Most founders can feel when something is off before they can prove it. The team is busy, the days are full, and yet the things that would actually move the business forward keep slipping. The question underneath is simple and uncomfortable: is the work going where it should.
You can answer it. Not by hovering over people or asking for more reports, but by making the connection between the work and the priorities visible enough to read at a glance.
Start by writing down what matters
You cannot judge whether the work is right without a clear statement of what right means. Write the three or four priorities for this quarter in plain words, the ones you would defend if you could only pick a few. If you cannot get the list that short, that is the first thing to fix, because a team cannot focus on a blur.
Then look at where the work actually goes
With the priorities written, look at what the team is genuinely spending its time on this week. The test is whether each significant piece of work maps to one of the priorities. Anything that does not map is either a missing priority you have not named, or work that quietly should stop.
This gap is common and well documented. Robert Kaplan and David Norton, the creators of the balanced scorecard, writing in Harvard Business Review in 2005, reported that the great majority of employees do not understand their organisation's strategy. When that is true, people cannot tell the right work from the rest, however hard they try.
Signals that you are on the wrong things
A few patterns reliably show that effort and priorities have come apart. None of them is about how hard people work.
- The team is busy, but the priorities barely move from week to week.
- The honest answer to what are our top priorities differs across the team.
- The loudest or newest request usually wins, whatever the plan said.
- Important work has no owner, while several people circle the same urgent task.
- You learn what people are working on by asking, because nothing shows it.
What to do when the answer is no
The repair is not a push for more effort. It is to connect the work to the priorities so the right things are the obvious things to pick up. Name the priorities, give each a clear owner, and keep them in the same view as the daily work, so the line of sight holds without anyone having to chase it.
Working With Me is built for exactly this read. It holds people, priorities, and the daily work view together, so you can see whether the work matches what matters without standing over anyone. It builds on connecting individual work to company goals and tracking team priorities and capacity. To see it against your own priorities, book a call, or start with the Working With Me workshop from £2,000, which includes a four-week trial of the platform.
Common questions
How do I know if my team is working on the right things
Write down the three or four priorities that matter this quarter, then check whether each significant piece of work maps to one of them. Work that maps to nothing is either a missing priority or something that should stop. If you can only find out what people are doing by asking, that is a sign the connection is missing.
What are the signs a team is working on the wrong things
The team is busy while the priorities barely move, people give different answers about what the top priorities are, and the loudest request tends to win. Important work often has no owner while several people crowd the same urgent task.
Is this about monitoring how hard people work
No. Effort is rarely the problem. The question is whether the effort is connected to the priorities, which is about visibility and ownership rather than how hard anyone is trying.
How do you keep a team focused on the right work
Keep the priority list short, give each priority an owner, and hold the priorities in the same view as the daily work. When the right work is the obvious work to pick up, focus stops depending on willpower.
How often should I check this
A light weekly look at whether the work still maps to the priorities is enough for most teams, with a fuller reset each quarter. The rhythm catches drift early, before a whole quarter goes on the wrong things.