CEO Coaching: Treading Water

Organizations get stuck. Not in-the-weeds, minor-speed-bump stuck, but full-body-in-quicksand stuck. Over time, layer upon layer of rational processes are put in place to support strategy and reduce risk. But let’s be honest: many of those “rational” processes also build moats around fiefdoms, create the illusion of certainty where chaos should thrive, and keep management happy at the expense of market responsiveness.

At this point, your organization is working incredibly hard… to stay in the same place. You’re treading water—burning calories (a.k.a. capital), exhausting the team, and going nowhere.

When you raise this to management—the very folks who spent years building the bureaucratic Jenga tower—they often reach for a microscope. They analyze the tiny, original rationale for each process, completely missing the broader issue. It’s not about avoiding drowning; it’s about swimming efficiently to the next island, and then the next.

There are two ways out. One is painful. The other is more painful.

Option A (the truly painful one):
Do nothing. Wait until results nosedive, morale tanks, and the board gives the whole team a Viking funeral. A new crew comes in, rips apart the fossilized processes, and tries to salvage what’s left. Hello, turnaround.

Option B (still painful, but less humiliating):
Current leadership (yes, that means you, CEO) decides to add one more process—one designed to eliminate sludge. Identify the time-wasters, speed things up, take some calculated risks, and hold people accountable for real outcomes—not just for feeding the bloated machine while the market shrugs and walks away.

There’s a saying: The people who created the problem can’t fix it. That’s crap. They can—if they change their perspective, stop defending their sacred cows, and actually listen to tough feedback. From the board. From customers. From those who are closest to the customer. From a trusted outside voice. And if they do? They not only fix it, they get credit for fixing it. Nobody has to be fired or publicly shamed.

So, CEO:
What signs have you been ignoring that your company is treading water?
And more importantly, what are you going to do about it?