#422 – March 29, 2026

Pushing Beyond “Good Enough”

Hello, fellow strategists! 

Progress rarely stalls because teams lack ideas or effort. More often, it’s because “good enough” quietly becomes the standard.

In this edition, we look at what it takes to push past that plateau: how superteams keep getting better, how to design AI workflows that actually deliver results, how sharper thinking improves decisions, and why constraints can fuel —not limit— creativity. We also explore practical ways to help your message engage audiences in the first few seconds.

It’s about raising the bar, staying curious, and doing the harder work that leads to better outcomes. Enjoy!

 

Quick Takes

Beyond “Good Enough” …
Practices to Sustain Superteams

In periods of rapid change, the teams that outperform aren’t simply better resourced — they’re better at getting better. They learn faster, adapt sooner, and refuse to settle for “good enough”.

These “superteams”, as explored in a recent Harvard Business Review article by Ron Friedman, build cultures where improvement is continuous and expected. For leaders that view mission, momentum and performance as tightly linked, these seven practices offer a practical blueprint:

1. Make Experimentation the Default
Great teams don’t just improve — they test their way forward. They run more experiments, treat missteps as useful data, and lower the cost of trying and failing. Research mentioned in HBR shows superteam leaders are significantly more likely to reward intelligent risk-taking even when it fails. In organizations where stepping a bit beyond the boundaries is expected, curiosity becomes habit and complacency has nowhere to hide.

2. Make Curiosity Contagious
When leaders admit what they don’t know and then pursue answers, trust builds. Leaders can signal that good ideas can come from anywhere (reverse mentorship, for example, comes to mind).

3. Surface Friction Early
Leaders who surface issues sooner tend to build more adaptive teams than those focused only on progress made. Instead of asking a team member, “how’s it going?”, you might ask “where are you stuck?” This simple shift in focus helps identify obstacles and turns friction into shared problem-solving.

4. Stay Close to the Work
The leaders of champion teams step in just enough to be engaged and effective — working alongside their teams to model standards, identify trouble spots early, and stay grounded in reality.

5. Use Feedback to Create Forward Motion
Annual reviews rarely change behaviour. Frequent, low-stakes conversations do. And it helps when leaders purposefully “lower the tension”. (Some studies show feedback can actually make performance worse when the recipient feels threatened.) By framing feedback sensitively, you can keep people in “learning mode”, where improvement feels energizing, not threatening.

6. Invest Beyond the Role
When people grow and have autonomy, the organization grows with them. Supporting interests outside the job description may pay off in engagement, creativity, and retention.

7. Anchor Everything in Purpose
Metrics matter, but meaning motivates. When people can see how their daily work connects to real-world impact, “good enough” stops being acceptable. The bar rises naturally.

You may be leading a superteam that views proven routines and “good enough” as a trap, refusing to rest in the status quo. These practices can help you lead them through the kind of messiness that comes with exceptional progress.

 

Make the First Three Seconds Count

Amy Porterfield, an online marketing expert and bestselling author, has a formula to create short-form video content that works. In a recent newsletter for entrepreneurs, she explained this structure for engagement:

• The Hook:  Porterfield notes you have just three seconds to make someone feel scrolling past your post would be a mistake. Don’t use it to explain your offer or list your credentials. Just spark enough curiosity that makes them feel moving on feels wrong. 
• The Story:  Then, develop it through seconds 3–15. Drop your audience into a moment they can actually feel. It could be a failure, a number, a turning point — it should be something specific and real. For an opener, she says, “My friend called me sobbing at 11pm” will outperform any strategy tip. “Because specific beats general. And real always beats rehearsed.”
• The Point: Then and only then, she says, you teach or make your offer — your framework, your insight, your expertise. Show what you know. “It lands because everything before it made them care enough to listen.”

For video or a carousel of slides, she also suggests opening with motion — walking toward the camera, spinning in your chair, or starting already in movement. Open with stillness and the scroll wins.

