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Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova.
This week I'm joined by Karina Mangu-Ward, organizational design expert and author of Teams That Meet The Moment. Karina has worked with organizations ranging from PepsiCo and Chanel to Planned Parenthood and the Sundance Institute. Her work challenges a fundamental assumption about performance: that the individual is the unit we should be trying to optimize. I'm excited to share this conversation with her.
THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR…entrepreneurs, founders, and business leaders looking to build stronger and more effective teams.
TODAY'S MAIN MESSAGE…organizations often try to solve performance problems by focusing on individuals: hiring a superstar, coaching an underperformer, or replacing someone on the team. But Karina argues that the real issue is often the system surrounding those individuals. She explains why teams, rather than individuals, are the true unit of value creation and how shared language, clear decision rights, and better teaming practices can help organizations move faster and learn more effectively. In this conversation, we also explore what happens when AI agents become part of the team and why automating a broken process can simply make the problem bigger.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
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Teams, not individuals, are the true unit of performance.
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Consensus isn't always the goal; decisions need clarity and momentum.
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Clear decision rights can make teams faster and more effective.
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AI amplifies the need for strong processes, roles, and collaboration.
WHAT I LOVE MOST…this conversation challenges the instinct to always look at the individual when something isn't working. Sometimes the most important thing to fix isn't the person, it's the way the team is designed to work together. And as AI changes how work gets done, that lesson is only becoming more important.
Running Time: 26:55
Find Tiffani Online:
Find Karina Online:
Karina's Book:
Teams That Meet the Moment: 9 Practices for Unlocking Performance and Growth in Uncertain Times
