Roll For Insight

Tag: real talk

  • Cecil Stedman: The Adaptive Bureaucrat Nobody Wants to Be (But Somebody Has To)

    When I was writing about Omni-Man, I kept circling back to Cecil Stedman, the director of the Global Defense Agency. If Omni-Man is the worst-case scenario of charisma without ethics—the guy who can make mass murder sound like a pep talk—then Cecil is the polar opposite. He doesn’t inspire anyone. Nobody’s getting a Cecil tattoo. He looks perpetually hungover, like a guidance counselor who gave up on wearing ties sometime in the early 90s. But when the world is coming apart, he’s the one you actually want making the calls.

    Because Cecil isn’t about vision or inspiration. He’s about survival. He embodies what Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky call adaptive leadership—stepping into situations where there is no playbook, no technical fix, no “right answer” that saves the day. Omni-Man flexes, and cities crumble. Cecil grimaces, makes a decision that guarantees everyone will hate him, and then pours another drink. That’s actually the more realistic version of leadership.

    You can see it in how he operates: sending rookies into fights he knows they’ll lose, lying to Mark about how bad things really are until he absolutely has to tell him, constantly calculating which disaster leaves fewer bodies on the floor. He doesn’t pretend there’s a win waiting at the end. He just picks the path where the damage is survivable. That’s the entire premise of adaptive leadership—there’s no fixing the storm, only steering through it.

    This is why I can’t shake Cecil as the real counterpoint to Omni-Man. Charisma makes you believe in someone before you know what they stand for. Cecil makes you distrust him immediately, and yet, through sheer blunt honesty, he earns something more durable than admiration: grudging trust. He never tells you it’ll be fine. He tells you it’s going to be terrible, but here’s how we’ll get through it anyway. That’s a very different kind of authority than Omni-Man wielding his mustache like a badge of destiny.

    It also makes Cecil a pretty good metaphor for what happens once you’ve been leading people long enough to lose your illusions. Anyone who’s ever managed a warehouse crew, or run a hospital shift, or tried to GM a tabletop campaign knows what this feels like. You start bright-eyed, promising people big visions and meaningful work. Then reality sets in. The order backlog is impossible, the patients keep piling in, the party has just set fire to the only inn in town because someone thought a bar brawl would be “character-driven roleplay.” Suddenly, you’re not the inspirational Omni-Man figure anymore. You’re Cecil, making exhausted calculations about which choice leaves the fewest scars.

    That’s the unglamorous reality of adaptive leadership. Heifetz and Linsky talk about it as “living in the disequilibrium.” You can’t let things get so calm that people won’t adapt, but you also can’t let them get so chaotic that people panic or break. It’s this awful tightrope of tension management. Cecil lives on that rope. He knows if he underplays a threat, people die. If he overplays it, people revolt. So he does what real leaders do: he accepts that everyone will be angry with him, and then he does it anyway.

    Of course, there’s a cost. Cecil always looks one bad day away from collapsing into his whiskey glass. Adaptive leadership isn’t the kind of thing that makes you a beloved icon. It burns you out, leaves you scarred, and makes your victories invisible. No one celebrates the catastrophe you prevented. They only complain about the compromises you made. That’s why so many real-life leaders retreat into the comfort of technical fixes—new checklists, new policies—because at least those come with the illusion of control.

    But when you’re really in it—when you’re leading people through situations with no clean answers—charisma won’t save you. Vision won’t save you. The only thing that keeps people moving is knowing you’re willing to stand there with them in the middle of the wreckage, taking the heat and making the call. That’s Cecil. He doesn’t inspire. He endures. And in the long run, that’s what makes him the most honest kind of leader.

    Omni-Man showed us the dangers of charisma unmoored from ethics. Cecil shows us the price of leadership rooted in pragmatism. Between the two, Cecil’s the one you can actually trust to keep the world spinning, even if you hate him for how he does it. And if you’ve ever found yourself in a role where every option looked terrible but someone had to choose, congratulations: you’ve already had your own Cecil moment. You probably didn’t look good doing it. You definitely didn’t get applause. But you kept things alive long enough to fight another day. And that, grim as it sounds, is leadership.

