Running the Machine
Most execution problems aren’t effort problems — they’re system problems. Queues build up, decisions bottleneck, work-in-progress explodes, and everything takes longer than it should. People work harder and harder while throughput stays flat or declines.
The fix isn’t motivation or management heroics. It’s understanding flow: how work moves through systems, where it gets stuck, and what actually determines how much gets done. This section covers constraints, queues, and the discipline required to finish what you start.
Where to start
The Execution Trap — Why execution fails and what to do about it. The synthesis of decision latency, queue overload, starting bias, and trust gaps.
Stop Starting, Start Finishing — Leaders optimise for starting. The bottleneck is finishing. The single most important shift.
Flow and constraints
How work actually moves — and why it often doesn’t.
The Execution Trap — Four failure modes that look like execution problems but aren’t: decision latency, queue overload, starting bias, trust gaps. The integrated diagnosis.
Capacity and Flow — Why WIP discipline is the master lever. The relationship between utilisation, queue time, and throughput.
Hidden Bottleneck — Decisions are a constraint category we don’t see. Finding the real bottleneck before improving anything else.
Stop Starting, Start Finishing — The bias toward new work over completing existing work. Why finishing is harder and matters more.
Expensive Yes — Every yes adds to an invisible queue. The hidden cost of commitments.
Variety Kills Flow — The hidden cost of doing many different things. Why specialisation often beats flexibility.
The Last Twenty Percent — The final stretch of capacity isn’t capacity. It’s the margin that absorbs variance. Why running hot breaks systems.
Marginal Gains, Marginal Returns — Improve the constraint, not everything. Why broad optimisation often wastes effort.
Standards and tempo
How organisations maintain performance over time.
Standards, Tempo, Focus — Three things determine how an organisation performs. They interact as a system — you can’t fix one without the others.
Monday Notes — Von Braun’s weekly notes system. A practice for maintaining visibility and tempo across an organisation.
Factory or Lab — Replicating known value versus discovering new value. Different modes require different management. Match mode to work.
Communication
The mechanics of moving information.
Meeting Modes — Review versus tactics versus strategy. Different purposes require different prep, different structures, different decisions.
When to Meet — Most things don’t need synchronous time. Knowing when to meet and when not to.
Clear Writing — Short paragraphs, concrete details, active voice. The basics that most business writing gets wrong.
SCQA — Situation, complication, question, answer. The structure that makes communication land.
Slide Mechanics — Visual formatting and language discipline. How slides work as a medium.
Vertical Logic — Governing thought first, then supporting points, then evidence. The pyramid principle in practice.
Suggested reading order
If you’re working through this section systematically:
- The Execution Trap — the integrated diagnosis
- Capacity and Flow — the mechanics of throughput
- Hidden Bottleneck — finding the real constraint
- Stop Starting, Start Finishing — the key behaviour change
- Standards, Tempo, Focus — the organisational system
Then explore the communication practices as needed.
Connects to
Leading People — Machines are run by people. Flow and constraints create the context, but people make it work (or don’t).
Making Decisions — Decisions are often the hidden bottleneck. The two sections are deeply connected — execution surfaces decision quality.
Setting Direction — Strategy sets direction; operations runs the machine. They constrain each other.