Three Complaints, Three Doors
Three Complaints, Three Doors
Every complex project surfaces the same three complaints. Learn to hear them, and you'll understand where the real problems live.
The Pattern
Listen to any struggling team long enough, and you'll hear variations of these three frustrations:
"Nobody owns this."
Decisions don't get made. Accountability is unclear. Work falls through cracks. When things go wrong, there's finger-pointing or, worse, silence.
"We're not on the same page."
Different people have different understandings of what's happening, what matters, and what's been decided. Meetings end with false consensus. Misalignment surfaces too late.
"We're going in circles."
Motion without progress. Revisiting the same decisions. Unclear priorities. Effort that doesn't move toward outcomes.
They're Not Just Complaints
These complaints aren't random venting. They're signals pointing to specific breakdowns.
Each complaint corresponds to a fundamental question that humans need answered when entering complexity:
--
-
-
Three Doors Into Complexity
Think of these as three doors you need to walk through when facing any complex situation:
The Ownership Door: Who carries the weight here? Who can decide? Who is accountable for what?
The Alignment Door: Are we seeing the same situation? Do we share understanding of constraints, priorities, and dependencies?
The Direction Door: Are we going somewhere real? Do we know what "done" looks like? Are we making progress?
Why All Three Matter
Here's the key insight: you need all three, and they interact.
- Strong ownership without alignment creates confident silos
- Strong alignment without ownership creates shared helplessness
- Strong direction without ownership creates drift
- Strong direction without alignment creates conflict
The questions work together. When all three are answered honestly, you have conditions for navigating well. When any is unclear, you have conditions for the complaints.
Listening Differently
Once you know this pattern, you start hearing conversations differently.
"Who's supposed to do this?" → Ownership question
"Wait, I thought we agreed..." → Alignment question
"Why are we doing this again?" → Direction question
The complaints aren't the problem. They're the map.
Key Takeaways
- •Three common complaints signal three specific breakdowns
- •Ownership, Alignment, and Direction are the three fundamental questions
- •All three are needed—each without the others creates dysfunction
- •Learning to hear these questions transforms how you diagnose problems