5 Questions to make friends at work
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
When you've built something massive from a garage, you learn a thing or two about focus.
My humble opinion - directing even a small team's energy requires constant repetition.
Now, I think it’s quire hard to imagine doing so with thousands of people.
Without military-style command and control (which, trust me, quite fragile), you're left with only two tools: crystal clear communication and radical transparency as they say → being a leader.
Here's a sobering exercise I love: Ask each person on your team independently, "What problem are we solving right now, and why this one?"
Compare those answers. I guarantee you'll need quite a drink afterward.
To achieve true concentration of effort, you need three non-negotiable elements:
Obsess about problems, not solutions
Ensure everyone - from C to junior engineers → shares the same understanding top level goals.
Make the criticality of these goals so obvious that questioning them would seem absurd
And as a leader, you must have razor-sharp answers to these 5 questions and repeatedly communicate them until your team can recite them in their sleep:
What customer pain point are we eliminating? (What’s the problem you are solving?)
Why is this pain more important than others? (What else we are not working on?)
Why is our solution the best painkiller available? (What alternatives do we have?)
Will this actually cure the disease, or are we just treating symptoms? (Do we understand the problem deep enough?)
How do we know customers will thank us for this medicine? (Will we solve the problem, and how we will measure it?)
🥃 You know what's funny? I've started applying this framework at home with my partner long time ago. But here's the thing - after years together, she's developed this sixth sense.
Now, the moment I open my mouth with "So, what problem are we trying to solve here..." she sometimes cuts me off with a loving "Oh no, not this again - just do it!".
And you know what?
I do it! Because sometimes the best decision-making framework is knowing when to shut up and execute.
After all, autonomy in a relationship, like in business, is a beautiful thing - even if it means occasionally bypassing your own carefully crafted questioning process!
Cheers to partners who keep us grounded and occasionally save us from our own frameworks! 🥂