Mar 19, 2025
Messy teams don't mean broken teams.
They're just growing. Growth kicks off the “storming” phase - overlaps, confusion, delays. Everyone's working hard, but everything feels slow.
That's not a motivation problem. It's an ownership problem.
When no one's clearly accountable, things fall between the cracks. Work stalls. Friction builds. Blame starts to creep in. But assign clear ownership - name, scope, outcome - and everything changes. Now someone's driving. Now someone's finishing.
Ownership creates motion. Shared responsibility sounds nice, but it rarely works. When everyone owns something, no one owns anything.
So make it visible. Write it down. Who owns what. Why it matters. When it's due.
That's how work moves forward. Not with good intentions. With clear accountability.
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I'm a father of 3 from Sydney, a product and technology leader. I write about leadership, product management, technology and the messy reality of making work work.
I'm currently building and experimenting with a mildly alarming number of things. I also work as a fractional product leader, stepping in where the founder or CEO is still carrying product decisions on their own, and offer 1:1 product leadership coaching for senior PMs and emerging product leaders. I founded SoundingBoard, practical peer exchange for product people. Connect via LinkedIn, or follow me on X.
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