Your "Just Power Through It" Strategy is Destroying Your Team
Your "Just Power Through It" Strategy is Destroying Your Team
And Why Resilience Without Intentionality is Just Expensive Burnout
Let's talk about the lie we're all telling ourselves: "We're a resilient organization."
Cool story. But when's the last time you actually built resilience versus just demanding it from people already running on fumes?
I sat down with Rick Cram—resilience coach, communications expert, and a guy who's had SEVEN knee surgeries and somehow turned chronic pain into a methodology—and he dropped some truth bombs that'll make your "mental health benefits" brochure look like the corporate theater it probably is.
The Formula That Nobody Wants to Hear
Rick's guiding principle will make every "hustle harder" bro uncomfortable:
"The level of pain must be matched by the level of intentionality."
Read that again. Slower this time.
You can't just throw resilience workshops at people experiencing unprecedented challenges and call it leadership. You can't demand your team "be more resilient" while simultaneously creating the exact conditions that drain their resilience faster than they can rebuild it.
That's not strategy. That's hoping your people are made of stronger stuff than you are.
And spoiler alert: They're not. None of us are. That's why we need actual frameworks instead of motivational posters.
When the Federal Home Loan Banks Needed More Than "Tough It Out"
Rick shared a story that probably mirrors what's happening in your organization right now:
Federal Home Loan Banks came to him basically saying, "Rick, our managers are experiencing market conditions they've never seen before. We need them to lead themselves and their teams through problems they've never faced. Help."
Notice what they DIDN'T say: "Give us a pep talk about grit."
They knew what many leaders are still pretending isn't true: You can't navigate new challenges with old resilience.
Whatever got you here won't get you there. Your team's current level of resilience—built on past experiences—might be completely inadequate for the shit show you're about to face. Or are currently facing. Or have been drowning in for the past 18 months while pretending everything's fine.
This is where sustainable business expansion strategies actually begin, by the way. Not with growth hacking or sales playbooks. With making sure your people can actually withstand the expansion without breaking.
The Shift Nobody's Talking About: Process-Oriented Goals
Here's where Rick's framework gets interesting and uncomfortable:
Stop relying on traditional goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics. Start building process-oriented goals instead.
Wait, what? Aren't goals supposed to be SMART and outcome-focused and all that MBA bullshit we've been force-fed?
Rick's point is this: When you're navigating unprecedented challenges—market volatility, organizational transformation, whatever fresh hell 2026 is serving up—outcome-based goals fall apart. Because you don't know what outcomes are even possible yet.
But processes? Processes you can control. Processes you can refine. Processes you can adapt in real-time without needing a strategic planning retreat to pivot.
The Federal Home Loan Banks used Rick's method to develop their own approach—adapted to their specific leadership dynamics, team cultures, and market realities. Then they thrived through conditions they'd never seen before.
Not survived. Thrived.
That's what happens when you match the level of pain with the level of intentionality instead of just white-knuckling it and hoping for the best.
This is the foundation of building business relationships in the digital age—starting with the relationship between leaders and their teams' actual capacity to handle what you're asking of them.
The Eight Paths of Intentionality (And Why "Listen" Might Save Your Arse)
Rick breaks down intentionality into eight paths, but let's focus on the one most leaders are absolutely failing at: Listen.
Not just listening to words. Listening to what's NOT being said. What's NOT being heard. The undercurrents. The body language. The thousand tiny signals that someone's drowning while nodding along in your all-hands meeting.
Here's Rick's description that made me sit up: "Listen so much that we are even paying attention to what's not being said, what's not being heard."
Translation? Your VP of Sales saying "we're good" while their eye starts twitching? That's data. Your engineer who suddenly stops pushing back on unrealistic timelines? That's a red flag. Your normally vocal team member who's gone quiet in standups? That's your canary in the coal mine, and it's already dead.
Death by a thousand cuts, as Karl mentioned in the conversation. Little miscommunications compounding. Friction building. Messages getting muddled. All while everyone's personal stress levels are through the roof.
That's not resilience. That's a slow-motion organizational implosion.
Authentic client connections start with authentic internal connections. If you can't hear what your team isn't saying, how the hell are you going to hear what your clients aren't telling you?
The "Prepare" Path: When Your Team Says "I Don't Know Who I Am Anymore"
The first of Rick's Eight Paths is "Prepare," and it's about getting re-anchored in who you are—individually, as a team, as an organization.
