Was the team now ignoring me? Had I yelled at them one time too many? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that while I had told the team… - Ben Horowitz

" "

Was the team now ignoring me? Had I yelled at them one time too many? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that while I had told the team “what” to do, I had not been clear about “why” I wanted them to do it. Clearly, my authority alone was not enough to get them to do what I wanted. Given the large number of things that we were trying to accomplish, managers couldn’t get to everything and came up with their own priorities. Apparently, this manager didn’t think that meeting with his people was all that important and I hadn’t explained to him why it was so important.