    References

    • Heifetz, R. A., & Linsky, M. (2002). Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading. Harvard Business Review Press.
    • Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and Practice (8th ed.). Sage Publications.

  • Radical Honesty Sounds Great Until You Actually Try It

    Radical Honesty Sounds Great Until You Actually Try It

    You’ve probably seen the phrase “radical honesty” floating around in TED Talks, thought leader newsletters, or stitched onto decorative pillows sold by entrepreneurs who post five-minute clips of themselves walking through their neighborhoods at 6 a.m. It sounds brave. Disruptive. Empowering. 

    But here’s the thing. Radical honesty feels great when you’re the one saying it. It’s a lot less fun when you have to live with it. 

    Because honesty isn’t just about blurting out whatever you think. That’s not honesty. That’s social arson. Leadership honesty–the kind that actually works–is about being accountable to the truth, even when it’s inconvenient, even when it costs you something, and even when you really want to dodge it with a little strategic word salad. 

    When I Ran a Bike Shop, Honesty Wasn’t a Brand. It Was a Liability.

    Back when I owned a bike shop, I couldn’t bring myself to lie to a customer. Not about the quality of a product, not about how much they needed something, not even about their cracked carbon frame that definitely wasn’t “just like that when I got it.”

    This wasn’t because I’m especially noble. It was just because I’d rather lose a sale than lose sleep over it. I turned down commissions. I steered people toward cheaper items that worked just as well. I never pushed brands I didn’t believe in, even when reps dangled incentives in front of me like a meatball sub in front of a hungry dog. 

    That got me a reputation for being “honest but blunt,” a few angry internet reviews from people who didn’t like hearing the truth, and a lot of customers who kept coming back because they knew I wasn’t full of it. 

    There’s research backing this up. A University of Chicago Booth School of Business study found that individuals consistently underestimated how positively others respond to honesty, especially when delivering truths that are hard to hear. Across experiments, asking participants to speak honestly for a few days or give blunt feedback, the findings showed that honesty was far more pleasant and socially connective than people had predicted. 

    That doesn’t mean that honesty always feels good in the moment. But it does build trust. 

    What It Looks Like in Leadership–and In RPGs

    Let’s take a break from the workplace for a second and talk about tabletop roleplaying games. If you’ve ever been a Game Master, you already understand leadership in its purest, least compensated form. You are the final authority on what’s true in that world. 

    When your players ask, “Does the guard look nervous?” they aren’t just testing your improvisational skills–they’re testing whether the world reacts in a way that feels real. If everything always breaks in their favor, they’ll know the fix is in. If nothing ever does, they’ll stop trying.

    Good GMs–and good leaders–understand that the job isn’t about making things easy. It’s about making things clear. Clarity creates trust. Consistency builds momentum. Honesty creates a space where people can actually do something useful instead of wasting all their energy trying to decode your mixed signals. 

    That applies whether you’re managing three warehouse employees who treat the breakroom microwave like a performance art piece or running a team of elven rogues and bard college dropouts. 

    Honesty Isn’t a Hammer–It’s a Compass

    One of the most common misuses of honesty in leadership is treating it like a hammer. “I’m just being honest,” says the manager as they whack a team member with a barely filtered complaint. That’s not honesty. That’s emotional outsourcing. 

    Real honesty is a compass. It keeps you oriented, even when the terrain sucks. 

    It’s saying, “I missed something during planning, and that’s why we’re behind schedule,” instead of, “We’ve had to make some pivots to align with evolving priorities.” It’s acknowledging when someone’s right, even if you feel insecure. It’s telling someone they’re falling short and offering them a path to improvement, dropping that truth bomb and moonwalking out the door. 

    This is the principle behind Kim Scott’s concept of Radical Candor, which encourages leaders to “care personally while challenging directly.” It’s a balance between honesty and empathy–between clarity and cruelty. 

    And it works because it’s sustainable. People can tell the difference between a leader who’s being transparent to avoid manipulation and one who’s just looking for an excuse to say whatever’s on their mind without consequences. 

