The complaints that don’t make it to the boardroom.
The problems flagged again and again, only to be patched with a smile and a sticky note.
The meetings that end with, “Let’s just get through the week,” as if surviving is a measure of success.
It’s not bad luck. It’s not a rough quarter.
It’s not a one-off.
It’s a culture.
A culture of looking away. Of pretending it’s not that bad. Of duct-taping dysfunction instead of facing the real cost of doing nothing.
And we wonder why our teams are burning out. Why high performers quit quietly. Why leadership feels reactive, fragile, stuck.
We turn to HR to ‘do something about it’ and somehow end up with a 10% gym discount, like that’s going to solve systemic burnout. Hi? We said stop the quick fixes.
What to hear something no one likes to say out loud?
Most of our workplaces aren’t broken. They were built this way.
Let’s Start With the Reality
Most organizations have normalized dysfunction.
We reward the firefighter, not the one who prevents the fire.
We applaud the late-night heroics, not the teams quietly building sustainable systems because their impact isn’t flashy or immediate, so we assume it doesn’t matter.
And over time, the cracks widen…until even good people stop speaking up because no one’s listening.
Studies show it’s not just anecdotal:
- Toxic culture is the #1 reason people leave companies. Not pay.
- Quick fixes cost more over time, through burnout, turnover, and missed opportunities. (And don’t get me started on the invisible costs: the ones that quietly pile up until they outweigh what it would’ve cost to bring in a consultant for six months to actually fix the problem.)
And still, most teams are told to “push through” instead of being supported to change course.
It’s not that leaders don’t care. It’s that many were never taught to lead any other way.
The Management Model Is Outdated
Most of today’s management logic was born in the industrial age: Predict. Control. Maximize. Repeat.
It wasn’t designed for complexity. Or agility. Or (let’s say it) humans.
So when something goes wrong, the instinct is to patch. To make it look fine from the outside. To get back to “normal” as fast as possible.
But if the system creates the same problems again and again, the problem isn’t the people.
It’s the system.
And until leaders take responsibility for fixing the structure (not just the symptoms) things won’t improve.
So let’s name what’s really going on.
What’s Behind the Constant Fixing?
We reward urgency, not strategy.
The person who jumps in last minute is praised. The one who quietly built a system that works? Often invisible.
We avoid hard conversations
Naming dysfunction feels risky. And so, we make excuses: “It’s just busy season,” or, “That’s how it’s always been.”
We don’t invest in prevention
Training, reflection, better workflows: they sound like luxuries. Until everything collapses.
And then we scramble. Again. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
What If We Stopped Fixing and Started Building?
Make Responsibility a Cultural Norm
Build a culture where problems are brought up early—not brushed under the rug. Where saying, “This isn’t working” is safe, and saying, “Here’s how we can fix it” is celebrated.
Give your people the space to speak up about what’s broken in their world. They see the day-to-day details you might miss from your bird’s-eye view. Listen to them. Then use your broader perspective to connect the dots and focus your team, one meaningful project at a time, on rebuilding something that actually makes their work better.
And yes. Leaders lead the change. They take responsibility for the cracks. They model what it looks like to speak the truth. Not because it’s easy, but because real leadership means choosing strength over silence.
Trade Firefighting for Systems Thinking
Instead of asking, “How do we solve this today?” Start asking, “Why does this keep happening?” What incentives, processes, or assumptions are keeping us stuck?
Don’t just help teams cope with what’s broken. Empower them to redesign it.
Use your fortnightly meetings to rally around a shared improvement project. Something everyone can contribute to. That’s where innovation lives, in the room, in the mess, in the collective effort to make things better.
And in doing so, you’ll shape people who lead with innovation, think creatively, and can’t just slip into the background, because the work demands real collaboration, not quiet passengers.
Invest in Long-Term Health, Not Short-Term Optics
Wellbeing. Training. Real feedback loops. Tough discussions.
Not perks or pizza parties, but the deep work of building sustainable systems that support real performance.
Because here’s the real cost of dysfunction: Exhausted teams. High turnover. Missed goals. And leaders who feel like they’re always one crisis away from burnout themselves.
A Culture Shift Is Possible
Some companies are already walking the talk.
Take Atlassian, the Australian software company behind Jira and Trello. They’ve made feedback and system redesign part of how they operate. Not an afterthought. Teams run regular “health monitors” to check in on how they’re working together and fix what’s off in real time. No waiting for a yearly review. No hoping things improve on their own.
Or look at Haier, the global appliance giant. They blew up the traditional hierarchy and replaced it with thousands of self-managed micro-enterprises. Teams run like mini start-ups, with autonomy, ownership, and a shared stake in getting it right.
They’re not unicorns. They’re examples.
What if more companies made that shift?
