Hi

It was a Tuesday afternoon when it hit me.

I had just shipped a new data model. Spent weeks on it. Optimized, documented, tested. Felt like a damn masterpiece.

I posted the update in the project channel. Nothing. Crickets. The kind of silence that makes your stomach twist.

Then I got a DM from our product manager:

Hey, just checking—how is this different from what we had before?

Ouch.

Not “nice work.” Not “thanks.” Just confusion.

And that’s when it hit me: they didn’t know why this mattered. Not because they’re dumb. But because I never told them.

I was so deep in the weeds, I forgot to zoom out.

Since that day, I changed one thing about how I run projects:

I narrate the “why” before the “what.”

Every update starts with a reminder of the pain we’re solving. Every check-in connects back to business impact. Every recap shows what’s better now.

It’s not storytelling. It’s just clarity.

Takeaway: If people don’t know why it matters, it doesn’t matter—no matter how good the data is.

Try this: Next time you post an update, lead with this sentence: “Here’s the problem this solves and what that means for you.”

P.S: I built The Data Leader’s Influence System for exactly this reason. You don’t need to be louder. You just need to frame your work like it matters—because it does.

Until next time,

Yordan