Coach Takeshi’s Insights
Coach Takeshi’s coaching journal. Sharing the many mental models that Coach Takeshi actually uses for client sessions.
The Reflective Leader and Learning Organization Guide
Coach Takeshi’s collection of thoughts on helping leaders use the power of inquiry and introspection for building the mental facility needed in developing Learning Organizations.
Sharing experiments and experiences from work with clients on their Agile organizational transformation journey. Includes work on Agile Scrum, Design Thinking, Lean Startup, and all other “experimental and iterative” approaches.
Most Read
Lean, Lean Manufacturing, Lean Startup: Clarified
Lean: not just a hype word for efficiency Yah sure, we do “lean” here and we operate a tight ship with just a few of us doing everything – you know, everyone is multi-taskin’. “Lean”... Read More
Knowing to Stop – A Confucius Teaching
Confucius’ 7 spaces of learning Knowing to stop – is a simple notion but difficult to practice skill. In “Great Learning (大学)”, written around 2,500 years ago by one of his first disciples Zengzi (曾子),... Read More
Try Design Thinking + Scrum: A Powerful Hybrid Agile Approach
Classic Scrum’s Achilles’ heel One of the weak areas of classic Scrum, in my opinion, is the relative simplicity of the ideation phase. “What to build” is sometimes an arbitrary discussion during the Scrum Backlog... Read More
Radical Candor: My Go To Feedback Routine
In search of better feedbacking As a coach and mentor, challenging people is a natural part of my work, and sometimes they are in the form of tough messages. Not always though, the messages go... Read More
A Pretty Good Summary of Lean, Agile Scrum
Glossary: Lean, Agile, Scrum, Sprint, Kanban Consider Lean & Agile as pretty much the same thing, they are basically really good approaches to handling projects with a lot of uncertainties, which is why successful startups... Read More
How to Get Scrum Right on First Attempt
Pilot objective Within the Scrum community, there is abundant writing suggesting that the two main factors of Scrum implementation failure are: (1) sub-optimal team structure at the onset, and (2) the Scrum Team failing to... Read More
Strategy Session Facilitation with Design Thinking & Liberating Structures
Why brainstorming doesn’t work That was fun, but… Why do we get that slight, lingering feeling of doubt and dissatisfaction after brainstorming sessions? Here’s why: Group dynamics: 80/20 rule applies. Domination: The vocal minority dominate... Read More
Waterfall Agile: Addressing the Irony of Delivering Agile Transformation with Waterfall
The Irony of Delivering Agile Transformation with Waterfall Agile and digital transformation projects are abundant today. The irony is that too frequently, they are planned and delivered in essentially waterfall project management style. Waterfall is... Read More
Latest Posts
How to Receive Critical Feedback in a Breeze: Try CALM – “Curious Active Listening Mindset”
Receiving critical feedback is dreadful. Our defensive routines get triggered and however we might understand that the feedback giver is speaking with good intention, it’s still difficult to listen. With a Curious Active Listening Mindset,... Read More
Welcome to Design Thinking
Download the deck in PDF | Watch on YouTube Transcript Read More
Learn Design Thinking in 30 minutes: Origami Gift Exercise
Here’s a rapid Design Thinking practice exercise that I do in my training sessions. It’s really simple. You pair up in buddies and by gifting each other an origami craft, you can go through the... Read More
Structured + Unstructured Learning, Vertical + Horizontal Learning, Shu-Ha-Ri (守破離)
I use three mental models to describe my pedagogy (theory and practice of education): Structured + Unstructured Learning Lecturing, teaching, textbook learning fall into the realm of structured learning. Coaching, mentoring, parental conversations are examples... Read More
Coach Takeshi’s 2020 Wrap Up and 2021 Wishes
310. Wow. This is how many people I coached in 2020. Now of course, I didn’t do this alone: I do predominantly organizational work so this was across 24 teams in 10 client organizations, delivered... Read More
Three types of Empathy: Cognitive, Emotional, Compassionate Empathy
There are three types of empathy: cognitive, emotional and compassionate empathy; each respectively the desire to understand, to feel and to help and support. EQ guru Daniel Goleman, in reference to psychologist Paul Ekman, elegantly... Read More
Feed-Forward Positive Feedback with the FFF Feed-Forward Formula
When we think of feedbacking, we tend to just do “corrective feedbacking”; i.e. feedbacking on things to improve. Don’t do this, do that better. We know from Appreciative Inquiry and Positive Psychology that “positive feedbacking”... Read More
デザイン思考へようこそ
日本一わかりやすい、デザイン思考の説明ビデオを作ってみました。 スライドダウンロード PDF Transcript Read More
Scrum RACI
My coachees affectionately call it the avocado. I use this to describe the required boundary conditions and effective organizational support for developing high performing Scrum teams. > Responsible: Scrum Development Team > Accountable: Product Owner... Read More
The Delegation, Empowerment Spectrum
“I don’t delegate, I empower.” The mantra of the modern enabling manager. I don’t disagree. Though caveat emptor. The delegation, empowerment spectrum is intricate business. Feed a newbie sales person to a lion. They’re going... Read More
Classic Leadership Balance Still Holds for Agile Leadership
Again, it’s all in the balance. If it’s just all vision and empowerment, the team won’t move. Even as an agile leader embracing servant leadership values, you still need to command and lead your tribe,... Read More
Aristotle’s Influence Model
We use “logos” (rational) too much. It’s “pathos” (empathy), “ethos” (credibility, presence), and “kairos” (right time, right place), in balance. We love convincing and persuading. What’s wrong with being right, right? So, “logos” is our... Read More
The Three Competencies of Mastering Complex Product Development
It’s mastery, so don’t expect it to be easy. As both a serial entrepreneur and agile coach to teams of all sizes, I have come to understand that mastering complex product development converges into three... Read More
The Two Simple Traits of Performing Teams
What do you do? The dreaded elevator pitch question. I fumble on it every time. Some days I will say that I activate people. One conversation at a time, I activate leaders, teams, organizations. Other... Read More
The Power of Tribes in Agile Organizations
Social and digital is accelerating the service economy transformation in our world. In the service economy, the competitive advantage is knowledge (including skills and expertise) and connectivity (access to resources – technology is the enabler).... Read More
In Praise of Risk and the late Anne Duformantelle
3 years ago today, French philosopher and psychoanalyst Anne Dufourmantelle, best known for her work on risk-taking (“In Praise of Risk”), drowned while saving two children off a beach in France. She died in circumstances... Read More
8 Mind & Heart Hacks for Emotionally Charged Situations
Here are eight mind and heart hacks for immediate deployment in emotionally charged situations. I use Rhythm Section and Observe, Orient regularly. And more than once, Lean-in has saved me (us) from situations with dramatic... Read More
What do we do when we have missing expertise in the Scrum Team?
