June 2026: Gratitude & AI Slop.
...but, to be clear, no gratitude for AI slop.
Time is an absolute thief! It’s hard to accept that 2026 is already half behind us, but it’s even more difficult to accept that my little dude is almost 17 months old! It has been so cool to see his sense of humor, daredevil personality, and love of all things that go fast emerge. That aside, it’s his big heart and the way that he interacts with others that I’m most proud of. He is such a cool dude!
It is because of all the time I’ve been able to spend with him that I am thankful to be in a role that requires a lot less time away. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still very excited to spend time with my teammates and our customers, but not having to be gone more than a sleep-or-two is a real gift.
Speaking of my new role, everything has become crystal clear at The Select Group. After taking a few months to learn our team, operations, and customers, I am excited to step into a role focused on bringing together our partner program, forming new alliance partnerships, and guiding development of the products that will take the swagger that TSG is known for and put that same energy into proprietary offerings.
More on that soon!
The Book (Re)Launch
I’m excited to re-launch both Small Firm, Big Impact and Surviving Performance Reviews! Only, the economic and business context has changed so much since I first wrote Surviving Performance Reviews that it is being relaunched as a first edition under a new title: The Performance Machine.
I first wrote Surviving Performance Reviews in 2017 to provide guidance in a world that was moving much faster than traditional performance management systems. I updated it in 2021 after COVID had shifted so much about how people work, but as I set out to update it again for the age of AI, I realized that so much of what had originally underpinned the book was no longer relevant. So, I rewrote nearly the whole thing. This time, the focus is on building a performance system that holds up when the work itself keeps changing: it is less about surviving the annual review, and more about turning everyday feedback into a machine that makes people and teams better.
As for Small Firm, Big Impact, calling this a second edition undersells it. I roughly doubled the book in size, from ten chapters to fifteen, and rebuilt it into four parts that walk from the foundations of starting a firm through growth to building something that lasts. There are entirely new chapters on productizing your judgment, pricing on outcomes instead of hours, planning your exit, and how AI changes the landscape for a small firm over the next two years.
Both books are available now in hardcover and paperback, and will be available on Audible the 4th of July weekend.
More Writing.
I write to learn, and it has certainly been a season of learning! Between all of the things that Ford is teaching me on a daily basis, and renewed energy with my new gig, I have been spending a lot of time reading, listening, walking, and writing.
If you’re interested, here are the areas where I have been spending the most time:
Agentic Delivery Lifecycle (ADLC)
The old SDLC doesn’t know what to do with AI, and that gap is costing money and percentage points. This series works through what changes when agents enter the delivery lifecycle: why the portfolio is the front door to that lifecycle, what it costs to verify an agentic system once running in production, and why the enduring logic of the product model is finally meeting the technology it always needed.
Robots in the Enterprise
Someone has to deploy these things, and most of the presentations skip over that part. This series is a week-by-week look at humanoid robotics from an operator’s seat: why “humanoid” isn’t quite the right word, the difference between the robot building your BMW and the one Hollywood sold you, and a scorecard of who’s actually building these machines and how they stack up.
Who I’m Following.
Social Media is mostly a barren wasteland of AI slop.
But, there are some gems. Here are a few of my favorites.
Ryne Swanberg
Hayden O’Neill
Dean Bradshaw
In closing.
Friends, it has been a crazy start to the year. I won’t pretend that leaving my old community and the space where I had spent nearly a decade building relationships and credibility was easy. It was hard. But that is something that Jenelle and I pray for each night: the courage to do hard things. We have to embrace hard things to get to the good things. Looking back, doing the hard thing absolutely brought me to where I’m supposed to be during this season of life.
I am grateful for the time with Jenelle and Ford.
I am grateful for the caliber of people who I work with at The Select Group.
I am grateful for the opportunity to help decide the future of this company.
I am grateful for the opportunity to be creative, write, and solve problems.
Mostly, I’m grateful for remembering how important it is to be grateful.
Oh, and I’m pretty grateful for each of you as well.
Now, go hug your people and be grateful!
Cheers,
Adam