Leadership on Tobi(as Mende)

AI Made Me 10x More Productive – Now What?

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Thoughts on AI, Productivity, and What We Should Do Differently

In the last couple of months, I got to use Claude code a lot for software development, and I am at a point with it, where it gives me consistently high-quality results at incredible speed. In 99.5% of all cases, I get the results that I expect/desire. In other areas of my life, (other) AI tools have a drastic influence on my productivity and (sometimes) even my ability to do certain things, too.

Rethinking Leadership in B2B SaaS: Lessons from Self-Managing Organizations

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Rethinking Leadership in B2B SaaS: Lessons from Self-Managing Organizations

Two months ago, I joined the Corporate Rebels Masterclass – a hands-on exploration of how pioneering companies like Buurtzorg, Haier, Viisi, and others approach leadership, structure, and collaboration. These aren’t companies tinkering at the edges. They’ve built entire systems that challenge our default assumptions about how work should be organized.

Why Delegation Fails – and What to Do About It

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Fri, 30 May 2025 05:00:00 +0000

“You don’t have a delegation problem. You have a clarity and trust problem.”

I used to think I was helping my team by staying involved. Answering every question. Checking every detail. In reality, I was slowing everyone down – including myself.

Being the Leader Your Team Actually Wants to Follow

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 26 Apr 2025 05:00:00 +0000

There’s no shortage of leadership advice out there. Everyone has a framework, a matrix, or a magic quadrant. And honestly? Most of it feels disconnected from the messy, real-world challenges of building a company – especially when your team is growing, priorities are shifting weekly, and you’re just trying to keep your calendar from eating you alive.

Deciding Better in Organizations

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Deciding Better: How to Make Faster, Smarter, and More Effective Decisions in Your Organization

The quality of your decisions influences the quality of your life. The quality of the decisions in your organization determines your company’s future.

The Leadership Dilemma – When Times Change and Generations Collide

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 05:00:00 +0000

The Leadership Dilemma – When Times Change and Generations Collide

Your leadership style is heavily influenced by the leadership you have experienced yourself. The way how you run and build a company is the result of the companies you have worked in, your experiences, and your considerations.

Organizational Change Leadership

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Organizational Change and Leadership — Driving change effectively within organizations

Many people believe that you have to be in an official leadership position with official authority and power to lead change in organizations. This is far from the truth. I would even argue that it is easier to drive successful change if you do not have that formal authority. This is because without formal authority, you have to lead the change right (we will get to that in a bit). With formal authority, on the other hand, you can force the change, which can lead to frustration, resignation, and damage to the organization overall. Even worse, people might not speak up against change that they do not understand or that does not make sense to them. Therefore, whenever being in a leadership position with formal power, be extra cautious about how you drive change. In my article about organizational tension processing, I already tapped into an approach how we can initiate change in organizations without formal (hierarchical) authority. In today’s article, I explore the topic of how to drive the actual change and how to ensure that it becomes a success, in greater detail.

Organizational Tension Processing – Driving Change in Self-Organizing Companies

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 05 Oct 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Organizational Tension Processing – Driving Change in Self-Organizing Companies

Newcomers to self-organization often mistake the lack of a people-hierarchy for complete chaos. The term “flat” can be misleading, as it suggests that self-organizing companies lack any structure. In reality, this is far from the case.

Don’t motivate people

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 24 Aug 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Don’t motivate people

Now and then, when working with leaders, I get the question of how they could motivate their people. From their perspective, their people seem not motivated, not driven enough to bring the results they want to see.

Increase Engineering Productivity by 50% Through Focus and Flow

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 01 Jun 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Increase Engineering Productivity by 50% Through Focus and Flow

Creating an environment where developers can maintain focus and achieve flow can lead to a 50% increase in productivity, as research suggests. But how do we create such an environment?

11 Aspects Most Startups Get Wrong About OKRs and How to Fix it

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 24 Feb 2024 05:00:00 +0000

11 Aspects Most Startups Get Wrong About OKRs and How to Fix it

Objectives and key results (OKRs) can be a powerful tool. But as with any framework or methodology out there, just applying it as others do will likely not yield the best results. It can even harm your organization.

Self-organizing companies don’t need managers but coaches

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Self-organizing companies don’t need managers but coaches

If you are a manager or consider managing teams and organizations a significant part of your profession, the title will likely cause a feeling of rejection or a strong disagreement. I invite you to read on anyway.

Why We Need to Stop Measuring (Developer) Productivity — Part 2

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 23 Sep 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Why We Need to Stop Measuring (Developer) Productivity — Part 2

This is part two of my article on measuring developer productivity. In part one, we discussed the dangers of measuring productivity in general and why the need for productivity metrics for management and leadership is based on flawed assumptions.

How BRYTER Achieved Increased Developer Experience, Ownership, Product Quality, and Engineering Effectiveness through Continuous Deployments

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

How BRYTER Achieved Increased Developer Experience, Ownership, Product Quality, and Engineering Effectiveness through Continuous Deployments

BRYTER, a German LegalTech scale-up, faced challenges with its monolithic deployment process and limited understanding of the deployment process within its engineering teams. Deployments occurred only twice a week and were managed by the QA team, leading to a lack of visibility and ownership among the other teams.

Why We Need to Stop Measuring (Developer) Productivity — Part 1

tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) — Sat, 16 Sep 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Why We Need to Stop Measuring (Developer) Productivity — Part 1

Leaders are obsessed with productivity metrics. This is at least true for leaders who learned to lead in the last century. The ones that follow a command-and-control or carrots-and-sticks leadership approach. They need to measure each department individually to make the right decisions top-down.