Would You Ignore a Bug in Your Code? 🧑‍💻

In a fast-growing startup, no one ignore system problems.

If there’s a bug in your code?

You fix it. Immediately.

If your supply chain has a bottleneck?

You address it.

If your revenue model isn’t scaling?

You adjust, optimize, and iterate.

But when there’s a people problem—a misalignment, a communication breakdown, a festering tension—what happens?

We ignore it.

WHY?!?

We tell ourselves it’s “just part of moving fast.”

We assume people will “figure it out.”

We deprioritize it because there are more tangible things screaming at us for attention. Because it doesn’t feel urgent—until it is.

And by the time it’s urgent? It’s a crisis.

🙊Culture has bugs, too

Startups operate like living systems. And just like your product, your culture has bugs.

They show up as:

→ Breakdowns in trust—teams working in silos, leaders micromanaging instead of empowering, engagement plummeting.

→ Bottlenecks in communication—a lack of clarity or ineffective systems that slow down decision-making, block progress and create friction.

→ Silent dysfunction—unspoken tension that people work around instead of addressing head-on, leading to “quiet quitting” and other less than ideal scenarios.

These are red flags. Culture bugs. And just like a glitch in your software, if you don’t fix them, they compound. They build on themselves. And they can take you down.

Because people issues aren’t separate from business issues.

They are business issues.

🙈The cost of ignoring people problems

Would you ship a product with a known critical bug? No.

Would you let a major security flaw sit in your code for months because “we’re too busy scaling”? No.

Yet, startups do this with people problems ALL THE TIME. I hear that voice in your head… This might apply to you, right?

What does it look like? Just a sampling of scenarios:

→ A high performer burns out because leadership never addressed their unsustainable workload.

→ A brilliant new hire leaves because the culture wasn’t what they expected.

→ Teams slow down, not because of external pressure, but because internal friction is exhausting them.

And here’s the truth:

Every ignored people problem eventually becomes a business problem.

🙉Fix the culture bugs before they break the system

Startups don’t just fail because they didn’t have a good enough product.

They also fail because they didn’t build the internal structures that allow them to sustain growth.

They didn’t give people a framework that provided structure for their culture, so that it could grow WITH the company.

Great leadership isn’t just about driving results. It’s about building a system where people can succeed.

And spoiler alert, it has nothing to do with your technology—I almost wish it did. You’d pay more attention to it.

🐵How to upgrade the system and fix the bugs

The hard thing about people problems or “culture bugs” is that they’re hard to fix. It requires a skill set that you never acquired in school, business school or most leadership programs. And honestly, if you’re a leader that got to where you are because you’re masterful at your craft, well this isn’t your craft. That’s the point.

That’s why BRAVE® exists. I often describe BRAVE® doing for your culture what an upgrade to your operating system does for your iPhone. It helps things run more smoothly. The hope is that it gives you the opportunity to fix the bugs before you scale. Because the problem to avoid is amplifying the bugs with more stress and faster pace (the byproducts of hyper growth). But it’s up to you, leader, to see something and say something.

Where in your company have you been ignoring a people bug?

Where has tension, misalignment, or friction been treated as “not urgent” instead of a real issue?

Hit reply and tell me: What’s one culture bug you’re ready to fix?

I can’t wait to hear from you!

Bravely,

Elisabeth