𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗠𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗜𝗻 𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀: 𝗢𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 In the Middle Ages, doctors believed “bad blood” caused disease. So they drained it out—one leech at a time. The more patients died, the more convinced they became that their technique just needed refining. Better tools. More training. Quality assurance for bleeding procedures. (Why not throw in a team retreat to build unity in the bloodletting unit?) It would’ve looked like progress. Charts would show improvement. Everyone would feel great about the direction. Except for the dead patients. This is what happens when you get locked into a bad assumption. You don’t fix the system—you double down on the wrong one. Now fast forward. Corporate America did the same thing with stack ranking. You rate employees on a bell curve. Top 20% get bonuses. Bottom 10% get the axe. Every year. No exceptions. Consultants called it performance optimization. Leaders called it accountability. HR called it culture shaping. What it really did: Killed teamwork Encouraged sabotage Pushed A-players out Created fear-based obedience, not excellence It was bloodletting with better slides. You can’t fix a business by optimizing the wrong belief. That just accelerates the damage, professionally and financially. Before you improve the next system, ask better questions. It’s the ones you never ask that cost you the most—in money, time, and pain. Breakthroughs don’t come from polishing the process. They come from killing sacred cows. Even the ones we built our careers on. Especially those.