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Charlie Gilkey shared thisSummer is a great time for reviewing your team's habits. Many orgs and teams can try a few small team habit switches and have them compound for a few months before the fall.Charlie Gilkey shared thisIt is officially summer now and thus we are bringing back our weekly(ish) book reviews, starting with "Team Habits : How Small Actions Lead to Extraordinary Results" by Charlie Gilkey. ✨ What if extraordinary team results didn’t come from big, one-off efforts - but from the small things you do every day? In “Team Habits” (2023), Charlie Gilkey highlights how simple, consistent actions can transform the way teams collaborate, focus, and perform. It’s a refreshing reminder that sustainable success isn’t about quick wins - it’s about building the right habits together. A great read for anyone looking to strengthen their team’s impact through practical, everyday behaviours. 💡 The book is available at Catford Library and can be reserved for pick-up at any Lewisham library branch. #BIPCBookRecommendations
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Charlie Gilkey reposted thisCharlie Gilkey reposted thisThis week in Portland startup news, you can now easily share the actual reality of what's happening in Portland, hear who won Latino Founders Pitch Latino Portland, get up to speed on who is taking the stage at Bend Venture Conference (BVC), show Jimmy Kimmel Live what it's like around here with #showmeyourhellhole, and hear from serial founder with some Portland history. Let's get into it… https://lnkd.in/geEbEMiU 🥹 Are you doing okay…? 🔥 Is Portland burning…? 🏜️ It's High Desert Innovation Week eve 🎤 BVC has finalized the pitch docket 🏆 Was the Pitch Latino Portland winner a Portland startup…? 🤫 … and a few secrets Shoutouts (both actual and implied): Mark Kleinhaus, Oregon UAS Accelerator, Joseph Wyno, SXSW, Oregon Venture Fund, Deepthi Madhava, Bend Outdoor Worx, Gary Bracelin, Cultivate Bend, City of Bend, 360 Sierra | Rental Buddy, Neurosom™, SokoLife, Toast Wear Inc., Yak Tech, Shannon Smith, CISA, Airbuild Inc, Bold Reuse, MarineSitu, Photon Marine, Rapta, Inc., Juan Barraza, Edgar Navas, Yesenia Gallardo Avila, Gabriel Flores, Brad Heller, Brittany Ellich, Tower.devPortland Oregon startup news (Oct 10 2025) BVC, Pitch LatinoPortland Oregon startup news (Oct 10 2025) BVC, Pitch Latino
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Charlie Gilkey posted thisIt's easier to add people to a team that implies status - ex: leadership team - than to remove people. Start with the smallest team possible and build from there, if you have to. Three people can get a lot done and solve a lot of problems with the least amount of social overhead. Four to six people is workable but adds additional coordination, management, and possibility for social games. After eight people, it's probably a *group* (rather than a team) that will be a pain to dissolve, keep, or repurpose. Even knowing that it's a group goes a long way for expectations-setting, as you can then create a smaller, more focused team that drives things forward.
