Gravity Wells: Why Even Great Teams Lose Their Way
A leader's guide to detecting—and resisting—the forces that pull teams off course
"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."
We love these inspiring calls to aim high. But sometimes reaching your destination is worse than missing it entirely – when you get exactly what you asked for but not what you needed.
This is precisely what happened in 1999 with NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter. Built by the best minds from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and other collaborating institutions, it carried state-of-the-art instruments to map the Martian atmosphere and surface. Together, they embarked on a journey that was supposed to add a new chapter in space exploration.
Then, the $125 million probe crash-landed on Mars.
The crash was attributed to the units of measurement used by different teams: Lockheed Martin engineers were using the imperial system (pounds-force), while NASA's team used the metric system (newtons). Beyond the failure to align on measurement, there were several instances where one or both teams failed to course correct. NASA scientists noticed that the Orbiter was drifting off course almost immediately, but managers demanded that the worriers and doubters "prove something was wrong."
Despite constant measurement and a clear vision of where they wanted to land, NASA allowed the probe to shift 100 kilometers off course at the end of its 500-million-kilometer voyage--more than enough to hit the planet's atmosphere and be destroyed accidentally.
The problem here was not the error; it was the failure of NASA's systems engineering, and the checks and balances in our processes, to detect the error. That's why we lost the spacecraft.- Edward Weiler, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Science
Even the most capable teams can get pulled off course. The difference between success and failure isn't in the size of the deviation—it's in how quickly you detect it.
Like spacecraft encountering gravity wells in space, teams face invisible forces that can gradually pull them farther and farther from their intended path. The deviation starts small, almost imperceptible, but compounds over time.
Our trajectory is subject to the gravitational pull of other ideas, projects, and priorities. Steering the ship requires immense focus, and that focus must be on the right things.
Consider Blockbuster, which promised shareholders a digital future while doubling down on physical stores. Or Blackberry, which promised customers the best mobile experience while clinging to outdated keyboards. Or Kodak, which saw the digital future coming but promised investors they'd protect the film business instead.
The tragedy isn't just making the wrong choice—it's faithfully executing it right into obsolescence.
Prioritization is a superpower — one that can differentiate high-performing individuals and teams. More importantly, prioritization is a superpower that can be learned.
To be good prioritizes, we first have to learn why we suck at it in the first place.
The Forces That Pull Us Off Course
Every gravity well starts with a gentle pull. It's barely noticeable at first—just a slight tug away from your intended course. But the closer you get, the stronger it becomes until breaking free requires more energy than you might have.
Here are the five gravity wells that capture even the best teams:
The Path of Least Resistance: We naturally gravitate toward easy, visible work instead of crucial challenges. It's not laziness—it's human nature to prefer immediate progress over tackling complex problems. However, this tendency leads teams to postpone the very challenges that could make or break their success.
The Planning Fallacy: We consistently take on more than we can deliver. This isn't just optimism—it's a systematic underestimation of what it takes to execute well. When everything is a priority, nothing truly is.
The Urgency Illusion: We react to what feels urgent rather than what's truly important. The constant ping of emails and messages creates a false sense of urgency that hijacks our attention from meaningful work.
The Perfectionist's Dilemma: We treat every task as equally important, investing the same level of effort regardless of strategic value. This isn't about having high standards—it's about failing to distinguish where those high standards matter most.
Shiny Object Syndrome: We constantly pivot to the next big thing, abandoning established priorities for novel initiatives. This isn't just a distraction—it's a systematic undervaluation of consistent execution in favor of new possibilities.
These patterns act like gravity wells: subtle at first but increasingly powerful as you drift closer. What makes them particularly dangerous is how they masquerade as virtues: responsiveness, ambition, thoroughness, adaptability. By the time you realize you're caught in their pull, breaking free requires tremendous energy.
Breaking Free: Your Navigation Systems
Willpower won't save you from the pull of gravity wells. But the right frameworks will.
1. The Monkey and the Pedestal
The big idea: Escape the gravity well of easy wins by tackling make-or-break challenges first.
Why we need it: If your goal is to teach a monkey to recite Shakespeare on a pedestal, the last thing you should do is build the pedestal! Yet teams are constantly pulled toward these visible but inconsequential tasks, drifting further from what really matters.
When to use it: Large, complex projects with multiple dependencies or uncertain futures.
