We need context to perform most tasks. It helps us determine what to do, how to do it, and why. However, in many teams and organizations, critical details are often poorly communicated. This makes it difficult to make progress and build momentum because we are forced to operate with incomplete, insufficient, or incorrect information. We need good information to make good decisions. The emergence of powerful new tools and technology has increased the pressure to work faster and do more. However, if people are communicating in fundamentally flawed ways, they will have a much harder time reaching their goals, no matter how “intelligent” their new systems are. Therefore, we must ensure that we communicate information effectively. When sharing information with people, we must carefully consider whether we are sharing the right context, so we can move fast and move in the right direction.

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Why Most Teams Don’t Have Good Context

A culture of poor communication makes it hard to share and receive good context.

Many of us are not as clear as we think we are. We often share too many of the wrong details and too few of the right ones. People are quick to send a message or schedule a meeting, but don’t always consider how clearly they are communicating. We have all received unclear emails or been in confusing meetings, which have led to a frustrating back-and-forth. This is a generally unproductive, but not uncommon, situation. While good communication is a collective responsibility, on most teams, managers have a strong influence on how context is shared. The team often defaults to their manager’s communication style.

However, many managers do not set their team members up for success. Their teams often have to interpret their vague directives. This lack of clarity often diminishes and derails the team’s efforts. They don’t fully understand what their manager (or their organization) wants. So, they create plans based on a flawed understanding of what needs to be done. When they fail to deliver, managers get frustrated and resort to micromanaging their team. This erodes trust, morale, and motivation, further perpetuating a cycle that results in low-quality work.

Managers are not entirely responsible for these lapses in communication. Often, they just perpetuate the behaviors reflected in the organizational culture. While it’s hard for them to change how an entire organization communicates, they can control how their team does. They are responsible for figuring out how to support, accelerate, or unblock the work. Therefore, managers must create systems, processes, and rituals to support good context sharing. They must also demonstrate the rigor and depth of thinking from their team (when sharing context). This gives teams greater clarity, helping them move faster and do better work.

How To Share Context Well

Start With Empathy When Sharing Context

Empathy helps us recognize what context people need.

When you share context, consider what information you would need if you were in the other person’s shoes. When we share information with people, they process what we say and decipher what we mean. Our thinking is shaped by what we know and what we have experienced. Since we all have different, distinct lived experiences, we can look at the same facts and arrive at different conclusions. So, what’s obvious to us is often not to others. This is what makes communication challenging.

While we can’t transfer everything we know into another person’s mind, empathy can give us insight into people’s perspectives. This helps us understand how they might interpret what we are sharing. We must recognize scenarios where our thinking might diverge from theirs. This can help us spot instances where we are failing to provide the right context. When we share context in a way that helps people understand how to interpret the information, we ensure our message is accurately understood.

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Thoughtfully Decide What To Share

Select which information to include and how to share it thoughtfully and intentionally.

When you share context, consider what people do and do not know and ensure that they get all the information they need. We must structure context so that people can get as much or as little information as necessary. The more details we share, the harder it becomes for them to discern what’s important. So, we should focus on saying the right things. We must concisely communicate the high-level details, while ensuring additional context is accessible (e.g., links to research, specs, or designs) and structured in a useful format (e.g., as a report, dashboard, or FAQ list). For example, “Here are the key details. You can find information on specific areas (design, engineering, etc.) in documents XYZ.”

You May Also Like: Executive Communication, Effective Remote Teams, How To Be Clear

State The Goal

Indicate why the context is being shared.

When you share context, lead with the main point (your goal). Clearly indicate the specific actions or decisions you want people to take using this information. For example, “We need to do XYY. Here are the key details…” This helps them pay attention to relevant information, focus on critical details, connect the dots, and recognize context gaps. It also allows them to ask good questions, flag potential issues, identify assumptions, and uncover blind spots. Good goals give people a well-defined target to aim for, helping them focus their efforts. When we fully understand the goal, we have a frame of reference to organize the information being shared.

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Explain The Purpose

Connect the context to the bigger picture.

When you share context, explain the importance or relevance of the context being shared. We often elaborate on what needs to be done and gloss over the why. Everyone wants to know the purpose of their tasks because they want to do meaningful work worthy of their time, energy, and consideration. Sometimes, even when we do explain the why, we often fail to frame it in a way that resonates with people. Therefore, the context we share must clarify how the immediate goal connects and contributes to the organization’s larger goals. It must be communicated in a way that emotionally resonates with people. This makes them more likely to be motivated, which brings out their creativity, innovation, and passion, leading to better quality work and greater satisfaction.

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Highlight The Critical Details

Emphasize important pieces of information in the context.

When you share context, don’t force people to do the heavy lifting to identify critical pieces of information. If there are specific requirements, criteria, and risks that people must know, explicitly draw attention to them, using simple and clear language. We must ensure that they understand which details matter, so they don’t miss or misinterpret the core points. We must also recognize which parts may be confusing and offer to elaborate on relevant topics (e.g., I can elaborate on areas XYZ if you would like), after sharing context.

For example, if there are critical risks involved, make sure people are aware of them. The earlier we can flag issues, the better. It’s helpful to reflect on critical details that were missed in the past. For example, what went wrong when performing similar tasks? How, when, where, and why did things go wrong? This helps us identify vital context that people might need to successfully complete the work. The context must give them enough information to accurately identify, understand, and assess the critical details, so they can take the appropriate measures.

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The Parallels Between Sharing Context With People And AI

Improving our communication helps us collaborate more effectively with both people and AI.

The simplicity of the chat interfaces has made using AI easy and intuitive. However, as many of us have experienced first-hand, these “intelligent” systems need context. The quality of the outputs depends on the quality of the inputs (a.k.a. the context we provide). People are realizing this and getting interested in topics like prompt engineering. When you go online, there’s no shortage of posts about prompting tips, tricks, and strategies. At its core, all this discourse about prompting just comes down to having a well-structured conversation with AI, just like you would with a real person. However, that’s exactly where the problem lies. We are generally not great at sharing context with people, so we struggle to share context with machines.

Context matters no matter who or what we are communicating with. When we “talk” to an AI model, we can see in real time how its output gets better with each successive prompt. With each prompt, the model gets more context on what we want, which shapes its thinking and decision-making, helping it refine its approach. When we finally get the desired output, what we are getting is a product of all the context we have provided. This is really not that different from how we operate. When we have good context, we can (usually) produce good results. However, where we differ from AI is our ability to fill in the gaps in context using our own knowledge, experience, and intuitions. However, this can have mixed results: sometimes working in our favor and sometimes working against us. That’s why sharing context effectively matters.

Conclusion

When we communicate context effectively, we operate with greater clarity and do better work.

The modern workforce is hyper-connected. We seem to be constantly communicating with each other. However, despite the numerous exchanges of information (via documents, messages, emails, calls, and meetings), we still struggle to get the context we need. The problem lies in how context gets shared in most organizations. When critical details get communicated in inconsistent, ad hoc ways, people just end up getting confused and frustrated.

When we share context, we have to be thoughtful and intentional about what we share and how. We must remember that people have fundamentally different perspectives from us. So, we have to work hard to stay on the same page. We must structure the context we provide to help people interpret what we are saying. We want to make sure our message gets across, and we also want to equip the other person with the necessary information. As we improve the quality of our communication, it becomes easier to build momentum and make meaningful progress.

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References

• Priank’s Newsletter | Asking Better Questions, Building Effective AI Workflows, Building With AI, Executive Communication, Effective Remote Teams, How To Be Clear, Learning From Failure, Mission-Driven, Setting Better Goals

• Wes Kao’s Newsletter | Be objective, not detached, How I give the right amount of context, The CEDAF framework

Last week, I explored how product managers can partner with engineers more effectively. This post explores the other component of the product trio: product designers. After all, strong collaboration with both designers and engineers is essential for building great products.

Design influences everything users do, think, and feel while using a product. They care about it. Maybe too much sometimes. They may even choose a product just because it looks better than the alternatives, even if it functions worse. Therefore, delivering a great experience is always a priority for product teams. Product managers are responsible for empowering their teams to do their best work. One way they accomplish this is by creating the right conditions for designers to succeed.

