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Accountability & Transformation

I Fought the Door and the Door Won

A young man conducts an unsolicited leadership assessment—and senior management does not fare particularly well.

Royce White (as told by Abraham Lincoln) August 8, 2026 3-minute read

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Years ago, when my son was four, he and I got up early one morning to go to a sale that started at 8:00. We arrived a little before they opened, and I was carrying him as we walked up to the front door of the store.

So we stood there and waited.

Eight o’clock came, and finally someone came over and unlocked the door.

I had a four-year-old in my arms, I was ready to get inside, and I pushed on the door.

Nothing.

Well, apparently they hadn’t unlocked it completely.

So I pushed again.

Still nothing.

Now I’m getting a little peeved. We had stood there waiting for them to open, somebody had just come over and unlocked the door, and now the thing still wouldn’t open.

So I did what any intelligent adult male would do when pushing on something doesn’t work.

I pushed harder.

Nothing.

And then I noticed the big letters on the glass directly in front of me:

TUO

There was a brief but important cognitive event.

My brain translated the available data.

TUO.

TUO.

TUO…

Oh.

I sheepishly pulled on the door.

It opened effortlessly.

My four-year-old son, still in my arms and having apparently observed the entire problem-solving process, turned his head, looked me straight in the face, and said:

“Real stupid, Daddy. Real stupid.”

And from that day forward, the word stupid was banned from our household vocabulary.

Purely for the proper development of the children, you understand.

Now, that’s how I normally tell the story.

But after you’ve spent enough years hopelessly entrenched in leadership development, apparently you lose the ability to experience even minor personal humiliation without eventually turning it into an organizational case study.

So, viewed through the cold, clinical lens of leadership consulting, here’s what actually happened…

At approximately 0800 hours, senior leadership encountered an unexpected operational barrier. Management initially determined that increased effort was the appropriate strategic response.

Additional resources were applied.

Results did not improve.

Management responded by increasing the application of the previously unsuccessful strategy. Following an unexpected breakthrough in situational awareness, senior leadership discovered that operational instructions had been clearly displayed throughout the incident, although management had been viewing them incorrectly.

Upon correctly interpreting the available data, leadership reversed strategy and immediately achieved the desired outcome.

A junior member of the organization—possessing no positional authority, approximately four years of total life experience, and no formal leadership training—then conducted an unsolicited 360-degree performance review:

Senior leadership demonstrated a significant deficiency in situational awareness, failed to properly interpret clearly available operational data, and responded to repeated evidence of an ineffective strategy by increasing commitment to that strategy.

Management subsequently implemented a company-wide vocabulary policy.

The consultant was four. He was subsequently hired as the new CEO.

“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to counsel.”
— Proverbs 12:15 BSB

Scripture referenced: Proverbs 21:2; Proverbs 12:15

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