The Leadership Line

Martyrs, Mind Readers, and Midnight Pizza: The Workplace Chaos Chronicles

• Tammy Rogers and Scott Burgmeyer • Season 6 • Episode 16

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Are you constantly putting out fires at work? That's not a leadership strategy—it's a symptom.

Ever worked in an organization where crisis mode is the default setting? Where teams pride themselves on their ability to "turn on a dime," order late-night pizza, and heroically save the day at the eleventh hour? While this firefighting culture might feel exhilarating and even create a sense of camaraderie, it masks deeper leadership problems that ultimately damage your organization's health and sustainability.

At its core, the firefighting syndrome stems from two fundamental leadership failures: lack of clarity about what success looks like, and insufficient accountability systems. When leaders can't articulate clear expectations or resort to "I'll know it when I see it" feedback, they force their teams into endless cycles of rework and last-minute scrambles. Even worse, organizations often inadvertently reinforce this behavior by celebrating the heroes who "stayed up all night" rather than those who delivered quality work through consistent, measured progress.

Breaking free from a firefighting culture requires a significant shift in leadership approach. Rather than asking vague questions like "How's it going?", effective leaders request to see work in progress with questions like "Show me where you're at." This simple change creates transparency, enables early course correction, and prevents the procrastination that leads to crisis. Taking a page from agile development methodologies, this iterative approach actually reduces overall work by approximately 20% while producing better outcomes.

The maturity of your organization depends on your ability to evolve beyond emergency mode. While startups may thrive on adrenaline and rapid pivots, sustained success requires processes that value outcomes over activities, clarity over chaos, and sustainable pacing over burnout. What kind of culture are you building?

Karman:

Good morning Scott and Tammy.

Scott:

Hola Karmen.

Tammy:

Good morning Karmen.

Karman:

I am going to France later this summer and I need to start practicing my French because I have zero French. So next time, bonjour, carmen Bonjour. I can't say that. Bonjour, Karmen, bonjour. I can't say that this listeners will be doubling now as your Duolingo, as well as the leadership line.

Tammy:

There you go. Learn French from Karmen.

Karman:

Just learn how to say hello in 25 languages. So, scott and Tammy, last week we talked a little bit about reverse delegation, and one of the things that came up during that conversation was what happens when your organization or your team has a culture where everything's an emergency and we all get to put our firefighter hats on and run around in circles. And it reminded me of a client that I used to work with, a very famous client who you would have seen on television, and this was an organization.

Scott:

Was it Freddy Krueger?

Karman:

It was not Freddy Krueger Dang it.

Tammy:

People don't run around in circles when Freddy's around.

Karman:

No, they just run.

Scott:

I don't know, you guys haven't seen the movies.

Karman:

You called it, scott. I have not seen the movie, me neither, but this particular team was like always behind, always like trying to play catch up, always changing their mind always, and they really prided themselves on being able to turn on a dime and like loved this culture they'd created where we all pitch in when we have to. And tonight, tonight, we're just going to like all order pizza and we're staying until it's done tonight, and there were places for that, obviously. But this particular team had let it like we only operate in emergency mode, and I'm sure Tammy and Scott, you guys have encountered teams like this. So my question, I guess, is like how do you realize if that's your team, if this is a culture that you've created, and how do you get out of that?

Tammy:

You know, there are some people who never get out of it and in fact it's what they like and it's what they prefer and they create it. I had a business partner. This was the way that she loved to work. She loved to have a major issue in front of her right at that moment and just run at it and run at it hard right. That was how she really preferred to work. And there are companies that actually take people like that and when they're in they have a mess somewhere, they drop them in, kind of like hey, put a parachute on them, fly over, drop in the firefighter, let the firefighter fight the battle right, and when it's over they pick them up and take them to the next drop site.

Karman:

So I want you to know it's pretty rewarding. I could see it would be pretty rewarding.

Tammy:

Yep, and for some folks, that's the world that they prefer. An individual is very different from a team or an organization, right? If we have a team that acts this way or an organization that acts this way, there are some really dire long-term consequences.