On the recurring, practical question of what to do when there are missing skills and expertise in the cross-functional Scrum Team: Yes, it’s true that the Scrum Guide says “Cross-functional teams have all competencies needed... Read More
Why learning from failure is so hard: Because we can’t stand looking stupid
There’s one HBR article that I share but never hear back about. It’s Chris Argyris’ “Teaching Smart People How to Learn” (https://hbr.org/1991/05/teaching-smart-people-how-to-learn). Maybe it’s the intimidating title that ticks off the interest to read. Or... Read More
Go with the FLOW to capture your thoughts from Design Thinking customer interviews
So you had some great customer interviews as part of your Design Thinking exercise. You felt that you empathized well with the customers and generated awesome insight. Wonderful. Before your memory evaporates you’d want to... Read More
KISS – Keep It Stupid Simple
KISS, an acronym for “keep it simple, stupid” or “keep it stupid simple”, is a design principle noted by the U.S. Navy in 1960. The KISS principle states that most systems work best if they... Read More
What To Do When Feeling Overwhelmed
1. Breathe Know to stop. Stop. Take a deep breath. Slowly regulate your breathing. Our mind and body is an amazing system. Breathing is the most simple, immediate, no-need-for-tool intervention available to us in times... Read More
Mental Model Dōjō TV: Agile Success Stories – UOB Finlab Felix Tan
What makes UOB’s Finlab not just yet another bank accelerator unit, is its unique focus in helping SMEs with its SME accelerator program. I asked Felix Tan, MD of Finlab to share us the story... Read More
Kill the Zombies in the Eisenhower Matrix
My executive coaching client was being completely overwhelmed. After a download of a long list of things on his plate, I asked him how he would like to do things differently. He continued to list... Read More
Disagreement vs Misalignment
“Shared understanding” is an everyday word in my team coaching. It’s so easy to get into positional talk and convincing mode, because when discussions heat up, it quickly becomes personal. Well, if it’s going to... Read More
Maslow’s Final Theory Z
Self-Transcendence – Beyond Self-Actualization and Theory X & Y Maslow’s Original Hierarchy of Needs Model In 1943, Abraham H. Maslow published his ground breaking paper “A Theory of Human Motivation,” outlining what we commonly know... Read More
Mental Model Dōjō TV: Agile Success Stories – Solaria Labs, Liberty Mutual
Does Agile work? To answer that question, I am starting a new video series of curating Agile success stories. The first story I’d like to share is with Justin Yiu, from Liberty Mutual’s innovation arm... Read More
Mental Model Dōjō TV: Ambidextrous Organizations Explained
Link to case study video: https://youtu.be/EW_PX50NAps Transcript What is an ambidextrous organization? In a nutshell, an ambidextrous organization takes care of current core businesses with the right hand, while taking care of innovation with the... Read More
Stop #failureporn
There’s this thing called failure porn. As Agile professionals, as educators, as parents, we say it’s okay to fail. Go for it, try your best, and if you fail as a result, it’s okay, because... Read More
Mental Model Dōjō TV: Knowing to Stop – a Confucius Teaching
We practice the art of stopping – meditation, mindfulness, reflection, introspection, zen. Confucius says to stop, we first need to know to stop. Let’s see what he means by that. This is the very first... Read More
Innovator’s Dilemma and Organizational Ambidexterity
A tribute post to Professor Clayton Christensen, author of “The Innovator’s Dilemma” (1997), who passed away after a long illness. I am a big fan of Organizational Ambidexterity, made famous by Charles O’Reilly (Stanford) and... Read More
Waterfall Agile: Addressing the Irony of Delivering Agile Transformation with Waterfall
The Irony of Delivering Agile Transformation with Waterfall Agile and digital transformation projects are abundant today. The irony is that too frequently, they are planned and delivered in essentially waterfall project management style. Waterfall is... Read More
Knowledge is for Consumption
Knowledge is for consumption. This is my street philosophy, but I really abide to this. I really, really like to practice what I learn. Practice – both in the application sense, and in the repeat... Read More