When PMs build strong partnerships with designers, they increase the likelihood of building something that reflects what the users care about. Every design decision is going to influence how users perceive and use the product. As AI fundamentally changes the speed of product development, the quality of the products becomes a greater competitive differentiator. PMs who can collaborate effectively with designers raise the bar on what their team can deliver.

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The Product Manager-Designer Relationship

The strength of the PM-Designer relationship can determine a product’s trajectory.

While there are many parallels between partnering with engineers and partnering with product designers, most product managers (PMs) don’t approach design and engineering with the same mindset. While a product team’s ultimate output is code, the engineers rely on design to determine exactly what to code. However, creative work is rarely straightforward. The final output might be very different from what the designer initially intended. Along the way, they may have explored, pursued, and abandoned different ideas across multiple design iterations. The non-linear nature of design is often at odds with expectations of delivery on tight, predictable timelines.

People’s lives are filled with hundreds of interactions with phones and computers. However, most of these interactions are not going to be great. They might be confusing, frustrating, or even downright terrible. Product teams should focus on minimizing (or ideally eliminating) negative interactions and maximizing positive interactions. Great experiences give people a compelling reason to choose a specific solution. And design is how we deliver those experiences. Both PMs and designers want to create something useful, usable, and desirable. They just have very different approaches to accomplishing this. When PMs understand how designers operate, they can collaborate with them more effectively to build better products.

Where Do Product Managers Go Wrong

Dictating how design work should be done, instead of deferring to designers.

Some PMs (and stakeholders) have strong design opinions and expect designers to stick to their vision. While some non-designers can have good design intuition, many overestimate their abilities. They assume they know what good design looks like, but forget that their definition of good might not match their users’ definition. This prescriptive approach (telling designers exactly what to do) rarely produces great design because it is driven by someone’s preferences, rather than fundamental design principles. While many product teams want their product to be incredibly beautiful, intuitive, and easy to use, forcing designers to skip, speed up, or change steps in their design process just leads to shallow, poorly-conceived designs.

Similar to engineers, designers look to PMs for direction, not instruction. They can bring ideas to life by helping us visualize them (using visual storytelling, mockups, prototypes, etc.). They can explore and articulate trade-offs of different design options, helping the product team arrive at the best possible design for their specific solution. This increases the likelihood of creating something that resonates with users and ultimately drives the desired customer, product, and business outcomes. When PMs only talk to designers after the work has already been decided, designers don’t have a chance to offer their input, apply their skills, and use their creativity. This limits the team’s ability to build a great product. Therefore, partnering with designers to solve problems is essential for delivering a well-designed solution.

Assuming your company hired well and you’re working with a skilled designer who is well-informed about the user, the problem, and goals, you should defer to them in their area of expertise: the user experience.
— Lenny Rachitsky, The PM 🤝 Design Partnership

Other common ways product managers create friction with designers:

• Denying designers sufficient time for research, testing, and iteration.

• Repeatedly changing the design scope, requirements, and constraints.

• Providing vague directions/feedback when asking for design changes.

• Evaluating designs based on inconsistent standards or confusing criteria.

• Demanding multiple, polished versions of design ideas on unrealistic timelines.

• Enforcing arbitrary design requirements without a clear rationale or justification.

• Asking for design changes that are inconsistent with the product’s design system.

How To Collaborate More Effectively With Designers

Embrace Design Thinking

Understand what matters to users and designers.

Design thinking is a people-centric approach to product development. We need a deep understanding of people and their problems to build a good solution. It’s not just about the product’s look and feel. It’s about imagining the user’s perspective and identifying meaningful ways to improve the user’s experience. This helps PMs recognize why certain design details matter. Each design element (a button, an interaction, a popup, etc.) can either improve or diminish the user experience. When PMs care about the details too, they can properly evaluate design concerns, pushback, and trade-offs.

While design thinking can and should be embraced by everyone on the product team, PMs still need to defer to the designer’s expertise. Each role (PM, designer, and engineer) requires a different problem-solving mindset. It’s hard to hold multiple mindsets in your head simultaneously. PMs with a design background may still fail to fully grasp the complexity of a design challenge because their current primary focus is product work, not design work. The purpose of design thinking is to better empathize with designers, not to control their work. A designer’s mindset helps them identify the right design for a solution. Therefore, PMs must trust their designer’s judgment when it comes to design decisions.

Provide Clear Context And Feedback

Give designers the specific information necessary to make design decisions.

PMs are closely connected to the customer and the business realities. They use their insight to determine and drive the product roadmap. Designers don’t always have this insight or the bandwidth to obtain it themselves. So they rely on PMs for context. However, many designers get vague design briefs, so they must use their best judgment to fill in the blanks. Therefore, it often takes multiple design iterations to create something that meets the PM’s (or the stakeholders’) expectations. This slows down the design process, which delays the handoff to the engineering team. Therefore, PMs need to provide clear design briefs that minimize ambiguity, so designers have a good understanding of what they need to produce.

Designers also rely on PMs to provide good design feedback. When providing design feedback, effective PMs don’t ask for some vague improvement (”make it better, simpler, more intuitive, etc.”). They give designers highly specific feedback, helping to pinpoint what specifically needs to change: What exactly is wrong with the current design idea? How are the expectations not being met? Why is the design bad or ineffective? Overall, the more context and specificity PMs can provide, the more information the designer has to guide their thinking, inform their decision-making, and solve design problems more efficiently.

Explain The Purpose

Provide clarity on why the work matters.

The PM might clearly understand why a piece of functionality is critical for the customers and the business. However, this may not be clear to the designer. Just like engineers, they want to know the purpose of their tasks because they want to do meaningful work. They need to know why the work matters, especially when asked to work all day on seemingly pointless design tasks. Therefore, PMs must continuously help designers connect the dots: Why does this piece of functionality matter? How does it relate to other things that we are building now or in the future? What impact does this have on our customer or our business? And so on.

Designers need to understand the overall motivation and rationale for building something to make the right calls. Product teams are constantly balancing design and functionality because sometimes it’s just not possible to meet all the requirements in time. So, trade-offs must be made. Sometimes it may be necessary to deliver something that functions well but doesn’t look great. When PMs tie day-to-day design tasks with a greater purpose, designers can make the right design decisions to support the broader customer, product, and business goals. This increases the likelihood of building something that will create value for both the customers and the business.

Communicate Using User-Focused Language

Connect product goals to the specific user behavior change needed.

PMs and designers both care about shipping great products. However, PMs sometimes get too focused on product goals (increasing engagement, retention, conversion, etc.). Therefore, when talking with designers, they communicate in terms of metrics instead of more user-focused language. Most designers care more about the human aspects of problems, rather than the quantitative ones (like data, analytics, KPIs, etc.). While metrics are great for setting targets and evaluating progress, they don’t always tell the story of the people we are building products for.

Effective PMs speak the language of designers. They identify the relevant design considerations: What are the design issues? How do they impact the overall experience? Why does getting them right matter? Etc. They use this insight to connect product goals and metrics to specific user behaviors. For example, we want to solve problem A by allowing the user to do action B, which will positively impact metric C. Designers are trained to think from the user’s perspective. Therefore, describing design tasks in terms of people-centric outcomes leads to more productive conversations. When PMs communicate what they want more effectively, designers are more likely to produce the desired customer, product, and business outcome.

How Generative AI Impacts The PM-Designer Relationship

Designers will be essential in the future for creating distinct, differentiated user experiences.

A major point of contention between PMs and designers is that designers want to ship an experience they can be proud of, and PMs want to ship something as fast as possible. With the emergence of generative AI tools, PMs may assume that it’s now more feasible for designers to do more and to work faster. Some may even assume they can entirely replace designers with AI tools. While these tools can certainly make elements of the design process more efficient (prototyping, design variations, etc.), they won’t necessarily produce the same results as a skilled designer. Product design is fundamentally about human-computer interactions. The human aspect might be trickier for AI to grasp because people can behave in irrational, emotional, and unpredictable ways. Human designers can empathize and understand the multitude of ways users may interact with their design because they are humans too, who also behave in irrational, emotional, and unpredictable ways.

