Tech leadership often feels like navigating uncharted waters alone. Shareholders may not understand the complexities of your role, and your team looks to you for solutions. That’s why Tech Leaders Collective (TLC) was created – a community of decision-makers in tech designed to make leadership collaborative rather than solitary.
Our mission for TLC is simple:
- Share ideas and learn from global leaders.
- Validate strategies and explore innovative approaches.
- Access actionable insights through workshops, networking, and events.
- Gain job referrals, funding, and investment opportunities.
By meeting quarterly, we create a space where leaders can support one another, learn what’s working in other organisations, and bring fresh, actionable insights back to their teams.
TLC is more than a meetup group, it’s a community where people are encouraged to speak, meet and work together on an on-going basis. After the first event and Slack channel being created, we’ve had four companies working together through sharing advice and meeting in person to consult on business goals.
Connect with Jon Holland on LinkedIn who will be sharing take-aways from each event so if you’ve missed one, you can look back and see what the group discussed and give you an idea of what to expect next time.
“Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast” vs. “Move Fast and Break Things” – Finding the Balance
Our latest event explored the balance between intentional, deliberate action and rapid innovation. We had a panel of amazing speakers to lead this discussion, including;
Shay Hamama – CPTO @ Luxury Escapes
Katie Boland – Chief Engineer @ x15 Ventures / CBA
Andy Barker – CTO @ swipejobs
Biliana Rajevic – Head of Strategy @ Quantum Brilliance
James Piskorz, who runs everything scale-up at Terem, did awesome work moderating the panel and sparking insightful conversations. All supported by the team at Stone & Chalk who supported the event across their own communities!
We then made it interactive by splitting into small groups where everyone assumed a role to discuss the pros and cons of moving fast or slow from that team member’s perspective, coming to an agreed solution for the given context.
Key Takeaways: Striking the Balance Between Speed and Precision in Tech & Product
1. Moving slowly doesn’t mean stagnation – it’s about being intentional.
- Avoid over-customisation: Trying to perfect every detail before launch can delay progress unnecessarily.
- Plan and measure effectively: Automation in testing, risk control, and business continuity planning can help ensure smooth execution.
- Test before scaling: Pilot launches, dark launches, or testing with a small, controlled audience allow for innovation without widespread risk.
- Empower employees: Aligning tasks with employees’ interests and strengths boosts engagement, productivity, and overall efficiency.
2. Speed can be a competitive advantage but must align with the situation.
- Evaluate the relative need for speed: Factors like competition, market share, and product lifecycle stages often dictate the pace.
- Understand the risks: Rushing without learning enough about customers or understanding risks can lead to broken trust and missed opportunities.
- Differentiate between reversible and irreversible decisions: “Two-way doors” (reversible decisions) allow for quicker action, while “one-way doors” require more deliberation.
3. Building the Right Culture for Speed and Precision
The organisational environment plays a crucial role in determining the pace.
- Create accountability systems: Regular sprints, performance reviews, and team goals foster clarity, visibility, and accountability.
- Hire for alignment: Employees who thrive in fast-paced environments bring energy and adaptability to rapid-growth teams.
- Balance sustainability: Fast isn’t always sustainable – breaking tasks into manageable pieces and setting realistic expectations ensures long-term success.
4. Fostering Safe Spaces to Fail
Failure is an inevitable part of growth, but the way organisations handle it makes all the difference.
- Normalise accountability: Acknowledge mistakes openly to learn from them without creating a culture of fear.
- Focus on processes, not people: Blaming systems rather than individuals encourages constructive problem-solving.
- Reframe failure as experimentation: Every misstep is an opportunity to gain insights and improve future outcomes.
Balancing speed and precision isn’t about choosing one approach over the other. Instead, it’s about adapting to the context, creating robust frameworks, and fostering a culture of accountability and experimentation. By being strategic and thoughtful, organisations can move quickly without sacrificing quality or trust.
“Doing More with Less” – Adapting and Optimising for Impact
All tech businesses are tasked with achieving ambitious goals with limited resources. TLC’s first meetup focused on strategies to optimise efficiency without sacrificing quality.
We had Paulwyn – VP Engineering at Lyka and Sherry – Director of Engineering at Immutable talk through their experiences, then we broke out into small groups to workshop a problem – facilitated by the awesome team at Prosocia.
1. Startup Takeaways: Prioritise, Align, Deliver
- Choose carefully: Avoid overloading your team—focus on the few things that truly matter. As one panelist put it, “Too many ingredients on a pizza won’t make it taste better.”
- Prioritise properly: Determine what to work on and when based on customer needs and business impact.
- Deliver dutifully: Commit to what you promise and follow through.
2. Enterprise Takeaways: Bridging Product and Engineering
- Align on purpose: Define the engineering function clearly—is it about writing code or shaping the product?
- Strengthen product collaboration: Use the analogy of a chef and a menu: Engineering teams (the chefs) need a clear product strategy (the menu) to deliver value effectively.
- Get engineers closer to customers: Encourage your team to listen directly to customer feedback via reviews, forums, or support channels to better prioritize and deliver meaningful results.
3. Key Principles for Doing More with Less:
- Hierarchy of priorities: Ensure foundational tasks (e.g. keeping the lights on) are secured before tackling growth initiatives or nice-to-haves.
- Strategic resource allocation: Evaluate if tasks are mandatory, safeguard the long-term, and ensure you’re not overlooking critical opportunities.
- Leverage alternative resources: Consider reallocating skills, hiring contractors, or outsourcing projects strategically.
The Power of Community in Leadership
Through events like these, Tech Leaders Collective brings tech leaders together to collaborate, learn, and grow. Whether it’s exploring how to adapt in resource-constrained environments or debating the merits of speed versus precision, the collective is a platform for actionable insights and peer-driven solutions.
If you’re a tech leader seeking new ideas, a support network, or simply a space to validate your strategies, we’d love for you to join us. Together, we can navigate the complexities of leadership and build stronger, more innovative organisations.
If you’re a leader in tech and would like to get involved in TLC, please register your interest HERE.
Connect with Jon and reach out for more information on joining the community or follow The Onset for more insights in this area.
