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New York • September 8 & 9, 2027
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I was presenting in front of the room at our all-team meeting, thirty engineers in the audience, more on video. I talked about everything we were building that I was excited about. I couldn’t believe we got to work on these problems. If you had asked me then, whether my team understood what mattered and felt connected to it, I would have said yes. Absolutely.
A week later, an engineer showed up in my office hours and told me otherwise.
The mission is just one part. Teams also need the Why-Now: the reason this work matters right now. And a leader who keeps connecting both to the work in front of them. This talk is about how to do that, drawn from my own mistakes and from leaders who got it right.
Key takeaways
- Leaders consistently overestimate how well their team understands what matters. Saying it from the front of the room isn’t enough.
- Meaning doesn’t require a big mission. Leaders who find what’s real and make it visible can make build automation feel as urgent as a moonshot.
- There is no version of doing this well where you receive a strategy from above and simply pass it on. Your team builds their picture of what matters from how you connect it: from their work to the user, to the teams around them, and what they watch you do.