Because here's what happens during major challenges: Identity crisis.
Rick has people coming to him literally saying, "I don't know who I am anymore, and I don't know what to do about it."
Sometimes it's after job changes. Sometimes it's after profound loss. Sometimes it's after your company's third restructure in 18 months and you're no longer sure if you're a leader, a scapegoat, or just a warm body filling a seat until the next round of layoffs.
Sound familiar?
Humanizing business relationships starts with remembering that humans need identity anchors during chaos. They need to know who they are and what they value before they can move forward effectively.
You can't build high-retention client relationships externally if your people are having existential crises internally. It doesn't work. Your team's internal chaos bleeds into every client interaction, every strategic decision, every "culture initiative" you try to launch.
The Tennis Story That's Actually About Your Leadership Team
Rick told me about his sixth knee surgery—total knee replacement at age 40. The hospital had him attend a pre-op workshop with about 20 other people (he was by far the youngest, everyone else was 60+).
At the end, the physical therapist asked, "How many of you play tennis?"
Several hands went up.
"How many plan to play tennis after your knee replacement?"
A few brave souls raised their hands.
The physical therapist's response: "Well, for those of you who are stupid enough to go back to playing tennis, you can only play doubles. And you need to add two phrases to your vocabulary: 'Nice serve' and 'That's yours.'"
The moral of the story: When things are changing, don't go it alone.
Team up. Get new teammates you've never had before. Add new phrases and new thinking to your game. Because the solo hustle mentality that got you here will absolutely break you in what's coming next.
This is relationship-driven revenue growth in its purest form. Not transactional partnerships. Not "we'll circle back on synergies." Actual, intentional teaming where everyone knows their role, supports each other's strengths, and covers each other's gaps.
It's Never Too Late to Become Able
Rick's first step for anyone wanting to apply this immediately: Transform your mindset from "I'm not prepared for this" to "It's never too late to become able."
Notice the language there. Not "I need to be prepared." Not "I should have seen this coming."
It's never too late to become able.
That's permission to start right now, from wherever you are, with whatever resilience you currently have. And then intentionally build from there.
No guilt about past failures to prepare. No shame about not having all the answers. Just honest assessment of current capacity plus intentional strategy to strengthen it.
This is what company culture transformation strategies actually look like when they're not just HR word salad. It's leaders admitting they don't have all the answers, then building systems to develop those answers together.
The Bottom Line for Leaders Who Give a Damn
Your team's resilience isn't infinite. It's not a personality trait. It's not something you can demand through Slack messages about "rising to the challenge."
Resilience is a muscle that needs intentional strengthening. And right now, most of you are asking people to deadlift 400 pounds when they've been skipping leg day for three years.
Rick's "Plan to Be Your Best" method gives you three concrete steps:
Tune in - Actually assess where you and your team are
Plan - Build process-oriented goals that adapt to uncertainty
Be your best - Execute with intentionality that matches the pain level
And eight paths to walk those steps, starting with listening to what's being said and what's conspicuously NOT being said.
Want the full framework and more stories about navigating pain with intentionality? Watch the complete episode here where Rick breaks down how to turn challenges into direction instead of just white-knuckling through them and hoping everyone's okay.
Because they're not. And pretending they are is how you lose your best people to competitors who actually understand that trusted advisor relationships start with being trustworthy enough to admit when shit's hard.
P.S. If you're sitting there thinking "but we already have employee assistance programs and mental health days," ask yourself this: When's the last time you actually checked if your team's resilience is being strengthened or just depleted at a slightly slower rate?
Because there's a difference between offering resources and creating the conditions for people to actually use them without career consequences. There's a difference between saying "we value resilience" and actively building systems that develop it.
And if your main resilience strategy is "hire tougher people next time," congratulations—you're the problem. The market conditions aren't getting easier. The challenges aren't getting simpler. And your "just power through it" approach is a ticking time bomb wrapped in toxic positivity.
Maybe it's time to try intentionality instead. Just a thought. 🎾
Karl Pontau hosts The Human Connection Podcast, where we talk about the stuff that actually matters in business: the humans running it. Because whether you're B2B or B2C, it's really H2H—human to human. Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode where we probably say something that'll make your HR department uncomfortable.