    Honesty Means Letting the Bad News Be Real

    One of the hardest parts about being honest as a leader is accepting that sometimes, the bad news just sucks. There’s no silver lining, no spin, no nifty metaphor that’s going to make the metrics look better or the budget any less wrecked. 

    And in those moments, people don’t need you to inspire them. They need you to acknowledge reality. They need to see you take responsibility.

    For another take on why avoiding clarity isn’t kindness, check out this Forbes piece, “Why Leaders Are Ditching the ‘Nice Boss’ Approach,” which argues that stepping away from vague reassurance toward honest communication actually builds stronger, more engaged teams. 

    Here’s the Real Trick: They’ll Start Doing It Too

    Once people see you modeling this kind of honesty–not performative honesty, but the kind that actually costs you something–they start to feel safe doing it, too. They admit when they’re confused. They speak up sooner. They stop hiding behind half-truths and start engaging like they’re actually on the same team. 

    That’s how culture changes. Not through posters in the hallway or all-hands pep talks. Through consistent, exhausting, thankless moments of being honest when it would be so much easier not to be. 

    You don’t need to tell everyone everything all the time. But if you’re not telling the truth, they’ll know. And once that trust is gone, it doesn’t come back with a company picnic.

    Whether you’re rolling dice behind a screen or making calls on the warehouse floor, honesty isn’t a luxury. It’s your north star. And following it isn’t always comfortable. But it’s the only way anyone gets anywhere worth going.

  • Sorry, We’re All Out of Suckers to Promote

    Sorry, We’re All Out of Suckers to Promote

    There’s a quiet panic in a lot of middle management circles right now, and it’s not about job security–it’s about succession. Business Insider recently ran a piece titled “Gen Z doesn’t want to be the boss, and it’s creating a succession crisis,” and the headline alone tells you everything you need to know. Managers across industries are looking around and realizing the next wave of workers isn’t lining up to be promoted–and for once, it isn’t being blamed on laziness. It’s clarity. 

    Gen Z watched the previous generation get sold a bill of goods. “Put in your time, go the extra mile, and you’ll climb the ladder!” was the pitch. But what did they actually see? Their parents and mentors burned out, underpaid, micromanaged, and tossed aside the moment they became “too expensive.” In a world where salary data is public and people share horror stories about middle managers crying in their cars during lunch breaks, you can’t sell a promotion as a reward anymore. It’s just…more work for a little more money and a whole lot more stress. 

    As someone who’s held leadership roles across multiple blue-collar environments–warehouses, delivery hubs, bike shops, you name it–I’ve lived that exact transition. That moment when you’re no longer “part of the team”  but not really upper management either. You’re stuck in the awkward middle, trying to protect your people from decisions you had no say in, while getting scolded from above for not “driving results.” I once had a boss who called me into his office to say I wasn’t “being inspirational enough.” I was running on five hours of sleep, conducting a bunch of new-hire training, covering a sick call-out, and rebuilding a spreadsheet that someone decided to delete while I was gone over the weekend. But sure, let me whip up a TED Talk real quick to inspire the team. 

    So yeah, Gen Z is opting out And that’s not a sign of laziness–it’s a sign of intelligence. They’re demanding clearer boundaries, more support, and actual authority to make decisions if they’re going to be held accountable for outcomes. They want leadership with teeth, not just titles. 

    What many companies are experiencing now isn’t a leadership vacuum. It’s a backlash. A generation is finally asking, “Why would I take on the stress of management when you’ve made it clear you don’t value the people doing that work?” If you want to fill the leadership pipeline, you don’t need to offer more free pizza or cute job titles. You need to rebuild trust. And that starts with listening. 

    Because here’s the secret no one wants to say out loud: You can’t guilt people into being passionate about a broken system. Not anymore. 

    And that’s not a crisis. That’s an opportunity. 

