THE MODEL

The Punk Leadership model guides tech leads to start your own Revolution by defining your manifesto. It then guides you through how to get your teams to follow you.

It challenges you to ask the following questions:

• What do you care about?

  What makes you sad? What makes you angry? What brings you the biggest delight when you see it? Every day when you tootle off to work or log in from your home office, are you contributing to solving those problems or creating those opportunities?

  If not, why not? Did you make that compromise willingly? Did you really consider the compromise that you made when choosing to do what you do now?

  You can only answer these questions if you truly understand what you stand for and what you care about. Building this vision will help you do that pros and cons list when you take your next job or start your next venture.

  No longer make these choices blindly or with “feeling” but rather fully understand what you stand for.

• How will you solve the problem?

  Forget “Minimum Viable Products.” Build Maximum Punk Products. Focusing, continuously, on what matters will keep your iteration loops pointing in the right direction. Trying to avoid the lowest common denominator — cash — as the primary goal will help focus your efforts on creating more value for the world.

  If you can’t, or don’t want to, be completely non-profit, then trying to keep a split focus on people and the planet, alongside cash, should help mitigate adverse side effects from your idea when being pushed for profits.

  Understanding that these three dials can’t be moved independently if you turn up the cash dial, you will have to turn down either, or maybe both, of the other two dials. Turn up the cash knob, and people and the planet suffer. Turning down the cash knob gives you the ability to turn the others up.

• How do you leverage what you have at hand?

  The right amount of technology is the least amount of technology possible. The right way to approach a problem is the way you’re comfortable with.

  Pushing yourself outside your comfort zone is a great way to grow, but it requires balance. Personal growth slows down your progress but speeds you up in the long run.

  Stripping things down to the basic problems helps you focus on delivering the most significant impact with a lower level of risk from technical debt imploding your Revolution.

• Who do you want to do this with?

  From the Spice Girls to The Sex Pistols. From Steve Jobs and Wozniak to Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men,” all teams are curated and manufactured to a certain extent. Building your team with the correct balance of talent will increase your chances of success.

  Each team needs to include:

  • Song-Writer: The ideas person, the one that sparks the idea of the Revolution.
  • A Lead Singer: The communicator, the voice of your Revolution.
  • A Lead Guitarist: The creative, the polish and sparkle, the one that makes your Revolution palatable and attractive to the masses.
  • Rhythm Section (Bass and Drums): The foundations that hold it together.
  • The Manager: The grown-up, the spreadsheet one who keeps the tour bus from careering over the edge of a cliff.

  Anyone can be all of these roles, and all of these can be anyone, but they must all be filled by someone.

• How do we create a shared vision everyone aligns to?

  A team has three states, screaming in different directions, screaming at each other, and screaming (roughly) together in the same direction. To archive your Revolution, the final of these is desired.

  Having a shared understanding of what you all believe in can help you understand which parts of your passions overlap in order to create a shared vision and voice.

• How do we build social strength in this group?

  Social connection makes us better; science shows it makes us healthier, stronger and smarter.

  Understanding, modelling and building social connections in your team is critical to building a hyper-performing team that can push you towards your goals.

  It’s that simple. No more words are needed.

• How do you build trust?

  Trust is the foundation of all social connections. Being open to sharing passions and building a shared voice builds trust. Trust comes from two things: vulnerability and authenticity.

  Being human and sharing your mistakes allows people to trust you and build an environment where they feel willing to share their mistakes.

  The easiest way to nuke trust is not upholding your promises, either intentionally or accidentally.

  Not being authentic kills trust.

  However, there is a high-risk method to hack trust. Starting with your trust meter 100% full will accelerate trust building within your team.

• How do we identify who we want to follow our vision and amplify it?

  It doesn’t matter how good your idea is, your revolution will fail if the right people don’t hear about it.

  Keeping the people you want to scream at clear in your mind at all times, and being aware of those who can amplify your voice, is key to getting your Revolution moving.

The Kindle Edition

You can order the Kindle edition directly from Amazon in the following countries:

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