Also, while an AI tool can generate designs fairly quickly, there’s a flattening effect in AI outputs. These tools essentially generate an “average” design based on all the designs the model is trained on. If you have experimented with using AI coding tools (vibe coding), you may have noticed this too. Without specific design guidance, AI produces very similar-looking designs even when it’s asked to create very different applications. If product teams become reliant on AI for all design work, at a certain point, all software will start to look the same. While AI might lower the difficulty of design work, the design skills of the people using these tools influence the quality of the outputs. Designers know what it takes to do their work well. They will still be best positioned to prompt and refine AI-generated design outputs.

Conclusion

The PM-Designer partnership greatly influences a product team’s success.

Every product idea begins with a vision, and product teams are judged on their ability to execute this vision. The design acts as the connective tissue between the vision and the final output. It shapes every aspect of how users interact with a product. However, PMs sometimes overlook that design work can be just as challenging and complex as engineering work. Strong collaboration with both designers and engineers is essential for building great products. As the pace of product development accelerates with AI, teams will face greater pressure to deliver better products. As teams move faster, PMs will need to ensure that their teams move together, instead of moving apart. When PMs respect the design process and improve their collaboration with designers, they ensure that their team and their product are best positioned to succeed.

Thanks For Reading

References

• Priank’s Newsletter

  • Building With AI

  • Designing For People

  • Partnering With Engineers

• Julie Zhou | How to Work with Designers

• Jens-Fabian Goetzmann | PM 101: Working With Product Designers

• Product Growth | How to Work With Design for Success as a PM or Product Leader

• Product School | Product Managers: Here’s How to Make Your Designers Love You

• First Round Review | Defining Product Design: A Dispatch from Airbnb's Design Chief

• Lenny’s Newsletter | 35 years of product design wisdom from Apple, Disney, Pinterest, and beyond | Bob Baxley

• Lenny’s Newsletter | The PM 🤝 Design Partnership

The relationship between product managers and engineers has a significant influence on a product’s success. A product team’s ultimate output is code written by the engineers. We can’t guarantee great results by just assembling a team of skilled people. Even small misalignments can lead to people pulling in different directions, slowing down real progress. Therefore, a product manager’s ability to effectively collaborate with their engineers is critical. How they work with engineers impacts the consistency and cadence of the development. It can either unlock a team’s full potential or limit it. Great collaboration allows teams to operate with shared understanding, shared purpose, and shared goals. That’s how they increase the odds of building something truly great.

Why Empathizing With Engineers Matters

PMs must understand what different people need.

In strong product organizations, product teams serve the customers in ways that meet the needs of the business. The entire product team needs to understand how the things they build will increase value to customers (by solving a problem) and increase value for the business (by driving revenue, customer acquisition, etc.). Product managers (PMs) and engineers have distinct roles on a product team. PMs define what work needs to be done and why it matters. Engineers define how that work gets done. Effective PMs recognize that strong working relationships with engineers increase the likelihood of building a great product. They understand that it takes intentional effort to get different people (with different personalities and skillsets) to work together effectively.

PMs should be relentlessly curious about both the engineering work being done and the people who are doing that work. We can only discover what people need by deeply engaging with them. Product management work and engineering work are challenging in different ways. Engineers want PMs to understand the non-intuitive things that actually make engineering hard. PMs should regularly solicit feedback (in 1:1s, retrospectives, etc.) to get their engineering team’s perspective: What can they do better as a PM? What behaviors, processes, or tasks do engineers find frustrating? What recurring problems do engineers encounter during development? What technical issues or constraints are the most challenging? Etc. The more they can learn, the more effectively they can address their engineers’ needs and empower them to do their best work.

Learn what drives your engineering team. Learn what they love and what they hate. Then, serve those needs. Give your immediate attention and your fullest energy to serving their pain points.
— Clement Kao, Empathizing with Engineers

Where Do Product Managers Go Wrong

Dictating how engineering work should be done, instead of deferring to engineers.

Some PMs mistakenly assume that their job is controlling engineers, instead of empowering them. They believe that telling their engineers exactly what to do will lead to better results. So, they share the bare minimum context and pressure their engineers to work as fast as possible. This is often frustrating and draining for both sides. It undermines autonomy and erodes confidence. Sometimes, organizational culture is even designed to enforce this mindset. However, a culture of control only gives PMs the illusion of efficiency. In most cases, their teams are just producing bad outputs faster. The product value proposition is not actually increasing with every additional feature shipped.

Too often product managers exist to control engineers…You end up with a maze of half-baked features, and it’s just plain slow. PMs become the bottleneck and gatekeeper for all decisions, and engineers feel frustrated.
— James Hawkins, Co-CEO of PostHog

Effective PMs understand that engineers look to them for direction, not instruction. Engineers have the deepest understanding of what can be built. Each engineer has a useful perspective on the problem the team is trying to solve. While each one will have a different degree of interest and bandwidth, they still want to be involved in discussions that impact development work. When PMs only talk to engineers after the work has already been decided, engineering teams don’t have a chance to offer valuable input that could help shape the work. Therefore, partnering with engineers to solve problems is essential for building better products.

The most common complaint I hear from the engineers is that they are not included until it’s too late, and they are forced to deal with the consequences.
— Marty Cagan, Silicon Valley Product Group

Other common ways product managers create friction with engineers:

• Refusing to make tradeoffs when on-time delivery is no longer feasible.

• Committing to delivering something without consulting the engineers.

• Asking for estimates and then demanding shorter, unrealistic timelines.

• Expecting bug-free builds and thorough testing, despite rushing delivery.

• Providing specifications that lack sufficient detail or have vague requirements.

• Frequently changing the scope and requirements after work has already begun.

• Asking for specific, complex functionality and then pulling the plug mid-way.

How To Collaborate More Effectively With Engineers

Acquire The Relevant Technical Knowledge

Become familiar with the core technical concepts related to your product development.

PM can’t precisely communicate with engineers and understand their perspectives without the right technical foundation. It’s hard to grasp the complexity of an engineering issue when you have a vague understanding of the relevant technical concepts. PMs don’t necessarily have to be technical experts, but they do need to understand the basic elements of engineering work. It is often useful to develop a robust, high-level understanding of what pieces come together to build an application. A strong technical foundation allows them to partner with engineers more effectively to determine the best way to accomplish the overall goals and objectives.

While technically knowledge is helpful, PMs still need to defer to the engineering team’s expertise. PMs who overestimate their technical proficiency often default to micromanaging. They assume that they know the best way to solve an engineering issue, even though their understanding may be incomplete or inaccurate. This is disastrous for the engineering team’s productivity and morale. The purpose of building up technical knowledge is to better empathize with engineers, not to tell them what to do. You are getting into the details to gain a richer perspective on what’s going on, so you can figure out what needs to happen—what actions you need to take to support, accelerate, or unblock engineering work.

Recognize The Engineering Challenges

Understand what specifically makes engineering work difficult in your product.

PMs must understand how the specific technologies used in their product (and their specific implementation) create certain capabilities and constraints. A seemingly simple change that may take a few hours in one product might take weeks in another. There may be pieces of the codebase that have multiple complex dependencies, interact with legacy systems, rely on “messy” code, etc. There may be deployment constraints that make releases, updates, and fixes especially complex and time-consuming in some scenarios. There may be recurring challenges due to unresolved tech debt. Regardless of the specific issue, for any work involving a “problem” area, engineers cannot reliably predict what changes are feasible and how long those changes will take to implement.

PMs need to understand the points of friction that can slow down development. They can’t properly evaluate engineering concerns, pushback, and trade-offs otherwise. Therefore, PMs must know what technologies (programming languages, infrastructure, systems, etc.) their product relies on and understand which specific parts of the product are challenging to work with. When they are aware of where challenges exist, they can have more nuanced discussions with engineers. This helps them in several ways, such as: determining what is worth doing now vs. later, recognizing which estimates are likely to be less reliable, understanding which tasks will likely require greater time, effort, and focus, identifying areas that will likely require rework/fixes, and so on.

Explain The Purpose

Provide clarity on why the work matters.

Engineers want to know the purpose of their tasks because they want to do meaningful work. They want to tackle something worthy of their time, energy, and deep thought. So, they need to know why the work matters, especially when they are working all day on a seemingly pointless section of code. Therefore, PMs must continuously help engineers connect the dots: Why does this piece of functionality matter? How does it relate to other things that we are building now or in the future? What impact does this have on our customer or our business? And so on. When the purpose resonates with engineers, they feel like they have a stake in what’s being built.