    It’s an opportunity to redefine what leadership actually is. To stop treating it like a punishment for doing well at your job. To make mentorship part of the job instead of an unpaid side hustle. To give new leaders room to breathe, grow, and–this is important–fail safely. It’s a chance to let go of the myth that the loudest of busiest person in the room is the best candidate and start rewarding people for emotional intelligence, clarity of vision, and actual people skills. 

    In other words, if no one wants to be the kind of boss we’ve had, maybe it’s time to create the kind of bosses we’ve always needed. 

    Let Gen Z say “no thanks” to the old system. Then build a new one that’s actually worth saying yes to.

  • Most People Don’t Quit Because of the Work. They Quit Because of the Bullshit.

    Most People Don’t Quit Because of the Work. They Quit Because of the Bullshit.

    There’s this idea some managers have that if someone quits, it’s because they “couldn’t handle the job.”

    Nah. 

    Most people don’t leave because the job is hard. 

    They leave because it’s unnecessarily hard.

    The work is fine. The bullshit is what breaks them. 

    It’s the unclear expectations.

    The last-minute policy changes.

    The meetings that accomplish nothing except making you late for the part of your job that matters. 

    It’s watching your boss walk past the overflowing trash can for the third time like it’s invisible. 

    It’s being praised for going “above and beyond” instead of just being given the time and resources to do the job right the first time. 

    It’s when the most difficult person on the team gets babied because “that’s just how they are.” 

    It’s when you ask a question and get treated like you committed treason. 

    People will lift boxes, sweat through 12-hour shifts, drive across the country, or sit through soul-crushing spreadsheets for years–if they feel like someone has their back. 

    But if you make them feel stupid, replaceable, or ignored?

    Then they’re gone. Even if their body is still clocking in. 

    Nobody’s quitting because they had to work hard. 

    They’re quitting because every time they tried to make it better, they got shut down or shrugged off. 

    And eventually, they realize they’re not burned out from the work.They’re burned out from caring in a place that doesn’t care back.

  • Most TTRPG Groups Don’t Fail Because of Bad Rules. They Fail Because Nobody Talks About What They Want.

    Most TTRPG Groups Don’t Fail Because of Bad Rules. They Fail Because Nobody Talks About What They Want.

    If you’ve ever watched a tabletop RPG group implode halfway through a campaign, odds are it didn’t happen because the rogue broke the stealth rules or someone forgot how grappling works. 

    It happened because the group never agreed on what kind of story they were telling. 

    That’s the real killer. Not bad dice rolls, not min-maxing, not even a toxic player (although that’ll do it too.) It’s mismatched expectations. One player wants a deep, interesting story where their backstory matters. Another just wants to vibe and roll for soup. A third is out here trying to trigger every combat encounter because they thought it was going to be dungeon-crawl heavy. 

    Nobody’s wrong. 

    But when nobody talks about it ahead of time, the group ends up playing three different games on the same night. And resenting each other for it. 

    A while back, I ran a Star Wars campaign set aboard a derelict research vessel in deep space. The tone I was going for was budget Event Horizon but everyone’s tired and no one trusts each other. No heroes. No clean uniforms. Just scavengers trying not to get pulled apart by a haunted ship with bad wiring and worse intentions. 

    The first character to show up was perfect. A burned-out salvager with a busted EVA suit and a cybernetic eye that twitched when the humidity got too high. Total grunge vibes. Paranoia baked into the character sheet. We were locked in. 

    Then came the next player.

    They introduced a rogue Jedi who was–how do I put this?–absolutely unhinged. 

    Imagine if Charlie Day got knighted by accident and now he has a lightsaber and a working knowledge of Force Push. He talked a mile a minute, stole rations from NPCs for “training,” and once used his telekinesis to hurl a toilet at a hallway camera for reasons I still don’t understand. His entire backstory hinged on being kicked out of multiple Jedi temples for “philosophical differences.”

    Now, this wasn’t a bad character. It just didn’t belong in this game. 

    By the third session, the tone was wrecked. One moment we were crawling through vent shafts trying to avoid a sentient virus, the next he was trying to telepathically convince the ship’s AI to adopt him. The salvager’s player pulled me aside, asking if I could “get things back on track.” The Jedi’s player thought they were keeping things fun. 

