When their team underperforms, most managers jump straight to blaming people. Molly Graham—who's worked alongside Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and Chamath Palihapitiya—explains how that's one of the biggest leadership traps there is. In this episode, she shares the Waterline Model: a diagnostic model to help uncover the real source of team problems, before touching an org chart.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why blaming people for structural problems is one of the biggest leadership mistakes

• The four layers of the Waterline Model, and why that order matters

• Why you should always "snorkel before you scuba"

• How self-preservation can be a rational response to a faulty environment

• How to make clean, decisive calls when you finally reach the individual layer

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References:

• "Give Away Your Legos": https://review.firstround.com/give-away-your-legos-and-other-commandments-for-scaling-startups/

• Glue Club: https://glueclub.com/

• Molly Graham: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mograham/

• Molly Graham on Lenny's podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twzLDx9iers

• Lenny's Product Pass: https://www.lennysproductpass.com/

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Welcome to Lenny's Reads, where every week you'll find a fresh audio version of my newsletter about building product, driving growth, and accelerating your career, read to you by the soothing voice of Lennybot.

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Listen: How to debug a team that isn’t working: the Waterline Model

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