When “All Good” Smells Wrong


We read the retro and it sounded perfect. The migration was declared a success with a few hiccups. But it smelled wrong to me. We had live escalations and delays. The story on paper did not match what people had lived. When the noise and the report disagree, the report is lying by omission.

Good leaders do not pretend their team smells like perfume. They speak up. They say what went wrong even when it is embarrassing. They point out gaps in the measures themselves. I had to tell the group that our success metric was broken. That was the red flag. Saying that out loud felt awkward, but it forced a deeper look.

When something seems off, do not accept the story. Ask which assumptions are hiding in the numbers. Call them out. Force the metrics to explain themselves. Tenet #4 — Make Assumptions Explicit. Truth beats comfort every time.

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