PMs can easily verify if engineers truly understand the purpose behind their work by asking them a simple question: Why are we building XYZ? If they don’t get a good answer, it means that the PM has not clarified the purpose. As a result, the engineers just don’t know or understand the overall motivation and rationale for building something. Therefore, it’s unlikely that they will be engaged and invested in their work because they don’t understand the importance of the why. They are not likely to build an amazing product operating this way. So, PMs must help their engineers put each project in the context of the broader product vision to give them a clear purpose.

Provide Clarity And Context

Give engineers the specific information necessary to make engineering decisions.

PMs need to ensure that their engineering team is best positioned to succeed. Highly competent engineers understand that solving critical customer and business problems is what makes their work valuable. Therefore, they are intensely curious about the customer’s and the business’s needs. They recognize that insight is necessary to determine the right thing to build and the right way to build it. Therefore, to make engineering decisions, they need context: Who are their users? What do they want to achieve? What is their specific problem? What is the proposed solution? Why will it be valuable to the users? And so on.

Engineers don’t have the bandwidth to gather and distill all the relevant information. Therefore, they rely on PMs to provide the context needed to determine what steps need to be taken and how to sequence those steps. They need PMs to clarify the product vision and product strategy: the vision is the shared goal, and the strategy is the plan to accomplish that goal. They also need PMs to provide key details relevant to specific engineering tasks. By providing timely context, they give the engineering team the information and insight necessary to plan and align engineering actions and decisions with broader goals. When PMs fail to provide the right context, engineers inevitably build the wrong thing and fail to meet the real customer and business needs.

Preserve Momentum And Focus

Minimize (or ideally avoid) changes to the initial scope and requirements.

PMs should make the development process as efficient as possible for the engineering team. While PMs certainly can’t optimize all the engineering work, there’s a lot they can do to make their engineers’ jobs easier. One of the primary ways they can do this is by insulating them from unplanned changes. When engineers get a set of requirements, they develop a certain plan of action. For example, we need to build XYZ, so we need to do steps A, B, C, and so on. The more clearly defined the initial requirements are, the more predictable the work will be. When PMs frequently change priorities and requirements mid-way, it’s hard for engineers to make progress.

Every time the team has to diverge from the initial requirements, they must alter their plan of action. Regardless of the size of the change, the time and effort involved are now different. These changes might be necessary because of accepted new stakeholder requests, issues with the initial requirements, or some change in the customer/business needs. Regardless of the specific reason, when engineers have to frequently jump between tasks, their momentum and focus are disrupted. It’s also incredibly frustrating for them. Therefore, PMs must defend the team against last-minute changes as much as possible. Even if a change is urgent and important, they must discuss it with their engineers first and notify stakeholders of the impact on the timeline before accepting it.

Conclusion

Strong working relationships between PMs and engineers are key to a product’s success.

Strong relationships between product managers and engineers are built on strong collaboration. Product managers are responsible for enabling their team to do their best work. When PMs operate with greater empathy for their engineers, they can make the right moves to align and empower their engineering teams. When engineers feel trusted, supported, and motivated, they are more likely to bring out their best thinking. When product managers and engineers work as true partners, decisions get sharper, priorities get clearer, and execution gets better. Investing in that relationship is how PMs transform their teams into high-performing product teams.

Thanks For Reading

References

• Product HQ | Empathizing with Engineers

• Silicon Valley Product Group | Empowered Product Teams

• Silicon Valley Product Group | Empowered Engineers FAQs

• Lenny’s Newsletter | The top 5 things PMs should know about engineering

• Product for Engineers | Product management is broken. Engineers can fix it

• Behind Product Lines | The #1 mistake Product Managers make with Engineers

• First Round Review | Mastering the Human Side of Engineering: Lessons from Apple, Palantir and Slack

• Pragmatic Engineer | Ask the EM: How Can I work Better with My Product Manager, as an Engineering Lead?

One of the hallmarks of the modern workplace is the relentless exchange of information. We spend our workday surrounded by information— documents, dashboards, messages, meetings, memos, etc. However, despite all this information, we often struggle to make progress because we spend our time interpreting what was said instead of getting things done. Clarity helps teams cut through ambiguity and focus on the right things. This reduces friction, rework, and wasted effort. But it doesn’t happen by accident. It requires a deliberate, disciplined approach to communication. When we can operate with greater clarity, we can work more efficiently and ultimately produce better results.

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Clarity And Product Management

Product leaders are responsible for creating clarity.

The role of a product leader is to bring extreme clarity. They must get everyone on the same page about what work must be done, how it will be done, and why it matters. They are responsible for creating clarity both internally and externally. They are the intermediary between different teams and stakeholders. They must translate the priorities and perspectives effectively to help people understand what someone cares about and why. Clarity is critical because it ensures teams accurately diagnose customer problems and effectively work together to solve them.

Extreme Clarity is when everyone is on the same page. It does not mean that everyone agrees about what to do — it means that everyone shares the same understanding of the facts. Everyone knows, “Our goal is X, our options are 1, 2, 3, and our next steps are A, B, C.”
— Naomi Gleit, Meta’s Head of Product

Conflict and disagreements arise while planning and executing because of misunderstandings (about priorities, constraints, resources, etc.). People have different ideas about how to do the work. Clarity ensures everyone has a shared understanding of the facts, even if they disagree with how to get things done. This lays the groundwork for a productive discussion. It allows the team to focus on how to best utilize their resources to solve customer problems that will drive business impact. It gives them a practical North Star to guide their thinking and actions, even in uncertain or ambiguous situations.

The most important attribute that any leader needs to have—and it is often underestimated—is the need to create clarity when none exists.
— Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO

Why Clarity Matters

We can’t make real progress without clarity.

When teams lack clarity, they are forced to interpret vague goals and create plans based on an incomplete or even inaccurate understanding of what needs to be done. They argue over priorities, responsibilities, success metrics, etc. This prevents them from making real progress because inevitably things have to be redone. As execution drags on because no one is sure what “good” looks like, stakeholders lose confidence in the team and start micromanaging. This increases frustration and distrust, further eroding productivity. When people act based on incorrect assumptions, they focus on the wrong things. This inevitably leads to mistakes, conflict, frustration, and rework because teams lack a shared understanding of what they’re doing and why.

Why Is Achieving Clarity So Difficult

Clarity is a rare commodity in the modern workplace.

Fast-paced environments are inherently ambiguous. Teams must balance competing, and even conflicting, demands from customers, executives, and stakeholders. They must constantly deal with new information, shifting priorities, and changing conditions. This makes clarity inherently hard to find. We have all experienced this. You leave a meeting unsure about what needs to happen. You get a message and have no idea what the other person wants. You sit through a presentation and wonder why it even matters. You spend time explaining a problem to someone, only for them to ask “So what’s the problem?” Sometimes despite our best efforts the core message just gets lost. The issue is that people take clarity for granted. They assume that people understand what they are saying, and conversely, they assume they understand what other people are saying. However, in reality, the core message was misunderstood or even missed entirely.

More communication does not always create greater clarity.

Many organizations believe more communication will somehow translate into better communication. However, information overload leads to people tuning out, missing critical information, or feeling disengaged. Therefore, despite having more information, the average employee struggles to tell you how things are really going. The problem is that we never learn how to be clear. We just learn how to adapt to an organization’s communication style. Therefore, a lot of communication problems are simply the symptoms of a bad communication process. The goal should never be simply saying more; it’s about saying what matters. Intentional, concise, and relevant communication is often far more effective (and more appreciated).

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Where Do We Need Clarity

Most questions arise from a lack of clarity around goals, motivations, processes, and people.

Goals — What are we doing?

Teams need to know the desired output of the work. The expectations need to be explicit. There should be enough detail (objectives, timeline, deliverables, metrics, etc.) to give them a specific, unambiguous target to aim for.

Motivations — Why are we doing this?

Teams need to know the purpose of the work beyond just executing tasks. Understanding why the work is meaningful helps them connect outputs to outcomes. This helps them channel their efforts into producing the best possible results.

Process — How will we do this?

Teams need to know the plan for executing the work. They need to understand the steps involved to assess potential constraints and challenges that may block or slow down. This helps them identify the best way to complete the necessary tasks.

People — Who is responsible for what?

