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Tuesday Briefing 路 No. 27 路 11 Aug, 2026
Same type of problem, just add a few zeros
Most of us assume that when something truly big lands, it requires something we don't yet have. It doesn't. That feeling is just what every complex problem looks like on approach, before it has any depth or shape. The way you lead on an ordinary Tuesday is exactly what you'll be drawing on when the big decision arrives.
Emily Rust
Founder, Stones
Featured
A day in a room thinking at scale
Last Thursday I spent the day at the Revved summit in Auckland. The room was full of people working on change at a scale most of us never have to think about: iwi leadership, aviation, clean energy, infrastructure, education, digital equity.
I'd gone in expecting a day about challenges and opportunities at scale. What I left with was something more grounding than that. Speaker after speaker confirmed that the same good leadership practices leaders use on any key decision or strategy day ring just as true when they're pointed at wicked, far-reaching problems instead. One of the speakers put it plainly: it's the same type of problem, just add a few zeros.
The research
What the unfamiliar feeling is actually telling you
When something big and unfamiliar lands, a restructure with no obvious right answer, a market you don't know well enough, a risk that would really matter if it came to pass, the first honest response is that you don't know where to start. Close behind it is often the thought that this one needs something you haven't yet got: knowledge, instincts, expertise.
It doesn't. That feeling is what every complex problem looks like on approach, before it has any depth or shape to it. The more seasoned leaders who look calm in those moments aren't feeling something different. They've simply been here many times before, and they know the initial fear passes as you work through the phases.
Practical
The things worth holding close
Five practices came up often enough across the day that I think every leader should live by them. They're all in service of three things worth keeping in view: a chosen direction and the why underneath it, humanity and the real costs or benefits to the people your decisions land on, and small actions that compound over time.
Five practices from the Revved day
- 1
Start with the problem, not the solution
The co-founder of Kami described how they hold that line: "Instead of approaching problems with solutions, like what's the latest model, we start our conversation with what have our users said about this? How did they think we should be solving this?" Every leader knows this, and almost every room forgets it under pressure. If you can't say what a decision is for and who it's for, nothing downstream can be judged.
- 2
Name what you're not willing to lose
Julia Pahina, who founded Fibre Fale, gave the room two questions to ask of technology, in order: first, trace what has to stay human no matter what, then ask where the tool or system has a role. You do a version of this already. It's the instinct that makes you fight to keep something through a restructure because you know trust or culture is carried in it. Say those things out loud, early. Parameters are what let people make good calls without you in the room.
- 3
Most trade-offs are softer than they look
Nikhil Ravishankar, CEO of Air New Zealand, borrowed from Jim Collins: the genius of the AND, against the tyranny of the OR. Naomi Ballantyne, now chair of Tower, said the same about employees, customers and shareholders: "It can't be one at the expense of the others." Most either/or framings are handed to us by someone who benefits from us accepting them. A surprising number fall apart when one person asks whether the trade is necessary at all.
- 4
They're following you, not the plan
Naomi Ballantyne described what people need from a leader right now: "The people that we lead are in a world with ugly rhetoric, with snake oil salesmen talking about how you have to do this thing faster... they need us to give them comfort that when they follow us, we are taking them to a place that they want to be." Someone can run the process for you. Nobody can be the person your team decided to trust, and they made that decision long before this week, in far smaller moments than this one.
- 5
You can't smooth the road
Stephen Dewar, who leads engineering teams at Xero, put it in terms of cars. Two vehicles on the same rough road. One has proper suspension, decent seats and the safety systems working. The other has none of it. Same potholes, same distance to cover. One trip is manageable at a reasonable speed. The other shakes everyone to pieces and has to be crawled. You rarely get to smooth the road. What you build is the car (culture), and it sets how fast your team can move, what the trip costs them, and whether they can keep going when the surface gets really bad. It also gets built long before you need it.
Three things you can do today
- 1
Name the direction
One sentence, written down: what this is for and who it's for. If you can't get it into a sentence, that's not a writing problem. It's work you haven't done yet.
- 2
Set the parameters
Decide what isn't up for negotiation, and say it to the team. What has to stay human here, what you won't trade, what a good outcome has to include.
- 3
Take the reversible step
Find one two-way door and go through it this week. Not the perfect move next quarter. The undoable one now, so you're learning from something real.
The size is the only part that's new
None of this needs certainty, which is fortunate, because you won't get any. It needs a direction you can say out loud, a line you won't cross, and one small move you could undo if you had to. You've done all three before, on smaller things. The size is the only part that's new.
That's all for this week's briefing.
Emily Rust 路 Founder, Stones
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