---
id: ins_kill-things-to-build-trust
operator: Jessica Fain
operator_role: VP Product, Webflow; ex-Brightwheel; ex-chief of staff at Slack
source_url: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-art-of-influence-jessica-fain
source_type: podcast
source_title: How to influence executives (and why it's not politics)
source_date: 2026-04-28
captured_date: 2026-05-01
domain: [leadership, product]
lifecycle: [strategy-bets, process-cadence]
maturity: applied
artifact_class: framework
score: { originality: 5, specificity: 4, evidence: 3, transferability: 5, source: 5 }
tier: A
related: [ins_influence-is-discovery-not-conviction]
raw_ref: raw/podcasts/jessica-fain--influencing-executives--2026-04-28.md
---

# Killing your own initiatives loudly is the highest-trust move with executives

## Claim
The single highest-leverage trust-building move with executives is killing or de-prioritising your own initiatives publicly when they underperform. Most operators pitch wins-only stories; an operator who shows what they killed and why signals that they share the executive's incentive, to spend the org's time on what actually works.

## Mechanism
Wins-only narratives raise executive suspicion: nothing the team tries ever fails? Either the bar is too low or the operator is hiding the misses. A loudly-killed initiative converts the operator's credibility from "promoter" to "steward." It also gives the executive concrete evidence that the operator's bar is high and that the next bet is not theatre. Trust compounds, the next pitch lands because the prior kill earned the runway.

## Conditions
Holds when:
- The team has visibility into outcomes such that "kill" is a real call, not a face-saving exit.
- The kill is announced with a clear rationale and a specific learning, not just a quiet death.
- The org culture does not punish operators for visible kills.

Fails when:
- The org reads kills as performance failures and tracks them against the operator's record.
- The operator over-uses the move, killing for theatre, which is the same problem in reverse.
- There is no follow-up bet that demonstrates what the kill enabled.

## Evidence
> "One of the biggest things you can do to build trust is kill things, deprioritize things. That is a very, very senior way of thinking, and it shows that you have the same aligned incentives as the executive."

· Jessica Fain on Lenny's Podcast, 2026-04-28

## Signals
- Quarterly reviews include an explicit "what we killed and why" section.
- Subsequent funding or buy-in lands faster after a visible kill.
- The team's bet portfolio looks healthier, fewer zombies, more real wins, more honest losses.

## Counter-evidence
In some cultures (especially boards under pressure or politically anxious orgs), visible kills are read as failure. The operator pays a credibility cost rather than gaining one. The discipline is conditional on executive culture.

## Cross-references
- `ins_influence-is-discovery-not-conviction`, the broader pattern
- `ins_kill-criteria-make-pre-mortems-real`, the upstream commitment that makes kills uncontroversial