by Robyn Bolton | Oct 12, 2026 | Leadership, Seamless, Tips, Tricks, & Tools
The Zoom gallery started with just nine boxes. Nine people tasked with recommending how AI could be integrated into the product development process to save $5 million next fiscal year.
The next week, there were twelve boxes. Half the meeting was bringing new people up to speed. The rest was agreeing to last week’s next steps.
A month later, three screens were required to show everyone, but most were on mute with their cameras off. The team was still working through Week 1’s To Do list.
Three months later, it was up to five screens because, concerned about the lack of progress, team members’ bosses wanted to join the call.
Six months after starting, every idea had been rejected by someone. The only surviving idea was to build an enterprise-wide chatbot.
The project was handed over to IT. The team disbanded. Millions were spent creating a chatbot that no one used.
Sound familiar?
The team wasn’t incompetent, lazy, or quietly rebelling against AI. It was people (lots of people) attending meetings, reading and sending emails, and executing their tasks. There were handoffs with no clear owner, and decisions that stalled and no one could say why.
The owner-less handoffs, stalled decisions, and quiet deaths are the result of seams, the hidden disconnects between functions, levels, and processes. Seams derail progress more reliably than a skill gap because they’re easy to mistake as “just how things are.”
You’ve seen this before, so you try to fix it. You get more involved. You add a high-potential employee to the team. You change the scope or the timing. Sometimes it helps. Usually, it takes up more of your time and only slows the project’s decline.
It’s not a people problem
When a team stalls, we reach for Myers-Briggs, DiSC, Hogan, or Kolbe to diagnose the problem, drive self-awareness, and solve all the problems.
They don’t.
A team is not a collection of individuals, yet those tools focus only on the individual. They assume a person shows up the same way in every single situation. We don’t. We show up differently depending on the topic, who else is in the room, the time of day, even whether we’ve eaten or had enough caffeine. Stack those variables against a dozen people and eight functions and a consolidated report of personality types is simply a comforting fiction.
It’s a team problem.
A team is a group of people who trust each other and share a common purpose. Tools to understand individuals aren’t designed to diagnose teams. They aren’t designed to dig into the systems, relationships, and competing priorities that create seams. And that’s why they can’t solve them.
Seamless Innovation examines how the team works as individuals AND together, revealing how seams are slowing progress and impacting results. Created by Jared Simmons, founder of OUTLAST Consulting, from his lived experiences at companies like P&G and Coca-Cola. When I discovered it, it felt like finding the Rosetta Stone because it translated what I experienced into something practical and actionable. Over the past year, we’ve worked together to develop and test it with real people and teams.
Seamless looks at whether the team runs as individuals or an interdependent group with a common goal and at the balance between Think and Do. Think is how people engage across boundaries, and whether the group shares priorities, success measures, and tradeoff rules. Do is whether people can deliver without constant direction and whether the processes and permissions make work move.
Together, these two axes create a capability map of four attributes critical to team success: Collaborative Mindset, Shared Goals & Principles, Core Skill Mastery, and Single Process.
Next week we’ll look at each attribute, what it is, why it’s important, and what “good” looks like in the context of real-world experiences.
Because a team problem can’t be fixed with individual assessments.
Curious to learn more? Click this link to take the Seamless Diagnostic.
But remember, the results reflect your individual perspective. To experience the full benefit Seamless offers, you need the rest of your team to take it, too. For that, just hit Reply and we’ll make that happen!
by Robyn Bolton | Sep 30, 2026 | Leading Through Uncertainty
If you’re tired of hearing “unprecedented times,” blame 2020 and its 70,830% increase in the phrase’s use in corporate presentations, earnings calls, and annual filings.
The COVID-19 pandemic was not unprecedented. It was very, very precedented. In fact, it’s the 5th deadliest pandemic, behind the 1918 Spanish flu, bubonic plague, HIV/AIDS, and the Black Death.
What WAS unprecedented was the context, and people were so focused on it that they missed the lessons of previous precedented pandemics.
Six years later, companies and the media have swapped “unprecedented times” for the specificity of named economic, geopolitical, climate, and technological crises. But we’re still overlooking what history taught us.
These are precedented times
This is not the first time that multiple macro changes have hit at once. It’s also not the first time that institutions have struggled or failed to respond, resulting in late, misinformed, or ineffective efforts.