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Charlie Gilkey reposted thisTHIS. 👇 Aaaallll of this. There are a few more examples of "staring at the numbers" that come to mind: - Watching screen recordings of users use the product WITHOUT ever talking to them - Analyzing every channel in GA4 WITHOUT understanding the full customer journey - Analyzing monthly churn WITHOUT understanding how much of it was qualified or the deeper reasons why they left The reasons why this doesn't work in isolation are simple: you don't know if those people were ever qualified, and you don't ultimately know what happened to them in their process of deciding to buy your software. You need *more* than just the numbers. Data certainly tells an interesting story, but it's not the full story. Qualitative insights help bring more context to what you're looking at and why, and where to focus instead to move the needle. This is why we combine both at DemandMaven, Inc to troubleshoot growth and find opportunity. Can't wait to share more at SparkTogether! Link belowCharlie Gilkey reposted thisGrowing a software company is easy! Just study your data. Right? BWAH HA HA HA!!! 🤣 If only it were that easy. Thankfully, there is an "easy mode" for growth, and it almost always comes from talking to customers and connecting their stories to the numbers. My friend Asia Orangio, one of the world's foremost experts in diagnosing and improving software business' results, has developed a method that works, time and again 👇
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Charlie Gilkey shared thisIt was such a treat to be on Tales from The Lane with Kate!Charlie Gilkey shared thisTell me, when you were getting ready to start work today, which aspects of working with your team were you dreading? Any issues? recurring annoyances, power-play dynamics? Whether you are a musician working with an ensemble or a CEO overseeing many teams, we ALL have teams in our lives. In this week’s episode of the Tales from The Lane podcast, I sit down with THE expert on team culture, author and executive coach Charlie Gilkey to discuss the tiny, often invisible habits that shape team dynamics. We talk about: • Why most “team problems” are actually habit problems • The 3 kinds of power at play in every workplace • How belonging and joy drive performance • Why “meetings” aren’t the real issue And he even coaches me through a real-time issue I was having with my team at the time (problem resolved--thanks, CG!) Check out Episode 84 wherever you get your podcasts. #Leadershipdevelopment #Workculture #Teamdynamics #CreativityAtWork #Podcast #Talesfromthelane #teamhabits
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Charlie Gilkey shared thisOnly two more convos this year and I'm elated to be one of them. Come join us!Charlie Gilkey shared thisOnly two more Thought Leader Conversations are scheduled to take place this year! Yes, you read that right. 2025 is truly flying by, and I’m incredibly grateful to all of the amazing guests who have taken part in the Thought Leader Conversation Series this year. Mark your calendar for these upcoming sessions: ⭐ Tuesday, October 28, 2025 – Overcoming Impostor Syndrome in Mentoring with Kris Kelso ⭐ Tuesday, November 4, 2025 – Building a Future-Focused Mentoring Practice with Charlie Gilkey If one or both of these spark your interest, register now at https://lnkd.in/g_R2f3Et You can also catch the replay of last month’s conversation with Pete Schramm at https://lnkd.in/g8D74deH Thank you to everyone who has engaged with this series, whether you’ve been watching since the very beginning or just signed up for your first one! It is such a joy to connect with all of you each month. #ThoughtLeader #Mentoring #MentoringCommunity
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Charlie Gilkey reposted thisCharlie Gilkey reposted thisReading leadership books that aren’t linked to education always really interests me. At the moment I’m reading Team Habits by Charlie Gilkey and it is really making me reflect on how I lead teams, run meetings, make decisions and contribute/work in teams. It’s full of really practical tools that are really relevant in an educational setting and great questions that make you pause and reflect. One of the models Gilkey mentions is the Drexler-Sibbett model on team performance which I found really interesting when reflecting on the different teams I’ve been in and led over my career. It’s not bad being curled up in front of the fire with my dogs while reading it either 🤗
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Charlie Gilkey shared thisI've been seeing a lot more 996 talk again. Oh vey. Of course, its champions are tech bro founders who don't want to talk about the underlying reasons why - "no politics, no moral stuff" - and are perfectly happy working a 996 because they have the autonomy to prioritize their own work, have an asymmetric wealth incentive than their employees, and are usually either out of touch with the lives of their employees or have some "if you don't like it, go work at a place that's not as awesome as us" mentality about it. But we come back to the point that Brian pulls out: "Research consistently shows that beyond 50 hours per week, there's a negative correlation with productivity. You don't get better work from exhausted people — you get more mistakes to fix." So, yeah, everybody's working a lot harder because everybody's working longer because the boss expects people to work like he does. S'all good, though: the "top performers" will survive long enough to get rich enough and the wash outs will go somewhere else. That's just the marketplace; keep your politics, ethics, and facts out of it. /Sarcasm I'm salty/spicy about this because of how quickly toxic paradigms like 996 spread to *other* sectors given how we valorize tech companies and founders. They often don't work as well within tech companies as presented and even worse in other sectors.Charlie Gilkey shared thisSan Francisco has become "the ultimate 996 city"... again. It's even showing up on bus stop ads. Startup employees working 9am to 9pm, six days a week, chasing AI riches. The memo from Google's Sergey Brin telling employees they need to work at least 60 hours a week in the office. Friends in tech feel stuck: they've had enough of their increasingly bad big tech workplace, but don't want to hop into a 996 job where "maybe I see my kids on Sunday." We've seen this movie before — I experienced it in the dotcom boom. The pattern that resulted: burnout, turnover, and diminishing returns. Then the bubble bursts. Research consistently shows that beyond 50 hours per week, there's a negative correlation with productivity. You don't get better work from exhausted people — you get more mistakes to fix. Former Google Android leader Chris DiBona pushed back recently, writing: "The best developers know that once they've been working on a problem for 4, 5, 6, 8 hours in a day, their accuracy and productivity drop into the toilet and they'll spend more time fixing their stress-induced screwups." His solution? Four uninterrupted hours every afternoon for his teams. No meetings. No interruptions. Just deep work. What actually drives performance: 📅 Protect peak performance blocks: Schedule 3-4 hours of focus time daily with no internal meetings. 🔄 Build sustainable rhythms: Pair intense sprints with recovery periods, not endless grind You don't win marathons by sprinting every mile. More in Charter: https://lnkd.in/gxk7FwE4 Are you seeing the 996 coming into your organization?
