The moment a suggested solution hits the table, people pile on. Options multiply. Debates fire up. Pretty soon you’ve got a full menu of alternatives, but very little clarity on whether any of them fit the situation.

What usually gets skipped is the boring alignment on the fundamentals:

The words that sink execution aren’t the fancy bits of jargon. They’re the everyday shortcuts—the words so common that nobody notices how vague those words are.

Squishy words leave a trail of misunderstandings, false assumptions, and dropped balls.

Every time you draw an org chart, you're picking sides in battles that haven't started yet.

That's just human wiring. Social identity theory shows people quickly form in-groups and out-groups, even on trivial distinctions. Any structure you choose will naturally create "us vs. them" dynamics.

Without intentional design, you get the classic blame cycles: Sales says Marketing sends bad leads, Marketing says Sales doesn't follow up, and Engineering blames both teams for changing requirements mid-sprint.

But you can architect your organization so those tribal instincts work for you instead of against you. Here's how:

Why Work Miscommunication Is the Norm

At work, we interact with people far less often than our closest relationships. They have even less context for what’s in our heads. What you say is always filtered through their priors:

• Their role and incentives

• Their past experiences with similar topics

• Whatever else is competing for their attention

That’s why, “But I told them,” isn’t enough. It’s not about what you said. It’s about what they heard and how they interpreted it.

When you’re accountable for the outcome, letting go of the “how” feels risky.

If the team takes a wrong turn or misses a date, you’ll be the one explaining.

Still, trying to own every move will burn you out, disenfranchise your team, and likely leave better solutions undiscovered. Instead, define the destination; they determine the path to get there.

Scroll LinkedIn long enough and you’ll see the usual suspects:

• Posts claiming Steve Jobs didn’t believe in market research.

• That Netflix beat Blockbuster because they had more vision.

• That Kodak went bankrupt because it ignored digital photography. 

They make for great click bait. Visionaries as heroes, analysts as villains. The punchline is always the same: one bold idea is all it takes. What’s missing is the part that actually determines who wins — execution.

Let’s take them one at a time.

With (American) football season right around the corner, I’ve been revisiting some of my highlights from former 49ers coach Bill Walsh’s excellent book, The Score Takes Care of Itself. It’s packed with leadership insights that reach well beyond the field.

One section in particular stands out, especially for those of us thinking about how to build and lead effective teams. It’s called Establishing Your Standard of Performance, and the rules are pretty darn good:

There’s a mismatch in many organizations that leads to frustration, inefficiency, and that nagging “why can’t we get anything done around here?” feeling.

It’s the disconnect between Authority and Accountability.

You know that message you’ve been repeating over and over? The one you’re worried everyone is tired of hearing?

Keep saying it.

Because chances are, they didn’t really hear it the first time. Or the second. Or even the third.

It’s not that your audience is ignoring you. You’re fighting biology.

In just the past few weeks, I’ve heard the phrase pop up in three separate conversations:

“We need to celebrate failure.”

I understand the intent. It’s about reducing fear and encouraging risk-taking. A noble goal. But I think it’s the wrong message—especially right now.

For many people, fear isn’t some abstract concept that sits quietly in the back of their minds. It’s real. It’s watching a respected colleague get laid off and wondering if your name’s next on the list. In environments like that, “celebrating failure” doesn’t feel like a courageous rallying cry. It feels disconnected. Even reckless.

And let’s be honest, nobody wants to fail.

Push too hard in one direction, and nature pushes back. Forests catch fire. Rivers overflow. Ecosystems collapse. Balance is nature's resilience.

The same is true in business. When strategy gets lopsided, progress in one area can come at the unintended expense of another.

Inside organizations, we get excited about clever concepts and breakthrough plans. But even brilliant strategy—without full commitment—can fall flat. A great idea, half-executed, just looks dumb. Or worse, confusing.

Strategy isn’t self-fulfilling. It needs people to bring it to life with clarity, precision, and energy. Everyone playing their part. Everyone on tempo. Everyone believing it’s worth doing right.

