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Why Teams Stall: It’s Not a People Problem

Why Teams Stall: It’s Not a People Problem

by | Oct 12, 2026 | Leadership, Seamless, Tips, Tricks, & Tools

The Zoom gallery started with just nine boxes. Nine people tasked with recommending how AI could be integrated into the product development process to save $5 million next fiscal year.

The next week, there were twelve boxes. Half the meeting was bringing new people up to speed. The rest was agreeing to last week’s next steps.

A month later, three screens were required to show everyone, but most were on mute with their cameras off. The team was still working through Week 1’s To Do list.

Three months later, it was up to five screens because, concerned about the lack of progress, team members’ bosses wanted to join the call.

Six months after starting, every idea had been rejected by someone. The only surviving idea was to build an enterprise-wide chatbot.

The project was handed over to IT. The team disbanded. Millions were spent creating a chatbot that no one used.

 

Sound familiar?

The team wasn’t incompetent, lazy, or quietly rebelling against AI. It was people (lots of people) attending meetings, reading and sending emails, and executing their tasks. There were handoffs with no clear owner, and decisions that stalled and no one could say why.

The owner-less handoffs, stalled decisions, and quiet deaths are the result of seams, the hidden disconnects between functions, levels, and processes. Seams derail progress more reliably than a skill gap because they’re easy to mistake as “just how things are.”

You’ve seen this before, so you try to fix it. You get more involved. You add a high-potential employee to the team. You change the scope or the timing. Sometimes it helps. Usually, it takes up more of your time and only slows the project’s decline.

 

It’s not a people problem

When a team stalls, we reach for Myers-Briggs, DiSC, Hogan, or Kolbe to diagnose the problem, drive self-awareness, and solve all the problems.

They don’t.

A team is not a collection of individuals, yet those tools focus only on the individual. They assume a person shows up the same way in every single situation. We don’t. We show up differently depending on the topic, who else is in the room, the time of day, even whether we’ve eaten or had enough caffeine. Stack those variables against a dozen people and eight functions and a consolidated report of personality types is simply a comforting fiction.

 

It’s a team problem.

A team is a group of people who trust each other and share a common purpose. Tools to understand individuals aren’t designed to diagnose teams. They aren’t designed to dig into the systems, relationships, and competing priorities that create seams. And that’s why they can’t solve them.

Seamless Innovation examines how the team works as individuals AND together, revealing how seams are slowing progress and impacting results. Created by Jared Simmons, founder of OUTLAST Consulting, from his lived experiences at companies like P&G and Coca-Cola. When I discovered it, it felt like finding the Rosetta Stone because it translated what I experienced into something practical and actionable. Over the past year, we’ve worked together to develop and test it with real people and teams.

Seamless looks at whether the team runs as individuals or an interdependent group with a common goal and at the balance between Think and Do. Think is how people engage across boundaries, and whether the group shares priorities, success measures, and tradeoff rules. Do is whether people can deliver without constant direction and whether the processes and permissions make work move.

Together, these two axes create a capability map of four attributes critical to team success: Collaborative Mindset, Shared Goals & Principles, Core Skill Mastery, and Single Process.

Next week we’ll look at each attribute, what it is, why it’s important, and what “good” looks like in the context of real-world experiences.

Because a team problem can’t be fixed with individual assessments.

Curious to learn more?  Click this link to take the Seamless Diagnostic. 

But remember, the results reflect your individual perspective. To experience the full benefit Seamless offers, you need the rest of your team to take it, too.  For that, just hit Reply and we’ll make that happen!

FAQs

What causes strategic decisions to stall inside a company?

Seams: the hidden disconnects between functions, levels, and processes. They show up as handoffs with no clear owner, decisions that stall with no one able to say why, and projects that die quietly. Meanwhile, everyone keeps attending meetings, sending emails, and executing their tasks. Seams derail progress more reliably than a skill gap because they’re easy to mistake for just how things are.

How do you get a project moving after it's been stuck for months?

Stop treating it as a people problem. The usual fixes are to get more involved, add a high-potential employee, or change the scope or timing. Usually, they take more of your time and only slow the decline. Personality tools like Myers-Briggs, DiSC, Hogan, and Kolbe focus on individuals, and we show up differently depending on the topic and who’s in the room. A stuck team needs a team-level diagnosis.

Is there a framework for diagnosing why a team stalls?