Scott:

It is a question of if you're the leader or the owner of that organization. Is that what you want? So I think that is, to me, is always the first question. I worked for an organization that I believe that is what they wanted and they created that through different means and it was, I believe, to this day. It was purposeful and I'm not saying that's right or wrong? I'm just saying that was their choice and they created that environment to push and drive change.

Tammy:

And they would say that they were successful. Oh, sure, and from an outside perspective. If you looked at their numbers, they're still in business right, they're still growing, they're still attracting customers, profitable.

Scott:

All of the things that many people would look. When you look at a business, you would say that's a successful business.

Tammy:

So you have to kind of go all right, this is their business model, okay, and and when.

Scott:

Typically, if you start to think about the consequences that has, that will attract a certain persona and people will like that and people who don't like that will churn and churn pretty significantly.

Tammy:

Yeah, and if you all don't know what churn is, it means turnover right, turnover right, and it's like this spot, and the fact is is that culture is so unique and and like it's really geared towards a certain kind of human being, and sometimes a certain age human being. If you want to know the truth, yeah, because as you get older as I, as I know, as you get older, it's much harder to run that fast.

Scott:

Yeah, and, and so I think the first part is is that what you want? And, ideally, you thought about why do you want that? And you have to then be okay with the consequences of that. And you have to then be okay with the consequences of that Right, that churn, that turnover, et cetera. Okay, now if we set that aside and most organizations I know do not want that, that is not their preferred mode. So then you have to start to look at, well, what is creating that and why are we allowing that? When I think about it, I actually think there's two or three core reasons that happens. I'm not clear as a leader about where we're going and why, and I'm not holding people accountable to executing and getting results. Period. I really think it is that clear.

Tammy:

Scott, I haven't thought about it like that, and so let me just take a beat and let me think about that, okay, the first one of those absolutely applied to this client.

Karman:

So.

Tammy:

Yeah, I think one of the things and that's an interesting piece, right, because the place that I have seen this with another client is we send someone off to do something, they come back with, quote unquote, a product right, a draft, and it's not in the realm of what the leader wanted. It's not in the realm of what the leader wanted. And sometimes I think and I think it does fit into your category they didn't articulate it or they truly didn't know. And I remember I had a boss who, when I asked, I said well, help me understand what you're looking for. And I was asking questions and he said I'll know it when I see it.

Tammy:

Well, if you have this thing as a boss that says I know what good looks like, I know what success is when I see it, then you have staff that is constantly running around trying to please you and I will tell you in that environment. When that boss said that to me, it demotivated me. It didn't motivate me. It demotivated me because I was like, well, I could probably do this 18 times and still bring you 18 iterations that aren't hitting the mark because you don't know yet and I'm not a mind reader. So, yeah, yeah, I think, scott, that first one, they don't know, they haven't taken the time to think about it.

Scott:

Yeah, they haven't thought about it or they haven't thought about the why I still think the feedback isn't clear. Like going back and forth 18 times is kind of ridiculous, because now we're just playing the guessing game.

Tammy:

Okay, exactly, and I've seen, I'm not sure, maybe it kind of ridiculous, because now we're just playing the guessing game.

Scott:

Okay, exactly, and I've seen, I'm not sure, maybe it kind of looks like this, and then let's look at that and in my, in my experience, you should be able, as soon as you see that can you describe what you like and what you don't like, and where do you tweak it? And ideally, ideally, you're at least halfway there.

Tammy:

Well, I think one of the great things of what you just said, one it would be really great as a boss if you could take a beat and really think about what success looks like. I was with a group yesterday. We were planning a workshop, and I said let's just have a conversation. What does success look like for you? One idea of what success looks like on a post it note? And I had, oh gosh, 12 or so leaders in a room and they that was hard for them to do because they're running all the time. They're not thinking what is the outcome I want? And that is starting with the end in mind. I need to, as a leader, have a very clear picture of what it looks like.

