Does it add any value?

First thing I ask, wherever I land, is: what's the goal here? What value is this team actually supposed to deliver?

Answers start high. Objectives. Priorities. Work packages with important-sounding names. And then, eventually, someone says it:

"Because the manager told us to do it and we want to get paid."

There it is. Not a strategy. Not a customer need. A request that was never questioned — that became a task, a process, just the way things are done there — I'll leave the motivation part of this for another post.

That's when Lean Thinking work starts. Who actually receives the value? What changes for them when it's there? If it doesn't move that needle — why are we doing it at all?

Once that's clear, the question becomes a reflex. New task, stuck manager, another urgent meeting — does it add any value? If yes, how, when, and what will it affect? If not, ignore it. It's waste. Plain and simple. No need to suffer for it.

Ask it enough times and something shifts. They start asking it themselves. Of each other, of their leaders. Then it means they understand why they are really there, and the importance of focusing on the value. How do I know it works? Well, it was not only once someone — a former coachee, or a group of them — called me or wrote me, long after I was gone, just to catch up and say:

"Man, they tried to make us do another BS package, but I had to ask what value it delivered. They couldn't link it to any value, and we said Sorry, NOPE! It was like little Filipe was there whispering in our ears — ask it… Haha"

That's the point. Not the question. It is what happens when they get it, and it becomes theirs.