Feeling Stuck Isn’t the End of the Road
Every organization, team, or individual hits a wall at some point—a moment when progress slows or stops entirely. It’s frustrating, demoralizing, and often baffling. But here’s the good news: stagnation isn’t permanent. With the right strategies, it’s possible to break free and regain momentum.
To start, let’s look at some of the common culprits behind stagnation. Once we understand the barriers, we can talk about how to overcome them.
- Bloated or Complicated Processes
Over time, processes tend to accumulate extra steps, approvals, or layers of bureaucracy. What starts as a simple workflow can balloon into a tangled mess that slows progress and frustrates everyone involved.
How to Address It:
- Simplify the Process: Map out the current workflow and identify unnecessary steps. Involve the people who use the process daily—they often know exactly where the pain points are.
- Empower Decision-Making: Reduce the number of approvals needed for routine actions. Trust your team to make decisions at the right level.
- Pilot and Iterate: Test a streamlined version of the process with a small group before rolling it out organization-wide.
- A Vision That’s Hard to Follow—or Missing Entirely
Without a clear and compelling vision, teams tend to lose focus and momentum. People end up spinning their wheels, unsure of what success looks like or why their work matters.
How to Address It:
- Clarify the Vision: Paint a vivid picture of the future you’re working toward. Make it inspiring and specific.
- Connect the Dots: Help every team member see how their work contributes to the larger vision. It’s not just about what they do but why it matters.
- Revisit Regularly: A vision isn’t a one-and-done statement. Reiterate it in meetings, decisions, and celebrations to keep it front and center.
- Heavy Approval Cycles
In some organizations, every decision needs to be vetted by layers of management, slowing progress to a crawl. These approval cycles not only waste time but also signal to employees that they lack the authority to make decisions.
How to Address It:
- Define Decision Rights: Clearly outline who is responsible for making decisions at different levels. Trust people to act within their scope.
- Use Guardrails Instead of Gates: Instead of requiring approval at every step, set clear boundaries for decisions. Empower teams to act as long as they stay within those boundaries.
- Encourage Delegated Authority: Push decision-making to the lowest possible level, where people are closest to the work and can act quickly. Coaching is often a great tool to help with this.
- A Culture That Doesn’t Empower Team Members
When people feel like they don’t have a voice or the authority to make decisions, they disengage. Without empowerment, innovation and progress grind to a halt.
How to Address It:
- Create Psychological Safety: Foster an environment where people feel safe speaking up, sharing ideas, and taking risks.
- Delegate with Intent: Give team members ownership of meaningful tasks and trust them to follow through.
- Celebrate Initiative: Recognize and reward team members who take proactive steps, even if things don’t go perfectly.
- A Limited Mindset
Sometimes, the biggest barrier is internal. When people believe that “this is just the way things are,” they stop looking for better solutions. A fixed mindset keeps teams stuck in the status quo.
How to Address It:
- Challenge Assumptions: Regularly ask questions like, “Why do we do it this way?” and “What would happen if we tried something different?”
- Encourage Experimentation: Create space for small experiments and treat them as opportunities to learn, not as pass/fail tests.
- Model Growth: Show your own willingness to learn, adapt, and try new things. Mindsets are contagious—make sure yours is the one worth catching.
- Staying in the Conference Room
One of the most overlooked reasons for stagnation is that teams stay too insulated. Discussions happen in conference rooms or over spreadsheets, far removed from the real-world experience of the customer.
How to Address It:
- Go Where the Customer Is: Spend time observing customers interact with your product or service. Visit stores, watch them navigate your website, or even use your competitors’ offerings. You might consider a design sprint.
- Listen First-Hand: Talk directly to customers about their pain points, frustrations, and needs. Skip the filtered reports and hear it in their own words.
- Walk in Their Shoes: Try experiencing your product or service the way a customer would. What barriers or annoyances do you notice?
Getting out of the office and into the customer’s world not only uncovers insights but also re-energizes teams with a clearer understanding of the people they’re solving problems for.
- Lack of Momentum
Sometimes, teams get stuck simply because it feels like progress is too slow or nonexistent. Big goals can be overwhelming, and the lack of visible wins can sap motivation.
How to Address It:
- Focus on Small Wins: Break big goals into smaller milestones and celebrate each one. Momentum builds with every win.
- Reassess Priorities: If progress feels slow, it might be time to reevaluate what’s most important and shift resources accordingly.
- Lean Into Action: Sometimes, you just need to start. Even imperfect progress can reignite energy and enthusiasm.
Breaking Free Requires Intention
Stagnation is frustrating, but it’s also an opportunity—a chance to pause, reflect, and course-correct. By addressing bloated processes, clarifying your vision, empowering your team, loosening approval cycles, getting out into the customer’s world, challenging mindsets, and focusing on momentum, you can break through and get back on track.
Remember: progress often starts small. Simplify one process. Clarify one goal. Empower one team member. Observe one customer. Each small step builds toward something bigger.
The question is, what’s your next step?