Tool 54 · Develop your mission
This exercise does not produce an organisation chart and does not assume you need a team before you begin.
A guided 16 to 20 minute conversation using ChatGPT. Free, no account, nothing to sign up to.
01
Copy
Take the TAIU prompt.
02
Paste
Open ChatGPT.
03
Talk
One question at a time.
Copies the TAIU prompt. Paste it into ChatGPT.
You don't need ChatGPT Plus. The free version is fine.
If the answer takes more than a moment, that is the gap.
Waiting for the right team is one of the more respectable ways of not starting.
What you'll explore
A note from Mark
The first thing I would do is count. People almost always undercount who is already around them, because help that arrives unasked does not register as help. The person who keeps asking how it is going is part of your coalition whether you have thought of them that way or not.
Then I would test whether you need a person or a decision. I have sat with plenty of capable people who were looking for a partner when what they actually needed was to choose something by Friday. The search is entirely genuine and it is also, quite often, a very sophisticated way of waiting.
The one I care most about is challenge. Everybody around somebody with a mission is supportive. It is pleasant and it is worth almost nothing. If there is no one who will look at you and say that is a bad idea, that is your gap, and it is more urgent than a hire.
And make the ask small and specific. Nobody knows what join me means. An hour on Thursday, an introduction to one person, a name. People say yes to those constantly.
What you'll get
01
What it requires
02
Who is already here
03
Person or decision
04
Three approaches
+
Your TAIU handover — a portable summary of everything the conversation established.
What now?
01 · Save it
What the mission actually requires from other people.
02 · Test it
List everybody who has helped in the last six months, however small.
What I would do
Write down what the work needs, not who you want.
Count the people already helping. It is more than you think.
Find the person who will disagree with you and keep them close.
Make the ask specific. An hour, a name, a Saturday.
Do not wait for a team to begin.
Test it
What does this actually require that you cannot supply?
Is the gap a person, or a decision?
Who would tell you that you are wrong?
The alternative
The expected conclusion is that a co founder or a first hire is needed. Frequently the evidence says otherwise. The gap turns out to be a decision the person could make this week without anybody's permission, and the search for a partner is the shape avoidance takes when somebody is competent and unsure. The other common finding is that the missing element is not skill at all. It is challenge. Almost everybody around an ambitious person is supportive, which is pleasant and close to useless, and one honest sceptic is worth more than four more supporters. Occasionally the real answer is simpler and more human than either: the work is lonely, and that is worth naming rather than solving with a hire.
Think about this
Take this to Ask Mark
Interpretation, not another copy-and-paste exercise.
Take this to Ask Mark →Finished the exercise?
Tell us whether it helped and what you discovered. It takes less than a minute.
Next tool
When the coalition is named and the question is demand
Further thinking
The Founder's Dilemmas
Noam Wasserman
The Strength of Weak Ties
Mark Granovetter
The Fearless Organization
Amy Edmondson
Book
Noam Wasserman
A decade of data on the early decisions that decide whether a venture survives: who joins, on what terms, and who holds control. The uncomfortable finding is that most damage is done in the first months, socially rather than commercially.
Article
Mark Granovetter
Granovetter's paper is the reason acquaintances matter more than they feel like they should. Useful when a life looks thin but is actually broad and shallow.
Book
Amy Edmondson
The original research on psychological safety, which began with the finding that better teams reported more errors rather than fewer. Read it before using the phrase.
Book
Adam Grant
Grant's finding that givers occupy both the top and the bottom of most performance distributions is the practical heart of this. What separates them is not generosity but whether the giving is bounded. If you have ever concluded that you should do more while quietly running out of road, read this before you add anything.