The Toby Tornado (Compressed Change Management)
When you sense a project is wrong, compress the conflict into a short window, kill it, and reconstitute the team as founders of the next version.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 90%
When Lütke senses a project isn't right, he refuses to ignore it. He compresses the change management, conflict, and 'real talk' into a very short time frame: he raises it, invites a steel-man, and either updates his own prior or kills the project on the spot. The team is not disbanded — they become the founders of the next, better version. It's deliberately whiplashy but treats colleagues' limited career time as too precious to waste.
Origin
Named by Shopify staff ('the Toby tornado'); described by Tobi Lütke as his own practice.
Core principles
- 01When you suspect a project is wrong you have exactly three options: you're incorrect (understand why), you're correct (stop it now), or you ignore it (an abdication you refuse)
- 02Ignoring the problem is an abdication of CEO/founder responsibility
- 03Careers are short (~40 years) — letting people work on doomed projects is unfair to them
- 04Compressing time to a fast decision matters more than delivering it in the sweetest possible way
- 05Whatever is best ends up mattering a lot, even if the process feels abrupt
How to run it
- 1
Surface the doubt immediately
The moment something doesn't seem right, open the conversation rather than sitting on it. Don't optimize the delivery for niceness.
Watch out This will feel whiplashy to people — acknowledge that, but don't let it stop you.
- 2
Demand a steel-man
Invite the strongest possible defense of the current direction. If it steel-mans successfully, you've learned something and update your prior.
Pro tip Frame it as 'I need to update my prior' — you are genuinely trying to be proven wrong.
- 3
Resolve to one of two outcomes
Either you were incorrect (now you understand why, and it proceeds) or you were correct (the project stops). There is no third 'ignore it' path.
Watch out Ignoring a doubt you hold is unfair to the team — it lets them pour effort into something that won't make it.
- 4
Reconstitute, don't disband
If killed, get the team back in a room and start a new version. Everyone on the old project becomes a founder of the next one.
Pro tip Reframing 'your project was killed' as 'you are now founders of v2' preserves ownership and momentum.
In the wild
Lütke describes entering a chat room and saying 'hey, we're going to end this project, let's try something else' because he's realized it's a bad idea. Some people complain that 'Toby kills a project we've been working on'; his lens is that continuing would just waste everyone's limited time.
→ The project stops and a new version begins with the same people as its founders, compressing what would be a slow drawn-out wind-down into a single conversation.
Common mistakes
Softening the message until the decision blurs
Optimizing feedback to come across as sweet and kind can delay or dilute the actual decision; Lütke prioritizes speed of the correct call over the packaging.
Letting a doubted project run out of politeness
Ignoring your own conviction that something won't work is an abdication of leadership and is unfair to the people spending their scarce career time on it.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founder-CEOs and senior product leaders with the authority to stop work, who need to reallocate a team fast when a direction is clearly wrong.
Not ideal for
Cultures without high psychological safety or where the leader's read is often wrong — abrupt reversals without a real steel-man step will just destroy trust.
From the transcript
“is like a whole lot of change management or uh conversation or conflict uh or um Real Talk compressed into a very short time frame”
“they are the founders of the next version”
“I'm either incorrect at which point this is super important that I understand why or I'm correct at which point it's super unfair for letting…”
From the episode
Tobi Lütke’s leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify)