Lenny Rachitsky shares a framework for building resilient teams: "I believe you, and I believe in you." The approach validates someone's struggle while reinforcing confidence in their ability to solve it, letting them own hard work instead of taking over.
Chapters
When we're thinking about a resilient work culture, we want people who can say, this is hard, and I can do hard things, not this is hard, so someone must be at fault, and it should be easier. We should ask ourselves, well, what am I doing in the nature of my conversations with people that help me build toward that? And I'll make it really concrete because I think so much of dealing with anxiety and struggle. I like a good formula is this combination of I believe you and I believe in you, which might sound like this. Look, I believe you. This is a hard project. You're totally right. And you've never done something like this before. It makes sense. The reason we think you can take on this project is because we know you can figure this out. By the way, I'm here to answer questions and help you along the way, but I just want to make sure you hear that from me. I also know the way you're going to feel at the end. You're going to feel so proud of yourself. And I don't want to take away the project from you because I kind of think I'm taking away that feeling. And that's going to be the feeling that propels you to do all the other amazing things you want to do here. And let's work toward that.
