Hatena
Boundary-crossing without leadership breaks organizations | TakayukiSaruta
PolicyFirst seen 539 points
This is a personal essay by Takayuki Saruta, a manager, about why teams talk a lot but make no decisions. He says that when many people from different areas join a discussion without a leader to bring the ideas together, the team gets stuck.
What the article says
The author describes a common week. A Slack thread starts, more people join each day, and by Friday eight people are in it with over 50 replies. Nothing is decided. He argues the problem is not laziness or low motivation. It is a structure problem: adding details (concrete facts and opinions) happens on its own, but pulling those details together into one clear goal (abstraction) takes a deliberate choice by someone.
Key facts from the article
- A Slack thread on Friday had 8 participants and more than 50 replies.
- The number of possible communication paths grows as N(N−1)/2. With 10 people, that is 45 paths.
- Meetings add a brake: each new person has to be scheduled. In Slack, one mention or channel invite adds someone for free.
Two ideas behind the argument
“Crossing over” (越境) here means bringing people from other areas into a discussion, not telling them what to do. The author uses the word “abstraction” to mean grouping scattered issues under one purpose and one decision. When no one does this, every new person adds more details, and no one owns the final call. He also says tools like Slack made adding details almost free, while the hard work of abstraction did not get any easier.
Why it matters
Many teams are busy and well-meaning, yet they still move slowly. The article says that this kind of talk, when no one takes the lead, can hurt a team even when everyone means well. The author suggests that a leader is needed at every level, and that anyone who brings in others should also help finish the decision.
Ideas the author suggests
- Name one person who decides (the DRI, or Directly Responsible Individual, idea used by Apple and GitLab).
- People who bring others in should say what decision they want, their guess, and the deadline.
- Separate people who give opinions (Consulted) from people who only need updates (Informed). Mark updates as “FYI, no reply needed.”
- Measure teams by how much they move forward, not by how many people they involved.
Glossary
- Slack
- A workplace chat tool where teams talk in channels and threads and can add people with a mention or invite.
- DRI
- Directly Responsible Individual: one person who makes the final call on a task and is accountable for it, a practice used by Apple and GitLab.
- GitLab
- A company that makes software for building, testing, and releasing code, and that publishes a public handbook of its work practices.