Teams need to know the role of everyone involved in the work to establish accountability for different areas. This also helps identify the decision-makers, partners, and stakeholders that need to be kept in the loop during execution.

How To Achieve Greater Clarity

Prepare Thoroughly Before Sharing

A lack of clarity is often due to a lack of preparation. We struggle to be clear when we are not thinking clearly. If we don’t fully understand what we are trying to say, it’s unlikely that others will. Therefore, we have to rigorously review and refine our ideas before we can share them. People have different priorities, interests, and concerns. When they don’t respond to your message as expected, it’s an oblivious signal that you have not communicated in terms that resonate with them. You have failed to understand what matters to them. To communicate effectively, you must cater the content and delivery of your message to your audience. You have to be strategic about what information you share and how to get your core message across to people — to make it clear to them.

Provide The Right Context

When sharing information, start with the conclusion — explicitly state the main thing people need to know before diving into the details (Bottom-Line Up-First — BLUF). This immediately clarifies the intended purpose (taking an action, making a decision, etc.). This allows people to listen for the right information, connect the dots, and assess what they need to do. You should provide specific, relevant details. Some situations require a lot of context. Oversimplifying things can cause more problems down the line. You must anticipate where you might face resistance (disinterest, confusion, skepticism, etc.) and frame your message in the right context to ensure people process it. After sharing your message, offer to elaborate and highlight things people are likely to have questions or concerns about.

Use Simple Language

When we make our message as simple as possible we amplify its meaning. People often use buzzwords to hide complexity. While this makes conversations easier, it does not make them clearer. Making the effort to explain things in plain language because it reduces misunderstandings. When explaining something complex, avoid jargon unless necessary, and when you do use it, make sure everyone understands it. Use clear, business-oriented language that all stakeholders understand. This ensures that people do not miss the core points. It’s also helpful to define critical concepts (metrics, success criteria, targets, etc.). This ensures that no misunderstandings arise because people have different definitions of words being used.

Create Robust Documentation

Writing things down forces us to explicitly clarify and structure our thinking. Documentation makes it easy to find, access, and reference information, reducing potential back-and-forth. It provides a more detailed picture of actions and decisions (past, present, and future). Often if you ask different people about what’s going on with a project, you get different responses. This makes it hard for people to know where to find the information they need. Good documentation acts as a single source of truth that helps everyone stay on the same page.

• Create documentation processes and protocols for key project areas. You need systems for managing all their documentation (Coda, Notion, etc.), along with clearly defined documentation guidelines and expectations.

• Decisions and next steps should always be documented and reviewed before ending meetings. This gives people a chance to raise concerns before moving forward and ensures everyone leaves the discussion with the same understanding of what needs to happen.

• Create a reference document where people can learn basic details, find links to specific documentation, identify relevant team members, and get answers to common questions. This helps people, with different levels of understanding, get up to speed on critical information.

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Conclusion

Clarity is a strategic asset in an age of information overload.

In a world saturated with information, clarity is essential for extracting real insight. Without clarity, every conversation becomes a negotiation, every decision becomes a debate, and every plan becomes subject to misinterpretation. Clarity helps us make sense of the chaos but it requires intention, discipline, and effort. It must be designed into workflows, embedded into processes, and reinforced in every interaction. When people carefully craft and communicate information, they can work together more effectively.

When people carefully craft and communicate information, they can work together more effectively — they know what they need to do, how they need to execute, and why it matters. It gives them the shared understanding necessary to achieve the best possible outcomes. It becomes a force multiplier, amplifying the effectiveness of every hour worked, every decision made, and every action taken. Clarity is the foundation of meaningful, sustained progress.

Thanks For Reading

References

• Lenny’s Newsletter | Meta’s Head of Product on working with Mark Zuckerberg, early growth tactics, why PMs are like conductors, and more

• Lenny’s Newsletter | Unorthodox PM wisdom

• Wes Kao’s Newsletter | How I give the right amount of context

• Wes Kao’s Newsletter | Rigorous thinking: No lazy thinking

• Think Fast Talk Smart | Between the Lines: In Storytelling, Simplify to Amplify

• Harvard Business Publishing | Moving from Control to Clarity

• Chicago Booth | Leadership Lessons from Satya Nadella

• Naomi Gleit | Extreme Clarity

As you advance in your career, you will have to interact with more senior leaders. While they have the influence and authority you need to get things done, their time and attention are limited, so you need to make the most of your conversations. They will rely on you to distill complex information into clear insights. Therefore, you have to understand how to craft concise, compelling narratives that drive critical actions. When you recognize the nuances of executive communication you can produce greater results and even transform your career trajectory.

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What’s Different About Executive Communication

As a team leader, you may know exactly how your team’s efforts connect to business goals. However, as the teams you manage grow bigger (both in size and number), you often have less visibility into what’s really going on. Most executives have to operate at this level, without intimate knowledge of each team’s work. They are often involved in multiple projects and responsible for multiple teams, functions, and/or departments. Therefore, when you engage them, your message needs to be clear and actionable. However, most of our updates tend to be task-related - what was done, what’s in progress, and what’s planned. While this information can be useful, it does not necessarily indicate how things are really going. A blunt assessment (including the issues, constraints, needs, etc.) is often more helpful. This lets the executive know what actions need to be taken to support, accelerate, or unblock the work.

How To Communicate With Executives

Prepare For The Conversation

Frame your message based on the executives involved.

Understand the executive’s priorities.

Executives think in terms of strategy, risk, and outcomes. Their focus is on larger, long-term goals. They need information that helps them make high-stakes decisions quickly. However, each executive will want to hear about different things. Therefore, before meeting with an executive, you need to understand their needs: What is their primary concern” Is it resource usage, customer satisfaction, cost, etc.? Frame your message around strategic goals and objectives that matter to them. Some may value details, while others might want brevity. You have to adjust the pace, tone, and details as necessary.

Anticipate where you might face pushback.

Executives will come at you with questions, concerns, and skepticism. They will challenge you to back up your claims, especially if they contradict their understanding of the product, the business, or the market. To prepare for this, you have to first put yourself in your audience’s shoes. Identify what specific ideas they might be resistant to, what questions are they likely to have, what objections have they raised in the past, etc. You have to anticipate their responses and be ready with answers, supporting information, and a strategy to talk about “difficult” topics.

Start With The Conclusion

Highlight the main takeaway upfront to establish the purpose of the conversation.

”We need approval/clarification/resources from you to do XYZ”

Begin the conversation with the main thing the executive needs to know before diving into the details. This is often referred to as Bottom-Line Up-First (BLUF) or the Minto Pyramid Principle. You have to be specific about what you need from them. This immediately tells them why you are having the conversation (taking an action, making a decision, etc.) and puts your message in context. It also allows them to listen for the right information, connect the dots, and assess what they can do for you.

Provide Context

Provide the right context to support your main point.

“Here’s what’s happening, what’s going well/poorly, why this matters…”

Decide what to share.

One of the tough decisions you have to make is “How much context should I provide?” We tend to provide a lot of unnecessary context. This often happens when we are processing information as we are sharing it. Our brains are sifting through what is and is not important in real-time, resulting in us including irrelevant details. However, you want to ensure you provide specific, relevant details to your executives. It’s fine to take a moment to consider what they might need to know. Some situations require a lot of context, and oversimplifying things will just cause more problems down the line. Length is fine as long as it adds value.

Support your message with data.

Data helps support your points, adding weight and credibility. Data can quickly and effectively illustrate complex ideas. Executives also trust numbers because they are objective. Gather the right data that matters to them. If you lack hard data (metrics, statistics, etc.), use quantitative data (user observations, customer feedback, etc.). You have to effectively weave the data into a narrative that explains what it means and why it matters. This makes your message more tangible, compelling, and persuasive.

Offer to elaborate on relevant topics.

After sharing your message, give your audience a chance to get the context they might need. When you offer to elaborate, it’s helpful to mention things your stakeholder is likely to have questions or concerns about — I can elaborate on areas XYZ if you would like. This gives them options for where to start the conversation. They may want to understand your rationale, thought process, evaluation criteria, assumptions, etc. to understand how you arrived at your conclusion (a recommendation, an ask, etc.).

Clarify The Action Plan

Clearly outline the path forward.

