You can’t clean a fish in a dirty bowl.
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Emma ordered her coffee and sat down with a weight I recognized immediately. Director of Product. Smart. Driven. The kind of person who sees three moves ahead.
“I think something’s wrong with me,” she said.
She told me she’d been struggling. Missing deadlines. Losing focus. Snapping at her team. So she did what high performers do:
She tried to fix herself.
Read books on productivity. Started a new morning routine. Signed up for resilience training.
None of it worked.
Because the problem wasn’t Emma. It was the five competing priorities from five different executives. The weekly all-hands where strategy shifted with the wind. The celebration of people who worked weekends while preaching work-life balance.
Emma kept scrubbing herself clean while swimming in dirty water.
Dr. Zack Mercurio says it plainly: “A healthy person in an unhealthy system will eventually become an unhealthy person.”
People shouldn’t have to fix themselves to survive a broken system.
Yet we keep acting like they should.
5 Signs the System is Broken (Not You)
1. Direction changes constantly
Strategy doesn’t seem intentional or clear. It’s whatever the loudest voice said last. Priorities shift weekly. Teams get whiplash trying to keep up. You can’t execute when the target keeps moving.
Try this: If you can’t name your top three priorities without second-guessing, the system is failing you. And if your team can’t either, you’re leading in one.
2. Capacity doesn’t matter
Everything is urgent. Everything is top priority. Which means nothing actually is. You’re expected to add more without removing anything. The math doesn’t work, but somehow that’s your problem to solve.
Try this: Count how many “critical” projects you’re on right now. If it’s more than two, someone above you isn’t making real decisions.
3. The wrong behaviors get rewarded
The person who worked all weekend gets praised while leadership preaches balance. Loyalty trumps competence. Proximity to power beats actual performance. You watch people get promoted for reasons that have nothing to do with results.
Try this: Look at the last three people promoted in your organization. Were they the best at their jobs and do people trust them?
4. Good people keep leaving
And when they do, leadership blames “culture fit” or “burnout” instead of asking what’s actually broken. Exit interviews get filed away. Nothing changes. The pattern continues.
Try this: If you can name three high performers who’ve left in the last year, and leadership hasn’t changed anything as a result, you have your answer.
5. You’re told to build resilience
Instead of addressing what’s making everyone exhausted in the first place. The solution is always another workshop, another training, another tool to help you cope. Never fixing the thing that’s breaking you.
Try this: If “self-care” and “resilience” come up more than “workload” and “priorities” in leadership conversations, the system is deflecting.
If three or more of these feel familiar, you're not the problem. The system is.
You Don’t Fix It by Scrubbing the Fish
Culture work isn’t bowling nights and buzzwords. It’s clarifying direction so people aren’t pulled in five directions. It’s protecting capacity so everything isn’t urgent. It’s redesigning what gets rewarded so heroics stop being the only path to recognition.
Most organizations send people to workshops then drop them back into the chaos that made them sick in the first place. Then they’re confused when nothing changes.
You can’t self-help your way out of a system designed to exhaust you.
The Question for This New Year
As we head into 2026, ask yourself:
Am I trying to fix myself to survive a broken system, or am I willing to fix the system?
Your Unignorable Move:
If you’re a leader: Name one system in your workplace that makes good people struggle. Just one. Then ask: “What would it take to change this in the next 90 days?” If you can’t answer that with specifics, you’re not in a winnable battle.
If you’re a contributor: Stop blaming yourself for struggling in a place designed to make you struggle. If the system won’t change, it might be time to build an exit plan that gives you back your freedom and dignity.
Your coach,
Chris
P.S. If you’re tired of fixing yourself to survive a broken system and ready to build something of your own, I’m hosting a 10-week mastermind starting January 21. It’s for people who want to become their own boss, build an expert business, and finally enjoy the freedom they’ve been craving. Learn more here.