She concludes:  “Hook. Story. Educate. In that order. Flip the sequence, and you don’t just lose the sale. You lose the person before they ever gave you a chance.”

 

Stop Chasing Prompts. Start Designing AI Workflows.

Mark Hinkle says most teams are chasing the wrong thing in AI. The real leverage for productivity isn’t in crafting the perfect prompt — it’s in designing the right workflow.

Speaking on a recent MarketingProfs AI webinar, the CEO of Peripety Lab said those getting results aren’t prompt engineers — they’re workflow architects. They break their work into discrete steps, then decide what humans should do and what AI should handle. He gives particular emphasis to the handoffs between them that make or break your output quality.

His advice: treat AI like an executive assistant. And don’t expect brilliance out of the box. Train it on repeatable tasks, build structure around it, and design a system it can operate within.

Where prompt engineers focus on one-off interactions, workflow architects build repeatable pipelines — automated handoffs, consistent standards, and defined roles for both human and machine.

Hinkle walked through a typical content process for his newsletter: research, ideation, drafting, editing, distribution. Each step is mapped, assigned, and refined over time. Then he applies a simple SMART framework:

• Sort:  Not everything should be automated.
• Match:  Use the right tool for the task.
• Automate:  Focus on repeatable, high-value work.
• Refine:  Repeatedly test, revise and improve outputs.
• Take Control:  Humans steer, AI executes.

One approach that stood out was the “meta prompt” — a reusable multi-part prompt that generates other prompts. Instead of solving one task, it structures an entire category of work. You’re no longer prompting the model — you’re prompting the process (e.g. the AI stops at designated check-in points until you review the result and approve the next step).

That shift, from prompts to systems, is where real productivity gains can be found.

 

8020Info Drill-Down:

Ryan Holiday on Rules to be a Better Thinker

Effective decision-making, strategy development and teamwork all flow from our thinking, whether it’s remarkable, creative, insightful, biased or just plain wrong. Here are some tips from Ryan Holiday, a bestselling author known for translating Stoicism and ancient philosophy into actionable advice for modern life:

• Beware the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect:  Coined by Nobel Laureate Murray Gell-Mann, this describes a common trap: we spot errors instantly in areas we know well — then trust everything we read about topics we don’t. The problem isn’t just bad information; it’s our blind spot. We don’t know when we’re being fooled.
• Keep Your Identity Small:  As the “hacker philosopher” Paul Graham puts it, the more tightly we define ourselves —by beliefs, status, affiliations or labels— the harder it is to change our minds. Stay flexible. Think like a free agent.
• Don’t Mistake Complexity for Insight:  Complex doesn’t always mean smart. Sometimes it’s just nonsense dressed up as depth.
• Ask Better Questions:  Physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi was shaped by a simple daily prompt from his mother: “Did you ask a good question today?” Questions drive learning. They don’t need to be brilliant, just honest. “What do you mean?” or “Can you explain that?” is often enough.
• Build a Personal Board of Advisors:  Surround yourself with people who challenge you, not just support you. The goal isn’t comfort — it’s correction to help you keep learning and improving. Who in your circle can tell you you’re wrong?
• Don’t Just Read — Re-read:  Books don’t change, but you do. Returning to good ideas often reveals what you missed the first time. As the adage goes, you can never step in a river twice, since it has changed and so have you.

He shares 26 tips in all on his website: 26 Rules to be a Better Thinker.

For Your Reading List:
The Dividend of Constraints

While not available until May, Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better by David Epstein is generating a lot of buzz. He flips the script on creativity: constraints, not freedom, drive better thinking and innovation. Drawing on research and case studies, he shows how limits can sharpen focus and unlock progress. Some critics note the ideas echo earlier “constraint breeds creativity” arguments, but early reviewers suggest the synthesis is sharp, practical, and highly readable — especially for leaders overwhelmed by too many choices.

 

Closing Thought:  Keep Swimming

“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.“
— G. K. Chesterton  (from The Everlasting Man)