The Coordination Tax
All episodes
HR Is the Last Line of Defense Against Chaos: Barry Wolfe on value-centric leadership
Barry Wolfe — HR consultant, founder of Argos HR, and author of It's All in Your Head — on why HR is the last line of defense against organizational chaos, why every role needs 3–5 clear value outcomes, and why the foundation of a well-run company is one document under 300 words.
You Can't Sword-Fight a Bullet: Alberto Torres on surviving disruption
Alberto Torres — former Nokia executive, ex-McKinsey partner, and author of The Z Curve — on what actually happened at Nokia, why great peace-time leaders quietly fail in war-time, and what every company facing AI right now should learn from the companies that got disruption right.
Your Leadership Doesn't Know What's Going On: Olivia Montgomery on why decisions belong lower in the org
Olivia Montgomery — principal analyst at Data Frame and former Gartner researcher — on why every layer up the org chart knows less about what's really going on, and why the fix isn't more visibility for leadership but pushing decisions down two or three levels.
You Don't Get to Be the Rock Star Anymore: Craig Denison on the founder's hardest transition
Craig Denison — head of growth at The Table Group (Patrick Lencioni's firm) and founder of Green Thumb Consulting — on the transition every founder hits when execution stops running through their brain, and why 99% of the time the founder is creating the dysfunction they are trying to fix.
You Don't Have a Training Problem: Dr. Christie Vanorsdale on the L&D order-taker trap
Dr. Christie Vanorsdale — founder of Vanorsdale Learning Lab, cognitive multimedia learning researcher, and fractional Chief Learning Officer — on why L&D keeps solving the wrong problems, and what changes when you stop treating it as an order taker.
AI Is Quietly Eating Your Week: Kristian Luoma on the Coordination Tax Index 2026
A solo episode on the first quantitative measure of coordination overhead. 247 managers, five countries, 16.5 hours a week — and why the heaviest AI users are carrying the most load, not the least.
What Really Happened to the Spotify Model: Hosanna Ouellette and Nora Bereczkei on autonomy, agents, and the 26 rocket ships
Hosanna Ouellette and Nora Bereczkei ran the operating model rebuild inside Spotify. They explain why autonomy stopped scaling, how they stopped shipping the org chart to users, and why agents break the purposeful ambiguity every operating model quietly relies on.
The Hidden Cost of Leading: Robert Siegel on AI, cross-pressures, and outdated leadership playbooks
Robert E. Siegel — XSeed Capital partner, Stanford GSB lecturer, and author of The Systems Leader — on the hidden cost of coordination, why truth equals facts plus context, and why the managers using AI the most carry the heaviest coordination load.
Jeroen Kraaijenbrink — Why the CEO Is the Last to Know
Strategy author Jeroen Kraaijenbrink on why CEOs are the last to know — how truth travels sideways but never up, why only 1% of employees feel safe voicing concerns, and the PACE framework for the honesty a strategy needs before it's written.
Jason Barnaby — The Golden Spreadsheet in the Locked Drawer
Fractional sales leader Jason Barnaby on the golden spreadsheet in the locked drawer — why one person hoards the data a company runs on, why the $20M pipeline is really $10M, and the one hire that fixes it.
The Honest Picture: Jim Fielding on Disney Store, Fox, and what really happens inside big companies
Jim Fielding — former President of Disney Stores Worldwide, CEO of Claire’s, and President of Consumer Products & Innovation at 20th Century Fox — on what actually keeps big organizations honest about what’s happening.