opinionopinion
Being good at the work does not fix unclear direction
A capable team can collaborate well and still waste a lot of energy when nobody above it makes the real priorities clear.
I’ve had workdays where the team was not the problem. People knew their jobs, helped each other, and kept moving. Yet the work still felt strangely stuck because the direction above us was vague or kept shifting. Big organizations can absorb an impressive amount of effort while looking extremely busy from the outside.
That is the frustrating part: improving the team’s execution may only help everyone travel faster in the wrong direction. At what point does “helping the team perform” become avoiding the harder conversation about where the team is actually going?