Consider:
- 3rd Century Rome (235-284 CE): The murder of Emperor Alexander Severus kicked off 50 years of civil war, inflation, plague, and invasion that ended when Aurelian and Diocletian used the military to crush the rebellions and rebuilt the government.
- 14th Century Europe (1315-1400): The Great Famine kicked off decades of plague, war, political chaos, and death-obsessed art that ended when mass deaths created a labor shortage that gave survivors real bargaining power and weakened serfdom.
- The Interwar Years (1918-1939): World War I and the 1918 flu kicked off two decades of hyperinflation, depression, and lost faith in democracy that ended with World War II and the deliberate rebuild of Europe and Japan.
History didn’t repeat, but it rhymed. When people felt they’d lost control over the things that mattered most, they withdrew and looked for someone to blame, while a minority reached for radical or authoritarian “fixes.” Each crisis ended when they regained confidence that their actions mattered.
That’s the lesson we missed in 2020 and risk missing again. If we wait decades for institutions to rebuild, we stay stuck.
If we see that our actions matter and reclaim agency, we start move forward, first as individuals, then as a society.
There is a precedented solution
When everything feels out of control, the usual advice is to try harder, do more with less, embrace uncertainty, or “just play” with the thing stressing you out.
What works is establishing a safe haven, one small aspect of your life where your action improves the outcome in a way you can see and, over time, predict.
Start with one thing you fully control
Leaders are often tempted to start with their teams. But, as the airplane safety briefing tells us, you need to put your own mask on first before helping others.
Your job is also the wrong place to start, because research shows that losing a safe haven can leave you worse off than never having one. So don’t build it where one board decision can change everything.
Build your personal safe haven:
- Pick one thing, like baking a cake, tending a plant, or going for a weekly run.
- Schedule it because knowing when it happens gives almost the same benefit as choosing it.
- Make the result visible by taking a photo, writing down your time, or giving yourself a gold star.
Then help your team:
Once you have your safe haven, help your team build theirs. When people believe their actions don’t matter, they stop taking initiative and avoid making decisions.
To help them feel in control:
- Give each person one thing they own from start to finish.
- Offer small, real choices about how or when work gets done.
- Make things predictable, like not rescheduling 1:1s and announcing decision dates early.
Your safe haven won’t fix the economy, the climate, or AI. It isn’t meant to. It’s meant to remind your brain that your actions still matter, so you and your team have the energy to find creative ways through what you can’t control.
by Robyn Bolton | Sep 23, 2026 | Leadership, Strategy
“Happy New Year!”
Every July 1, this is how one of my P&G colleagues greeted me as I walked into the office. We’d spent the past three months writing the strategic plan. On July 1, the start of the new fiscal, we finally got to start doing everything we had been planning.
That list of activities survived about as long as the average resolution.
- End of Week 1, 23% were “on hold” or canceled
- End of July, about 50% of the plan was changed or abandoned
- End of August, 80% of it was irrelevant because of “new strategic priorities.”
And this was in the late 1990s when things were measured in months and quarters.
If it’s an event, it’s a waste of time
In the 1990s, change was largely linear, so a linear strategic planning process that ran consecutively with business planning not only made sense, but it also worked. Today, the pace of change is exponential, which means that linear, step-by-step processes no longer work. As Dave Chappelle said, “Modern problems require modern solutions.”
Unfortunately, companies are struggling to create modern solutions for strategic planning. In research conducted using the Cascade Maturity Assessment, most respondents stated that their company’s cadence of strategic meetings and updates is somewhat or completely ineffective.
Many of the executives I’ve spoken with are nervous about switching from a calendar-based annual planning process to something that’s more ongoing. After all, they explain, “strategic planning” is a huge “time suck” for the organization and distracts from the “real work” of running the business.
Except that strategic planning is an essential part of running the business.
If it’s a habit, it happens.
“We’ve built muscle and improved how we approach strategy…doing this repeatedly over the last few years.” – Director at a $10B+ revenue corporation with 10-50k employees (one of the top two scorers in the research)
If strategy is to be an automatic, ongoing, almost intuitive part of running a business, it needs to become a habit. Luckily, the same things that build personal habits – learning, repetition, sensory cues, goal pursuit – also build business habits.
