Cathedrals Not Bricks
Make every team member see the whole cathedral, not just the brick they're laying.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 90%
Great product leaders continually orient their teams toward the broader mission (the cathedral) rather than letting people grind through tasks (bricks). Crucially, different people need to see different facets of the cathedral, so a single written vision doc is not enough — you must render the vision in multiple formats.
Origin
Shackleton learned this from Shishir Mehrotra in a one-on-one at YouTube, who asked 'do they know their cathedral?' when Shackleton complained his team was underperforming. Mehrotra told him the parable of three bricklayers, the third of whom says 'we're building a cathedral.'
Core principles
- 01People execute better when they feel they're building a cathedral, not laying bricks
- 02Busy PMs default to task-after-task and forget to open the aperture
- 03Everybody needs to see a different facet of the same cathedral
- 04A single vision write-up leaves many people unable to see their version of the arc
How to run it
- 1
Diagnose whether the team can see the cathedral
Ask directly: does each person know the broader mission their work ladders up to? If they can only describe their task, the cathedral is missing.
Pro tip Shishir's diagnostic question — 'do they have a cathedral?' — cuts straight to it.
Watch out Assuming they know the vision because you wrote it once is the most common failure.
- 2
Render the vision in multiple facets
During big planning cycles, pair the written vision with a target metric, directional mocks, a mockup of the billboard, and how the homepage might change — so different people can each see their side.
Pro tip The goal is to take the mystery out of the broader constraints and destination.
Watch out Don't rely on prose alone; many people cannot translate a write-up into their own version of the arc.
- 3
Re-orient continuously, not once
Great PM leaders always point the team back toward the cathedral, especially when day-to-day execution pressure pulls focus down to the bricks.
Pro tip Treat re-orientation as a recurring leadership act, not a launch-day speech.
Watch out Vision decays under execution pressure; a one-time kickoff will not hold.
In the wild
Instead of shipping only a vision write-up, Coda couples it with the metric, directional mocks, and what the billboard or homepage might look like during big planning cycles.
→ Different stakeholders can each see their own facet of the cathedral, removing the mystery about where the team is headed.
Common mistakes
Writing one great vision doc and stopping
A single prose write-up leaves many people unable to see their version of the broader arc, so they keep laying bricks; you must show multiple facets.
Letting execution crowd out orientation
When PMs are heads-down on tasks they stop opening the aperture, and the team loses its sense of the cathedral entirely.
Is it for you?
Best for
Product and team leaders whose teams are executing hard but feel like they're just doing tasks
Not ideal for
Tiny teams where everyone already shares full context on the mission
From the transcript
“you want your teams to feel like they're building a cathedral and not laying bricks”
“everybody needs to see a different facet of the cathedral”
From the episode
What sets great teams apart
Lane Shackleton (CPO of Coda)