Two Markets Shifted at Once: Surviving the Trough of Disruption

Two Markets Shifted at Once: Surviving the Trough of Disruption

Guest: Jeff Giesen
Air Date: July 28, 2026

EPISODE SUMMARY

Most disruption stories get told after the person makes it out the other side. Jeff Giesen is still in the middle of his, and that's what makes this conversation different.

Jeff spent his career as an engineering leader and agile transformation practitioner. He built and led teams of Release Train Engineers, taught SAFe courses, and drove enterprise-scale change at a company in the travel reservation space. Then COVID flattened airline travel, the layoffs started coming every six months to a year, and eventually his group got hit. The scaled agile transformation that had helped the company deliver started to look like overhead, and the roles went with it.

Instead of waiting for the next job to appear, Jeff went bigger on a real estate business he'd been building since 2011. He moved from small multifamily investing into ground-up townhome development, and he's now got eight units finishing in late August. Then the second disruption arrived: the Denver market softened, rates climbed, and units that were built to sell had to be converted to rentals while he waits for the numbers to work.

So Jeff is carrying two disruptions at once, a contracted tech job market and a softened real estate market, both tying up his capital and his direction. Kumar calls this space the trough of disruption, the gap between what was and what's next. This episode is an honest look at what that gap feels like from the inside, and what it teaches you that you can't see when everything's going smoothly.

KEY TOPICS COVERED

Why Agile Didn't Save the Company Jeff's company ran a full scaled agile implementation, and it helped, but not enough to change the outcome. In a slow-moving business tied to the airlines, the transformation delivered improvements that weren't large or fast enough to justify the overhead once economic pressure hit. Kumar and Jeff both name the real lesson: transformation without clear outcomes measured along the way starts to look like cost, not value.

Transformation Is a Journey, Not an End State The two agree that transformation has no finish line. It's constant improvement, constant attention to the market and the product, deeply iterative. The failure mode isn't the framework. It's treating the framework as the goal.

From Side Hustle to Main Hustle Jeff bought his first rental in 2011 and managed it in his spare time. Watching scrape-and-build projects go up around his Denver duplex pulled at him for years. He couldn't act on it with a full-time job until he found a one-stop development partner who could source land, entitle it, design, and build. That relationship is what let a non-GC get into ground-up construction.

When Two Markets Shift at Once Denver softened. Rates shocked upward. Rate buy-downs on completed units didn't move them. Jeff's read is that it isn't only rates: prices are high, everything costs more, and the political and economic backdrop adds friction. The pivot has been to convert unsold builds into rentals to cover expenses while waiting for sale numbers to make sense.

Life in the Trough Jeff doesn't feel like the sky is falling, but he feels his hands are tied. His capital is locked in projects that haven't returned, so the commercial multifamily moves he wants to make are on hold. What the limbo has taught him is less tactical and more personal: trust, confidence, and managing fear before fear runs the show.

Applying What He Taught to His Own Situation The transformation principles don't transfer to construction management, since Jeff is intentionally hands-off there and defers to operators who know permitting, cities, and counties. What does transfer is relationship-building. He vetted his development partner through his real estate network, and those relationships have carried him through a stretch where builders are struggling.

The Job Search Reality Getting back into technology has been hard. AI-driven applicant tracking systems screen him out fast, and he hasn't cracked what they're looking for despite reworking resumes and cover letters with AI. His honest take: networking is still how experienced people actually find work, and he's lost roles to internal candidates the interviewers already knew.

Where He's Headed No polished answer. Jeff stays open: technology roles, a real estate tangent that uses his program management skills, maybe something he starts. He describes the discomfort of feeling like he's wandering rather than pointed in one direction, and he's holding the tension between focus and optionality on purpose.

MEMORABLE QUOTES

Note: this was a live broadcast. Verify each quote against the final recording before reuse in blog or promo copy.

"I didn't quit the company. They quit me."

"I absolutely feel like I'm in limbo."

"What I liked about it is the creation."

"The investments you make sometimes don't return when you expect."

"I think there's more to it. I think the prices are high."

"These AI, ATS systems really pull you out real quickly, and I haven't mastered what they're looking for."

"I've mainly found jobs networking, and I think the networking is still huge."

"You can just really get yourself going if you'll allow it to."

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Transformation without measured outcomes becomes overhead. When leadership can't see the value, the roles are first to go in a downturn.
2. There's no end state. Transformation is constant improvement or it's nothing.
3. A pivot doesn't have to be a clean escape. Jeff converted unsold builds to rentals to survive the softening, not to win it.
4. The disruption you plan for is rarely the only one. Two markets can turn at the same time and lock up your options.
5. Relationships are the portable skill. The domain changed from tech to construction. Vetting people and building trust carried over.
6. AI has changed the job search more than the job. Networking still beats the applicant tracking system.
7. The trough teaches something you can't learn on the way up: how to manage fear before it manages you.

CONNECT WITH JEFF

Real estate and development work: giesenhouse.org

YouTube: Jeff shares content on real estate and his development journey (search "Jeff Giesen" on YouTube)

LinkedIn: Connect with Jeff Giesen on LinkedIn

Jeff is open to hearing from anyone with questions on real estate, or from people who think he might be a fit for a technology or transformation role. If you're navigating your own trough, this is a good person to reach out to.

ABOUT THE HOST

Kumar Dattatreyan is an ICF PCC executive coach, co-founder of Agile Meridian, and creator of The Disruptor Method™. The Meridian Point explores disruption and innovation through conversations with transformation leaders and entrepreneurs living through change.

Connect: LinkedIn | agilemeridian.com | disruptormethod.com

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