What Your Organization’s Smoke Signals Are Trying to Tell You

In this series, we'll explore questions like:

🔥 Why does execution feel chaotic?
🔥 Why does everyone agree...but nothing moves?
🔥 Why does cross-functional work slow down?
🔥 Why does AI create activity but not impact?
🔥 Why does everything feel like a priority?

I grew up camping, and one thing you learn pretty quickly is that smoke isn't the problem. Smoke is information — telling you something underneath deserves your attention. It might be a small flame that is easy to manage, or it might be the start of something bigger. Either way, the smoke is useful because it tells you where to look.

I think organizations work the same way.

Leaders rarely start by naming the real problem. They describe what they can see and feel - execution feels chaotic, decisions keep getting revisited, teams are busy, but outcomes aren't improving, AI is being used, but the business impact isn't showing up. Those frustrations are real, but they're often symptoms, not the underlying cause.

Our instinct is usually to treat the symptom. Add another meeting, send another communication, create another dashboard, ask people to work harder. Sometimes those things help, but sometimes we're just getting better at living with the smoke.

Leaders should be asking themselves: what is creating the signal? Is ownership unclear? Are too many teams involved in work that should move more simply? Are leaders avoiding the tradeoffs the strategy requires? Has the strategy changed...without changing how people actually work? Is governance helping people move, or quietly slowing them down?

That is the idea behind Smoke Signals: pay attention to what the organization is already telling you, then look underneath.

# The Symptoms Usually Show Up First

Smoke Signals came from a pattern I kept seeing in conversations with executives. A leader would come in describing one problem, but as we talked it through, the source of friction was usually somewhere below the surface.

I hear versions of this all the time:

“We rolled out AI, but we are not seeing the impact we expected.”
“We have a strong strategy, but execution still feels chaotic.”
“Everyone agrees, but nothing is actually moving.”
“Everything feels like a priority.”
“Everyone is busy, but we are not sure what changed.”

On their own, these can sound like separate problems: AI adoption, strategy execution, decision-making, prioritization, or measurement. But after a while, you start to hear the pattern. They are not just isolated frustrations. They are clues about how the organization is operating.

And clues are useful. They give leaders a way into the conversation that is more productive than blame and more precise than “we just need to move faster.”

# The Fire Is Often in How Work Gets Done

Operating models can sound abstract, but they're actually very practical.

They're what happens after the strategy leaves the PowerPoint. They determine how decisions get made, how priorities translate into action, who owns what, and how work moves across the organization.

When those things aren't working well, the symptoms can look very different depending on where you sit. One leader sees a strategy that never changes what people say yes to on Monday morning. Another sees a high-priority initiative that somehow passes through five teams when two would be enough. Someone else sits through a meeting where everyone agrees on the problem...but no one leaves knowing who owns the decision.

Or the organization celebrates activity but struggles to answer a simple question: "What actually got better?"

They look like different problems, but they often point back to the same question: “Has the organization changed its strategy...without changing how work actually gets done?”

That's where I encourage leaders to look — not just at what people are doing. But at how decisions are made, where work changes hands, what gets escalated, what gets funded, and what outcomes people are actually optimizing for.

# The Risk Is Getting Used to the Smoke

One of the biggest risks I see is that leadership teams become accustomed to friction. At first it's frustrating, then it's familiar. Eventually... it's "just how we work."

Teams start to expect that decisions will be revisited, urgent priorities will keep multiplying, certain handoffs will always slow things down, and cross-functional work will be harder than it should be. What once felt like a problem becomes part of the operating environment.

Once that happens, people stop treating friction as a signal and begin treating it as background noise. Organizations become incredibly good at working around the friction instead of removing it. Then, more meetings get added, more escalation paths get created, and more energy goes into navigating the system than improving it.

The organization keeps moving, but with more drag than it needs to carry.

Noticing the smoke gives leaders a chance to stop working around the same friction and start asking where it is coming from. A slow decision, a repeated escalation, or a handoff that always creates delay may feel like business as usual, but it can also point to a system that needs to be examined.

# Better Questions Lead to Better Diagnosis

When something feels stuck, the first instinct is often to solve the visible problem. Communicate more. Add structure. Clarify the plan. Ask for more accountability. Push for speed. Those may be the right moves, but they are more effective when leaders understand what is actually creating the friction.

• If execution feels chaotic, what decisions or tradeoffs have not changed since the strategy changed?
• If everyone agrees but nothing moves, who owns the decision?
• If work is moving across teams but not getting faster, where are the handoffs creating delay or rework?
• If AI is creating more activity than business impact... what organizational bottleneck is it revealing?
• If everyone is busy, what outcome improved because of the work?

These questions aren't complicated, but they do require leaders to pause long enough to diagnose before they prescribe. That's often where the better conversation begins.

Not with, "How do we fix this symptom?" But with, "What might this symptom be telling us about how work actually gets done?"

My hope isn't that leaders walk away with all the answers; it's that they become a little more curious.

Because one of the biggest risks I see is that organizations become desensitized to friction. We start saying things like, "That's just how things work around here," or, "That's just part of working in a large organization."

But what if it doesn't have to be? Every organization has smoke signals. The question isn't whether they're there; it's whether we've become so accustomed to them that we've stopped noticing.

Because once you notice, you can stop treating the smoke...and start fixing the fire.

# Explore the Smoke Signals

Watch the full Smoke Signals collection to see common symptoms of hidden organizational friction and the questions leaders can ask to better understand what may be happening beneath the surface.