Aaron Dignan
15 statements across 2 episodes · 6 bullish · 6 bearish · 1 people on the record · first statement Feb 7, 2023 by Aaron Dignan · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: Aaron Dignan's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
Everything said about Aaron Dignan, oldest first
Feb 7, 2023 positive
Dignan: Replace rigid standards with flexible defaults to enable a barbell strategy
“So, so default says, if you don't know better, do this. And then in cultures that I work with that do that well, they have an expectation of announcing when you're veering from the default and why. So like, I'm not going to do the default workshop. I'm going t…”
Feb 7, 2023 positive
Dignan: Converting just 5% of an organization drives systemic operational transformation
“We have found that you actually need a surprisingly small percentage of the organization to get hip to this stuff for it to really start to turn. It's not even 20%. Like five percent can be enough to really change the story.”
Feb 7, 2023 negative
Dignan: Consensus decision-making slows execution and creates average ideas
“The consensus view is great because it feels like family vibes. Everybody weighs in, everybody shapes it, everybody touches it, but it's slow. And worst of all, it makes the idea average. So, you know, a camel is a horse designed by committee. I don't know if …”
Feb 7, 2023 negative
Dignan: Corporations squash startup innovation by imposing their operating systems
“And then to finish the doom loop that we're talking about, you bring in those acquired companies with all that creativity and judgment, and you squash it by conforming them to your operating system. And then you start over. And that's essentially how the econo…”
Feb 7, 2023 negative
Dignan: Organizations sabotage themselves by overreacting to isolated mistakes with sweeping policies
“The first thing is that we tend to do what Jason Freed calls scarring on the first cut. So when something doesn't work or goes wrong or there's an issue or somebody steals a laptop, the organization freaks out and it immediately reacts with a policy or a proce…”
Feb 7, 2023 positive
Dignan: Retrospectives fail when insights are treated as to-dos rather than agreements
“What do you do with the insights? And that's where most teams really fall down. So they have good inputs, they have good sorting, they have good conversations, and they really come up with some cool ideas. Like we need to change the way we do this process. We …”
Feb 7, 2023
Dignan: Organizations penalizing failure inevitably suffer talent leakage
“The odds don't work in your favor in a system that doesn't recognize this principle, and you end up in a scenario where you're the rogue or the vanguard, and those people often leave. They either get fired because they're too radical, or they leave of their ow…”
Feb 7, 2023 positive
Dignan: Constraint-based organizations concentrate authority rather than granting permission
“In the permission based economy, when I give you that role, those decision rights are something I'm giving you. You didn't have before. So I'm actually saying you can now decide the marketing spend. And in a constraints-based economy, I'm actually doing what's…”
Feb 7, 2023 negative
Dignan: Applying checklists and Gantt charts to complex team dynamics fails
“And if you bring that complicated approach, the checklist, the Gantt chart, the quarterly goals, the objectives, the management to that context, you tend to really struggle and fail. And what we see is that organizations tend to just over index on everything m…”
Feb 7, 2023
Feb 7, 2023 positive
Dignan: Meeting check-in rounds empirically produce equal speaking time throughout
“Getting everyone to answer in turn starts a pattern. And the pattern is everyone's talking. So the very first thing that has happened in this meeting is it wasn't the EVP talking for five minutes and then we start a meeting. It was Everybody talked for a few s…”
Feb 7, 2023 positive
Dignan: Workplace teams natively control 30% to 40% of their operational decisions
“Most people underestimate their power, actually, even in cultures of permission. They have been told no so many times they just assume the answer to everything is no. But if you sit down with the team and you're like, let's list everything we can decide as a t…”
Feb 7, 2023
Dignan: Leadership requires trading short-term performance for capability growth
“And now the idea is I want you to ensure continually growing capability, which is a totally different animal. And so continuing growing capability means I need a system that is learning all the time while it's executing. And that means I'm going to have to mak…”
Feb 7, 2023 negative