Before I ever worked in marketing with digital tools, workflows, or cross functional project rollouts, I spent a decade in hospitality. And in that world, problems aren’t rare, they’re part of the job description. When you’re juggling a hotel full of guests, you learn quickly that if something goes wrong, you don’t have time to complain about the problem. You solve it.
Somewhere during those years, I picked up a line that became my baseline approach to work, leadership, and chaos management: We don’t have problems, only solutions.
It started as a way to keep teams calm when the hotel was metaphorically on fire… or, depending on the night, actually on fire 
. And even though I eventually left hospitality, that mindset came with me.
What I didn’t expect was how much it would show up again once I started working in Asana this year.
A rollout that turned into an unexpected lesson
This year, I was rolling out a brand new project and workflow to a group of employees who were… let’s say not exactly lining up to embrace change.
These weren’t the power users or the early adopters.
These were the “We’ve always done it this way” people. The “What’s wrong with just emailing?” people. The people who can spot a new process coming from a mile away and immediately prepare themselves for battle.
I walked into the rollout with beautiful templates, custom fields, automations ready to demo, a clear plan, and a narrative for why this workflow mattered. I felt good, prepared, ready.
Then the meeting started.
Every workflow explanation came with a counterargument.
Every process improvement was met with a “but.”
Every step forward turned into two steps back.
By the halfway point, it felt less like a workflow rollout and more like an episode of Survivor, and the tribe had spoken.
My first instinct was to power through, push back, “sell” the workflow. But then something clicked.
This wasn’t a problem. This was the invitation.
Their pushback wasn’t resistance, it was feedback. Every objection pointed directly to what needed to be clearer, easier, or more intuitive. They weren’t trying to be difficult or a problem, they were trying to make sure the solution actually fit the reality of their work.
It reminded me of my old hospitality mantra and belief: "We don’t have problems, only solutions."
And the truth behind it:
That mindset changed everything. Instead of defending the workflow, I started redesigning it with them. Instead of treating skepticism as blockers, I treated it as insight. And instead of walking away frustrated, we walked away with something stronger than what I initially built.
The biggest surprise wasn’t the workflow itself. It was discovering that I had been starting with the wrong group when building it.
I had been inviting the power users first, the enthusiastic ones, the easy wins, staying far away from the people who opposed change. But the people with the strongest opinions, the loudest concerns, the biggest hesitations, those were the people I actually needed in the room from the very beginning.
Here are the lessons I’ll carry forward
Start with the skeptics, not the superfans.
Treat resistance as user feedback, not a barrier.
Co-create early.
People support what they help build.
Asana made this possible. Its structure makes collaboration easier, not harder. It gives everyone equal visibility, equal voice, and equal ownership. And for me, it turned what could have been a painful rollout into one of the most important learning moments of my year.
And the good news is, unlike my hospitality days, nothing in Asana has literally caught on fire yet 
. Now the only fires are overdue tasks, not table six or room 305, and I’ll take that any day of the week.
Growth, right?