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Charlie Gilkey reposted thisLeadership 101. A decision alone changes nothing. A change in policy alone changes nothing. Just because you TELL people to do something, doesn't mean they will do it. And, dear leaders, remember that "constructive defiance" by underlings has saved many a misguided leader from folly and failure over the years. My hypothesis: The best employees, the most skilled with the most external options, are most likely to defy "return to office" mandates as they know their bosses and companies aren't likely to fire them, and if they do get canned, get a new job will be easy. Thank you to Nick Bloom and his colleagues for blasting the the RTO bullshit with strong EVIDENCE.
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Charlie Gilkey liked thisCharlie Gilkey liked thisIt is officially summer now and thus we are bringing back our weekly(ish) book reviews, starting with "Team Habits : How Small Actions Lead to Extraordinary Results" by Charlie Gilkey. ✨ What if extraordinary team results didn’t come from big, one-off efforts - but from the small things you do every day? In “Team Habits” (2023), Charlie Gilkey highlights how simple, consistent actions can transform the way teams collaborate, focus, and perform. It’s a refreshing reminder that sustainable success isn’t about quick wins - it’s about building the right habits together. A great read for anyone looking to strengthen their team’s impact through practical, everyday behaviours. 💡 The book is available at Catford Library and can be reserved for pick-up at any Lewisham library branch. #BIPCBookRecommendations
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Charlie Gilkey liked thisCharlie Gilkey liked thisSutton's Law: "If you think that you have a new idea, you are wrong. Someone probably already had it. This idea isn’t original either; I stole it from someone else." I offer this old idea as a gentle warning for leaders of big companies, founders, academics, and especially consultants who can't resist making naive and excessive claims about their originality in this era of overblown AI hype. This "law" is from my 2006 book on evidence-based management with Jeffrey Pfeffer, "Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense." I see it broken nearly every day in the deluge of AI "experts" who seem to believe, or at least claim without doing their homework, that they are the first and only humans to have an idea, identify a problem, or develop a particular kind of solution. Or, as the late great organizational scholar, James G. March, wrote me when we were writing this book (from page 45 of "Hard Facts"): "Most claims of originality are testimony to ignorance and most claims of magic are testimony to hubris." I sure miss Jim March. And still believe he should have won the Nobel prize in economics. He wrote and said one sentence after another like that.