    Neither of them was wrong.
    But we never had the conversation.
    And by the time we tried, the tone whiplash had already torn the party apart.

    The game died a couple of sessions later. 

    It’s the same in leadership, by the way. 

    Small teams don’t fall apart because the spreadsheet formatting was wrong. They fall apart because no one agreed on what success looked like. No one clarified how they wanted to work together. Everyone just assumed their way was the default. 

    You have to talk about it. 

    You have to talk about tone, pacing, player buy-in, safety tools, table culture–all the boring stuff that keeps your game from catching fire three weeks in. It’s not exciting, but it’s essential. 

    Same goes for coaching.
    Same goes for management.
    Same goes for any environment where human beings are expected to collaborate and make something together. 

    If you’re leading a game–or a team–you are responsible for helping people articulate what they want. And then you’re responsible for guiding the group toward a shared direction that honors as much of that as possible. 

    Because if you don’t?

    You’ll end up with a group of well-meaning, creative, passionate people–who can’t stand playing together.

  • Your “Open-Door Policy” Isn’t Working

    Your “Open-Door Policy” Isn’t Working

    Every toxic workplace has at least one thing in common. Someone in charge who proudly says, “My door is always open.” 

    They love saying it.
    They say it to new hires, to seasoned employees, to anyone brave or naïve enough to raise a concern. 

    And on paper it sounds great. An open-door policy! Transparent! Supportive! Efficient!

    Except it’s not. 

    Becaus here’s what never gets said out loud:

    If the room is full of tension, no one wants to walk through the door. 

    I’ve worked in environments where the person saying “my door is always open” was the same person we all tried to avoid. Where people kept mental tallies of how many days they could go without speaking to upper management. Where the only think “open” about the door was how wide your ass would get handed to you if you walked through it with a complaint. 

    That’s not access. That’s a trap. 

    An open-door policy doesn’t work if the culture around it tells people

    • You’re soft for speaking up.
    • You’re disloyal for involving HR. 
    • You’d better fix your attitude before you bring anything to leadership.

    That’s not leadership. That’s control with a smiley face sticker on it. 

    If you want people to actually talk to you, if you want to be the kind of leader people trust, you have to earn it with more than a catchphrase. You need to create an environment where people believe they’ll be heard, not punished. Where they know the risk of speaking up won’t outweigh the benefit of staying quiet. 

    That starts small. 

    It starts with how you react the first time someone tells you something uncomfortable. 

    It starts with how you treat the person who brings you bad news. 

    It starts with who you listen to, and who you dismiss. 

    I’ve seen “open-door policies” weaponized by managers who just wanted to avoid union pressure. I’ve seen leaders say “come to me with anything” and then roll their eyes in the breakroom when someone actually does. And I’ve seen great ideas die in silence because nobody wanted to be the one who “made it weird.” 

    You don’t need a policy. You need a presence. 

    And if you’re not getting feedback, it’s not because everyone’s happy. It’s because the door may be open, but nobody feels safe walking through it.

  • You don’t Have to Be the Fastest Rider to Lead the Group

    You don’t Have to Be the Fastest Rider to Lead the Group

    When people picture a group ride, they usually imagine the leader pulling at the front. Setting the pace. Cutting the wind. Hammering away while everyone else hangs on for dear life. 

    But the longer you ride, and the longer you lead, you realize that’s not always where the real leadership is happening. 

    Some of the best ride leaders I’ve seen weren’t the fastest. They weren’t even at the front most of the time. They were mid-pack, floating. Or sweeping the back, making sure no one got dropped. Calling out potholes. Offering a spare tube. Saying, “You good?” when someone looked like they were about to blow.

    That’s leadership, too

    There’s a myth in both sport and work that the leader is supposed to be the strongest. The fastest. The most dominant force. And yeah, sure, sometimes the situation calls for someone to pull. But other times, leadership means watching the group and adjusting. Slowing down when someone’s hurting. Speaking up when someone’s too gassed to advocate for themselves. Setting a tone that says, “We’re doing this together.”

