TLDR; Over-prescribed "recipe" stories accidentally turn your experts into disengaged order-takers, leading to uninspired products and leadership burnout. By shifting the focus from technical instructions to user problems, you reclaim your own time and empower your team to take full ownership of the solution.

Stop Writing Recipes, Start Building Problem Solvers

How to Unlock Your Team’s Full Potential

We often talk about "empowerment" and "agency". They show up in almost every team, department or company town-hall meeting like bright beacons of light. But if you think about it, for a squad, these aren't just words - they are what takes a team from clocking in to actually caring.

I’ve seen this play out so many times. When we hand a team a "solution-oriented" story - essentially a step-by-step recipe - we think we’re helping. In reality, we’re inadvertently sending a message: "I’ve already done the thinking; I just need your to do the work".
Instead, let’s look at how we can shift away from solution-oriented stories, and start building a high-performance culture on our teams.

The Three Pillars of an Unstoppable, Problem-Solving Team

When we move away from "recipe-style" or solution-oriented stories, we aren't just changingdocumentation - we’re supercharging these three areas:

1. Expanding the Horizon (The Power of Agency)  Agency is that incredible feeling of knowing your actions have a direct, meaningful impact on the win.

The Shift: When a story says "Put a blue button here," a developer's win is limited to following instructions.

The Goal: When we present the problem instead of the button, we invite them to be the problem-solvers we know they can be. We want them focused on the big picture, because that's where the best ideas live.

2. Trusting the Experts (The Spark of Creativity)  You hired your engineers, designers, content creators, marketers, and QA folks because they have "pro-level" expertise in areas you don't.

The Shift: Prescriptive solutions create a "boundary" on what’s possible.

The Goal: By writing solution-agnostic stories, we’re inviting that professional expertise into the room. The most elegant, scalable solution is often something we haven't even dreamed of yet - let’s give our experts the space to find it!

3. Cultivating Ownership (The End of the "Order-Taker")  There is nothing more exciting than a team that pushes back, asks "Why?", and hunts for a better way.

The Shift: If we only provide solution-heavy stories, teams eventually stop pushing back and become "order-takers". This doubles your workload because you have to think of everything yourself.

The Goal: We want to build a system where the team is the engine, not just a single point of failure.

Coaching Cues: Is Your Team (and You) In Need of a Pivot?

Keep an eye out for these signals from your team - they aren't failures, they’re just signals that it’s time to change our approach:
 
The "Silent Planning" Session: If your meetings are quiet, it’s likely because your stories areso "solved" there’s nothing left to discuss. Proactive Tip: Try leaving the "How" blank and challenge the team to come up with a solution.

The "Technically Correct" Launch: If a feature doesn't work for the user but the team says, "We built what was in the ticket," it’s a sign they've lost that sense of ownership. Proactive Tip: Re-center your story refinement around the user’s pain point, not the ticket’s requirements.
   
The "Not My Department" Shrug: When a team member sees a better way but stays silent, their agency has been shelved. Proactive Tip: Explicitly ask questions like, "What’s the better way that I'm missing?" or “What are three ways that this could go wrong and what should we do differently?”

The Proactive Approach: A Gentle Reality Check

Writing solution-agnostic stories is harder for us. It requires us to sit with the discomfort of an unsolved problem. But that discomfort is exactly where growth on the team happens!
When you give your team a problem instead of a task, you’re giving them the greatest gift a professional can receive: the gift of being needed. There is nothing more empowering than being the one who finds the way through.

What’s stopping you from leading with the "Why"? Give it a try and tell me what you think. Do you notice your team’s energy level spike when they’re given a real challenge to solve? Do you observe your team leaning into problems and making suggestions?

Change is hard, and it often starts with some small (but uncomfortable) changes with the way we lead.
 
We all win together!
Coach Dan