Yes. Seamless Innovation, created by Jared Simmons, founder of OUTLAST Consulting, examines how a team works as individuals and together. Two axes, Individual–Team and Think–Do, create a capability map of four attributes: Collaborative Mindset, Shared Goals & Principles, Core Skill Mastery, and Single Process. It measures the team, not the people.

What Leaders Can Learn From Lobsters (Or, The Importance of Asking Why)

What Leaders Can Learn From Lobsters (Or, The Importance of Asking Why)

by | Jun 17, 2026 | Leadership, Leading Through Uncertainty, Tips, Tricks, & Tools

Up and down New England’s coastline you’ll find lobster (pronounced “lob-stah”) shacks.  These weathered wood structures produce the freshest lobster and crispiest fried seafood anywhere, enjoyed on picnic tables as the sun beats down and the waves crash against the rocky shore.

It was at one of these shacks that, many years ago, I learned priceless lesson.

As my friends and I placed our orders, I asked that the head of my lobster be removed before serving. The waitress looked at me like I had nine heads but wrote down my request and returned to the kitchen. A few minutes later she reappeared and announced that the kitchen refused to decapitate the lobster prior to serving.

“I don’t like making eye contact with my food,” I stammered.

She nodded and walked away.

When she returned with our lobsters, they all had heads but one was noticeably different. It was wearing “sunglasses” made of olives and toothpicks.

“Here,” our waitress said. “Now you don’t have to make eye contact with it.”

 

 

A short-term “solution”

As VUCA-ness (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) accelerates, C-suite executives do everything possible to create certainty and construct safety. After all, if the company doesn’t survive the short-term, even the best long-term plans don’t matter.

Evidence of this approach is everywhere:

When these decisions land on your desk, you sigh, knowing they are short-sighted but understanding the rationale. Then, you go implement them, knowing unintended consequences are coming.

 

 

Unintended doesn’t mean unpredictable

In fact, because you are on the frontlines of your business, striving to deliver today and build tomorrow, you can predict what those consequences will be:

It’s frustrating to see the problems coming but feel powerless to avoid them.

But what does any of this have to do with a lobster wearing sunglasses?

 

 

When you know the Why, you can choose the How

When directives land on your desk, don’t sigh and roll them out. Ask for the Why behind the What.

  • Why are employees being forced back to the office? Did productivity decrease? Are mission-critical operations not occurring? Are top-performers leaving for in-person roles?
  • Why are experienced people being let go? Is the work being outsourced or has it genuinely gone? Why are you no longer hiring entry-level people? Are they too expensive to train? Is retention genuinely poor?
  • Why are innovation initiatives being cut? Is the core business in that much trouble? Do we lack the talent? Are we pursuing growth through other means?

Each directive’s Why is different which means you have more options than you realize for delivering the How. Understanding the outcomes the company needs, reveals options for delivering it while minimizing the unintended consequences.

 

 

Don’t decapitate the lobster. Find opportunities for sunglasses.

The kitchen could have easily removed the head from my lobster, but they foresaw the unintended consequences of a disappointing dining experience. When they understood my why, they created a spectacular how.

You don’t control the system so asking “Why?” feels scary, hostile, even mutinous.

You do control your piece of it. You know it better than anyone, so there’s no one better to determine the how.

“Do More with Less” Without Burning Out in 3 Practical Steps

“Do More with Less” Without Burning Out in 3 Practical Steps

by | Jun 10, 2026 | Leadership, Tips, Tricks, & Tools

We have entered the “do more with less” era of management edicts.

And, just like the eras of “fail fast,” “synergy,” and “we’re a family,” the phrase is met with eye rolls, silent groans, and a deepening certainty that management is completely out of touch with the reality on the ground.

But what if doing more with less is possible without the extra hours and stress that lead to burnout?

 

(Re)Define “more.”

When we hear “more,” we naturally think of work. More meetings. More emails. More Slacks, texts, Zooms. For most of my career, I believed the more emails I received, meetings I attended, and documents I wrote, the more valuable I was.

Volume does not equal value.

“More” can’t (and shouldn’t) mean more work. It must mean something else.

More value creation. Less box checking.

More progress. Less process.

More meaningful work. Less meaningless activity.

What is the “more” you want from your team? Define it or you’ll get more emails, meetings, and documents. Name it (value, efficiency, progress), and your team will figure out how to do it.

 

Experiment with “less.”

