slack videos. So we never start.
The Leader's Levers
For each friction point, there's an antidote worth integrating into our culture.
Plan for async as part of your work. Schedule it into your time management so you can prepare practically. But also mentally prepare for how you'll get the right message across to the right people. Treat communication as work, not as an afterthought to work.
Practising is the only way to overcome being camera shy. You stop caring after a certain point. But specifically in the beginning stages of people working together, it naturally takes time before everyone feels comfortable putting themselves in vulnerable positions. Team building is essential, but it simply takes time. Patience for each other is equally important.
The Pyramid Principle is one of the most familiar frameworks for effective communication and is actually quite easy to learn. But this requires initial training followed by practice, which connects back to the point above.
So as a leader, there are clear levers to pull: team building and training.
But beyond intervention, there's visibility.
This is something I've been thinking about more broadly [LINK TO ARTICLE]. When you measure to prove, you're solving for evidence. When you measure to understand, you're creating conditions for reflection. The same applies to culture change. You can mandate behaviour through policy, or you can make the desired behaviour visible until it becomes normal.
Seeing others do async updates makes it easier to do your own. Not because anyone's checking, but because the pattern becomes obvious. You lead by example and positively incentivise proactive behaviour. The culture shifts not through surveillance but through reflection becoming habitual.
Integration
What's emerging is a recognition that systems mature at their own pace. You can design the architecture, create the conditions, model the behaviour. But the full potential only reveals itself as people grow into the structure together.
The patience required here isn't passive waiting. It's active nurturing. Pulling the levers available while trusting that consistent rhythm creates its own momentum over time.
We're in that phase where the machine is warming up. The gears are engaging. And slowly, the whole thing starts to hum.
With care, Ben