· LEADING WITH CLARITY ·

By Dustin Moskovitz & Jennifer Nan

How do you get your company to produce great results? This can be hard,
even if your company is comprised of smart, well-intentioned people. It’s hard
to get everyone aligned in the same direction, and it’s even harder to get
everyone to continue running in the same direction.

Part of the challenge is keeping sight of the forest for the trees. Most people
spend the majority of their time executing on day-to-day work, so it’s easy to
get caught up in daily details and lose sight of the bigger picture. This is a
dangerous mistake because it can lead to inadvertently optimizing for the
wrong goal.

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On the other end of the spectrum, it can also be challenging to keep people’s
heads out of the clouds. Dreaming big is important, but unless those lofty
aspirations are backed by a concrete plan to achieve them, they’ll remain
dreams.

At Asana, we use the pyramid of clarity to get everyone aligned on the high-
level purpose of the work and the concrete results we expect our work to
produce. The pyramid of clarity shows how our longer-term aspirations are
built on top of shorter-term goals, whether we’re building our product roadmap
or business plans. We regularly refer back to the pyramid of clarity to help us
stay on the same page, build confidence in our strategy and execution, and help
individuals make decisions that are in line with the big picture.

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When entire teams and companies have clarity of purpose, plan, and
responsibility, they’re able to do their best work. And for us, the pyramid of
clarity is what helps us see how everything fits together. So when determining
what work to do every single day, team members know how to prioritize the
projects and tasks that will help achieve their KRs, which in turn help achieve
annual objectives, which ultimately, help achieve the mission.

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TheUpSpoken • 16 hours ago

Thanks for this explanation! Clear, lucid, fat-free and doesn't make you lose
your appetite!
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