Lore

Always-True Statements (Vacuous Consensus Claims)

Overview

Some claims are structured so they're true in essentially every context, regardless of what's actually going on in the room — "we need better processes," "we need to be product led," "we need to be more customer obsessed / customer oriented." Anyone can say one of these in any meeting with zero situational context and get nodding agreement, because there's no real company or team for which the opposite is true.

The risk is mistaking rhetorical truth for a prioritization argument: being correct that a company needs more of X doesn't mean X is what the company should spend its limited attention and trade-off budget on next, since dozens of other always-true statements are competing for that same scarce capacity. See "Product Led" Is Not the Goal — Product and Business Success Is and Only Senior Leaders Can Make an Org Product Led — ICs Don't Have the Capital to Spend for a worked example built on the "we need to be product led" claim specifically.

Additional Instance: "We Need to Be Product Led"

Doshi adds "we need to be product led" to this bucket, alongside "we need better processes" and "we need to be more customer-obsessed" — statements everyone nods along to in a meeting precisely because they're always true, which is exactly why their truth doesn't mean the company will or should act on them: "just because you're right doesn't mean this company is going to change because there are 60 other things this company also needs. And it all comes with trade-offs." See "Product Led" Is Not the Goal — Product and Business Success Is.