    I’ve ridden with people who could crush me without breaking a sweat, but they couldn’t lead a group to save their lives. No awareness. No communication. Just tunnel vision and watts. And I’ve led rides where I was out of shape, fighting just to stay on, but still managed to guide the group because I knew what people needed. 

    It’s not about being in front.
    It’s about being in tune.

    If you coach athletes, train workers, GM players, or even just try to keep your family calendar from collapsing under its own weight, you’ve felt this. Leadership isn’t about outperforming everyone. It’s about knowing when to push, when to wait, and when to say, “Let’s stop for a second and make sure we’re all still here.” 

    The best ride leaders know this.
    The best coaches live it.
    And the best leaders don’t always look like leaders from the outside. 

    But ask anyone who was on that ride, who didn’t get dropped, who found their rhythm, who felt like they belonged, and they’ll tell you who was really in charge.

  • Nobody Told Me Being a Manager Meant Having to Repeat Myself 400 Times

    Nobody Told Me Being a Manager Meant Having to Repeat Myself 400 Times

    When I started in my current role, no one warned me that 80% of the job would be repeating myself. 

    I thought it would be coaching. Teaching. Creating structure. And it is. On paper. But in practice? It’s standing in front of a different group of people every day, saying the same things in slightly different ways, hoping that this time it lands. 

    I train small groups. Sometimes just one person. Sometimes eight or nine. I walk them through the same material, safety standards, expectations, critical procedures. The content doesn’t change, but the people do. Which means every delivery has to adapt. 

    What clicked for the group yesterday won’t work today. 

    The guy in the back row who’s been a driver for 10 years and thinks he’s seen it all? He needs to hear things in a way that doesn’t make him feel talked down to.

    The nervous new hire who’s scared of reversing in a windowless van? They need clarity without pressure. 

    And the person who’s been half-listening because they think they’ve already passed everything? They’re the one that’s going to miss a critical detail and then say, “No one ever told me that.” 

    So you repeat yourself. 

    You find new metaphors. You switch up the tone. You test your own patience. And when someone asks a question you just answered, you don’t snap. You repeat it again, because your job isn’t to feel heard, it’s to be understood. 

    That’s the deal when you lead small groups. You’re not giving a TED Talk. You’re creating moments of clarity in a sea of distractions, nerves, and assumptions. That takes more than a slide deck. 

    It takes presence. Patience. And an understanding that you’re not failing when you have to repeat yourself. You’re doing the job right. 

    The day I really understood that was the day a trainee told me, “I don’t know why, but when you said it, it finally made sense.” 

    It wasn’t magic. It was iteration.

    And yeah, by that point, I’d said it 400 times.

  • Your Alignment Doesn’t Excuse Your Behavior

    Your Alignment Doesn’t Excuse Your Behavior

    If you’ve ever GM’d for more than five minutes, you’ve probably heard a player say, “Hey, it’s not me doing that, it’s just what my character would do.”

    And nine times out of ten, they say it right after doing something that completely derails the game. 

    It’s the alignment excuse. “I’m Chaotic Neutral.” “I’m Lawful Evil.” “I’m just playing my character.” Like putting it on a character sheet gives them permission to act like a tornado made of red flags and questionable decisions. 

    The same thing happens in the real world. 

    People use labels like personality types, star signs, Enneagram numbers, job titles, and even trauma to explain behavior they don’t want to be accountable for. “I’m just direct.” “I have no filter.” “I’m a disruptor.” “That’s just my leadership style.” As if naming the behavior makes it untouchable. 

    But here’s the thing.
    You don’t get to avoid responsibility just because your chaos is labeled. 

    I’ve seen players blow up a session and then shrug it off because “that’s what a Chaotic Good rogue would do.” I’ve seen people in meetings steamroll their coworkers because “they’re just super Type A.” At some point, it’s not about the label. It’s about the impact. 

    And let’s be honest. Alignment is supposed to be a guide, not a get-out-of-jail-free card. 