Learn more: Google X Blog.
2. Can/Should Matrix
The big idea: Break free from the gravity well of misaligned capabilities and priorities.
Why we need it: Teams often get caught between two forces: the pull of what they can do easily and the attraction of perfect but impossible solutions. This framework helps chart a course between these extremes, keeping teams focused on what's both achievable and valuable. When caught in this well, teams either chase everything they're capable of doing or get paralyzed by perfect solutions they can't execute.
The Can/Should Matrix thus does two things:
It reminds us that the top of our list should always be what we can and should do (Boxes 2, 3, and 5).
It forces us to identify how to unlock capabilities preventing us from what we should do (e.g., what shifts Box 1 to 2 or 3?).
When to use it: Mid- to long-term team goals.
Learn more: The Beautiful Mess - Can Do vs. Should Do
3. The Eisenhower Matrix
The big idea: Escape the gravity well of false urgency by segmenting your to-do list based on importance and urgency.
Delegate tasks that are urgent but don't require your expertise
Delete tasks that don't add measurable value and distract from core tasks
Do urgent tasks that have material consequences if not completed timely
Schedule tasks that aren't urgent but usher in long-term goals
Why we need it: The constant pull of "urgent" tasks creates one of the strongest gravity wells teams face. Each urgent request adds to the gravitational force, pulling teams further from what's truly important. We know intellectually what matters most, but the immediacy of urgent tasks creates an almost irresistible attraction.
Imagine a manager with an Exec Team presentation tomorrow, an upcoming team-building activity in a month, a backlog of emails, and Slack messages from various colleagues throughout the day. What typically happens is the emails and Slack messages continue to demand the manager’s attention, meaning she dedicates less time to the Exec Team presentation (Urgent/Important) and the Team-Building activity (Not Urgent/Important), such that what matters most gets rushed.
Using the Eisenhower Matrix, the manager can box out time to focus on what matters and batch unimportant tasks like emails and Slack messages.
When to use it: Personal task lists.
Learn more: Invest Your Time Intentionally with the Eisenhower Matrix (Forbes)
4. The LNO Framework
The big idea: Break free from the perfectionist's gravity well by strategically investing effort where it matters most.
Why we need it: The perfectionist's gravity well is particularly deceptive because it masquerades as excellence. Each task becomes equally weighted, pulling teams into spending precious energy on low-impact work. The closer you get to this well, the harder it becomes to distinguish between necessary quality and diminishing returns.
Shreyas, the creator of this framework, uses this example of a Product Manager’s to-do list to emphasize how the time allocation changes once you think about leverage.
Before LNO:
After LNO:
When to use it: Daily / Weekly tasks.
Learn more: Shreyas’s Tweetstorm.
5. Big Rocks
The big idea: Resist the gravitational pull of constant change by anchoring to your core priorities. If you start filling your time with sand and pebbles (minor tasks and secondary responsibilities), you won't have room for the big rocks (your most important priorities).
Why we need it: The stronger a team's momentum becomes around new initiatives, the harder it is to maintain orbit around what truly matters. Like a spacecraft using a planet's gravity to maintain its trajectory, teams need fixed points—their "big rocks"—to stay on course.
Consider this a longer-term version of the Eisenhower Matrix. The concept is similar - what’s important should be prioritized over what’s unimportant - but you swap out Urgency for Impact (or leverage if you want to think about this in conjunction with LNO). The biases are the same — we tend to focus on what’s recently come across our desk or what conversation has sparked on Slack — but being intentional about what matters allows us to keep these new ideas in perspective.
When to use it: Long-term team goal planning.
Learn more: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey.
Conclusion
Most teams don't fail because they choose the wrong destination—they fail because they get caught in gravity wells along the way. What starts as a slight deviation compounds until escape requires more energy than they have left.
The most dangerous part? Each gravity well masquerades as a virtue: urgency disguises itself as responsiveness, perfectionism as excellence, and novelty as innovation. By the time teams realize they're caught, breaking free requires more energy than most have left to give.
That's why great teams need both awareness and tools. They need to recognize these gravity wells for what they are, and they need navigation systems to plot a course through them.
No one is immune to these gravitational pulls. But with the right tools and enough practice, we can learn to detect them early and chart a clear course.
Every priority is a promise to overcome these forces. Make fewer, but give each one enough fuel to escape.