The Monday I Didn’t Want to Go to Work

I pulled the covers back, rolled to my side and sat up. My first thought was, “I don’t want to go to work.”

Maybe not unusual for a Monday morning.

But the thing was, I owned the company.

A rock settled in my stomach as my next thought appeared, “If I feel like this, how does my team feel right now?”

As I moved through Monday, the rock in my stomach got heavier. I didn’t remember tasting my coffee, or even showering and getting dressed. But I arrived at the clinic, clean and clothed, with a warm cup in my hand. I could see my mood reflected in the faces of some of the best players.

I peeked into the back treatment room and found Addy sitting alone with her laptop. “Why aren’t you in the office with your team?” I asked. “I’m tired of Eeyore. I can’t take it anymore.”

Dreading my next Clinic Director meeting, our visit numbers glowed on the screen. Each row showed a single therapist’s visits from left to right. Most rows were green with the occasional yellow box. A couple of rows were red. For almost all the visible months.

“Hi, June. How are you doing this fine Monday?”

June was non-committal. “Alright,” she proffered. Her mood reflected my own and that rock in my stomach rolled over.

I decided right then to call it out.

“I’m not happy… I didn’t want to come to work today.”

June’s face told the story. It was evident she didn’t want to be here either.

“Addy is hiding from Eeyore. And your face when I said I didn’t feel like coming in today…”

“So, June, what do we do?”

The elephant in the room, the best players on the team, the ones who cared, who went the extra mile, who bent over backwards for their patients and each other, weren’t happy.

And the players who didn’t? They were cruising along, seemingly without a care in the world.

I got June, Addy, Henry, Aiden, and Aileen, our leadership team of 6 (including me), together that Wednesday after patients. The room was quiet, too sterile, and the tension was palpable.

“I let this happen,” I opened. “I’ve made it okay for our players to underperform.”

People jumped in, talking over each other and trying to share the blame, some even making excuses for the low performers. But I wasn’t having it.

“I’ve built a culture that I don’t enjoy, a place I don’t want to come to. And I know some of you have felt the same way on a Monday morning.”

The room was quiet again. All eyes were on me.

“It’s not just the visits,” I said. “It’s the attitude.”

“I can forgive players for not having a set of skills. We can teach to that. But when they don’t learn, they don’t change, and they don’t care… that’s not excusable. And I’ve been guilty of excusing them. For way too long.”

The eyes looking back at me were serious, the faces tense.

“And the worst part is that it’s only a few. 90% of the team is doing their best. I just feel like I’m letting them down by tolerating the other 10%.”

A few heads nodded. One looked away.

But the elephant had been called out. And we got to work on a plan.

Over the next year we got serious about attitude first, behaving according to our Core Values, and about focusing on performance. Not just demanding it but supporting our players in every way we could to empower them to succeed.

Those who wanted to succeed and applied themselves did great. 7 others weren’t there at the end of the year.

Replacing them took some time, but applying those priorities to hiring, attitude first, behaviors, and a desire to perform, transformed the team and the culture.

The sun came out and there were no more Eeyore’s.

And 5 of the leadership team rolled out of their beds each Monday morning looking forward to their day, their work, and their teams.