Three months into a new role — brought in to turn around an organization with poor morale and uneasy team dynamics. The board gave me twelve months. Clear mandate, uncomfortable timeline.
I walked into the kitchen before our weekly leadership meeting to grab a coffee. The pot was empty. Someone had taken the last cup and hadn’t bothered to start a new one.
Fine. I started a new pot. I’d still make it on time.
Pot finished. Opened the cupboard. No clean mugs. Turned to wash one in the sink. Couldn’t — too many dishes piled up to get near the tap.
I just stood there and looked around. Really looked. Garbage overflowing. Counters filthy. This wasn’t someone’s bad day. This was just how things were around here.
So I started doing the dishes. Someone else’s dishes. I was going to be late to my own meeting. I was not pleased.
But somewhere in the middle of washing someone else’s coffee mug, I had a thought: I can’t be the only one who finds this infuriating. This happens every single day. So why isn’t everyone else furious?
Maybe they were. Maybe they’d just stopped expecting anything different.
That’s when it hit me. And it wasn’t about the dishes.
The Meeting
I walked in a few minutes late. Room went quiet the way rooms do when the person who set the rules walks in having broken one.
Someone finally said it: “You told us to always be on time.”
Fair point. Completely fair.
I sat down and just told them what happened. Not as a lesson, not as a metaphor — I just told them. The empty pot, the no mugs, the sink full of dishes. Told them it made me angry. And told them I thought it said something about us that we probably needed to talk about.
What followed I couldn’t have scripted. People started talking. Really talking. Things that had been sitting there quietly for months just came out. It wasn’t comfortable. Some of it was pointed. A few egos took a shot.
But it was honest. And I remember sitting there thinking — this is what we actually needed. Not a strategy session. This.
What I’d Gotten Wrong
I’d been operating on the assumption that clear direction plus enough momentum equals results. Give people the vision, get out of the way, celebrate the wins. That’s not a bad theory. But it’s incomplete.
What I was missing was the underneath. The quiet resentments that build up when people feel like nobody’s paying attention. The low-grade sense that every mess — literal or otherwise — is someone else’s problem. The feeling that the team is technically functional but somehow hollow.
You can’t strategy your way out of that. I’ve watched leaders try for years. New processes, new reporting structures, new initiatives with names and logos. None of it touches the actual problem if the people in the room don’t trust each other or feel like anyone genuinely gives a damn.
What actually works is slower and less comfortable. You have to get personal. Not therapy-personal — just honest. You have to be willing to say the thing, hear the thing, and not immediately defend yourself when it lands.
I shared things about myself that year that I wouldn’t normally share. Not as a technique. Just because it seemed like the only way to create enough room for anyone else to do the same.
It wasn’t linear. Some weeks were rough. But the team changed. Not because the strategy changed — because how people treated each other changed. Turns out those aren’t separate things.
A Few Months Later
Same meeting, same kitchen, running a little late again.
Fresh pot of coffee, just finished. Clean mugs lined up in the cupboard. Counter wiped down. Sink empty.
I walked into a room where people were mid-conversation, laughing at something. Same people. Completely different room.
I didn’t say anything about it. I just grabbed my coffee and sat down.
Some things you just let land.
The Signals Are Worth Noticing
I tell this story because I think most leaders — good ones, experienced ones — are so focused on the big things that they miss what’s right in front of them.
The kitchen was never really about the kitchen. It was the first visible sign that people had stopped believing shared standards mattered. And once you see that, you can’t unsee it — in a kitchen, in a meeting room, in the tone of a conversation that’s technically fine but somehow isn’t.
Those signals are worth noticing earlier.
What are you tolerating that you shouldn’t be?
If something in your organization feels subtly off — morale, trust, accountability, the tone in the room — those are often the conversations I end up having with CEOs and business owners across Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area, whether through executive coaching, peer advisory groups, or working directly with leadership teams on organizational change. If it's worth a conversation, the first one is straightforward.
No pitch. No pressure. Just a starting point.
