Called Shots... a cautionary tale

To drive home the point I was trying to make with the note about Called Shots , I’d like to share with you a story about a team that was faced with a Called Shot… seen below

I recently (mid-July 2024) delivered a Called Shot to a team. My initial reaction and what I said to them was:

Let’s get this done as quickly as possible so we can get back to the “real work”.

This is WRONG given who I aspire to be… I aspire to be a (3) in the Called Shot responses… but didn’t have the words for it at this time.

I then heard a member of the team say:

No AR3, we will at least try to learn from this… so let’s establish some launch effectiveness

WHOA!! Standing up and saying “no we want more” in the face of a CEO Called Shot?!?!

I was completely inspired 🤩.

Also I was a little embarrassed for how I was approaching this Called Shot (if it isn’t clear… this particular called shot was coming from the CEO… but I made it a point that I was the only one that could call a shot so that the teams weren’t getting information from multiple sources. I filter the request and am the “shot caller” the squad goes to for questions and direction).

Pumped up from this encouraging revelation… in a following meeting, when an opportunity came up that would allow us to deliver something even greater than the called shot, and was in alignment with our true mission our true goals as a squad, I got excited and encouraged pursuing it 💪🏾.

However, somehow a miscommunication occurred… and I was surprised and incredibly hurt/embarrassed that I think I caused the reaction that I received in this meeting…

AR3, I thought we are trying to just get this done as quickly as possible… so which is it… get it done, or aim for the mission

Rage, sadness, disappointment… all of the negative emotions flooded my veins.

I had set up the team to think that there is only one way. I had set up the team to think in myopic terms. I had set up the team to FEAR Called Shots (forget everything and run variety of fear).

I’m not super proud of what I said/did next (trust me… they saw my rage, sadness, and disappointment)… but I did my best to recover and come up with these three options you see in this note.

I created this rubric/options in the hopes to make it clear that I changed the game on them. It was 100% my fault.

I asked them to focus on (1), but in reality I am NEVER truly focusing on (1)… I’m always focusing on (3). 🤦🏾‍♂️. Talk about bad leadership. Saying one thing, and expecting another… sure fire way to cause an unsafe environment.

However, Why… Why am I always a (3)? Because I see Called Shots as a scoreboard. An indication of a need for improvement. So, every moment I’m trying to learn from and grow into a Product Team that has as few Called Shots as possible.

Combined with the pull of the “dark side” ( Continuous Value Delivery: Dark Side vs Light Side )). I have a belief that if you just “do it” that is like a shallow “high”. It is easy to just “do it” again.

But, if we show everyone that we are obsessed with learning and delivering real results for real people… the overall organization will yearn for outcome-focused product squads, and will help reject the pull to the dark side of being purely output-focused feature teams.

From here on out, I hope to show up better because I have this system of thinking that will help guide my thoughts, what I communicate, and therefore our actions.

And to the team that felt the pain of me working through my thoughts… I’m sorry.