“Once we get approval/clarification/resources, we plan to do the following…”

At the end of the conversation, you must clearly state what you specifically need from the executive and what you plan to do. If you are having a real-time discussion (call, meeting, etc.), summarize some of the key points you mentioned. It is also helpful to follow up with them, ideally in a written format (message, email, etc.), with a more detailed plan of action, along with details such as timelines, deliverables, resource requirements, etc. This helps confirm and clarify what you have agreed upon together.

Master The Delivery

The success of executive communication lies in how you deliver your message.

Use simple, clear language.

We have to make our message as simple as possible while amplifying its meaning. The goal is not necessarily saying less but saying the right things. You have to ensure the other person understands the significance of what you are saying. When explaining something complex, avoid jargon unless necessary, and when you do use it, make sure everyone understands it. Use clear, business-oriented language that all stakeholders understand. This ensures that people do not miss the core points. The clearer we are, the less room there is for confusion and misunderstandings.

Manage resistance and conflict.

Conflict is always a possibility. However, it’s often more useful to approach conflict as an opportunity to understand what the other person specifically disagrees with and what might be driving this resistance. You may have failed to consider or understand something they care about something. There may be a misalignment regarding goals, progress, execution, expectations, etc. You also have to first acknowledge their concerns before you can find a solution that works for everyone. They will be more open to listening when they feel they have been heard.

Use signposting to guide the conversation.

In conversations, it’s easy to lose track of what has been discussed especially when there are multiple topics. Therefore, you have to use language that gets people’s attention and tells them where they are in the story. Signposting means giving your audience a verbal cue that helps them follow and process your message. In written communication (reports, presentations, etc.), you do this by explicitly breaking down content into logical sections (introduction, methodology, conclusion, etc.). We can use similar tactics in verbal conversations by using phrasing to introduce structure, helping people keep up with the discussion.

Examples of phrases to use when signposting

• Here’s what we’re going to cover…

• We took the following actions…

• The result/outcome was…

• What we learned was…

• We need…

Why Executive Communication Matters

It improves alignment between individual, team, and organizational efforts.

Executives set the strategic vision for an organization. They depend on team leaders to provide clarity on progress, challenges, and opportunities. If these leaders fail to communicate effectively, teams can drift in different directions, leading to wasted resources, conflicting priorities, and missed opportunities. It also leads to decisions being made on incomplete information. Clear and consistent communication ensures that every initiative supports the company’s larger objectives. It ensures teams can execute without unnecessary back-and-forth. This efficiency enables operate more effectively, make better decisions, and improve overall productivity.

It strengthens relationships between executives and teams.

Every conversation is an opportunity to demonstrate you understand what your executives care about and prove that you can be trusted to deliver. However, this relationship is not one-sided. Stakeholders want you to be successful. They have the expertise, authority, and influence needed to help you in tough situations. They can only do this if you are honest about how things are really going. They trust that you know the details, but this trust is earned. Regular, transparent updates help build credibility and foster long-term relationships that benefit everyone.

Conclusion

As you advance in your careers, you have to zoom out from your team’s efforts and learn to see the bigger picture. While you inevitably have to get better at communicating with people at all levels of the organization, mastering executive communication often has a disproportionate impact because executives can pull on more levers to get things done. Therefore, developing the specific skills needed to work with them can transform how you work and increase your odds of success.

Thanks For Reading

References

• Personal Math With Greg & Taylor | How to add 10 years to your professional age

• Think Fast Talk Smart | Between the Lines: In Storytelling, Simplify to Amplify

• Think Fast Talk Smart | Advice from Nontraditional Storytellers

• Think Fast Talk Smart | Communicating Through Conflict

• Wes Kao's Newsletter | How I give the right amount of context (in any situation)

• Wes Kao’s Newsletter | How To Be Concise

• Priank's Newsletter | Effective Communication

Over the last five years, remote work has evolved from being a temporary necessity to a permanent feature of modern organizations. It has enabled companies to access talent globally while empowering individuals with unprecedented flexibility and agency over their time. As someone who has worked remotely for the majority of their career, I am familiar with both the upsides and downsides of remote work. Not all tasks can or should be done remotely. However, the vast majority of modern knowledge work can be accomplished in a remote setting.

How effectively and successfully work can be done depends on how organizations structure and manage their approach toward remote work. I decided to explore how Doist, GitLab, and Zapier work remotely. These companies have been remote from the start, and they have successfully delivered amazing products used by millions of users while growing their distributed teams around the world. I would like to share what I have learned about effective remote teams from my own experience and from examining these companies.

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Successful Remote Companies

Doist

Doist has a remote, distributed team of 68 spread across more than 25 countries.

Doist builds popular apps like Todoist and Twist used by millions to enhance and manage their productivity. They focus on helping users manage their time, set priorities, and collaborate effectively without feeling overwhelmed, making it easy to stay on track wherever you are and focus on what matters most.

GitLab

GitLab has a remote, distributed team of 1,300 people spread across more than 60 countries.

GitLab builds and manages an open-source software development platform that helps teams create, test, and share software all in one place. It makes it easier to write and manage code, track tasks, and work together on projects. GitLab also helps teams quickly test and launch new updates, so they can improve their software faster.

Zapier

Zapier has a remote, distributed team of 800 people across 40 countries.

Zapier builds a popular automation tool with over 2,000 integrations used by millions to simplify and accelerate their workflows, saving time on repetitive, routine tasks. It works by creating "Zaps," which are workflows that link actions in one app to triggers in another, making it easy to customize workflows for your specific needs.

Remote Work Requires Excellent Communication

Effective communication is especially critical in remote settings.

While most teams can access the tools needed to facilitate remote work, only teams that create the right environment thrive. Remote teams must operate differently than collocated teams (where everyone is in the same place). The main factor influencing their success is how they communicate. Effective communication connects people, ideas, and actions in a way that moves everyone forward. Even the most talented teams and individuals can struggle in remote environments without the right communication skills, practices, and processes because a lack of clarity can quickly cause confusion and chaos. Therefore, the threshold for effective communication has to be much higher. The organization needs to have clear guidelines on how, when, and where to communicate information, and individuals need to have strong verbal and written communication skills.

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Master Asynchronous Communication

The majority of remote work is asynchronous. This allows everyone to participate in conversations, collaboration, and decision-making, no matter where they are or what time zone they are in. It gives them time to process information and respond thoughtfully. However, communicating asynchronously takes more effort and skill than real-time communication. Team members have to be intentional about how they request and share information, ensuring they provide enough context to their team members. They also need to judge when things can and cannot be discussed asynchronously.

• At GitLab, any information that needs to be presented is pre-recorded and sent to the relevant team members. This allows people to ask clarifying questions, identify discussion topics, assign tasks, etc. without wasting the limited meeting times each team has.

• At Zapier, team members are specific and concise when messaging team members. They ensure they are clear about what they need from people when they need it, and what they are looking for you're looking for to ensure that there is enough context available.

• At Doist, teams use threaded communication channels to keep discussions organized by topic so team members can catch up and contribute no matter what time zone they work in. It makes it easy for them to find information and get context into the original conversation.

Fortunately, most things can be done asynchronously. Going further, most things can be done better asynchronously. The extra time to let things sink in, to think, to reflect, and to craft an appropriate response, really pays off.
– Gonçalo Silva, Doist CTO

Use Synchronous Communication Wisely

For remote, distributed teams, time is precious. There are few windows of time when all team members are available. This is usually when real-time communication happens (meetings, phone calls, etc.). However, meetings must be efficiently managed to ensure they are useful and productive. Therefore, teams have to structure meetings with a clear agenda outlining the purpose (What do we want to achieve in this meeting? Ex. To make a decision) and outcome (What outcomes will indicate that we’ve succeeded in our purpose? Ex. A decision has been made and documented).

• At Doist, synchronous communication (video calls, real-time chat, in-person meetings) is reserved for situations where real-time conversation is necessary such as discussing complex topics, getting perspective, raising concerns, etc.

• GitLab has a company call daily. The focus giving people all the updates they need. Anyone who can’t attend can read the company call agenda or watch the recording on their internal YouTube channel.

• At Zapier, before meetings, each team member documents their planned tasks and results, unforeseen issues, and what’s in the pipeline for next week. This minimizes questions and confusion, ensuring meeting time is productive.