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Charlie Gilkey liked thisCharlie Gilkey liked thisThis week in Portland startup news, you can now easily share the actual reality of what's happening in Portland, hear who won Latino Founders Pitch Latino Portland, get up to speed on who is taking the stage at Bend Venture Conference (BVC), show Jimmy Kimmel Live what it's like around here with #showmeyourhellhole, and hear from serial founder with some Portland history. Let's get into it… https://lnkd.in/geEbEMiU 🥹 Are you doing okay…? 🔥 Is Portland burning…? 🏜️ It's High Desert Innovation Week eve 🎤 BVC has finalized the pitch docket 🏆 Was the Pitch Latino Portland winner a Portland startup…? 🤫 … and a few secrets Shoutouts (both actual and implied): Mark Kleinhaus, Oregon UAS Accelerator, Joseph Wyno, SXSW, Oregon Venture Fund, Deepthi Madhava, Bend Outdoor Worx, Gary Bracelin, Cultivate Bend, City of Bend, 360 Sierra | Rental Buddy, Neurosom™, SokoLife, Toast Wear Inc., Yak Tech, Shannon Smith, CISA, Airbuild Inc, Bold Reuse, MarineSitu, Photon Marine, Rapta, Inc., Juan Barraza, Edgar Navas, Yesenia Gallardo Avila, Gabriel Flores, Brad Heller, Brittany Ellich, Tower.devPortland Oregon startup news (Oct 10 2025) BVC, Pitch LatinoPortland Oregon startup news (Oct 10 2025) BVC, Pitch Latino
Experience & Education
Publications
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Team Habits: How Small Actions Lead to Extraordinary Results
Hachette Go
See publication🎉 *Team Habits* was selected as a must-read by the Next Big Idea Book Club and as the winner of the Management and Culture category by Bookpal in 2023! 🎉
Your team doesn’t rise to the sum of its member’s capabilities; it falls to how it practices good team habits that create great results and belonging.
Everyone has the power to change their team’s habits since we have a lot of influence, trust, and rapport with the 4–8 people we spend most of our days working with.
You…🎉 *Team Habits* was selected as a must-read by the Next Big Idea Book Club and as the winner of the Management and Culture category by Bookpal in 2023! 🎉
Your team doesn’t rise to the sum of its member’s capabilities; it falls to how it practices good team habits that create great results and belonging.
Everyone has the power to change their team’s habits since we have a lot of influence, trust, and rapport with the 4–8 people we spend most of our days working with.
You don’t need expensive consultants, an executive champion, or a budget to improve your team habits. Since you’re already going to be doing the work, why not make the work better.
Team Habits will show you how. It addresses:
* The significant but invisible costs of your team’s habits
* How improving your team habits can change your entire organization
* The eight universal kinds of team habits
* How to determine which kind of team habits to address first
* How to create a team habits sprint that gets full team buy in and support
* What to do when the changes you’re trying to make happen encounter inertia and friction
* How to leverage your team habits win into the next change -
Start Finishing: How to Go from Idea to Done
Sounds True
See publicationStart Finishing is the critically-acclaimed, best-selling book that guides you on how to finish the projects that matter most. It answers the following question: why is it that we don't do the stuff that really matters to us? It's easy to explain why we don't do the stuff we don't want to do, but what about the stuff we want to do?
It's the one book you need to turn your soul-deep dreams, goals, and ideas into doable projects that live on your schedule and get done.
Start…Start Finishing is the critically-acclaimed, best-selling book that guides you on how to finish the projects that matter most. It answers the following question: why is it that we don't do the stuff that really matters to us? It's easy to explain why we don't do the stuff we don't want to do, but what about the stuff we want to do?
It's the one book you need to turn your soul-deep dreams, goals, and ideas into doable projects that live on your schedule and get done.
Start Finishing was awarded the Publishers Weekly Top Ten Business and Economics Books in 2019, the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize, and the ForeWord Indie Finalist. -
The Small Business Life Cycle
Amazon
See publicationThe Small Business Life Cycle shows entrepreneurs and small business owners how focus and work through the five distinct stages of small business growth. It's an intentionally short book that guides action and decision-making rather than just being a book of ideas. The book became an Amazon best-seller in its first week and stays in the Top 100 books in its categories.
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Kainoa Horcajo
We talk a lot about integrity in business. Honoring commitments. Being transparent with clients. Keeping our word. ⠀ But Kūpono also points to something we talk about less: how honest we are with ourselves. ⠀ Are you honest about your actual capacity? Clear about your real boundaries? Are you aligned with the work you claim matters? Living in a way that matches the future you say you want? ⠀ The most dangerous shortcut culture is often internal. The quiet stories we tell ourselves that are not fully true. And the cost is not just productivity or reputation. It is mana. The energy that flows when your word is clean, your actions are aligned, and there is nothing to rehearse or defend at the end of the day. ⠀ Kūpono is not perfection. It is correction. The humility to say "I was wrong." The courage to say "No." The honesty to say "I have not done that yet." ⠀ When we close the gap between who we say we are and how we actually move through the world, life simplifies. That is what alignment feels like. ⠀ What internal story might be worth revisiting today?
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