§ The Journal
Field notes.
No fluff.
What the research actually says about running a team — and which bits of HR theatre to bin. Written for founders who'd rather read evidence than a culture deck.
30 May 2026·4 min readopsproductivity
The cost of HR theatre
One sick day shouldn't cost a 12-message Slack thread. Here's the hidden tax of performative people-ops, and the maths founders never run.
Read →28 May 2026·4 min readmanagementevidence
Ruinous empathy — the kindest managers do the most damage
The manager everyone loves is often the one quietly wrecking careers. The research on why caring without challenging is a failure mode, not a virtue.
Read →26 May 2026·4 min readproductivityops
How to run people ops in three hours a week
For a 10-50 person team, people-ops is a handful of recurring workflows — not a full-time job. Here's the system that keeps it to a weekly block instead of a daily hum.
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