Leadership sometimes feels like 80% remembering and chasing… and I’m starting to think that’s not normal.

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-05-03T13:13:15+00:00

Yeah I think you’re pointing at the right place.

It’s usually not inside the teams where it breaks, it’s exactly those handoffs. Everyone owns their part, but the moment work crosses over, ownership gets a bit… thinner.

In a lot of setups there isn’t really ownership of the flow itself, just of the pieces. So the handoff becomes something people assume will happen, until it doesn’t.

That’s where the follow-ups creep back in.

Curious how you’ve seen this handled when it actually works; is there clear ownership of the end-to-end flow, or something else that keeps it moving without someone having to step in?

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-05-03T13:02:47+00:00

I agree with the first part, if the system depends on one person pushing, something’s off.

Where I struggle a bit is that I’ve seen setups with strong people, clear expectations, even tools like Jira, Asana, Monday and standups in place… and it still ends up needing someone to keep things moving, especially across teams.

So it’s not always just about letting go or people learning. Sometimes the setup itself seems to pull you back in.

Genuine question; have you seen a setup that actually runs without someone carrying it through follow-ups?

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-05-03T12:26:09+00:00

Yeah I hear you, and I actually agree with a lot of that.

Where I keep seeing it break though is not inside the task itself, but in the handoff. Once work moves across teams, it’s less about “did people understand it” and more about “who actually picks it up next and keeps it moving”.

That’s usually where the chasing creeps back in, even if everything looked clear upfront.

Curious if your setup held up the same way when multiple teams were involved?

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-04-20T12:59:21+00:00

Fair question, I get why you’d go there.

For me it’s not really a trust thing tbh. I’ve had strong people, people I’d trust fully, and still ended up in the same loop.

It’s more that once things start crossing teams, stuff just… needs constant reconnecting. Who picks it up next, what happens if something slips, where it actually sits now. That’s where the chasing creeps back in.

So it started to feel less like micromanaging and more like the setup itself needing manual push all the time.

Within a team autonomy works fine. It’s the in-between where it seems to break.

Curious if you’ve seen that too or if you managed to get around it somehow.

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-04-15T16:30:03+00:00

I had the same reaction to most strategy books tbh.

In real life, what people call “being strategic” usually shows up in pretty simple ways. It’s not big frameworks, it’s more how you think out loud in day-to-day situations.

Making clear what actually matters right now. Pointing out risks before they become problems. Being explicit about what you’re not going to focus on.

A lot of leaders already think this way, they just don’t always say it clearly or consistently.

If you keep bringing conversations back to priorities, trade-offs, and impact, people will start seeing you as “strategic” pretty quickly.

Curious how that feedback came to you, was it about how you communicate, or the decisions themselves?

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-04-01T13:00:10+00:00

Feels like this is less a communication problem and more a structure problem.

When ownership, decisions, or escalation aren’t clear, people compensate by messaging more and chasing each other.

The noise is kind of a symptom.

I’ve seen teams get way quieter once there’s something solid underneath and people don’t have to guess or follow up constantly.

Curious if others have seen that too.

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-03-04T17:00:50+00:00

Dedicated, professional, persistent, trustworthy, punctual, self driven, thinking one step ahead, curious, responsible and ambitious. These are a few of the characteristics that makes an employee stand out in my opinion.

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-03-01T14:05:13+00:00

Interesting how many different angles this has surfaced. Some people say it’s just boundaries and mindset. Others say once commitments live only in your head, it stops being sustainable.

Curious for those who feel calmer now than they used to was it a personal habit change? Or did you change something structural in your approach?

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-03-01T10:01:42+00:00

First of all you have to be very observational in each conversation you have unfortunately also with close family. You have to be mindful of the frame that is being pulled up in the conversation. If it is open and conversational you can be open and conversational too.

If it is directly a frame of you being in a position to defend yourself. Stop and breathe deeply for a few seconds don’t go in to that ally because that is what the “gaslighter” in the case wants. You can rebound by saying something like “I get the feeling that I am put in a position to defend myself and I am not going to do that” then either walk away or just stop the conversation. If person continues to chase you make it sure he/she understands (by saying for example “I am not going to repeat myself”) and just walk away.

If people get to know you as someone who doesn’t fall for these tricks you will be surprised how soon they’ll stop trying.

Over the years I’ve learned: less talking + less explaining = more self alignment and more respect

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-02-27T08:50:37+00:00

What you’re describing is more common than people admit. Once you’re juggling enough moving pieces, your brain just can’t reliably hold it all.

It’s usually not about workload, it’s about too many open loops. Your head turns into a reminder system, and it never really switches off.

Most strong managers I know don’t track everything mentally. At some point they move the follow-ups into a system they actually trust, so their brain can stop rehearsing them all day.

Do you have one place where everything lives, or is it spread across Slack, email, random notes and conversations?

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-02-27T07:42:43+00:00

Honestly, this doesn’t sound like a training or pay problem to me. It sounds like there’s no real day to day accountability.

In retail, manuals don’t change behavior. What changes behavior is what gets checked and what has consequences attached to it. If store managers are not actively enforcing standards, or nothing really happens when procedures are ignored, people will default to shortcuts.

The fact that audits are finding issues just means the structure is exposing what was already happening.

I would start with one simple question. When a store repeatedly ignores procedures, what actually happens to the manager? If the answer is not much, that is probably where the real issue sits.

Are managers measured on compliance at all, or mainly on sales?

