Ness Labs: Lead Like a Scientist ⚛️ (+watch my Talk at Google)

2. Unlocking social flow. Encourage team members to design their own experiments, make space for sharing insights, and remove as many artificial barriers as possible (admin, chain of command). This will allow you to shift from “Who has the right answer?” to “How can we learn more?”

One strategy to restart your creative engine? Walk away! If I’m stuck on something, no amount of banging away will solve it. But when I give it space and do something else, I often find the solution.

One daily practice you can’t do without? Blocking the morning. I think most creatively in the a.m., so I never book meetings before 11 am, or noon if I can manage it. That’s when I get my writing done.

3. Redefining success. Success isn’t just hitting targets, it’s building knowledge that can support long-term ambitions. Treat unexpected results as valuable data. When everyone understands that learning is part of success, they take smarter risks, surface problems earlier, and develop more interesting solutions to complex challenges.

1. Learning in public. To lead like a scientist, openly admit when you don’t know something, share failures and lessons learned, ask questions instead of always providing answers, and document your thinking. This transparency builds psychological safety, creating an environment where everyone feels safe to contribute ideas, ask questions, and ackno... See more