Ryan Greenhall’s Post

On Wed 4 July, 1990 I observed a great act of people leadership that I have never forgotten. It was a warm summer evening. England V West Germany playing in the world cup '90 semi final. My Saturday afternoon heroes were on prime time TV. Was football coming home? 1-1 after 90 minutes Maybe Maybe not In the 99th minute an over enthusiastic sliding tackle from Gazza resulted in a yellow card. The punishment meant no appearance in the final should England win. Gazza was at his peak. Winning the world cup meant everything to him. His dream taken away in a moment of madness. The tears began. Gary Lineker, England Captain, signalled to the manager "have a word". This was a high stakes game of football. Yet Gary's immediate focus was on making sure that Gazza got the support he needed. In the moment Gazza didn't need a lecture. He needed an arm around his shoulder. At the end of the match England Manager Sir Bobby Robson did just that. "You’ve done yourself, you’ve done your family proud, you’ve done the country proud - be proud of yourself.” The reflections and lessons learnt would come later. As people leaders let's all be more like Gary. P.S Enjoy the Euros Is football coming home?

I'm delighted to announce my next client engagement: Interim Engineering Director at Overstory. Overstory uses a combination of satellite+aerial imagery and AI/ML to help electric utilities more effectively manage risks associated with climate change, wildfires and storms. I look forward to leading through rapid growth, maturing people, processes and platforms to unlock the huge market opportunity ahead and protecting our planet. Thanks to all who have supported me during my recent search. I'm extremely grateful for the encouragement, referrals, DMs, texts, calls and dinners!

Are you a tech CxO scaling your engineering team? More money in…yet less value out? Are you observing any of the following: - Delivery is getting slower - Employee engagement going down - Long tenured staff leaving - Regular Outages - Customer satisfaction in decline This wasn’t in the plan! The one with the hockey stick growth graph. Scaling is never without growing pains. Upgrading the plane whilst in the air is tricky! However, if not managed thoughtfully, you won’t achieve your ambitious goals. Scaling needs to be carefully planned with ongoing leadership support. The issues above are common place. Prevention is better than cure. The solutions are 3 minutes away. My technology health check allows both technical and non technical executives to assess the health of their technology organisation and provides advice on how to improve. What are you waiting for? Get your technology health check and remedial action plan today. P.S Link in the comments

Are you a CxO frustrated by slow delivery? You are told excessive team dependencies are the problem. "We need to get better a dependency management and coordination" Managing dependencies will help. However, this is not the underlying problem. The real problem is your organisational structure. You are not optimised to deliver customer value. If you don’t improve your org structure then expect: → Countless hours debating competing team priorities → Strained relationships between execs → Frustrated teams → Delayed delivery → Financial targets missed 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻? You need to eliminate dependencies rather than manage them. Your organisational structure needs to optimise for fast delivery of end to end value. Think about the value you provide to your customers. What skills and capabilities are required? Put those people together. Motivate around business outcomes not delivery outputs. Move people to the work when required to reduce delays. Now sit back and watch your speed increase. What other ways have you increased delivery speed?

Are you a CxO concerned about cultural dilution as you scale? You have hired great people. From organisations you admire. Yet, it often feels like they are not even working for the same company. Friction and tension are commonplace. We both know what will happen if left unresolved... → Regrettable attrition → Low performance → Brand damage → Business goals not met The solution? Intentionally design and nurture your culture with 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲𝘀 and 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘀.  Once defined they show up everywhere → How you present yourselves to customers and investors → How you attract and assess incoming talent → How you assess and reward performance → How you make decisions → How you solve problems → How you get things done Move from ❌ friction and tension to ✅ collaboration and alignment How have you scaled your culture? Think of all the things you could achieve when your calendar is free from dealing with "cultural issues". P.S Don't forget that stories are the most powerful way to describe "how things work around here".

Are you a CEO struggling to understand the impact generative AI can have on your business? Frustrated with slow adoption? You are not alone. It’s hard trying to make sense of an emerging technology that is evolving very rapidly. The solution? Run an GenAI hackathon. A multi day event with the goal of exploring how your real world business problems may be able to be solved through generative AI. Yesterday I was invited by Rico Surridge and Amit Vij to attend such a hackathon at my former client Which? It was an exemplary display in how to run a hackathon. 1. Clear purpose 2. Crowd sourced ideas 3. Cross functional teams 4. Bias towards demonstrable solutions 5. An educational reminder around security and compliance 6. Healthy completion. Prizes and opportunity to pitch the winning idea for ongoing investment     The prior preparation was meticulous. 1. On site support from partners (AWS and Google) to accelerate learning 2. Ideas were moderated ahead of the event to maximise alignment to genuine business challenges 3. Dedicated working areas for each team 4. People self selected into teams. 5. Snacks and drinks aplenty 6. Environments ready The result? Teams able to focus on their hacks. No wasted time trying to: → Find a team → Think of ideas → Getting tools and environments setup All the best to each of the teams today as you polish your hacks and presentations. I look forward to hearing which idea won. Thanks  Rico Surridge and Amit Vij for the invite.