SparkCraft Strategies (who did not work with the executive quoted above) helps organizations build both their strategies and their habits. MileZero and SparkCraft often partner on this type of work and, for over a year, SparkCraft has been working with a client to develop the organization’s strategic planning process and capability.
Defining the process was the “easy” part (not easy, just easy relative to everything else). The hard part is building tools that drive actions and decisions that require the critical thinking and creative problem solving necessary to be strategic. Over the course of a year (or more), SparkCraft works with the client to build a strategic thinking and planning habit, ensuring that strategy is inextricably linked with operations, not just bolted on.
If it’s the culture, it’s the gold standard
“It has worked because we grounded it (strategy) in culture and employees are growing and driving the change” – CEO of a $1-50M startup (the other top scoring company from the research)
Culture is the result of the values and tools an organization consistently uses. Culture, like habit, is implicit, more sensed than spoken. Unlike a habit, it’s shared, pervasive, and enduring. That means that (most) everyone senses, thinks about, talks about, and acts on it simply because they are part of that organization.
The CEO quoted above started by making strategy a habit. Monthly, the leadership team discussed, debated, and updated it. Quarterly, all-hands meetings shared it and invited questions, feedback, and dissent. And performance reviews and incentive plans made it part of how people were measured and paid. Over time, through consistent, repeated, and reinforced activity, strategy became part of the culture and the identity of the company. It is who they are and what they do.
Strategy only works when it is part of the work, repeated until it is who you are.
If you would like to see how your organization scores, click here to take the Strategy Maturity Assessment. Your results will be sent directly to me, not to Cascade, and you will not be added to a mailing list. Please note that some people have had trouble using Gmail and other free e-mail accounts.
Methodology note: The Strategy Maturity Assessment was designed by Cascade and administered by MileZero as a self-serve survey to a sample of MileZero’s own clients: 18 self-selected respondents from 18 different companies, varying in role, revenue, and size. Findings are directional and should not be interpreted as scientific, random, or representative sample. Scores come from a proprietary scoring of Yes / Somewhat / No answers and show relative patterns, not precise measurements. All findings are the opinions of individual participants as of the date they responded, not statements of fact.
Why do strategic plans fail so fast after they're written?
Because they’re built as an event. At P&G in the late 1990s, 23% of the plan was on hold or canceled by the end of week one. Half was changed or abandoned by the end of July. By the end of August, 80% was irrelevant. Linear planning worked when change was linear. Today change is exponential, and a once-a-year plan can’t keep up.
What does a strategy execution framework that actually works look like?
Concurrent, not consecutive. Strategy moves through three stages. As an event, it’s a once-a-year plan that goes stale. As a habit, it’s built through learning, repetition, cues, and goal pursuit until it runs alongside operations. As culture, it’s who you are. One top-scoring CEO got there with monthly leadership updates, quarterly all-hands that invited dissent, and performance reviews and incentives tied to strategy.
How do you build internal strategy capability while working with outside consultants?
Build the habit, not just the process. Defining the planning process is the easy part. The hard part is building tools that drive the critical thinking and creative problem solving strategy needs. MileZero partner SparkCraft Strategies has spent over a year with one client doing exactly that, building a strategic thinking and planning habit so strategy is linked to operations, not bolted on.
by Robyn Bolton | Sep 12, 2026 | Leadership, Strategy
The is the third article exploring the strategy-execution gap. You can read the first and seond ones by clicking the links.
“He who is silent is taken to agree” – Latin proverb
“Speak now or forever hold your peace.” – The Book of Common Prayer
“My level of silence is often mistaken for agreement. It’s the caffeine deciding if this conversation is worth the effort.” – coffee mug
Every manager and executive says they agree with the strategy and its goals. And they mean it.
It’s what they’re NOT saying that makes all the difference.
“I know what you want me to do but how do you expect me to do it?”
This isn’t a plea or request for micro-management. After all, two-thirds of Directors have access to a centralized system for tracking performance metrics and KPIs.
But knowing what is expected and delivering it are two different things. Less than one-third of respondents are prepared for change (including only 13% of C-Suite execs!) and not a single VP, Director, or Manager has the resources to execute and deliver their goals.
“Actions speak louder than words, and we’re speaking two different languages.”
