My stepfather was a closet alcoholic. None of us knew until he lost his job, and then it became very apparent. My mom divorced him over it, and for a long time afterward she'd say some version of the same thing: "I'd go back to him in a heartbeat. He was the love of my life. If he would just stop drinking."
The drinking was a very real problem. At sixteen, I didn't understand addiction or recovery the way I do today. But I remember sitting there wondering whether removing the drinking would automatically fix everything else in their relationship. I never said it out loud. Years later, I started recognizing a version of that same question in business.
Relief isn't the same as resolution
A founder finally makes the decision they've been circling for a year. They let go of the executive who wasn't working out. They buy out the partner. They install an operating system. And the relief can be enormous. The difficult conversations stop. The knot in their stomach loosens. It feels like the problem is finally handled.
That relief is real, and I don't want to take anything away from it. Removing someone can be exactly the right decision, and it often takes real courage. But relief is not the same as resolution. Relief tells you the discomfort went away. Resolution means the conditions that produced the problem have changed.
Here's a version of how it can play out. This is a composite, not any one client. A founder replaces an operations leader who wasn't delivering. The new hire is sharp, experienced and energetic. Six months later, the founder is frustrated again. Decisions are slow. Things keep landing back on the founder's desk. The founder starts to wonder whether they've hired a second bad leader.
Sometimes they have. But sometimes the company changed the person without changing anything around the role. The new leader inherited the same unclear expectations, the same undefined authority, the same inconsistent accountability, and maybe the same founder who steps in whenever something feels off. If nothing changes except the name on the org chart, the organization may be setting the next person up to struggle the same way.
Look at the conditions, not only the person
When this comes up in coaching, I try not to jump to a conclusion in either direction. I don't automatically assume the founder is the problem. I also don't automatically accept the founder's explanation that everyone else is the problem.
Two questions help. What was the visible problem we removed? And what conditions allowed that problem to develop, and which of those conditions still exist?
The answers can go a lot of places. Sometimes the issue is operational: no clear roles, no real decision rights, no meaningful performance measures, a hiring process that doesn't test for what the job actually needs. Sometimes it's personal: a founder who wants to let go and also needs to stay in control. Often it's both. A founder who keeps replacing operations leaders may be wrestling with a need for control, and the company may also lack a working accountability structure. You have to look at the person, the system, the circumstances and the incentives before you know what needs to change.
The same goes for the founder who swore off working weekends and is back in the office every Saturday. Maybe the weekends were helping them avoid something uncomfortable somewhere else in their life. Maybe the business is genuinely understaffed, or the leadership team isn't developed enough yet to carry the load. So I'd ask rather than assume. Were the weekends truly necessary, or were they also helping you avoid something? Did the difficult partner become someone you could blame for problems you didn't want to confront, or was that partner genuinely creating serious problems? Did the chaos make you feel indispensable? Those are questions, not diagnoses, and only you can answer them honestly.
When part of the pattern is you
Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey at Harvard wrote about a piece of this in a 2001 *Harvard Business Review* article called "The Real Reason People Won't Change." Their argument was that people who sincerely want to change are often, without realizing it, also committed to something that works against the change. They called these competing commitments, and underneath them they found what they called big assumptions, beliefs people have held so long they experience them as fact. Their work came out of studying people inside organizations, and it's a framework rather than a controlled study, so I don't want to oversell it. But it gives a useful way to look at the personal side of a recurring problem.
Here's how it can show up. A CEO says they want their leadership team to make more decisions independently. That's the stated commitment. But they may also be committed to never being surprised by a bad decision. Underneath that, there may be an assumption that if someone makes a costly mistake the CEO could have prevented, the CEO has failed as a leader. As long as that assumption is running things, the CEO will keep pulling decisions back, and the team will keep waiting to be told.
The work isn't to argue the CEO out of the assumption. It's to test it. Let a leader make a real decision within clearly defined boundaries. Accept that the outcome may differ from what you would have chosen. Then evaluate the result instead of immediately taking back control. That's where awareness starts turning into different behavior.
There's a related thing I've seen in coaching. When someone removes a behavior without putting something better in its place, the need underneath it doesn't go away. In my experience, what typically shows up instead is resentment and artificial harmony, and that is not a better replacement.
What changed, and how do you feel?
The question in the title, why nothing feels different, actually holds two questions. One is whether the business has improved. The other is whether you feel different. They aren't the same, and they don't always move together.
You can make an excellent decision, see measurable improvement in the business, and still feel anxious or frustrated. You can also feel tremendous relief after removing a difficult person while the underlying operating problems are still sitting there. Both matter, but they need different responses. If the business is better and you still feel stuck, the work may be personal. If you feel better and the numbers haven't moved, the work may be structural. Treating one as proof of the other is how founders end up solving the wrong problem.
Before you call it done
If you've recently removed or changed something big, work through four questions before you declare victory.
What did I remove or change?
What actually improved, both operationally and emotionally?
What conditions or patterns still exist that could recreate the problem? Include both how the business operates and how you behave, especially under pressure.
What will I do differently, and how will I know whether it's working? Make the answer something you or others could observe: clearer decision rights, different accountability expectations, a leadership behavior you're practicing, a better way of responding when you're spun up.
Why I still have a coach
My son and I got onto the topic once of why I still work with a coach after all these years. Part of my answer was that new things keep coming up. As the layers of paint come off the wall, you start seeing what's underneath. Just because you have awareness doesn't mean you have healing. You may get relief. You may even get an extended period of peace, which is awesome. But new stuff will come up.
The other part of my answer is that none of us can consistently see our own patterns clearly, especially when we're emotionally invested in the situation. Even when I understand a pattern intellectually, it can still show up under pressure. Someone on the outside helps me challenge my assumptions, see what I'm missing, and tell the difference between what I've actually changed and what I only believe I've changed.
So here's the question I'd ask you to sit with this week. Think about the last big problem you removed. What actually changed, and what's still there waiting for the next person in the seat?
If you're not sure, that's worth talking through with someone who can see it from the outside. A Forum mate, a mentor, your spouse, or me. Let's talk.
Here when you need me, Todd
P.S. If you made a big move this year and it didn't land the way you expected, hit reply and tell me about it. You're not the only one.
