Cater to the Individual, Not the Average
Ask each teammate how involved they want to be, then run decisions to fit their motivation.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 88%
A team-leadership principle rooted in the observation that two people only disagree on strategy because they hold different assumptions. Kapoor argues the highest-functioning teams come from understanding each person's motivation for how much they want to shape decisions — and directly asking rather than guessing — then catering to that individual rather than to an average.
Origin
Mihika Kapoor's practice; the assumptions insight came from Julie Zhuo (early Meta employee and VP of Design), who taught that strategy disagreements stem from differing assumptions.
Core principles
- 01When two people disagree on strategy, it's because they hold different assumptions
- 02Some people want a solution handed to them; others can't feel passionate about what they didn't shape
- 03The greatest variance in involvement preference is on the engineering side
- 04Ask motivations directly — don't infer them
- 05Cater to the individual, not the average, to build the highest-functioning team
How to run it
- 1
Surface the shared assumptions
Because disagreement traces to different assumptions, make the assumptions behind a strategy explicit — whether it's top-down (understand what assumptions led leadership there) or bottoms-up (ensure everyone shares the assumptions in your head).
Pro tip Aligning assumptions removes most strategy disagreements at the root.
- 2
Directly ask each person how involved they want to be
When someone joins the team — especially engineers, where variance is highest — literally ask 'how much do you like being involved in product decisions?'
Pro tip Don't try to guess from watching; ask directly.
Watch out Handing a fully-formed solution to someone who needs to co-create it kills their passion; over-involving someone who just wants a technical problem to solve wastes energy.
- 3
Take decisions in the open with a leading view
Where possible make decisions in the open. You can enter with a leading point of view (e.g. 'we have four options, here's my lean') while giving everyone the chance to voice their perspective and push back.
In the wild
Whenever someone joins her team, especially on engineering, Kapoor asks how much they like being involved in product decisions, because some engineers find the most exciting part is solving the problem in code while others can't feel passionate about work they didn't help shape.
→ Decisions and involvement tailored per person, producing what she considers one of the highest-functioning teams.
Common mistakes
Treating the team as an average
Catering to an average involvement level under-serves both the hand-me-a-solution people and the need-to-co-create people; individual tailoring is what works.
Guessing motivations instead of asking
Kapoor insists you have to directly ask people what motivates them and how involved they want to be rather than inferring it by observation.
Is it for you?
Best for
A PM or manager leading a cross-functional team who wants to raise engagement by fitting decision-making to each person.
Not ideal for
Very large or transient groups where individual motivation conversations aren't feasible.
From the transcript
“when two people disagree about product strategy, it is because they have different assumptions”
“There are some people who do want a solution handed to them because for them the most exciting part of the process is to like…”
“there are other people who like find it really hard to feel passionately about a thing that they have not contributed to”
“cater to the individual as opposed to the average”
“I will literally ask like, How much do you like being involved in product decisions?”
From the episode
Vision, conviction, and hype: How to build 0 to 1 inside a company
Mihika Kapoor (Product at Figma)