11/14/2025
The phone rings. It is 8:32 in the morning. I answer, and the person says, âmy generator cranks but wonât start.â
I had taken that call before, but the tension in his voice told me this one was not going to be like the others.
We had the procedures. We had the flow charts. But he said, âI checked everything, but it still wonât start.â
I take a breath, gather my thoughts, and trust my intuition.
I ask, âhave you checked gas pressure?â
He says, âyep 8 inches of water column.â
I ask, âWhat does it do when you try starting?â
He says, âYou wonât believe it, that sucker drops right to zero.â
I ask, âReal quick, what size pipe is that going in?â
He replies, âya know, standard 1/2 inch pipe, plumber said it was how he does all of these.â
In that moment, I realized he was missing an entire world he knew nothing about. Volume. A generator depends on a steady flow of gas at a consistent pressure. He not only had the wrong pipe size, but he also had the wrong regulator. He was set up for failure from the start.
He did not have an engine problem.
He had a gas supply problem outside of the generator.
It was such a common mistake that in all my years of troubleshooting generators, it made up an outsized share of the calls.
I never forgot that call, or the ones that came after, because it taught me a core principle in leadership and coaching.
Most strategies fail before they start because they are built on what is seen, not what is unseen.
It is not what we can see that holds us back. It is what sits in the silent void.
A hundred and fifty years ago, an economist explained an idea now known as the Broken Window Fallacy.
A shopkeeperâs window breaks.
The crowd says, âAt least it helps the glassmaker.â
What they do not see is what could have been done with that same money if the window had never been broken.
That is the unseen cost.
The hidden opportunity.
The part of the story that leaders never measure.
In leadership, it works the same way. We celebrate new initiatives, restructures, and culture campaigns, yet rarely calculate what is quietly lost in the process. Heart. Trust. Momentum.
Then there is the 80/20 principle. Eighty percent of your results come from twenty percent of your effort, but what if the real twenty percent is not visible at all? What if it lives in the questions you never thought to ask?
That is the space I work in.
Not fixing what is broken.
But revealing what is hidden.
Not chasing new strategies.
Uncovering the leverage that quietly changes everything.
My career started in troubleshooting systems. Today, I troubleshoot people and culture. I help leaders find the hidden question that unlocks their real problem.
Because the best leaders do not just measure progress.
They discern it.
Curious whatâs hidden in your leadership strategy right now? Letâs talk.