Document Purposefully And Effectively

Documentation is vital for remote, asynchronous teams because it’s not as easy to quickly clarify details or ask questions, especially when your team may be spread across different time zones. Therefore, people have to make a habit of documenting their work, and including sufficient detail for others to understand what they need. When workflows are precisely documented and accessible, everyone stays on the same page, and there is less potential back-and-forth. Therefore, companies need documentation systems (Coda, Notion, etc.), along with clear guidelines, processes, and protocols at the organizational, team, and individual levels.

Documentation is a shared responsibility. The goal is to make it easy to find, access, and reference the information when needed. When everyone adds their input, the team gets a more detailed picture of actions and decisions (past, present, and future). This is critical for many tasks, such as planning, brainstorming, retrospectives, etc. What works for one team may not work for another. The most effective format for documentation depends on how your team is structured, what your team does, and which communication channels work best for your team.

Zapier has found relentless documentation to be key not only to smooth onboarding but healthy workflows throughout a project. Proper documentation is extremely important for software engineers, whether it’s related to the codebase or not. You don’t want your remote developers to get stuck on a small issue and have to stop work entirely until they can get in touch with your team lead or another developer
— Bryan Helmig, Zapier Co-founder

Trust Matters On Remote Teams

Remote teams cannot function effectively without trust and accountability.

Trust is critical when working with a distributed team. The main question for management is often “How do I know if people are actually working?” There’s often a fear that the lack of visibility means that remote workers could be spending their time doing non-productive things. In an office environment, it’s easy to use visible busyness as a proxy for productivity: You can see people doing things, so you assume that they must be doing their jobs. In the absence of physical visibility, some companies resort to digital visibility (keystrokes, message replies, emails sent, meetings attended, etc.) to gauge how hard people are working. This creates resentment from team members because it gives them a clear signal that management does not trust them, which can rapidly destroy morale and motivation.

Trust is important for everyone. No one wants to work with people who they distrust or people who distrust them. In remote environments, you must trust that people are doing their best work until proven otherwise. You have to believe that they can responsibly manage their time. Rather than tracking pseudo-productivity metrics (things that are not correlated with individual effort) and micromanaging, evaluate people based on metrics that are relevant to their work. A high-trust culture focuses on empowering people to do their best work instead of wasting time trying to make sure people are “actually working.”

At Doist, every newcomer essentially starts with a “tank” full of trust. In order to keep that tank from going empty, you need to communicate regularly. Radio silence on a team member’s part is often an instant trust breaker but, as a manager, I also need to be highly conscientious of communicating — it is a two-way street.
– Brenna Loury, Doist Head of Marketing

Focus On Results, Not Hours

The number of hours spent on a task does not always correlate with the results achieved. Different problems require different types of effort. You may spend several hours just thinking about how to solve it and only an hour actually solving the problem. If we’re just measuring activity, it looks like you did an hour of work, but that does not account for all the intellectual effort required to do that work. Companies should not push people to work longer hours, they should push them to get better results and equip them with the means to do so. The focus should be on how individual and team efforts drive the business goals: What has been achieved? How has it moved us forward? How close are we to the desired outcome?

What matters is not the number of hours you work—it’s the work that gets done.
— Sij Sijbrandij, Gitlab Founder

Hire Selectively

Trust starts with hiring the right people. It’s hard to evaluate whether someone is really trustworthy from the interview process alone. You can only trust your judgment and give them the benefit of the doubt. People want to feel trusted and valued. No one likes to work in an environment where their efforts are constantly being questioned or scrutinized. They want to be judged based on the outcome of their work. You can only build and solidify trust with strong communication practices.

Micromanaging is inefficient at any company, but at a remote company, it’s simply not an option. You need to hire people you can trust from day one.
— Allan Christensen, Doist COO

Remote Work Creates More Opportunities For Deep Work

Beyond the obvious benefits, such as cost savings, convenience, and access to talent, remote work allows people to do focused work in a way that is not possible in most offices. Remote teams have the benefit of having uninterrupted periods where they can focus entirely on the task at hand. These are the times when their work schedules do not overlap with their team members in different time zones. This is the time they can focus on deep work that requires focused, undistracted effort on tasks that bring long-term value.

In contrast, “shallow work” refers to low-value, often reactive tasks—emails, meetings, and minor requests—that hinder the focused thinking essential for tackling complex challenges. In asynchronous settings, remote workers can work more effectively and manage distractions because they can strategically dedicate specific periods for deep work, where they can focus on high-value tasks without distractions. This builds momentum for high-value tasks while keeping necessary but low-impact tasks contained.

Conclusion

Many teams can work just as effectively (if not better) remotely as they do in person. The real question is not whether remote work is viable but how it can be optimized for the specific needs of teams and organizations. Remote work, when executed intentionally and thoughtfully, creates an environment where people can sustainably optimize their efforts, in a way that accommodates the broader demands of life beyond the workplace. For organizations, the task is not to resist remote work but to harness it to build not just great solutions, but great workplaces.

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If you haven’t already, please consider subscribing and sharing this newsletter with a friend.

I hope you have a great week!

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References

• Wired | Five vital lessons from successful all-remote companies

• Turing | 20 Successful Remote-First Companies and Key Lessons to Learn from Them

• Doist

  • Doist | How Doist Makes Remote Work Happen

  • Todoist | 8 Lessons from the Best Remote Companies in the World

• Gitlab

  • McKinsey & Company | All remote from day one: How GitLab thrives

  • Harvard Business Review | How GitLab Leads Its Fully Remote Workforce

• Zapier

  • Zapier | Why Zapier has always been 100% remote

  • Arc.Dev | How Zapier Successfully Manages a Mid-Sized Team of 80+ Remotely

Communication is at the heart of every successful team. It's the thread that holds everything together, yet it’s so easy to get wrong. We assume that if we’ve said something, others will automatically understand it in the way we intended. But how often does that really happen? A one-sided conversation can lead to misunderstandings, misalignment, and delays.

Communication isn’t just about being heard—it’s about making sure your message is understood. In cross-functional teams, this is even more critical. Different perspectives, backgrounds, and mindsets can complicate even the simplest discussions. A quick conversation turns into a drawn-out misunderstanding, or a message intended to clarify ends up creating confusion. Therefore, it’s important for both to sides successfully get their message across.

Effective communication can transform how teams operate. It can connect people, ideas, and actions in a way that moves everyone forward. Without it, even the most talented teams can struggle to deliver the results they’re capable of. That’s why it’s so important to recognize that communication needs to be continuously evaluated and refined at the individual, team, and organizational levels.

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Why Is Communication Challenging

We want our ideas, opinions, and perspectives to be seen, heard, and understood. We feel validated when other people recognize what we’re trying to share with them. But communicating our thoughts is not easy. You never truly know if you got your message across. Or conversely you never really know if you fully understood what someone else said. And this gets in the way of us understanding each other.

Imagine describing a completely new idea to another person—something totally unfamiliar to them. As you describe your idea, they have to piece together a puzzle, draw comparisons with things they know, and fill in the gaps using their imagination. How likely are they to perfectly grasp your idea? Even if they seem to get it, there might be some inherent misunderstandings.

Our thinking is informed by our unique context. There’s a lot behind the words we say (ideas, observations, facts, opinions, etc). Furthermore, our intentions behind those words are driven by our motivations, goals, objectives, etc. However, other people will rarely know or even understand all this. Therefore, they have to use their own context to interpret our words, which can lead them to different conclusions. Good communication is about recognizing and bridging these gaps to create a shared understanding.

Power of Empathy

Empathy helps us understand each other’s perspectives.

Empathy is understanding people from their frame of reference rather than your own. It’s about looking at situations from their perspective and recognizing their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts. It allows us to ask better questions and listen for the right information so, we can figure out “what” needs to be done and “why.” It starts with a genuine curiosity about what’s meaningful to people and what motivates them.

It builds trust within the team.

When you uncover what’s behind the stakeholder requests and frustrations, you build the trust necessary for your team’s efforts to be successful. It can be as simple as asking “why” 5 times or using open-ended questions. Then you need to communicate your understanding, explain what you plan to do, and get their feedback. People are more willing to listen once they’ve been heard. You demonstrate that you understand their reasoning and show your commitment to addressing their concerns. This gives them confidence that you can produce the desired outcomes.

It makes business goals more compelling.

