“We did everything that was needed”
There’s one phrase in retrospectives that worries me more than any bad numbers: “We did everything that was needed.”
People say it sincerely. They really did work, close tasks, show up to meetings. And that is exactly why they don’t understand what went wrong. From where they stand, everything was done right.
But a startup in its growth stage doesn’t pay for execution. It pays for a path found. And between those two things there’s a gap you simply can’t see from an executor’s seat.
A team that does the interesting thing, not the rational one
Not long ago I was looking at the work of a small team — three people. For a startup that’s not exactly small. And its productivity was low.
My guess was simple: each of them was doing what they found most interesting, and maybe what was easiest. Instead of each doing what made the most sense for the result.
From the outside it all looked healthy. The team ran on shared agreements, no rigid hierarchy, everyone was on board. But agreement isn’t a strategy. What was missing was a leader who would tell each person clearly what to do — not out of distrust, but the opposite: out of belief that this particular person would do this particular thing well.
Who carries the hardest part
When I looked closer, the picture got clearer. One of the three had simply pulled all the hardest parts onto himself: the hypotheses, the decisions, the responsibility for direction. The others completed tasks.
Then came the time to reflect. And it turned out that two of the three didn’t even understand what they’d done wrong. Because they’d done everything “that was needed.” Tasks closed. Deadlines met. No complaints.
The problem isn’t that they worked badly. The problem is that they had no bet of their own. And without a bet there’s no mistake you can see.
An author’s mistake is worth more than an executor’s flawless work
The one who carried the hardest part made plenty of mistakes. But afterwards he reflected on them well. He knew exactly where he’d gone wrong and why, because every decision contained his own hypothesis.
That’s the difference. You can only be wrong if you assumed something. If you just executed, you have nothing to compare the result against. You can’t see where your expectation and reality diverged, because there was no expectation.
That’s why an author’s mistake is worth more than an executor’s flawless work. A team learns from the first. It learns nothing from the second.
Two honest modes
There are two honest ways to work in a team.
The first is the executor. That’s fine too. But then be consistent: if you need everything spelled out, don’t ask lots of questions — wait for tasks. Clear role, clear request, clear result.
The second is the owner. Then what’s expected of you isn’t completed tasks but a path found: your own hypotheses, your own decisions, and your own mistakes you draw conclusions from.
The worst is to be in between. To ask questions like an owner and carry responsibility like an executor.
In sales, marketing or growth I barely believe in the first mode. There you can’t just complete tasks — you have to feel the market and search for the very thin edge of product-market fit. Nobody can hand you that edge as a task.
A question worth asking yourself every week
A startup always has less time than you’d like. And the most important thing for a company in its growth stage is growth and results. So everyone needs to understand what exactly they can give the company right now.
Not in a year, once they’ve “taken on a big area of responsibility.” Not once everything organisational has finally settled down. Now.
This question isn’t about skills — people usually have the skills. It’s about ambition, vision and desire. About whether you’re ready to have a bet of your own and be wrong about it.
If at your next retro you feel like saying “we did everything that was needed,” try swapping it for a different sentence: “I bet on this, and here’s what came of it.” Even if it came out badly — that’s already movement.