A client’s team stopped sending meeting summaries. They didn’t send shorter ones, change the distribution list, or even share the link to the AI note-taker. They just stopped.

No one noticed.

Six months later, a new team member asked if they would send a meeting summary. The team leader said no but offered to recap next steps before everyone left the room. No one argued. Everyone left the meeting with clarity on what they needed to do next.

Activity does not equal achievement.

 Our days are filled with BS work, tasks that we do because we’ve always done them, because they feel important, and because we worry what happens if we stop.

Documents don’t ensure that people are informed, aligned, or are ready to act.

Meetings don’t guarantee that everyone has thoughtfully considered and agreed on a decision.

Meeting summaries don’t make people complete their next steps.

It doesn’t mean we don’t need documents, meetings, or meeting summaries. But “less” is possible.

Ask your team what you can do less of. Stop doing things and see if people notice. If you can’t stop something completely, ask what less of it looks like. Instead of a meeting summary, send next steps. Instead of a presentation, write a one-page summary. Instead of a spreadsheet build a visual dashboard.

 

Rethink “indispensable.”

The managers in my client’s training program were in roles that everyone called the most pivotal in the company. They didn’t feel pivotal. They felt reactive and overwhelmed, with no control over their own calendars.

The COO’s fix was simple. Just stop attending.

It surprised him that they wouldn’t. They couldn’t. The fear of missing something kept them in every room, including the ones that ran fine without them.

You’re in every meeting because you’re good at your job. Being good got you invited into every decision, and somewhere along the way no one uninvited you. Now you stay out of habit, not need. The permission to step back is usually there. You just haven’t tested it long enough to know what happens.

 Presence does not equal performance.

Look at your calendar for the meetings you sit in out of habit. Pick one this week to not attend. Resist the urge to instructions. Simply tell the team lead you won’t attend and that you trust them to keep things moving.

Your absence isn’t dropping the ball. It’s demonstrating that you trust the team and empowering them to do their jobs. It’s the rare version of less that gives you more time and your team their autonomy.

 

“Do more with less” isn’t a demand to work harder

The constraint isn’t going anywhere. Volume isn’t value. Activity isn’t achievement. Presence isn’t performance. It’s a reason to finally drop what doesn’t matter.

What Would You Do If You Were Certain?

What Would You Do If You Were Certain?

by | Mar 18, 2026 | AI, Customer Centricity, Leadership, Leading Through Uncertainty, Strategy

If you’re uncertain, you’re not alone. According to data from FactSet, 87% of Fortune 500 companies cited “uncertainty” during their 2025 Q1 earnings calls.  And while things are definitely a tad chaotic in the world, I’ve started asking my clients, “What would you do if you were certain?”

It’s not an academic thought experiment. It’s a very practical exercise that radically shifts the way the think about and lead their businesses.

An Example That Proves the Rule

Most leaders facing disruption do one of two things: freeze and hope that “this too shall pass” or follow and hope that there is safety in numbers.

Neither is a strategy. Both are knee jerk reactions rooted in fear and communicated in the language and buzzwords of business.

This behavior didn’t start with AI. It happens every time a disruptive technology or philosophy bursts onto the scene. The printing press. The industrial revolution. Microchips. Each time, a new leader and paradigm emerges. How do they do it?

They’re certain.

Not because they’re omniscient. But because they know the answers to three questions

 

Question 1: Who Are You?

When photography made academic realism obsolete, Picasso didn’t freeze. He didn’t pick up a camera. He created something entirely new. Why? Because he knew exactly who he was. “I don’t seek,” he said. “I find.”

Today’s business icons are no different. Richard Branson describes himself as curious and someone who challenges the status quo. Lou Gerstner, when he arrived at a floundering IBM, declared himself a results man, not a visionary.

These self-definitions aren’t marketing. They’re decisions filters that define what you are and aren’t willing to do, agnostic of events, technologies, and capabilities.

 

Question 2: What Does Your Organization Actually Do?

Not what you make. Not what you sell. What Job to be Done do customers hire you to do?

Nintendo’s answer has been consistent across 130 years of radical product change: help me have fun with friends and family. From playing cards to the Game Boy, Wii, and Switch, their products changed completely. The Job didn’t.

IBM has done the same. From punch card tabulators to consulting and AI, the Job of helping customers make sense of complex information to run better never change. Amex moved from freight forwarding to credit and debit cards, but it’s commitment to move value securely when direct exchange isn’t an option never wavered.

