Elisabeth Hendrickson

Engineering executive. Systems thinker. Author, Signals & Levers and Explore It!

Eternal Staffing Questions: How Many People? How Many Teams?

Joel Tosi

CTO/Technical Coach. Systems Thinker. Author Signals & Levers, Create Your Dojo.

You know adding more people or teams will not (necessarily) make things faster. How do you explain that to others?

Explain the Mythical Man Month problem to stakeholders

The staffing models that worked last year might not be appropriate now with AI transforming our industry. Now what?

Today's answers can be wrong tomorrow, and vice versa.

There are multiple contributing factors to staffing. Visualize the cumulative effect of the influences with U-Curves.

How to use U-Curves as a thinking tool

Build a robust toolkit of techniques to level up your influence, scale your impact, & show value as a design leader without direct authority

Staff Product Designer with 15+ YOE

Asana

Etsy

SoundCloud

Nasdaq

Catt Small

Staff Product Designer with 15+ YOE at Etsy, Asana, SoundCloud, & more.

Cohort 6 - Jan 2026

Cohort 7 - July 2026

Identify and navigate roadblocks that keep most senior designers from leveling up — with guidance from an expert.I'm a Staff Product Designer with years of hands-on, high-impact leadership at both small and large companies. Over the past 15+ years, I've surpassed these challenges:🙃 Struggling to understand why I was stuck at senior🙃 Fighting for strategic influence, but still being left out🙃 Role ambiguity as a Staff Designer🙃 Being overwhelmed by busywork, not having visioning time🙃 Enjoying the leadership and mentorship parts of management, but not the HR part After finding clarity for myself, I decided to create this course to help others. Through digital lessons and live conversations, you'll discover tactics to become a more impactful, influential, and strategic individual contributor and leader.This course was designed for you to get the most value from our live time. You'll connect with designers from across the industry and build a shared understanding of the role of a Staff+ designer.I've given over 250 designers the tools to navigate their own challenges and reap the career rewards. Let's work together to chart your path forward. Join the next cohort today!

Stop being a paintbrush, start being a visioner

Clarify expectations of a Staff+ Designer

Influence strategy as a non-manager

Shift from reactive to proactive

Advocate for the Staff+ Designer role

Identify and fill your own gaps

Staff and Principal Designers who need new tactics to shift from reactive to proactive, build more leadership skills, and influence strategy

Senior Designers who want to get promoted to Staff — or learn about the role before choosing between individual contributor (IC) and Manager

Design Leads, Managers, and Directors shifting back to hands-on IC work who want to know how their skills translate

Master the systems to stop micromanaging and transition from a referee to an orchestrator of a self-running team.

Founder at The Strength Hack

Daimler AG

Airbus

Audi

Toll Collect GmbH

Murk Creusen

Founder & Leadership Coach at Strength Hack

Founding Cohort

You cannot fix burnout by working harder. You have a matching problem.AI is making your team's hard technical skills obsolete faster than they can learn them. You cannot fix this "AI anxiety" or burnout by asking them to work harder. You don't have an effort problem; you have a matching problem.Most Engineering Managers spend 70% of their week trapped in the "Mediocrity Loop" - refereeing personality clashes, fixing broken handoffs, and watching their team's shared knowledge collapse as junior roles vanish. You're bleeding runway and morale.This 30-day accelerator gives you the system to break out. Using the Big Five (or CliftonStrengths) assessment, a proven framework, and the Strength Hack AI, you'll map your team's cognitive architecture and engineer the conditions for psychological safety - not just hope for it.In 4 weeks, you will:<ul><li>Stop Generalist Exhaustion: Identify energy leaks and delegate based on Cognitive Fit, not calendar space. </li><li>Engineer Swift Trust: Use the 6-dimension Matching Compass to translate friction into synergy.</li><li>Drive ROI: Transition from a reactive referee to a strategic orchestrator</li></ul>

Engineer Psychological Safety. Stop Refereeing Your Team.

Shortcut the "Storming" Phase to Engineer Swift Trust

Reclaim 70% of Your Week (Plug the Energy Leak)

Turn Personality Clashes into Solvable Data

Restore the "Who Knows What" Architecture Your Team Lost

Walk Away with a "Plug-and-Play" Facilitation Kit

To get ROI from this course, a real-world team (direct reports or agile squads) is recommended to apply the Matching Compass frameworks.

Team Leadership or Management Role

You must take the free Big Five test (or CliftonStrengths) before to map your personal psychological operating system.

