Have you ever gotten a tiny splinter from your deck and spent far too long trying to find it?
You know it's there.
You can feel it every time you touch something.
But it's too small to see, so you squeeze, poke, and stare at your finger under every light in the house.
Before you ever find the splinter, your body is already responding to it.
Your immune system recognizes the foreign object almost immediately. White blood cells rush to the area, inflammation increases blood flow, and healthy tissue begins isolating the splinter from everything around it. Only then does the slow process of pushing it out begin.
The body's first priority isn't removing the splinter.
It's protecting the health of everything around it.
As a nurse, I've always found that fascinating. As a consultant, I've come to realize organizations behave in much the same way.
Healthy systems, whether they're biological or organizational, share a common goal: they protect what they're trying to preserve. In the human body, that's health. In an organization, it's the strategy. Neither system can move forward if parts of it are continually working against the whole.
That doesn't mean disagreement is unhealthy.
In fact, one of the biggest leadership mistakes we make is confusing dissent with misalignment. Healthy organizations depend on ideas that challenge the status quo.
Leaders should ask hard questions. They should challenge assumptions, pressure-test ideas, identify blind spots, and offer better solutions. If everyone around the table agrees with every idea, someone probably isn't doing their job.
But there comes a moment when the discussion ends.
A direction is chosen. A strategy is set. The question changes.
It is no longer, "Would I have made the same decision?"
It becomes, "Can I wholeheartedly help make this decision successful?"
Every strategy needs people with both the skill to execute it and the will to champion it.
If you can offer both, lean in.
If you can't, that's worth paying attention to.
Every leader eventually reaches a crossroads. You can continue investing your energy in a mission you believe in, or you can find one where you can make your greatest contribution.
Neither choice is inherently wrong.
The only choice that rarely ends well is staying while quietly resisting the direction that's been chosen.
Because that's when organizational physiology takes over.
Influence narrows.
Decisions happen without you.
Opportunities begin appearing somewhere else.
Not as punishment.
As protection.
So if you find yourself at odds with the direction your organization has chosen, don't ask whether you won the debate.
Ask whether you're still the right person to help lead the strategy forward.
Because if the answer is no, the organization will eventually answer that question for you.
Am I helping move this organization toward its future... or have I become the splinter it's trying to push out?
