Stop Chasing Answers: Managing Tensions at FedAgile 2025

When Problems Don't Have Solutions

The Dishwasher Principle

Pete used an everyday example to illustrate competing "right" answers. In his household, he and his wife Jana had different approaches to loading the dishwasher. For years, Pete saw his way—maximizing dishes and cleanliness—as correct. Jana's approach? Optimize for speed.

"Jana isn't wrong," Pete explained. "She just has a different right."



This seemingly simple insight revealed a profound leadership principle: real leadership isn't about knowing THE right way. It's about managing the tension between competing right ways that both have merit.

Agility as a Dial, Not a Switch

Rather than treating agility as an all-or-nothing proposition, Pete introduced the concept of agility as a dial to be adjusted based on context. The audience particularly connected with his reframing of the Agile Manifesto—replacing "over" with "and" to emphasize balance rather than choosing one value at the expense of another.

Using a rubber band demonstration with volunteers, Pete showed how leaders face multiple tensions simultaneously—tactical versus strategic, speed versus quality, innovation versus stability—all pulling in different directions at once.



"This is where real leadership lives," Pete told the audience. "Right in this uncomfortable, in-between space. You can't solve it, but you can manage it."

Creating Your Own Agile Recipe

For Federal Reserve attendees navigating cross-functional collaboration challenges and strategic execution, Pete's message landed: stop waiting for the perfect process and create your own approach. Treat frameworks as playbooks, not rigid recipes.



The session addressed what matters most to leaders in the fog: not finding the right decision, but creating the right conditions for better decisions to be made.