At Scale, You Design the Loops.

Lycos acquired WiseWire, and I became a vice president and general manager. Almost overnight, I went from building with a small team to running a unit of more than twenty-five products and about 350 people.

In a startup, I could see everything. I knew every customer, every line of the roadmap, every person’s strengths. At Lycos, that was impossible. If I tried to decide everything, the whole unit would run at the speed of my calendar.

I stopped being the one who flew. I became something closer to the people who designed the deck. Three conditions made that work.

Rhythm

A fixed heartbeat of weekly reviews, monthly business reviews and quarterly planning. People stopped hoarding issues for a rare chance at my attention, because they knew when decisions would be made.

Metrics

Not dozens. Two or three numbers each product team owned, tied to the unit’s revenue. When a number moved, the team that owned it was the first to know and the first to act. I was the second.

Delegation

Commander’s intent: purpose, constraints and the definition of done. Then step back. If a call was not a one-way door, I let it stand and we debriefed the result later.

“Then it’s your call”

A product leader once came to my office with a launch decision. She had laid out three options, and she wanted me to choose. I asked which one she would pick. Her reasons were good. I asked what would happen if she was wrong. We could roll it back in a week. “Then it’s your call,” I said. “Tell me how it goes.” Over the following months, she stopped bringing me choices and started bringing me results. Multiply that by a few dozen leaders, and you have the difference between a unit that grows and a unit that waits.

Designing is not stepping away

Netflix describes the same design in its published culture memo. Managers are asked to practice “context not control,” and every significant decision gets an informed captain who seeks out different opinions and then makes the call. The memo also warns that context not control should not be confused with hands-off management. Designing the loops is active work.

It includes your own composure. At scale, your mood becomes weather. My stress could ripple through 350 people by lunchtime. A calm leader is not performing calm for show. He is protecting everyone else’s orientation.

Design the conditions

1. Set the heartbeatPut weekly, monthly and quarterly forums on the calendar. Tell people which decisions each one makes.
2. Give every team its numbersTwo or three each, connected to revenue. Make sure the team sees a change before you do.
3. Ask the door questionWhen a leader brings you options, ask which one they would pick and what happens if they are wrong. If it can be undone, it is their call.
4. Debrief instead of redoWhen a call goes differently than you would have made it, review the result together.