A ticket dashboard showed one senior engineer closing seventy percent fewer tickets than his team, so the CEO put him on the cut list. He was the reason everyone else's numbers looked good. Alisa Reznik on the work metrics cannot see.
Before you hire another admin
A three minute scorecard. See how much of that next hire is repetitive work a system could take off your plate.
Take the scorecardA tracking system did exactly what it was built to do. It showed one senior engineer closing seventy percent fewer tickets than everyone around him, and the CEO put him on the list of people to cut. Alisa Reznik made him go have the conversation first. The engineer was spending his days unblocking the rest of the team, which is why their numbers looked so good and his looked so bad.
Alisa spent nearly two decades managing engineers, worked with more than fifty tech companies, and ran operations as a COO across offices in three countries before leaving to build her own practice, Leadify. She uses AI all day and she is clear about where it does not belong.
In this episode
The one category of work she refuses to automate, and the rule she uses to decide.
The ticket dashboard that recommended firing the most valuable person on the team.
Why "what is the best AI tool for my business" is the wrong question, and what to ask instead.
The CTO who prepared for a hard feedback conversation, then sent the notes over Slack.
Ten hours a week, and the ordinary CEO work that gets those hours back.
Her test for anything you are thinking of handing over: how big is the mistake you can afford.
The Friday deployment that wiped a client's CRM on Monday morning.
What young founders get wrong when they treat Claude as the person who knows.
Timestamps
- 00:00What this show is, and today's guest
- 01:10Why she picked "do not delegate everything to AI"
- 01:57Fifty plus tech companies, and the thing that breaks the same way everywhere
- 04:03Remote versus onsite, and how she runs engineering teams either way
- 05:41The first process she refuses to fully automate
- 07:42The tracking system that flagged the wrong engineer for cuts
- 10:46AI does not save you, it amplifies what is already there
- 11:02"I feel redundant, AI can do what I do"
- 12:48The wrong question every engineer is asking right now
- 15:48Where AI actually worked, and the ten hours a week it gave back
- 19:24Moving faster versus avoiding a hard call
- 20:08A better question than "what tool should I buy"
- 22:36What young founders are still missing
- 25:10The feedback conversation that got sent over Slack
- 29:00The four zones, and where AI belongs in each
- 30:05The rule: how big is the error you can afford
- 32:44The Friday deploy that erased a client's data
- 36:30Fixing the system and the person running it
- 37:36Where to find Alisa
About Alisa Reznik
Fractional COO and executive advisor, and the founder of Leadify. Nearly twenty years managing engineers, more than fifty tech companies, and operations across three countries. She mentors at Founder Institute and writes about operations and leadership every week.
Find Alisa on LinkedIn.