“In any system, clearly defined roles and responsibilities are critical to ensuring things run smoothly. The opposite is true as well: systems break down when members are confused about their roles or when they start impinging on other people’s functions.”

This quote from Good Inside has been on my mind all week. I first mentioned the book in my Family Day post, where I reflected on my relationship with my parents. But this particular idea extends far beyond family dynamics. It applies to sports teams, businesses, and really any system where people need to work together toward a common goal.

What struck me is how simple the concept sounds and yet how often we get it wrong. Companies fail, sports teams lose, couples breakup/divorce. At the core of being a human, the root of all problems is due to how we interact with each other.

Team Canada

I’m writing this the day before the gold medal final between Canada and the USA. Regardless of how tomorrow plays out, this tournament has given me the chance to reflect on what happens when superstars buy into a system (hopefully I don’t jinx 🤞).

Every player on Team Canada is a star on their NHL team. These are guys who carry their respective teams on offence. But on this olympic team, most of them are asked to do something different. The roster is so deep that individual roles have to shrink for the collective to work. And the players who embrace that tend to be the ones who make the biggest difference.

Brandon Hagel is my favourite example. I bring him up specifically because I’m a Tampa fan (I also support the Calgary Flames as well). This year through 50 games he’s 2nd on the team in goals (27) and has a total of 54 points (contributions to goals). He also averages 19:43 on the ice (games are 60 minutes so he’s used to playing 1/3 of a game). These are incredible stats for a superstar player. However, on Team Canada, he’s playing on the 4th line and in yesterdays game against Finland he played only 7:28 minutes out of 60. His role is completely different. Jon Cooper (Canada’s coach) noted that Hagel “does all of these things that probably don’t make their way into the newspaper.” That’s the kind of praise that matters on a team like this. It’s not about point totals. It’s about doing the role you are defined to do.

This reminds me of the Doorman Fallacy I wrote about last week. When we reduce a player’s value to their stat line, we miss everything underneath — the physicality, the defensive reliability, the leadership, the willingness to sacrifice personal production for the team. Having all the talent in the world doesn’t guarantee a gold medal. What wins is buying into the coach’s system and playing your defined role, whether that’s the superstar, the grinder, the PK specialist, or the shutdown line. The orchestration across offence, defence, goaltending, power play, penalty kill, and set plays is what separates good teams from great ones.

RBC’s AI Group

This week was a great time to reflect on roles and responsibilities as at my company, we just announced a big organization change through a new AI Group.

What stands out to me is the structural decision itself. Having someone report directly to the CEO about our AI initiatives defines clear constraints around a role and gives this new organization concrete responsibilities. For a large organization like RBC with around 100k employees, trying to clearly define roles & responsibilities is an incredible challenge as coordination grows non-linearly (meetings, communication delays, misunderstandings, etc.).

My hope is that this move helps define incentives, create clear mandates for employees both within and outside the group, and create alignment across the organization. I hope this can be an enabler to move fast and slow at the same time: fast on AI innovation, deliberate on risk and compliance. That balance is only possible when the roles are clearly defined.

It’s a Relationship Problem

Bringing it full circle to the Good Inside quote I opened with: this isn’t just about corporate restructuring or hockey teams. It’s about relationships. Every interaction we have: parent/child, coworkers, friends, all benefit from clarity about roles. When you know what’s expected of you and what you can expect from others, trust follows naturally. When those boundaries are blurred, frustration and conflict tend to fill the gap.

In my Family Day post, I wrote about Dr. Kennedy’s concept of Two Things Can Be True. Understanding roles doesn’t mean your restricting someone else, it means making room for each person’s contribution. A 4th line player isn’t less valuable than a 1st line player. A new AI group doesn’t diminish the work happening in existing teams. A parent setting boundaries isn’t being controlling. Systems work best when everyone understands their role and trusts others to fulfill theirs.

Interesting Ideas

• Why This Olympic Sport Bothers Physicists: This video focuses on curling is a direct case study into why we should be curious. Cleo articulates this so well in this video diving below the surface of the sport (how there is the “curling problem” with how curling stones defy physics as it has to do with how the stones interact with a surface). This could lead to discovering life on other planets as this is the same physics problem as curling. There is always more than meets the eye.
• Meal prep shouldn’t be this easy…: As someone getting into cooking and food, I’ll share something a bit different this week. I’ve also been playing around with making these lego cube based meals and have found it helps to maintain the taste and allows the food to last longer (since we freeze it).
• It’s Official: The World Order Has Broken Down: This article blew up my Twitter/X feed last week mainly because it’s so timely. At the Munich Security Conference, all the world leaders were declaring that the post WW2 world order doesn’t exist anymore. One part that was interesting was about Dalio’s principle of: have power, respect power, and use power wisely. International relations lack the clear governance structures (laws, enforcement, adjudication) that exist within countries, so when roles aren’t defined and respected, power dynamics take over.