​
​The Leadership Letter by Phil Hayes-St Clair

Before you dive into the detail
​Hand the decision back to your team

READ ON PHILHSC.COM • 5 MINUTE READ • 11 NOVEMBER, 2026

‘What’s the one thing you don’t have enough of?’ The audience’s gaze moved from the interviewer to me and in almost the same moment I replied, ‘patience’. I had been a CEO multiple times when I answered that question and I caught the look of agreement on the face of one of my team members in the moments that followed.

I’m often reminded of that moment when sitting with another CEO who is surrounded by resources and capable people and yet, for some reason, they are frustrated at the pace of progress.

Most leaders conceptually understand that it takes time to bring people on a journey and that messiness ensues when you bring ambitious and capable people together to solve problems, but it still grates at them.

Diving into the detail

A common leadership response to a project that isn’t moving at the required speed is to ‘learn more’. This often comes in the form of more information requests, attending more meetings and trying to diagnose the root cause amid deciphering conflicting messages from those involved. This feels like a meaningful investment of time from a senior leader. They’ve built a good part of their reputation on solving problems, so it makes sense that they’ll get to the bottom of the issue in no time, right?

I was reminded recently of how often the answer to that question is ‘no’.

When senior leaders arrive to learn more three things tend to happen. The first is that they receive a sanitised version of the context and events that have led to this moment which leads them to spend more time understanding the issue. Second, they become distracted from being involved in issues that require decisions that only they can make and third, they offer solutions based on their vantage point (and the context they’ve acquired) which is different from those working in and on the initiative.

The bigger issue is that well paid people aren’t leveraged enough to arrive at a clear answer for what should happen next.

The unlocking question

When I see a CEO who’s frustrated at the pace of a project, I encourage them to ask their team one question: Is this fit for purpose?

The question puts the work back with the people closest to it. They hold the most context, they see the trade-offs every day, and they’re paid to make calls like this one. Asking them to judge the work against a single test makes use of all of that value but it’s important to understand what the question is asking. The question has two parts, and each one has a job to do.

Purpose. This refers to the purpose of the organisation and where the business is going. A project earns its place when it moves the organisation towards that destination.

Fit. This asks whether the initiative, in its current shape, does that job today. Plenty of initiatives start with a sound rationale at what seems like the right time but markets move, priorities shift and teams learn things along the way. Fit is a judgement about the present and future, not about the past.

Put together, the question asks: Given where we’re going, does this piece of work, as it stands, help us get there? If the answer is yes, great, keep going. If it’s no, the work should be augmented to become fit for purpose or get gracefully edited out of the company priority list.

What a team needs to answer it well

Being asked if a project is ‘fit for purpose’ can feel like a loaded question. To avoid ambushing a team with this question, it’s helpful to understand that a good answer rests on three factors, and the CEO is the person best placed to provide each of them.

1. A clear line of sight to purpose - Most teams can recite a version of a purpose statement. Fewer can translate it into what a specific initiative needs to deliver. The CEO closes that gap by stating the purpose in one sentence, then saying what this particular initiative has to deliver to serve it.
2. Permission to let go of earlier work - Some of these initiatives started months or even years ago. People have put hours, budget and reputation into them. The CEO makes it clear that anything stopped has already taught the organisation something, and that the learning is here to stay. Stopping is a decision about the future and it should say nothing bad about the people who did the work.
3. Safety to make the call - Calling an initiative unfit is a judgement, and judgements can be wrong. The CEO tells the team up front that some answers will be no, and that a well-reasoned no is what they’re asking for.

How the CEO asks it

Put those three factors together and the ask can sound something like this:

“Our purpose is [one sentence]. For this project, that means it needs to deliver [specific outcome] by [date]. I’d like you to tell me whether it’s fit for purpose. Whatever we’ve done so far has taught us something, and we’ll keep that. I expect some of these will come back as a no, and I want to hear it.”

That takes under a minute to say and it gives the team a clear test, releases them from the weight of past effort and tells them what a good answer looks like. The CEO then agrees a date for the answer and steps back. As part of this process, it’s helpful to realise that a team working on one project is usually working on multiple projects and they’re all competing for the same people, capital and attention.

Say there are six projects. Ask “is this fit for purpose?” of each one. A healthy outcome is that around three survive.

That result guides the next decision: what gets edited out. The three that don’t fit stop being worked on. The three that do get the time, people and focus they were missing. In my experience, a good share of the slow progress that frustrates CEOs comes from spreading the same people too thinly across six things at once.

When this process cascades and becomes a cultural norm, the whole organisation learns to edit its own work, and the CEO stops being the only person who can make a team move.

Back to patience

Patience tends to stay in short supply for CEOs. What this question offers is a better use for the time they’d otherwise spend diving into the detail.

The people closest to the work make the call. The CEO stays focused on the decisions only they can make. And the team gets to put its energy into fewer things that matter, which is where the pace they’ve been waiting for tends to come from.

When you ask “is this fit for purpose?”, give your team what they need to answer it: a clear line of sight to purpose, permission to let go of earlier work and the safety to say no. Then ask them to do the same for their teams.

See you next Wednesday,

Phil Hayes-St Clair
CEO Coach

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