“Could it be that both of you are victims”, a familiar voice entered the cascading natural light of the atrium conference room, followed by the executive tactical wear of the COO.
Turning toward the more frustrated of the pair, the COO stated:
“I see:
• delivery pressure
• labor inconsistency
• timeline failures
• emotional spillover
• and system degradation
Daily, in real time.
I also recognize my department lead is overburdened,” while glancing in their direction.
Returning focus to the employee:
“And I also realize you may genuinely be operating inside nervous system overload.
That is why I scheduled this training for you after your file crossed my desk for the wrong reasons.
Because unresolved behavior compounds operational cost.
Organizations do not decay the moment people underperform.
They decay the moment unresolved behavior becomes culturally protected while responsibility becomes socially punished.
As I walked the corridor, I overheard you call your department lead an Asshole and say:
‘That’s why nobody wants to work with you.’
Being the COO;
I want to explain something to you before I terminate you, because this is not a LinkedIn pacification post.
This is operational reality.
Underperformers increasingly experience:
• correction
• urgency
• standards
• and accountability
as psychological aggression.
Because your prior environments conditioned you to interpret pressure as personal hostility.
That is why I opened this conversation asking whether both of you may be victims.
One of you became avoidant under pressure.
The other became hardened carrying pressure.
Neither condition sustains organizational trust.
That’s how your task sits incomplete for:
• 5 weeks
• multiple reminders
• shifting explanations
• emotional justifications
• and timeline renegotiations
Eventually:
someone else quietly completes the entire thing themselves in
4–5 focused hours.
Because environments expose simultaneously:
• capability gaps
• ownership gaps
• urgency gaps
• and accountability gaps
Underperformers no longer feel:
‘supported.’
They feel:
revealed.
And once revealed, the conversation shifts away from:
• execution
• timelines
• responsibilities
• and outcomes
Toward emotional management of the person carrying responsibility.
Now suddenly:
• ‘You’re intense.’
• ‘You’re hard to work with.’
• ‘You expect too much.’
• ‘You make people uncomfortable.’
Instead of owning unresolved responsibilities, you attempt to regulate the emotional tone of the person compensating for them.
And that is becoming a very modern organizational pattern in the United States.
The etymology of the word sad is: ” Satisfied “.
Satisfied into a condition.
Unfortunately many modern environments reward adaptation to stagnation while exhausting the people still generating movement.
Desire without motion resembles recession.
Any Questions?
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