To work effectively, we need to know what needs to be done and why. Often business goals can feel arbitrary, despite how “inspirational” or “aspirational” they sound. You have to uncover what’s driving business goals: What problems is the business/customer facing? Why is this important to them? Why now? When you clarify the connection between your efforts and the business/customer goals, you link tasks to purpose, which makes the work more meaningful. This helps you channel your best efforts, producing the intended outcome.

It helps us leverage the power of storytelling.

We understand people through the stories we create about them. Stories allow us to make sense of information using the power of visuals and imagery. We connect pieces of information to form a picture of what they need and why. Empathy allows us to get closer to the truth. We can get the details of people’s stories by asking questions and listening effectively. When we dig deeper into what they are saying, we can discover how we can help them accomplish their goals.

Key Communication Principles

Listening is just as important as speaking.

Regular feedback is essential for teams to iterate quickly and avoid mistakes, but feedback is only effective if it’s actually heard and understood. This requires active listening, which means fully absorbing the speaker’s message, not just passively hearing their words. When we truly listen, we create an environment where people feel heard and valued. This fosters trust within the team, encouraging more open and honest communication.

Simple and clear language is always more effective.

When explaining something complex, avoid jargon unless necessary, and when you do use it, make sure everyone understands the terms. Teams should focus on clarity, relevance, and timing when communicating, so people do not miss critical information that affects their work. The goal should always be to ensure that the right message reaches the right people at the right time. The clearer we are, the less room there is for misunderstandings.

More communication does not mean better communication.

People often mistake frequent communication for effective communication. We’ve all been in teams where the thinking seems to be that more communication will solve everything. Endless meetings, constant status updates, and messages flooding your inbox. However, information overload leads to people tuning out, missing critical information, or feeling disengaged. The goal should never be simply saying more; it’s about saying what matters. Intentional, concise, and relevant communication is often far more effective (and more appreciated).

Good communication requires well-designed practices and processes.

Effective communication requires intentional systems and processes to create space for people to speak up, share ideas, and innovate. That’s when the magic happens. A developer might suggest a tweak that makes a feature more user-friendly, or a designer might come up with a UI that overcomes a technical constraint. Having well-designed communication practices aligns team members, streamlines decision-making, and keeps everyone focused on what really matters.

Conclusion

Communication is the foundation of everything we do. It helps teams prioritize tasks, understand goals, and resolve conflicts quickly. When we communicate effectively, we reduce friction, minimize mistakes, and create an environment where everyone feels empowered to contribute, leading to better solutions that truly meet people’s needs. isn’t just about talking or sharing updates—it’s about understanding, connecting, and working together better. Effective communication is what turns a good team into a great one.

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Innovation comes from creativity. However, the process of generating new ideas is not straightforward. There is no recipe for creativity because people are inspired by different things.

As the demand for innovation is rising, product teams have to constantly reimagine how they solve people’s problems. Products have to be especially compelling to stand out because there is no shortage of options and expectations are higher than ever. However, since creativity is not something you can manufacture, how can product teams deliver more innovative solutions?

The answer might be to approach creativity as a cultural attribute rather than an individual one. Instead of relying on specific people (or teams) to come up with the idea that revolutionizes your product, tap into your collective creativity by sourcing ideas across your organization.

While organizations cannot manufacture creativity, they can create an environment where new ideas can thrive. They can create the right conditions for creativity to emerge.

I explored how organizations can create a culture of creativity to bring out their best ideas.

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Building A Cultural Foundation For Creativity

Create Psychological Safety

We share bold ideas when we feel safe and supported.

Psychological safety is when people feel safe trying new things and sharing ideas, without the fear of consequences. People will often hesitate to share ideas out of concern for bad outcomes (for their reputation, job security, etc.). When people feel psychologically safe, they are more likely to experiment with bold ideas, speeding up the cycle of learning, iterating, and refining. Therefore, organizations can develop better ideas by making people feel safe and supported.

Google led a two-year research project with 280 teams that validated that psychological safety was an attribute of innovative teams. They discovered that groundbreaking innovations come from environments where people are comfortable asking big, bold questions.

Challenge Conventional Thinking

We discover opportunities by challenging the status quo.

Conventional thinking makes people stick to what they have always done, which restricts creativity. You can’t find something new if you keep looking in the same place. When people can question standard practices, they can discover new ways to solve problems. Therefore, organizations can capitalize on new opportunities by being open to new ways of working.

IDEO uses a concept called beacon projects, which are projects designed to break organizational norms. These projects challenge assumptions and help organizations discover new opportunities by promoting new behavior to fuel innovation.

Spend More Time Exploring

We generate more ideas by exploring problems at length.

People tend to narrow their focus after they have chosen a solution, which limits their thinking. When you choose a target that’s all you see. However, when people explore potential solutions at length, they can find better options. Therefore, organizations should generate as many ideas as possible before narrowing down the best prospects (based on feasibility, impact, etc.).

When world-renowned architect Frank Gehry designs buildings, he shares a prototype to get feedback and often returns with something completely different. He prioritizes testing different approaches instead of simply iterating to find the best solution.

Establish The Purpose

We develop better solutions when we find deeper meaning in our work.

People feel inspired when they can relate to the problems they are solving. They need to understand what they have to do and why. They have to empathize with their users and recognize what’s meaningful to them. Therefore, organizations need to connect their work to a deeper purpose to create a powerful incentive to develop innovative solutions.

When Procter and Gamble switched from testing finished products to rapid prototyping, they developed a collaborative partnership with their customers. This gave them deeper insight into what they valued, allowing them to develop products customers truly loved.

Finding Inspiration

To me, creativity is reinterpreting and adapting older concepts in new ways. Therefore, looking at existing ideas is often a great place to start when creating something new.

Create A Repository Of Ideas

We need a place to store good ideas so we can refer to them when we need inspiration.

When people think of something new, their ideas are often not fully formed, and they need to be further developed until they are actionable. Product teams will prioritize well-formed ideas over incomplete ones. However, many great ideas are lost because of people in this process.

Instead of missing out on these potential ideas (thoughts, concepts, discussions, etc.), it is useful **to store them. Ideas should be documented in some form (in an internal wiki, a message thread, etc.) with sufficient context: What was the idea? What was the opportunity? What problems was it solving?

Inspiration can be hard to find if you don’t know where to look. Therefore, a repository of ideas allows people to reference past ideas when working on problems to find inspiration. Regardless of its specific form, it has to align with how people naturally work and communicate.

Organizations with strong writing cultures are often more creative because they can easily access their past knowledge and thinking. For example, Stripe maintains an extensive internal library of documents to make employee insights and ideas accessible company-wide.

Check out my previous post on *How Effective Writing Helps Companies Succeed,* for more insights on the power of writing.

Identify Useful Concepts Across Domains

We can find useful ideas from different domains that can be applied to our use cases.

People draw inspiration from what they know. However, in many domains, people’s thinking tends to converge over time as they develop similar ideas. In established industries, you will often find that most competitors are using variations of the same core ideas. Therefore, there’s no guarantee that people will find original ideas in their industry.

Often we are used to seeing situations in a certain context. However, most problems are not completely unique. There are most likely similar problems in different industries. However, people need to broaden their horizons to identify these.

When product teams examine how people are solving similar problems in different contexts, they can identify useful ideas that they can adapt to their use cases. It can give them a new perspective on what they are doing, which might lead to the original idea they are looking for.

Takeaways For Product Teams

We need to build a cultural foundation for creativity to thrive.

• Create a safe, supportive environment for people to share bold ideas.

• Establish a deeper purpose to create a powerful incentive to innovate.

• Challenge conventional thinking to discover new opportunities.

• Spend more time exploring problems to discover better ideas.

We can find inspiration from existing ideas.

• Create a repository of ideas to refer to when solving problems.

• Identify useful ideas from other domains that apply to your use cases.

Conclusion

Organizations will have to get creative to meet the demand for compelling solutions. They can capitalize on people’s collective creativity by creating a culture that supports and amplifies it at every level. They have to believe their people have great ideas that are waiting to be uncovered. They just need to create the right conditions for innovation to thrive

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References

• Harvard Business Review | Free Yourself from Conventional Thinking

• IDEO | Creativity at Google

• IDEO | Claudia Kotchka on Innovation and Creativity

• Illustrations from Blush Design and FigJam