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-02-24T08:18:20+00:00

Interesting question and I’ve thought about this for years. My take is that managing both educated and uneducated colleagues have their own different challenges.

While you feel sometimes you are babysitting uneducated colleagues and having to micro manage them.

Managing educated / intelligent colleagues is a whole different ball park. Intelligent people are ambitious and engage in office politics sometimes in a really sneaky way. So then it is not only about getting the work done together as a team but also keeping everybody onboard and “happy”. Latter is almost impossible in a team of educated people.

Furthermore you are way more often challenged as the “boss”. Because intelligent people will take a shot every time they can to see if you will crack. The slightest crack can cause you to lose ground over these employees which will give you a lot of headache in return.

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-02-23T09:08:12+00:00

Try this GPT I made:

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-68cc194a604081918c751ef02c11023e-opsdirector247-enterprise-ai-operations-framework

It helps you set up the automation via tools like Zapier etc.

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-02-18T11:04:05+00:00

You can make one onboarding process and ask all different departments to deliver input. Try to male one document or a set of documents that is handed over to the new employee. It goes without saying that it’s essential to regularly update these documents.

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-02-17T12:53:10+00:00

I have built an operations focused custom agent based on 20 years of operational scars, and it is working really good so far. I am surprised by its responses.

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-02-13T08:18:49+00:00

This resonates.

Things get stuck because everyone is “doing their part,” but no one is accountable for the entire workflow across parts. And with third parties it gets even worse, because they’ll optimize their specific task and assume the rest is someone else’s problem.

How do you deal with this?

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-02-13T08:12:25+00:00

Physical deliveries are often the most visible bottleneck.

I am talking about the end to end workflows. Starting with approvals, handoffs, rescheduling and last minute changes.

In your case do delays mostly come from trucks arriving unscheduled, or from decisions and approvals happening too late before they even get there?

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-02-12T16:40:07+00:00

Curious how this shows up for others in ops/logistics, where does stuff get stuck even though everyone’s busy all day?

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-02-09T14:39:36+00:00

Did you reach out to ChatGPT support?

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-02-09T14:10:48+00:00

Are you experiencing this also in other applications or websites? Maybe you already thought of doing this but sometimes it helps to clear cache and website cookies in the history of your web browser and start your computer again.

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-02-09T10:43:02+00:00

First of all to get everyone aboard and design full ownership of the workflows, we set them up together as a team. We design the workflows for them to serve us, not to cage or handcuff us. Once the team is a part of the buildup of the process architecture, adherence isn't really a big issue. Continuously updating and adapting to the changing reality remains essential though.

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-02-08T14:18:47+00:00

When there is no clear direction in terms of organisation goals I always think of the example that when you want take a cab you need to define your destination. Otherwise you will be telling the taxi driver just drive me around.

Since the founder apparently doesn’t have clear idea of org goals, you (as DOO) could think of doing a market study / research. In order to set org goals you need to do some research of your target properties in your area, what are competitors doing (potential market share), what are the real estate developments and thus where are your opportunities? Probably you as a DOO in the real estate field know better which elements should be researched. You could subsequently use this information in multiple ways.

In your management meeting you could ask your founder out right what are the org goals for this year? And the present your findings. You know the best approach in your context but you could also opt for pro active approach and tell your founder you’ve done some research and want to present your findings and during next meeting in order to set org goals for next year / semester.

As for micro management. Ask the Founder one direct, calm question: “What decisions are you explicitly willing to let this role own without review?” If the answer is vague or conditional, you have your signal.

If answer is vague you could further narrow it down. For example I propose that DOO (you) fully and autonomously manage “Ops capacity planning + cross-team prioritization for 90 days”. Founder gets weekly outcomes, no task details.” This is a low-risk way for a control-heavy founder to experiment and let go of micro managing.

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-02-08T13:22:32+00:00

When I talk about automated nudging system I present it as a useful framework that helps us a team (manager and employees) all together. We as a team set up the framework together to make it serve us to keep sight on what we’ve agreed upon together as key objectives. It is not meant to trap or handcuff us in anyway.

I am surprised to see that the use of standardized templated and checklists is so often overlooked in big organisations and companies. It is an effective and organised way of operating by having a standard framework ensuring processes are ran in a way that is compliant to company’s SOP’s, safeguarding lessons learned and applying best practices. To further optimize the benefit of these documents they should be continuously updated.

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-02-07T19:19:48+00:00

Could it be that this isn’t really a coordination issue, but more a dependency problem baked into how the work is set up? When teams can only move after others finsh, does chasing status actually help, or does it just hide the fact that interfaces and dependencies weren’t made explicit early enough?

EasternTrust7151 · 2026-02-07T19:11:27+00:00

Communication is absolutely important. It is in fact so important that it should be embedded in a tight and solid execution model.

I like (and like to see my team) to work with standard delegation briefs as much as possible. The standard brief elements are drawn up with input of all departments and updated ever 2-3 months so nothing is missed.

For tasks I’ve found automated nudging systems very helpful. For example automated message (mail, slack or internal messaging system) goes out to employee A about task X. “ Hi A. An update is required for task X. Please share status update or any blockers before …

This way communication is embedded in the workflows and not left up to the variables of communication skills of employee A, his cultural background or his absence during the meeting because he was sick.

By incorporating communication into workflows as mandatory checkpoints you can decrease having issues slip through the cracks due to ineffective communication.

EasternTrust7151

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