Tammy:

Now, sometimes I don't know, and if I can say I don't know, then one of the pieces like I'm not sure let's, why don't you give me something to work with, and then together we'll talk it through and we'll make it better. That's a completely different thing than go do, and I don't have a clear picture about what good, excellent success looks like. And I do think that that is a big reason why we have firefighting, because we keep running towards the end without understanding what the end is. So that's of your first one, right? That makes sense to me. Okay, I think there's also one that's maybe Scott, it's the same thing, but it's the the same thing. But it's the middle manager and it's the middle manager caught between a rock and a hard place. Upper management says they want this. Middle manager understands and runs for it. Upper management changes the mind, something else happened, and so sometimes we do get into a firefighting situation in the middle of an organization when upper management shifts. Okay, is that the same thing as your first option?

Scott:

I think that's the same. I wasn't clear About where it happens, about what good looks like or whatever that is. And again some people say shit changes all the time. Yeah, okay, we might learn something that we didn't know. That doesn't mean I wasn't clear at the beginning. Right, that just means something changed, like okay, kind of deal with it.

Tammy:

Sometimes we have another client who is bound by some federal regulations and sometimes federal regulators walk in the door and say I need this and I have to have it by Thursday. Right, you know, now we have an outside entity who has created chaos. Now what I have seen happen is these outside entities come in, they create chaos, we run around, we get it done. Then we reward everybody High fives, woohoo, we got that done. Great.

Tammy:

Staff sometimes starts to say, okay, I saw that and they got high fives. So if I run around and then I tell people that I ran around and I explain, I mean, oh man, and then at the last minute I blah, blah and it was like you did great, then we start reinforcing this thing that was created and all of a sudden we think that's how I get rewarded. Right, that's I like that. I like all the attention, I like the fact that people you know stayed up all night and did all the stuff. And and that's the other way that I do see it happen is that it becomes a habit because it was reward.

Scott:

And in my mind that I would put that in category two, accountability Cause. It's cause. That could be what. How do you reward it? Or how do you? You know what is that consequence? Good or bad? And it reminds me I can remember a staff member. They had a project. We were supposed to review it the next day, tomorrow, and they're like, well, I'm not quite ready. And they were hinting at that. They would like to move it. And I said, well, let's just plan. You know, we have time set aside at 830 tomorrow morning. You know we have time set aside at 830 tomorrow morning. Let's just see where you are. Like I wasn't going to budge and he came back and he's like the next morning is like you know, I stayed up all night and like he was trying to lay this martyr thing on it and I said, and it was crap.

Scott:

Now I didn't say it was crap to him. I said, hey, this isn't good enough, this is not what we agreed on. And then we had a whole conversation about staying up all night is not my goal for you. Do you know? You have had four months to do this and you come to me the day before and say, oh, and we've been talking about it and you've been telling me oh yeah, I'm making good progress, I feel really good about what I have. And you didn't show, you didn't give me any indication of what you were working on, because you wanted to come and say ta-da. And now you've said ta-da, and it's crap, I will. Are you, as a leader, having those conversations?

Tammy:

and asking the question early. Show me where you're at right. Yeah, how's it going? See, that's the. That another shift. It's the thing where a leader says how's it going, it's great.

Scott:

Well, oh, we're making progress.

Tammy:

Yeah, you know we're right on track. Okay, Now change your question leader. Show me where you're at.

Scott:

Okay, hey, let's take a look at it.

Tammy:

Yeah, let's take a're getting it more and, by the way, you don't always know, as a leader, what good looks like. Okay, and this gets you a chance to go. Oh, now that I see this, it means that. Now that I see that, it means this. So it's just changing a little bit of language.

Scott:

Yeah, and that is the foundational principle of agile software development Correct, we iterate. It's one of the principle of agile software development Correct, we do, we, we iterate, we, we it's. You know, one of the 14 pieces on the agile manifesto is um, get it in front of the customer early and often, and I'm probably butchering exactly what it reads, but it really is hey, react to this. What do you like, what do you not like, what would you change? And what you find out is you actually get it done faster and the research around it says you actually do about 20% less work.