“Reasoning is biased in favor of the reasoner.”

David McRaney dropped that gem in How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion, and it’s one of those lines that just won’t leave me alone. It’s clever, sure. But it also nails something fundamentally true about how humans think—and why we’re better off thinking together.

When we reason on our own, our brains aren’t wired for objectivity. They’re wired for advocacy. We argue for our own perspectives with built-in bias and barely notice we’re doing it. 

Our brains are also lazy. Or, to be more charitable, efficient. Reasoning takes effort. So we delegate that cognitive load to others. It’s why the best thinking happens in groups—especially diverse groups—where we can distribute the mental workload, challenge each other’s assumptions, and sharpen each other’s thinking.

Do you remember The Dress controversy?

Back in 2015 a washed-out photo of a striped dress split the web: half the planet saw blue-black, the rest swore it was white-gold.

I recently came across an article that explained why so many of us conclusively saw something so different. Scientists found two key drivers: (1) the photo was low quality, forcing our brain’s visual system to “repair” missing data, and (2) people’s repairs depended on the light they were used to. Regular daylight dwellers mentally subtracted bluish light and perceived white-gold; night owls tended to discount yellowish bulbs and landed on blue-black. The real split was experience-driven guesswork by the predictive brain, which constantly fills gaps with prior knowledge to keep perception running smoothly. 

That same shortcut shows up whenever leaders drop a half-lit strategy note.

Steve Jobs. Serena Williams. Yo-Yo Ma.

Different fields, same formula: they all became legends by first being obsessive followers of their craft.

The best leaders I’ve met all started as world-class followers.

"He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader"- Aristotle

Think about it. Great authors read obsessively. Great musicians are fans of other great artists. Great athletes are students of the game, watching tape like it’s their job, because it is. Observing is how mastery begins.

Did you know the word priority was only ever used in the singular form for hundreds of years?

It entered the English language in the 1400s and meant the very first thing—the one item that came before all others. And for the next 500 years, that’s how it stayed. Singular. Clear. Undeniable.

Then somewhere in the 20th century, we started saying “priorities.” Plural.

As if by declaring five things “most important,” we could bend time and energy to our will. It’s like claiming there were multiple winners in a race. Everyone gets a trophy, right? But that’s not how performance works. Not in competition. Not in strategy. Real focus doesn’t allow for handing out participation ribbons. It means hard choices. It declares a winner. It says: this comes first.

It’s tempting to think of “your team” as the people who report to you. That’s where your expertise is. That’s where you feel most accountable. And that’s where the outcomes often show up on paper.

But here’s the shift that separates great managers from great leaders:

Your peer leadership team is your first team. Your function is your second.

This mindset isn’t just for the C-suite. It applies to every level of management. If you lead people, your peer group is your primary team. And the sooner you embrace that, the more your strategy, execution, and trust across the business will improve.

In theory, “What do you think?” is an open-minded, inclusive, and collaborative question.

In practice, it can be a total disaster.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been in a handful of meetings where that question completely derailed the conversation. In each case, an idea was shared without any explanation of what problem it was solving or what objective it was trying to achieve.

The responses started rolling in.

They were enthusiastic. They were critical. They were long-winded.

We love to hate meetings.

Too many, too long, too little value. It’s the most universal workplace complaint out there. And it’s gotten so bad that “let’s not have another meeting” has practically become a badge of honor. In response, leaders and experts have doubled down on meeting hacks—timers, agendas, “no meeting Wednesdays,” or fancy door signs that declare, “This meeting could’ve been an email.”

But those are band-aids. They treat the symptoms, not the disease.

Great leadership starts with trust. And trust isn’t automatic—it’s something you build through consistent actions, honest communication, and a willingness to show up authentically.

Leaders who embrace integrity, vulnerability, and transparency create an environment where teams feel safe to take risks, admit mistakes, and align around a shared vision. These qualities don’t just strengthen relationships—they elevate execution.