    Your character can be Chaotic Good and still care about how their actions affect the party. Your work personality can be “bold and assertive” without making your coworkers feel like they’re in a hostage negotiation. You can be a survivor of something awful and still be expected to grow, reflect, and not inflict that same chaos on others. 

    One table I played at, a character was labeled as evil, but what they really seemed to mean was that they didn’t operate with the same moral compas as the rest of the group. They weren’t villainous, just unpredictable. Not cruel, but hard to trust. It made for some interesting dynamics, but only because the rest of the group was constantly adjusting to avoid conflict. And over time, that gets exhausting. 

    Because it’s not just about how we behave. It’s about how we expect others to bend around our behavior. Some people hid behind “chaos” because it feels safer than vulnerability. Some people lean into a villain role because it’s easier than letting the group count on them. And some people avoid being called “good” because they associate that word with people who didn’t earn it. 

    But none of that erases impact. 

    Whether you’re at the table, in a workplace, or out in the world, you don’t get to throw your hands up and say, “Well, that’s just how I am.” Not if you’re playing with others. Not if you’re leading. Not if you’re showing up in a community with real people who are trying to make things better. 

    Alignment is just a compass.

    It’s not a defense strategy.

  • You Can’t Coach Effort, But You Can Sure Kill It

    You Can’t Coach Effort, But You Can Sure Kill It

    One of the biggest lies people tell in leadership is that you “can’t teach work ethic.”

    And sure, effort isn’t something you can program into someone. You can’t flip a switch and make someone care, but what most people miss is this.

    You can kill effort.

    You can take someone who shows up motivated, who wants to do a good job, who takes pride in their work, and you can snuff that fire out with the right combination of disregard and betrayal.

    I once worked a job for a company that said they ran their business like “one big family.” The job was pitched as “just like running your own business.” They made it sound entrepreneurial. Empowering.

    Spoiler alert. It was not. 

    I was running a route, managing deliveries, and dealing with customers. One day, I got a call from a client who ran a grimy little bar-and-grill in a small town. The kind of place where the floor is sticky before it opens and the menu is mostly deep-fried regret. He was furious about a bathroom supply listed on his invoice. It was something that was billed weekly but only replaced monthly. Standard stuff. But this guy lost it. 

    I was nowhere near his town that day, but I explained that I’d make it right the next time I was out there. That wasn’t enough. He wanted immediate resolution, even though there was no actual problem beyond his inability to read a billing cycle. 

    What did the company do? 

    They sent someone out immediately. Not because it made sense. Not because it solved a real issue. But because the guy yelled loud enough. Just like that, my plan, not to mention my credibility, got tossed out the window. 

    By the time I showed up the next week, the guy was emboldened. He treated me like I owed him something beyond the service I already promised to deliver. I do work for my customers. That’s always been my mindset. But I also expect to be treated like a human being. What he expected was submission.

    I drew a line. I told him that whatever game he was playing with other vendors wasn’t going to fly with me. I called my manager and said I was done with the stop. The customer was harassing me, and I wasn’t going to tolerate it. 

    At first, they said all the right things. “We’ve got your back.”
    Then a few days later, my manager wanted to “talk it out.”
    Then came the plan. We’d all meet together.
    I siad fine, but the guy needed to apologize to my face. That was my line. 

    Cue to the next week. I show up at the stop. No manager. I call him.

    “Oh, we handled it already,” he says. “Everything’s good.”

    Everything wasn’t good.

    I was standing outside a business where I’d been treated like garbage, expecting support, expecting a boundary to be honored. Instead, I got, “We talked it out without you.”

    That was the moment the job broke for me. 

    I kept working there for a while, but the switch had flipped. I stopped going above and beyond. I stopped trusting leadership. They’d proven that a customer’s comfort mattered more than my dignity. And no amount of company slogans or empty praise could put that fire back in me. 

    That’s what people forget about effort.
    It’s not a resource you extract.
    It’s a gift people give. Until they realize you’re not worth giving it to.

    So yeah, you can coach effort. But if you’re careless, you can absolutely kill it. And when you do, don’t act surprised when your best people start looking for the door.