Work is a product, start treating it like one.
by Chloe Field.
When a client brings a problem to Kristen Gallagher and me, our first instinct is to jump straight into solution mode. We both have fast brains. Before the brief has even finished, we’re saying, “It could be a tailored program. A coaching session. Ooh, a new framework!” After careers as long as ours, that instinct is hard to shake, plus we get far too excited 😆
It’s the meeting where everyone’s white boarding answers before anyone’s agreed on the question...
But my friends, it skips the question that matters most: what’s the real problem, and what’s actually getting in the way?
If you lead a team, run an HR or ops function, or advise organisations like we do, you’ll know that instinct all too well. Over the last five or so years I've learnt to work differently, and it starts with one reframe.
Work is the product
Product thinking has been popular in HR for a while now, but it’s mostly used to make HR better. You know, things like - smoother onboarding, faster hiring, clearer processes etc.
It's definitely useful, but the product isn’t HR. The product is work itself.
Work is the whole experience of turning up, solving problems together, getting shit things done, collaborating, growing and smashing goals. It’s shaped far more by your systems, managers, tools, meetings and handovers rather than a policy. No single function really owns it. HR services, ops processes and tools are means to an end. The end isn't finished, it's the work that fuels the experience and helps teams move forward.
Your people are subscribers
I picked up this idea from the whip-smart Jessica Zwaan many moons ago, and I haven’t been able to unsee it. (P.S. if you haven’t read her books, do your eyeballs a favour and get them).
Employees aren’t passive recipients of whatever gets rolled out to them. They are your users and VIP customers. Like any subscription, from your streaming platforms to Jessie’s example of a wine club, they decide whether it’s worth signing up or renewing. They renew by showing up, contributing and staying. They cancel by resigning, or by checking out long before they leave.
If work isn’t meaningful or valuable, they won’t renew (bye-bye). Once you see it that way, your role and mindset shifts from delivering services to earning that renewal.
Your system is doing exactly what it was designed to do
There’s an old line that I like: every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.
When behaviour isn’t changing, we can be quick to blame attitude or capability. More often, the system is actually the cause. Ask a team to give each other feedback when there’s no system or time set aside for it, and you’ll probably get very little feedback. That’s not a people problem. It’s a design problem.
So next time when something isn’t working, ask: what’s causing this to happen, or not happen, right now? Look at it at three levels: the individual, the team and the system. The answer usually sits higher than people expect.
This is why polishing or using the bandaid solution rarely works. A long list of initiatives (or someone else’s strategy doc you've copied, please don’t...) just gives you a shinier version of the same problem. Different outcomes need a different thinking and design - capability organised around finding, asking the right questions and solving the right problems.
Problems are the raw material
Most workplaces treat problems as something to hide, or fix fast before anyone notices. I've seen Product teams treat them as gold. A problem is friction getting in the way of someone’s progress, and that’s where the value is.
The best teams I’ve worked with love solving problems, not just the solutions. Here at re/Work we're pretty obsessed with them! A solution only matters if it responds to something real and finding that real thing is the job.
So how do you find it...👀
Five steps to a better problem
1. Get specific about who New starters? Team leads in one office? Your finance team at month end? The narrower the group, the clearer the picture. Ask when and where they run into the thing you’re trying to understand.
2. Find the job they’re trying to get done What is this person really trying to achieve? Have you heard about the story to do with McDonald’s milkshakes? The team assumed people bought them for the flavour. People were actually buying them in the morning to get through a long commutes and stay full until lunch (my kind of protein shake). The real job had nothing to do with flavour, and no amount of tweaking the recipe would have found it.
3. Map the friction What gets in the way? What do people do instead, and what does that workaround cost them in time, stress or quality? Look for desire lines: the shortcuts where people ignore the official path because it’s quicker. Every organisation has them.
4. Check the business case Does solving this connect to strategy and goals? You’re looking for the overlap between value for people and value for the business - you need both.
5. Write the problem statement A good one says who is struggling, with what, under what conditions, and what it costs. Picture how the iPhone problem might have been framed: people struggling to stay connected and get things done on the move, because existing tools were clunky. No mention of a touchscreen, just the problem. And boy, did they nail it!
A tool to get you started
For any problem you’re exploring, map out:
Who: Which specific cohort or team, in what context
When and where: Time, place, physical or virtual setting
Job to be done: What they’re really trying to accomplish, and why
Current experience: What happens today, what helps, what gets in the way
Workarounds: What they do instead, why it works, where it falls short
Impact: What becomes harder, slower, riskier or more costly
I’ve turned this into a canvas you can download and use with your team 👉🏻 here
Example User Problem Definition Canvas. The result of doing this? It identifies the right problems, mobilises the right teams, delivers meaningful solutions and demonstrates measurable business value.
Try these things
Ask what problem you’re solving. Before your next project kicks off: what problem is this solving, whose problem is it, and how do we know? If you can’t answer, go back to discovery.
Sit next to someone. Spend a morning with your sales team, engineers, managers or newest hires. Watch what they do and ask why. You’ll learn things a survey can’t tell you.
Run one problem through the canvas. Pick something you’re already trying to fix. It takes under 30 minutes (I like Miro and a lot of sticky notes) and it’ll almost certainly change how you see it.
Follow the desire lines. Unused slack channels, empty spreadsheets, a tool or process people have stopped using. Each one tells you the official path isn’t working.
Measure what changed, not what you did. Programs run, tickets closed and attendance tell you about activity. Set a baseline, re-measure, and report what changed for people and what that meant for the business. If you want one guiding measure, Amplitude’s North Star Framework is a good starting point.
Organise around problems, not functions. Work problems cross different teams. You might need IT, legal, ops and marketing at the same table. Be clear on who owns what (a simple RACI helps), agree deadlines and visibility so everyone can see.
The hard part: slow down to speed up
Let's be real, selling a new way of working or change is bloody hard, especially when it means going slower first and you work in a complex environment.
There’s a military saying: slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. In simple terms: get the basics right together, and then speed follows 🏃♀️
Learning new practices or anything new takes time, and that time has to be planned for, not piled on top of everyone’s workload. But “trust us, we’ll be faster eventually” won’t win anyone over either.
Connect it to what your stakeholders care about: better decisions, less time wasted, fewer problems or reducing costs. Be clear about what changes first, which commitments you’ll protect, what you’ll pause, and when you’ll review progress together.
It also takes some courage. If you want a new capability or behaviour change, you have to make room to build it. You can’t promise a different way of working while keeping every existing commitment untouched. Your job is to recommend what’s needed, spell out the trade offs and negotiate something workable. People will push back, but that’s normal. Just don’t give the learning time away before the conversation has started.
And it doesn’t stop at launching it. Change needs reinforcing and adjusting. Meet people where they are, keep checking what the data is telling you, and do something about it so you are paving the path for change.
Your next problem is a gift
Remember, every single day people on your team or organisation decide whether they want to renew their subscription. Not in a survey or exit interview, but in small moments where work either helps them make progress or gets in their way.
You don’t need a new program or big shiny tool to improve that. You need to get ridiculously curious about the problem.
So this week, I challenge you to pick one problem to work on. Get specific about who’s feeling it. Go and sit next to them and get curious.
The next problem that lands with you, see it as an opportunity not a failure. It’s going to be the most useful information you’ll get.
Go forth and find it 🕵️