TBM 330: (Un)common Sense Playbook

I remember listening to a podcast a few years ago featuring a Netflix engineering manager who described how he turned around a struggling team. I can't find the podcast anywhere, so I apologize for not linking to it. Here are my notes—I'm probably missing some things, but this should give you an idea:

1. Get to know the people on the team.

2. Take time to understand the team's "why"—how they contribute to business and customer outcomes and align with the product strategy. Learn how key leaders perceive the team's role.

3. Engage with customers (internal customers in this case) to understand their needs and expectations.

4. Dive into the codebase to understand its evolution over the past few quarters or years.

5. Communicate clearly with the team about the need for temporary stabilization measures, explaining that once things settle, there will be room for experimentation and co-designing the way forward.

6. Use social capital to call a "Time Out," temporarily pausing new commitments or incoming work. Empower the team by handling external pushback personally: "If anyone questions this, have them talk to me!" Set clear expectations with stakeholders about the slowdown and pause.

7. Review recent months of work to analyze how the team set priorities, the impact on core metrics, and where the team spent its time. Reassure the team about the intent to build toward a better future.

8. Collaborate with the product manager and team to draft a clear near-term strategy.

9. Gradually reintroduce work, establishing a steady cadence and prioritizing tempo over keeping everyone perpetually busy.

10. Transition to being less prescriptive.

The approach worked. The team (and the manager) turned things around.

None of this sounds revolutionary. Nothing struck me as controversial or edgy. The manager's "common sense" approach struck me at the time, so I wrote, "Why is common sense so uncommon?" in the margins of my notebook.

A couple of months ago, as part of a consulting gig, I interviewed my engineering manager friend about his first couple months at a new job (a well-known tech company in the data warehousing space). Notice any similarities? Differences?

Whenever I join a new team, my first step is to assess who's on the team—are these the right people for the mission? If not, I know it'll take a quarter or two to make the necessary changes.

Once I'm confident we've got the right people, the next question is alignment. Is the team focused, or are they scattered? When I started at [Company], each engineer was working on their own project, making building momentum impossible. So, I cut it down. I narrowed the focus areas and clarified exactly what we cared about. It wasn't about doing more; it was about doing fewer things really well. I 'shaped' the projects, gave clear objectives, and made sure everyone understood the 'why' behind the work.

Metrics are also key. I set up quantifiable guardrails—things we could check weekly or biweekly to make sure we were on track and not letting anything degrade. It's all about focusing on the right levers, the ones that can really move the needle.

And communication? That's non-negotiable. I established a steady cadence—weekly emails, a solid project plan, and clear RAG (red-amber-green) indicators for status updates. Stakeholder management is critical, but I'm firm about not having seven people pulling the team in different directions. The team needs to focus, and I make sure our external communications protect that focus.

Again—nothing groundbreaking. It makes sense. Even my friend remarked, "This probably sounds boring, but it works!" The two examples are fairly similar. They could have been the same person.

But it left me wondering. What allowed/enabled these two managers to take a "common sense" approach while other managers struggle for years and quarters to get buy-in on something basic like a temporary pause?

This story from another engineering manager friend who has successfully run the "playbook" with multiple teams and companies—but ran into trouble at their last job—describes four setbacks:

When I joined mid-quarter, the team was drowning in unrealistic commitments. I suggested renegotiating with leadership, but my manager shot it down, worried about optics: "We have to make this work, somehow."

Then there was Kevin. He'd been with the company since it was tiny and knew the founders personally, and his influence was undeniable. Criticizing him felt like heresy, and he knew it. Kevin wasn't shy about dominating me as the new manager, subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) undermining my authority. In meetings, he'd cut me off mid-sentence or dismiss my suggestions with a smirk. "That's not how we've done it here," he'd say, as if that settled the matter. The rest of the team tiptoed around him, clearly uncomfortable but unwilling to confront the elephant in the room.

The recent across-the-board layoffs complicated everything. The scars were still fresh, and everyone hesitated to be fully transparent. People were afraid that admitting to their struggles or asking for help might make them look expendable. Even routine discussions felt tense, with everyone working to keep up appearances.

To make matters worse, we relied on another team that was completely swamped. I offered to have my team help them, but their manager declined. She was likely worried about how it would look—accepting help might send the wrong message and put her job at risk. "We've got this," they insisted, even as deadlines slipped.

I kept trying, but by then, I had lost my window of trust with the team. Kevin's influence only made it worse—his presence seemed to amplify their doubts about whether I could make a difference or push back when it mattered. Trying to rebuild trust felt like an uphill battle; the harder I tried, the more distant the team seemed to become.

This is a great example of how a mix of common challenges can stymie the common sense playbook. The mix of optics pressure, a "guarded" toxic personality, low trust, and a swamped partner is hard to surmount. Even an experienced manager will struggle in this situation.

When I hear leaders say things like, "If we just had stronger managers!" I often wonder whether they realize they could hire mere mortal managers if those managers could run a common-sense playbook.

Do you want to optimize for managers who are skilled in navigating chaos?

The environment vs. individual debate often becomes a religious/philosophical argument. But even if we constrain ourselves entirely to the individual competency frame, difficult environments demand specialized, usually extreme, skills. While we might like to believe that 'A players' have all the necessary abilities to thrive in any context, it's worth considering what “normal” competent and motivated people can accomplish in a healthier, less extreme environment.

Sometimes, the real question isn't whether we need stronger managers but whether we're creating conditions where common sense can actually succeed.