Stop Playing Framework Bingo With Your Organisation I used to watch it happen every quarter. A leader would roll into planning sessions with fresh ideas, and I’d think: “Oh, they just read that book.” Three months later? New framework, new energy, same exhausted team wondering what the hell we’re doing now. This latest Rebolutionary Journey episode tears into frameworks, and if you’ve ever felt framework fatigue, this one’s for you. The Quarterly Book Syndrome You know this leader. Hell, maybe you ARE this leader. Every business book becomes the next operating system for your company. OKRs this quarter. Big Rocks next. Then it’s EOS, then it’s whatever Silicon Valley just made famous. Your team isn’t building anything—they’re just relearning how to report what they’re building. The problem isn’t frameworks. The problem is thinking plug-and-play exists. It’s Not Plug and Play, It’s Plug and Pray Think about the last time you set up a new internet router. Did it actually plug and play? Or did you fiddle with it, scratch your head, cuss it out, fiddle some more, search for the problem online, and then finally call customer service before it worked? That’s every framework implementation. You’re Copying the Answer Key Without Doing the Math When Google developed their famous framework, they went through years of iteration. Testing, failing, adjusting. They had thousands of people and unlimited resources. You’re a 50-person startup trying to use the same playbook. You’re taking something from a completely different part of the organisational journey—especially when we’re talking about startups and scale-ups—and just trying to plug it in there. You skipped the journey. You grabbed the conclusion. That’s not strategy. That’s cosplay. The Illusion of Control Frameworks give the feeling of control, but not necessarily the control itself. Leaders love frameworks because they create neat boxes. Numbers to track. Dashboards to show the board. The appearance that everything is under control. But you’re not controlling the right variables. You’re just controlling the narrative. Who Decides “The Right Way”? The phrase “the right way” deserves to die. Who dictates it? The book on OKRs you just read? Some author who worked at a completely different company, in a completely different context, with completely different constraints? And somehow that’s supposed to be gospel for your organisation? The Buffet Principle (The Only Framework Rule That Matters) If you take nothing else from this: treat frameworks like a buffet. Take what works. Leave what doesn’t. Don’t feel obligated to finish your plate just because someone said it’s good for you. Treat frameworks like a medical treatment plan. You wouldn’t take someone else’s prescription medication just because it worked for them. Why would you take their organisational framework? Stop Serving Everyone (You’re Serving No One) When you want to serve everyone, you actually serve no one. Be the best in YOUR class. Not THE class. I want to be the best in the world at what I do, but the world I do it for is very small. I have a very specific type of leaders and organisations I want to work with. And that’s my choice. If you’re a 200-person company trying to copy Google’s employer branding, you’re delusional. Google has a team 10 times your size dedicated just to brand. You want that? Hire a thousand people first. Your Urgency ≠ My Urgency This is the part that burns teams out. You failed at something. You’re panicking. You’re scrambling. So you create urgency for everyone else. Your urgency because you failed on a certain thing? Don’t make it my urgency. Stop telling people they need to be agile and flexible because you weren’t thorough. Stop changing frameworks every two quarters because yours didn’t work. That’s not agility. That’s chaos dressed up in leadership speak. The Part Everyone Skips: Self-Awareness Before you grab the next framework book, answer these questions: Who are you? Where are you? Where do you want to go? Jump on this magical train of self-awareness and discover where you really are at the moment. What’s working and what’s not working. What are your values and beliefs that no longer serve you and which ones do serve you. That’s where everything starts. Not with OKRs. Not with Big Rocks. Not with whatever’s trending on LinkedIn. With brutal honesty about who you are and what you need. Stop Consuming, Start Creating It’s like writing a thesis—at some point you have to stop doing research and start writing. The best ideas come when you stop consuming everyone else’s frameworks and start creating your own process. Celebrate What You Throw Away Picture a lantern ceremony. Write what doesn’t work on a lantern and let it float away. Celebrate when you find out that something doesn’t work for you and you can just let go of it. Those are the moments where you discover something that is just no longer serving you. It’s like taking out this power and chain from yourself. Let it go. Celebrate the discard. Listen to the full episode to hear the full rant about NPS scores in small companies, why plug-and-play is b******t, and what happens when you force a 50-person company to operate like a 20,000-person enterprise. The thesis: Be self-aware. Take what works. Leave what doesn’t. And for the love of god, stop treating business books like instruction manuals. Your organization isn’t generic. Stop trying to force it into a generic box. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit therebolutionaryjourney.substack.com