When you know the Job you do, you stop chasing trends and start making choices.

 

Question 3: How Do You Move Forward?

You can’t answer this question without answering the first two. When you try, you get caught in the same freeze/follow trap as everyone else.

But when you answer the first two questions, the answer to this one becomes clear. For Picasso and Branson, they create. For Gerstner, he optimized the status quo. For most businesses, the answer is “And, not Or.”  They must stabilize today’s business, step into (even follow) the next wave, and invest in creating the new.

Satya Nadella’s transformation of Microsoft is a perfect example. He defined himself as a learner, not a knower. He defined Microsoft’s job as helping people make a difference in their roles. From those two answers, every major move followed logically: maintain Office 365, step into cloud, create quantum computing technology.

None of it was reactive. All of it felt certain.

 

Your Moment Is Now

Yes, the world is uncertain. You don’t have to be.

Before you close this tab and tell yourself you’ll think about it later, answer the first two questions. You can change your answers later, but you need to start now.

The leaders who navigate this moment won’t be the ones who wait and see or follow the crowd. They’ll be the ones who know themselves and their organizations well enough to be certain.

You Got Buy-In So Why Is Execution Stalling?

You Got Buy-In So Why Is Execution Stalling?

by | Feb 23, 2026 | Leadership, Stories & Examples, Strategy

Congratulations, you’ve done the hard part required to get buy-in!  You asked instead of told, said “I don’t know” out loud, and got genuine buy-in. Your team believes, is engaged, and ready to go.  And yet execution is stalling.

What gives?

Activity without Achievement

There’s no doubt that people are working hard. You can see it in their schedules and you hear it in your one-on-ones.  But projects are moving slower than they should, decisions that seem straightforward take weeks, and agreements made in meetings are quietly undone. Strategies, buy-in, timelines are powerless against an invisible and unnamed force.

So, you consider your options. A team offsite can provide a helpful rest but there’s no guarantee it sticks when you’re back in the office. Training can help shore up skill gaps, but your team is already capable, so this doesn’t feel like a skill problem. You could reorg but that creates new problems.

Your People Aren’t the Problem

The problem isn’t your people, your team, or even your culture. The problem is the hidden seams between people, teams, and cultures, that create friction.

Because of friction, people hesitate to share information across functional or hierarchical seams. They make assumptions about other generations. They work to achieve individual or functional, rather than collective, goals.

These friction points have been part of your organization for so long that they are accepted as normal. As immoveable and unchangeable as your company’s mission and vision. And because they’re so ingrained, you shift your efforts to things that feel changeable: skills, org charts, and communication plans.

You’re addressing symptoms because the root cause seems impossible to fix.

It’s not impossible.

How One Company Resolved the Friction and Tightened the Seams Without Extra Work

When a K-5 curriculum company decided to expand into the Middle School market, they knew they were asking the project team to do something new that was complex, ambiguous, and fraught with high-stakes decisions.

Six months in, the project was breaking down. Decisions that should have taken a day took weeks or months. Work got stuck as different functions weighed in at different times with different mandatory requirements. People hid problems and gave optimistic updates.

The executive who owned the project had seen this before. In fact, she was seeing it in every project team across the entire company. So, she knew that the problem wasn’t the project or the people, it was something much deeper, something that was such a part of the company’s standard operating process that it had become invisible.

So, she brought in someone (me) who could see things differently and together we sought out the seams, naming the moments when friction occurred, and engaging the team in developing and experimenting with solutions.

And we did it all as part of the daily work.

We redesigned hand-offs in real time, experimented with decision-making rules until we found what worked for multiple decision types, and rewarded people for saying “I don’t know.”

Within six months, the project was back on track and engagement and morale were sky-high. Other teams took notice and asked for advice. New products began shipping on time, on budget, and to rave reviews.

Now the Real Work Begins

Where are your seams showing up? A cross-functional initiative that’s losing momentum? A decision that never seems to stick? A team that’s aligned on paper but stuck in execution?

That friction has a name. And it’s findable.

If you’re ready to find the seams and resolve the friction, set up a SeamSpotter Session. It’s a 60 to 90-minute conversation, no prep required, and you’ll receive a written summary and recommended next steps within 48 hours.

If your team is bought in, but execution keeps stuttering, you can fix it. Email me at robyn@milezero.io to get started.