Tammy:

Yep, yeah, doing it that way, and the perfectionist in all of us oftentimes wants to bring something of beauty to the table. Okay, and the language? And this is Tammy Rogers' bad language, hey, just throw some shit on paper and bring it to me. Okay, because, honestly, like, take your first thoughts, put it on paper, and when you do that, I'm not looking at your first thoughts and thinking you're an idiot. I'm looking at the first thoughts and going, okay, this is really helpful. I know what I was thinking. This is what they're thinking.

Tammy:

What does that mean? How do we move it forward? And how? I hadn't thought about this. This portion of this was really smart. Okay, they don't know this portion of it. Let's talk about that. So what happens in that spot is it gives us it's like a draft, give me a draft, and then we can push off together and we will make it better and we will, you know, sharpen it up, shine it like, make it so much better because we iterate. And and, scott, okay, I gotta, I have to confess I, especially in my early career, I always would tell people how hard I worked.

Tammy:

I would tell people how many hours I worked, weekends, I worked at night, I killed myself to get this thing done and you use the word martyr. Other people have told me that I had that little problem. I come from a family that has a little bit of that problem. Had that little problem. I come from a family that has a little bit of that problem, but that is another place that we see is a signal of maybe you got someone who has this firefighting syndrome where they will tell you and explain and lay out all the hard work that they had to do to get there. Okay, and you're right. Most of those folks procrastinated until the very last minute and then wanted to be applauded for putting in the effort at the last minute instead of putting in the effort slowly and steadily over the timeframe that they were given. And that is an accountability issue and it needs to be weeded out of your staff. It needs to be weeded out of your staff.

Scott:

It needs to be weeded out of your staff and yourself.

Tammy:

Absolutely, absolutely.

Karman:

And maybe your processes.

Scott:

Absolutely, and maybe how you have things structured or how you function reinforces those things.

Tammy:

Last minute, and we see this all the time with strategic planning. We do strategic planning at the beginning of the year. Everybody gets their goals and their initiatives. Who's going to be doing what? They put together this whole project plan, and this will be done by May, this will be done by July, this will be done in September, and the company doesn't think anything about it until about mid-October, first of November, and everybody goes back and goes crap, what did I say I was going to have done by the end of the year? And then they try to jam all of their strategic initiatives into the last four to six weeks of the year and then nothing gets done.

Scott:

No, we need a process where we can see where we're at along the lines and maturing that process, so that you're not looking at and rewarding activity, that we are rewarding the outcome or hitting whatever the definition of success is.

Tammy:

Yeah, the milestones that again are not activity milestones. We can have progress in that particular.

Scott:

Because what happens is people talk about it as oh yeah, we had 13 meetings and we did this and we're planning and we're doing all like a whole bunch of shit. That really does, Frankly, it matters, it's important. Okay, Project managers are like rolling over in their grave right now but what's the output from those 13 meetings?

Scott:

Yeah, what's the outcome If you, you know, are you supposed to be building something? Are you supposed to be whatever? That is At the end. I really, if you took you two meetings or 202 meetings, if you haven't hit the outcome, you didn't perform period.

Tammy:

And that's the piece, and sometimes even in our meetings, what are we meeting for? If it's just meeting to rehash, if it's just meeting to talk about where we're at versus what is the output, the outcome, something that's tangible, that we can look at and say this is what we got, and it may be a decision Okay, it's an important reason to have a meeting, but progress meetings kill yourself, right? So in that space, it is one of those things. So are we making movement towards things? Are we tracking it along the way? Are we saying it's not okay to leave everything to the end and we're asking the question show me where you're at.

Tammy:

Because firefighting okay, if you want that culture, that's fine, but please know, firefighting burns people out, firefighting only attracts a certain kind of employee and that employee is restless, and so there's a thing about that too. To really understand the kind of culture that you'll have there, and if you're looking for an organization that's a little bit more mature in terms of having processes that are efficient and effective, ways that we can deepen our profitability by making fewer mistakes and having fewer rework and all that kind of stuff, if you're in that spot, firefighting is not something that's healthy for an organization, startups they're all firefighting, okay, and when are you going to mature out of that and start reaping the rewards of the matured organization? That's a little bit further along the line in that maturity model.