Processes

The iPhone Development Process: Demonstrate progress constantly

An early multitouch keyboard concept (U.S. Patent 7,694,231, Fig. 12G) illustrating the kind of design that won Ken Kocienda the “Keyboard Derby” Public-domain image,

When most people hear the word process, they think of something rigid — checklists, approvals, bureaucracy. It feels like the opposite of creativity. Creativity, after all, is supposed to be spontaneous and free. But the truth is, the best creative breakthroughs hide a process beneath it — a structure that channels imagination into form. The … Read more

Make Progress Visible: The Power of Transparent Processes

A simple blue-background graphic of a Kanban board with three columns. A hand is moving a pale yellow sticky note into the 'Done' column, which is marked with a yellow upward arrow. Bold white text above reads 'Make Progress Visible'

Transparency gives progress a “sound.” 🎧 This Topic on the Lighthouse Leadership Podcast Real stories. Hard lessons. No fluff. In physical work, progress is visible and audible. A carpenter building a house feels progress with every nail she drives into a timber. It has a sound. It is visual. Her team feels collective progress with … Read more

How Emotional Intelligence Stopped World War III: The Toughest Skill No One Talks About

Split-screen thumbnail showing Air Marshal C. Roy Slemon on the left in a Cold War-era military uniform, with green radar graphics and a red rotary phone in the foreground. On the right, a glowing digital map shows missile arcs across the globe. Bold title text reads: "How Emotional Intelligence Prevented World War III," with “World War III” underlined in red. A black banner at the bottom says, "The most hardcore, valuable, learnable skill on Earth."

I believe emotional intelligence is mislabeled as a “soft skill.” It sounds too much like “sensitivity” or “agreeableness,” but a display of emotional intelligence is actually tough as nails. In high-stakes environments, boardrooms and battlefields alike, emotional intelligence isn’t about being nice. It’s about knowing the role of emotions in decision making, and using that … Read more

A letter to myself, 10 years ago

A military-style GUI showing an identified land mass with an overlay showing temperature, pressure, azimuth, elevation, position, and battery level. The Pressure is low.

Introduction: The Leadership Gap I Didn’t See If I could go back to 2014, I would tell myself two things: I was traveling to a different location every week for 7 months where I was struggling to turn around a failing program. I didn’t recognize how much I was missing about the fundamentals of a … Read more

+ More