Low diatribe

We've all seen someone mopping a floor with water that's long past clean. They might be working hard, moving fast, sweating even — but the floor's not getting cleaner. They're just pushing the dirt around.

I live in a 30-year-old log cabin with rough plank floors. When I really need to clean them, I've learned it requires a constant supply of clean water and a wet-dry vac to remove the slop. No amount of effort with dirty water will do the job.

We reward motion because it looks like progress. But without changing the water — without resetting the conditions we're working in — it's just effort without impact. Meetings about accountability that never touch structure. Training programs that don't change incentives. Retrospectives that collect lessons no one applies. Busy hands, dirty water.

In Drive, Daniel Pink calls this the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic systems reward the appearance of effort — pushing dirt around. Intrinsic motivation pushes people to change the water first, doing work that actually creates progress.

Real change isn't in the motion; it's in the renewal.

You have to stop, empty the bucket, refill with something clean.

Yet we resist. We gravitate toward the visible work — the 80% that feels productive but changes nothing fundamental. Real impact lives in the harder 20%: stopping to change systems, having difficult conversations, resetting conditions entirely.

A dozen years ago, I wanted to start an online toy store. I registered domains, accumulated inventory, did all the "important" work that felt productive. But it never launched. I was mopping with dirty water — checking off easy boxes while avoiding the harder work that would have actually mattered.

The same trap exists everywhere. The only way to avoid it is to remember to change the water.

In leadership, that means naming what's muddying the work — old assumptions, burned-out processes, unspoken resentments — and refreshing them before you keep scrubbing. You can reorganize teams all you want, but if the underlying trust issues remain, you're just moving the dysfunction around, you're just spreading the dirt.

Personal growth works the same way. You can read every book, take every course, adopt every tool — but if you're running on stagnant beliefs about your own capabilities or worth, you're only polishing the same dirty floor. The techniques might change, but the fundamental limitations stay put.

Culture is where this shows up most clearly: The difference between meetings that push progress and dogmatic ritual, the difference between reflection and repetition, learning and looping, or teams that grow and teams that just look busy. Real cultural change requires examining the unspoken rules that actually govern behavior, not just updating the values poster in the break room.

Progress starts with clear conditions, not additional effort.

Remember to change the water.