03/19/2026
Busy isn't the same as effective. Your team proves it every week.
If they're always moving but never ahead, the problem isn't effort. It's where the effort is going.
Most team capacity gets swallowed by two silent killers:
Firefighting, reacting to breakdowns that should never have happened.
Excessive approvals, check-ins, reviews, and sign-offs that slow everything down without adding value.
120VC calls this "burnout busy." The team looks productive. The calendar is full. But nothing is moving forward because all the energy is spent reacting, not preventing, not innovating, not executing on what actually matters.
Most leaders respond by adding headcount or pushing harder. Neither works. The work expands to fill the dysfunction.
The real shift happens when leaders redesign how work is owned, reviewed, and executed, so that prevention replaces reaction and accountability replaces oversight.
When firefighting shrinks, capacity returns. Not because people work more. Because they stop working on the wrong things.
If firefighting feels normal on your team, something upstream is being tolerated.
That's the conversation worth having.