The Value Flywheel Effect

Chapter 5

Finding Your North Star

There is nothing more important than purpose and vision. A team must have clarity of purpose. If not, stop everything. I was once in a situation where the team had no idea why they were doing the tasks they were doing. This didn’t sit well with me. I was a senior engineer, not a team leader, but I could foresee problems. Without clarity of purpose, the team would not be able to fill in the gaps between requirements.

I ran a short exercise with the team around “start with why.” We looked at the why, the how, and the what, just to connect the dots. To my surprise, the manager pulled me aside afterward and said, “That’s not your job. Stop it.”

Of course, I didn’t. The team needed the context to complete their tasks. ...