360. You're Solving The Wrong Problem
You're probably thinking this will never happen to you. But that's the whole point. When it does, you won't notice.
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We all know the cliche about the frog in the boiling water. I won’t be repeating it here.
But I have a question for you: Have you ever noticed that it’s always the frog who is the metaphor?
Sure, he’s the tragic hero of the story - the one who sits calmly while the water around him comes to a boil. And, yes, tragic heroes make good metaphors.
But I don’t want to focus on the frog. Because when you do that, you’re solving for the wrong problem.
Instead, let’s talk about the chef.
The chef is the one who is slowly turning up the heat. He may not be intending to boil the frog to death - truthfully I don’t know what’s going through his kitchen-crazed mind and, frankly, I don’t give a shallot.
The important thing is not why the chef keeps turning up the heat - but simply the fact that he’s doing it.
Remember, the chef isn’t a villain.
The chef is you.
One More Thing
You might think me a tad wacko, but instead of using the chef as a metaphor for reality, I want to use reality as a metaphor for the chef.
Stick with me here. It’s all going to make sense in a minute.
Here’s the story…
A newly promoted VP takes over a team. The team is a good one. They’re smart, productive and efficient. They maintain reasonable work hours and projects have realistic deadlines. People leave at 5pm and don’t bring too much work stress with them.
Then one day the VP assigns one extra project. Just a small one.
The team stays late one night to knock it out. Easy peasy. The VP is grateful. Everyone feels good about having gone the extra mile.
They even celebrate the win.
A few weeks later, the VP adds another project. Still small. The team stays late again. Nobody complains.
After all, it’s about camaraderie.
Then the VP starts periodically scheduling meetings at 4:30pm that run until 6.
Then he asks people to ‘just take a quick look’ at something on a Friday night.
Then he’s sending Sunday emails with his friendly, ‘no rush, but when you get a chance’ request.
Each time, the team accepts it. After all, none of the individual requests seems unreasonable. They’re just one more small thing to do.
But fast forward three years and the team is burned out. Deadlines have become impossible to hit. Nobody has work-life balance and the VP wonders why everyone seems so stressed.
The VP isn’t evil. He’s just the Chef, adding one degree of heat at a time.
As for the team members, they keep accepting each new request as the new status quo.
Nobody forced them. There’s nothing they felt they needed to complain about. They just kept accepting each new request as the new baseline. They probably didn’t even notice the change - until the day they realized the water was boiling.
Sure, you’re probably thinking that it’d never happen to you like that. But that’s the whole damn point - when it happens to you, you don’t see it happening!
Remember, when it comes to your business, your team, your leadership - you’re not the frog.
You’re the chef.
The Pattern-Environment Loop
You have patterns of behavior - we all do.
But you’ve been living so long with your patterns, you don’t even realize most of them are there - they’re hidden in your blindspot, running in the background.
As a manager of others - whether you’re a business leader, parent, teacher, sports coach, whatever - your behavioral patterns unconsciously create an environment that supports and perpetuates those patterns.
Here’s how it works:
Someone crosses a boundary.
You let it slide.
The pattern of not enforcing boundaries then creates an environment in which it’s ok to ignore boundaries. That becomes the new normal.
Get it?
Most leaders in this situation see dysfunctional behavior and try to fix the frog - more training, more feedback, more consequences. But that’s solving for the wrong problem.
The problem isn’t that your team tolerates dysfunction. The problem is that you consistently repeat the same mistakes, which creates the conditions that allow those mistakes to thrive.
Your patterns strengthen the environment, and the environment strengthens the patterns.
I call this the Pattern-Environment Loop™.
The question isn’t whether it’s happening to you - it is. It happens with everybody, all the time. The question is about how much your patterns are limiting the growth of you and your team.
Let me give you some examples.
The behavior: One of your employees doesn’t finish a project on time.
The response: You do nothing.
The environment: That behavior becomes the status quo.
The pattern-environment loop: Nobody maintains a sense of accountability.
The behavior: A team member is rude to others in meetings.
The response: You think “I’ll deal with it later.” But later never comes.
The environment: It’s ok to publicly shame others.
The pattern-environment loop: A toxic “Us vs Them” mentality between departments.
Each time you accept unacceptable behavior, you’re raising the heat by another degree. Most times you don’t realize it. The team definitely doesn’t realize it.
Until they do.
Every boundary you don’t enforce becomes tomorrow’s baseline. Every dysfunction you accommodate becomes next week’s normal. The pot keeps getting hotter, but you’re the one turning up the damn dial.
One day the team will wonder how the culture suddenly became so toxic. How standards slipped and everything fell apart.
So consider this my warning to you, Chef - when the team boils over with frustration, it won’t come slowly. It will all seem to fall apart in a second.
Want to uncover your hidden patterns?
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It’s Time To Stop Solving The Wrong Problem
It’s hard for a lot of people to accept the fact that they are the chef in this metaphor. Because it’s easy to think of the chef as evil. But he’s usually not.
You’re not intentionally turning up the heat. In fact, sometimes the result isn’t even toxic. It’s just limiting.
It puts a ceiling on your growth opportunity and that of your team.
You get frustrated that things aren’t working the way you want them to, but you keep defending your behavior with comments like “it’s better this way” or “I’m just picking my battles.” Whenever you do this, you create another status quo. Another click of the dial.
The question isn’t whether you’re the chef. You are.
The question is: Will you keep trying to fix the frog, or will you turn off the heat?
Maybe it’s time you stopped solving the wrong problem.
If this article hit home, you need to join me on Substack Live this Thursday, Feb 26 at 11am PT where we’ll talk more about the Pattern-Environment Loop™ and Status Quo Bias
Want to understand the hidden patterns holding you back?
Secure your spot on the next Leadership Diagnostic Workshop