Completion of a Baseline Assessment

The Overwhelmed Engineering Manager / Tech LeadYou lead a hybrid or remote team. You want a data-driven system, not another workshop.

The Ambitious Senior / Staff Engineer<blockquote>You're moving to people manager. You want proven frameworks to lead a team without micromanaging.</blockquote>

The People-Conscious CTO / CPO<blockquote>You own culture and delivery for 10–200 people. Your board wants AI readiness. You need L&amp;D that's credible.</blockquote>

Asynchronously learn what it takes to operate at the staff level, including techniques to level up your influence and scale your impact

Cohort 1

Identify and navigate roadblocks that keep most senior designers from leveling up in this self-paced, asynchronous course.I'm a Staff Product Designer with years of hands-on, high-impact leadership at both small and large companies. Over the past 15+ years, I've surpassed these challenges:🙃 Struggling to understand why I was stuck at senior🙃 Fighting for strategic influence, but still being left out🙃 Role ambiguity as a Staff Designer🙃 Being overwhelmed by busywork, not having visioning time🙃 Enjoying the leadership and mentorship parts of management, but not the HR partAfter finding clarity for myself, I decided to create this course to help others. Through digital lessons, practical exercises, and FAQs, you'll discover tactics to become a more impactful, influential, and strategic individual contributor and leader.I've given over 250 designers the tools to navigate their own challenges and reap the career rewards. Grab your spot in this asynchronous course and begin to chart your path forward today.This course has a lengthy time window so it stays open. You can join at any time, and the content will be available to you in perpetuity.

Teach yourself to stop being a paintbrush, and start being a visioner

Advocate for the Staff+Designer role

Strengthen inner confidence, inspire others, and sharpen leadership skills through hands-on exercises and real-world tools

Leadership Coach 

Ha Tran

Founder, Ex-Google, Chief of Staff, U.S Department of State Professional fellow

Cohort 3

Cohort 4

In high-stakes moments, three things show up at once: 1. what you know is true2. what it might cost3. what you think you should do Most people try to resolve this by thinking harder or speaking better.It does not work. Because the problem is not clarity. The problem is authority. When no one is clearly leading, you: - hesitate even when you know the answer- over-explain to justify your position- say something, then walk it back- leave conversations feeling misaligned This is not a confidence issue. It is a governance issue. What changes after this workshop- You speak without over-explaining or softening your position- You make decisions faster without needing full certainty- You stop negotiating against yourself in real time- You handle pushback without collapsing or escalating- You stay aligned with your decision after the conversation ends This workshop is for you if: - You know what you want to say, but change it in the moment- You make decisions, then second-guess them after- You feel tension between what is true and what is acceptable- You are seen as capable, but do not feel fully in control under pressureMaximum 20 people/workshop to keep it intimate and practical.

You are not confused. You are running multiple leaders.

Make decisions under pressure without internal conflict

Senior leaders and managers looking to lead with conviction and assurance.

High-performing professionals who want to build stronger, more confident leadership skills.

Emerging leaders who seek to develop self-assurance, overcome self-doubt, and project confidence in high-stakes situations.

Agentic AI

Coding with AI

AI Workflows

Claude Code

OpenClaw

Vibe Coding

AI Evals

AI Transformation

RAG & Search

AI for PMs

AI for Engineers

AI for Designers

AI for Marketers

AI for Founders

Product Sense

Product Discovery

User Research

Prototyping

Growth

Analytics

Tech Foundations

Strategy

Influence

Leadership

Career Growth

Machine Learning

LLM Ops

Context Eng

Security

System Design

Figma

Design Systems

Visual Design

Design Strategy

Automation

Content Marketing

Demand Gen

Go-to-Market

Product Marketing

Positioning

Social Media

Brand

B2B Marketing

SEO & AEO

AI for Leaders

AI Governance

Communication

Management

People Operations

Exec Presence

Storytelling

Goal-setting

Personal Brand

Fundraising

Everyone

Operators

Data Scientists

Business Analysts

User Researchers

Customer Success

Project Managers

HR Professionals

Sales People

Lawyers

Finance

Investors

Real Estate

Educators

Creators

Executives and senior leaders who set strategy, lead teams, and drive organizational outcomes.

Project managers who organize and oversee execution of initiatives, timelines, and cross-functional delivery.

Developing leadership skills — inspiring teams, building culture, navigating organizational complexity, and driving results through others.

Setting strategic direction, making high-stakes decisions, and translating vision into execution.

Day-to-day people management — 1:1s, feedback, performance management, hiring, and team operations.