Every single survey respondent said their organization has well-defined company values. But only 50% of VPs and 33% of Directors see those values reflected in their colleagues’ behaviors.
“If you want the team to deliver X, why are you rewarding us for different things unrelated to X?”
Fifty percent of VPs and two-thirds of directors have clear functional or team plans with explicit KPIs. What nearly 60% don’t have are functional plans aligned with the organization’s goals and clear ownership for delivering SMART objectives.
When functional strategies don’t tie to organizational ones, it’s no surprise that only 25% of the C-Suite, 15% of VPs, and 0% of Directors and Managers see cross-functional alignment on execution.
Resistance rarely looks like rebellion
“Change is always met with resistance,” explained one Manager.
Usually, resistance looks reasonable. A request for “one more set of eyes.” A call to one more person. One more run through the committee to make sure everyone’s comfortable.
In fact, most people don’t even know they’re resisting change. They’re simply following rules and processes set up years before this year’s strategy existed. And while it slows strategic execution, isn’t it worth it to keep the company safe?
This type of resistance is solvable. Change a process, introduce an incentive, “flatten the org.”
But that’s not the resistance the data shows. That kind is silent and deadly.
You must ask for what they won’t say
Speaking up to say the strategy won’t work or the goal can’t be achieved costs a relationship, a reputation, maybe a promotion. So, your team stays silent, and you see it as agreement.
But that silence is preventing you from getting the information and perspective you need to build a strategy that can succeed because people genuinely agree and are able to execute it.
It’s not enough to ask people to speak up or play devil’s advocate. You must eliminate the cost of doing so:
Go first. Call out the weakest part of your own plan before you ask them to poke holes in it. Every company claims humility and candor as a value, yet half your VPs and two-thirds of your directors don’t see it.
Ask for how, not yes. “Are you with me?” gets silent nods. “What would have to be true for this to work in your group?” draws out the constraints they keep to themselves.
Reward the challenge. If incentives still reward last year’s behaviors and goals, you’ll never get execution of this year’s strategy. And while updating incentives is a start, you won’t hear the hard truth until people have incentives to speak it.
Your team already knows how the strategy will fail. Ask them to tell you. Then fix it together.
If you would like to see how your organization scores, click here to take the Strategy Maturity Assessment. Your results will be sent directly to me, not to Cascade, and you will not be added to a mailing list. Please note that some people have had trouble using Gmail and other free e-mail accounts.
Methodology note: The Strategy Maturity Assessment was designed by Cascade and administered by MileZero as a self-serve survey to a sample of MileZero’s own clients: 18 self-selected respondents from 18 different companies, varying in role, revenue, and size. Findings are directional and should not be interpreted as scientific, random, or representative sample. Scores come from a proprietary scoring of Yes / Somewhat / No answers and show relative patterns, not precise measurements. All findings are the opinions of individual participants as of the date they responded, not statements of fact.
Why do strategic plans fail when everyone says they agree?
Every manager and executive says they agree with the strategy. They mean it. The problem is what they don’t say. In a survey of MileZero clients, not a single VP, Director, or Manager had the resources to deliver their goals, and nearly 60% lacked functional plans tied to company goals. Speaking up feels costly, so they stay quiet. Your team already knows how the strategy will fail. Ask them.
Why does diligence turn into delay in corporate decision-making?
Because the delay looks reasonable. A request for one more set of eyes. A call to one more person. One more run through the committee to make sure everyone is comfortable. Most people don’t even know they’re resisting. They’re following rules and processes set up years before this year’s strategy existed. The fix is concrete: change the process or the incentive.
What does resistance to change look like inside a company?
There are two kinds. The first looks like diligence: one more set of eyes, one more committee review. A process or incentive change fixes it. The second kind is silent and deadly. People doubt the strategy can work, but speaking up could cost a relationship, a reputation, or a promotion. So they nod, and leaders mistake silence for agreement.
How do you overcome resistance to a strategy your team already agreed to?
Asking people to speak up isn’t enough. You have to remove the cost of speaking up. Go first: name the weakest part of your own plan before you ask them to poke holes in it. Ask for how, not yes: “What would have to be true for this to work in your group?” Reward the challenge, because people won’t tell you the hard truth until they have an incentive to.
