Performance Culture

The World of Performance

PerformanceCulture

A body of work that transports you into a new world of performance — actionable access to creating an environment, for yourself and the people around you, to experience breakthrough performance.

Begin reading Explore the mental models

Our Intention

From consumer
to contributor.

Listen Unveiling Performance Culture

Performance Culture is a thorough document that we have spent a lot of time refining into something one could theoretically digest in a single sitting; however we don’t require nor encourage that!

The best way to take this all in is to read it at your own pace and consider maybe 1 or 2 things really impact how you perceive or think about something. Take those things, begin to build them into your life, activate others in the same thinking and then revisit the document to repeat the cycle.

It is our intention that you continue to revisit this work over time and shift from a consumer of the information to a contributor to its body of knowledge. In other words — read this like you might watch your favorite movie. Rewatching is encouraged, and each rewatch is an opportunity to gather new insight and value.

Table of Contents
I The Work Performance Culture A body of work that transports you into the World of Performance — actionable access to creating an environment for breakthrough performance. II Field Guide Mental Models Frameworks and cognitive tools that help us understand and interpret the world — and make better decisions. III Library Additional Reading We built in the open and recorded everything. Long-form, short-form, and the literature that inspired this work.
The Field Guide · 12 Mental Models
01 Archer’s Mindset Acknowledge the universe of unknowns, then take aim. Probabilistic thinking for making better educated guesses. Mental ModelRead → 02 Why Precision Matters Generalizing serves us, but imprecision skews expectations and makes comparison dangerous. Exactness as a discipline. Mental ModelRead → 03 Levels of Abstraction A model for framing detail — 100ft, 50ft, 0ft — so you invite engagement without talking past one another. Mental ModelRead → 04 Inverse Thinking Spend less time being brilliant and more avoiding obvious stupidity. Solve hard problems by working them backward. Mental ModelRead → 05 Hanlon’s Razor Never attribute to malice what is more easily explained by mistake. Fill the narrative void before the worst story does. Mental ModelRead → 06 3 Types of Feedback One Person’s Opinion, Strong Suggestion, Mandate — signal your level of conviction so feedback lands as intended. Mental ModelRead → 07 Utilizing Re-creation Restate what you heard to confirm understanding. Often we don’t need solutions — we need clarity. Mental ModelRead → 08 Pain Tolerance Framework Quantify your challenges — show stoppers, quality of life, time horizon — so others can understand and help reduce them. FrameworkRead → 09 5 Day Alignment Misalignment is natural; staying misaligned isn’t. Resolve within five days or escalate cleanly, together. FrameworkRead → 10 3 Levers of Product Scope, time, and resources — a lens of constraints for engaging others objectively, precisely, and fairly. FrameworkRead → 11 Burndown List Shift from tasks to outcomes. A living document that proves total command of a piece of work, from outcome to by-when. FrameworkRead → 12 OKRs Objectives and Key Results as a tool for a performance-driven culture — principles drawn from Measure What Matters. FrameworkRead →

Building in the open

Every call we ever had — recorded, and posted for free.

From day one we committed to working fully in the open. The entire body of work lives online so you can revisit it, contribute to it, and make it your own.

Watch The World of Performance