Before You Raise the Bar, Strengthen the Floor: The Real Reason Your Team is Underperforming
- Krista DiVittore, PsyD
- Jun 5, 2025
- 6 min read
"We keep adjusting our goals, but nothing seems to stick."
"It feels like I am pulling teeth to get my team to work together."
I have heard this from senior leaders during strategy sessions. The team was struggling despite incentives, performance dashboards, quarterly check-ins, and even a few “culture” workshops.
What many leaders seem to feel but hesitate to voice is:
“I feel like I’ve done everything I can to get people to step up and work together. I don’t know how to get them to rise to the bar.”
What leaders often miss is that they may not need to keep pushing the team toward the bar.
Maybe the leaders need to take a hard look at the floor.
The Ceiling vs. the Floor
In leadership, it’s easy to focus on the ceiling:
High performance
Innovation
Psychological ownership
Growth metrics
Top-tier customer service
Revenue goals
These are all worthy and necessary aspirations. But too often, leaders set these goals while overlooking the floor. When I introduce this idea to leaders, they often look at me like "what are you talking about, a floor."
Stick with me.
The floor is the structural, behavioral, and cultural minimums that people rely on in order to even have a shot at reaching that ceiling.
And when the floor is uneven, unclear or undefined, or crumbling, people don’t fail because they lack ambition or talent. They fail because they’re working in an environment where expectations are ambiguous, accountability is inconsistent, and support is lacking.
Signs Your Team Is Struggling: A Weak Floor
When the floor is weak, it doesn’t matter how high the bar is. People feel like they’re performing on a shaky stage. They are never sure when it might give out underneath them.
When I am doing these initial interviews with teams, I hear things like:
“I’m constantly guessing what’s expected of me.”
“Feedback only comes when I’ve messed up. And by then, it’s too late.”
“I’m working hard, but I’m not sure if I’m even doing the right things.”
“It’s exhausting to pretend I know what I’m doing all the time.”
The emotional tone in these environments is one of quiet dread. Everyone’s a little tense, watching their backs. Not because they’re lazy or underperforming, but because there’s no solid ground beneath them.
In weak-floor cultures:
Norms are assumed but never named.
Rules shift depending on who’s asking or what the "fire of the day" is
The “top performers” are idolized, but no one really knows how they got there.
Mistakes are punished with silence or shame, not curiosity or coaching.
Any attempts at accountability are downward focused, and not upward focused
Even well-intentioned employees stop raising concerns. They’ve learned that transparency doesn’t lead to help. It leads to scrutiny.
Over time, even the most capable team members start self-protecting:
They keep their heads down.
They play it safe.
They perform the job instead of engaging with it.
And eventually, they leave...or maybe worse, stay and disengage.
This isn’t about laziness; it’s about survival.
Because when the floor is wobbly, the smartest move isn’t to jump higher.
It’s to stay still and protect yourself.
You Can’t Change People to Meet the Bar.
You have to change the conditions they work within.
This is a principle borrowed from systems thinking, organizational psychology, and trauma-informed leadership: Behavior doesn’t exist in a vacuum. People adapt to the systems they’re in.
No matter how much you try, you cannot will employees into success. But you can reshape:
The norms (what’s acceptable or expected)
The rules (formal and informal systems of accountability)
The scaffolding (training, mentorship, peer support)
The clarity (what “good” looks like and how to get there)
Before asking people to aim higher, ask:
“Have we actually built the floor that makes aiming possible?”
And who builds the floor? The decision-makers. The leaders.
Get ready to do some meaningful work.
How Leaders Can Strengthen Team Culture: A 5-Step Organizational Framework to Raise the Floor
1. Name the Current Floor
Ask yourself, the leadership team, or team of decision-makers:
What’s actually expected of our people daily?
What norms are actually being lived?
What happens when someone struggles or underdelivers?
What do we assume people know here that we've never actually said out loud?"
Tip: Do a shadowing or empathy interview. Ask “What do you think success looks like here?”
2. Strengthen Structural Clarity
Audit:
Role definitions
Meeting cadences
Review cycles
Onboarding and exit patterns
Then clarify:
What’s required vs. optional
How do people ask for help
What feedback loops exist
Then disseminate and communicate to the team.
Tip: Document “what good looks like” in every role. Not just outcomes, but behaviors.
3. Set Cultural Norms on Purpose
Norms are often unspoken, but powerful. Do you know what they are?
Try co-designing 3–5 behavioral norms with your team that align with your company's values and mission. If needed, do this collaboration exercise anonymously at first, to encourage honesty. Leaders might find some gaps here that they didn't foresee and need to fill.
Examples:
“We assume positive intent—and clarify when unsure.”
“We don’t reward heroic burnout.”
“We close feedback loops quickly.”
Tip: Revisit norms quarterly. Embed them in onboarding and meetings.
4. Build Real Scaffolding
Make it hard to fail silently:
Peer mentoring
Role plays and shadowing
Decision trees
Playbooks and templates
Actually helpful 1:1s
Tip: Create “minimum viable scaffolding” for any new goal. Don’t wait until failure to build support.
5. Hold the Floor. Then Raise the Bar.
Don’t move the ceiling until the floor is holding steady. Build accountability systems that are:
Transparent
Consistent
Compassionate
Then, and only then, start stretching.
Tip: Accountability without clarity or support is punishment. Build both first.
What It Feels Like to Work on a Strong Floor
How do I know I can start stretching? Let's gauge the temperature of the floor. Let's make sure it is healthy.
In a strong-floor workplace, there’s a steady hum of clarity, safety, and trust beneath you. And it changes everything.
The team is not burning energy decoding vague expectations or covering up their mistakes to protect themselves. They’re able to use that energy to get better at their job.
In my interviews of employees in these settings, I hear things like:
“I know what is expected of me here.”
“I can go to my manager for feedback and support when I need help."
“If I make a mistake, I know exactly who to go to for support.”
“My manager supports my learning and interests.”
“I’m not competing for approval. I’m growing with purpose.”
The work is still challenging. The goals are still ambitious. But the foundation is steady.
That foundation shows up in small, powerful ways:
Team members walk into a 1:1 without dread, because they know it’s about growth and support, not just a performance review in disguise.
Team members make a mistake and own it, because you trust your manager will help you unpack it, not punish you for it.
Team members speak up in meetings, not only the extroverted ones, but the quieter ones because they know their voice and ideas will be heard.
Team members are not wasting time reading between the lines or protecting their image. They’re doing the work. And they’re doing it better than they ever could under stress.
They begin to internalize a quiet, game-changing belief:
“I can grow here.”
“I belong here.”
“I’m valued here.”
In strong-floor cultures, performance is no longer a test of natural talent or personality fit.
It’s a process that is transparent, supported, and intentional.
And the ripple effect is enormous:
People take more creative risks.
Teams become more cohesive and resilient.
Feedback loops become faster, less personal, and more productive.
Burnout decreases, while discretionary effort increases.
The bar doesn’t feel so high when the floor is strong.
And isn’t this what every leader wants?
A team that’s not afraid to aim high because they know the ground beneath them will hold.
Final Thoughts: The Courage to Look Down
Raising the floor isn’t glamorous. It won’t get a standing ovation. But it’s the most foundational, high-impact move you can make as a leader.
You might be surprised at how much space there is between your current floor and the bar you’ve set.
That space isn’t a performance gap. It’s a leadership opportunity.
Look down. Audit your systems. Listen to your people. Tighten your scaffolding. Clarify your norms.
Then, and only then, raise the bar.
And watch how high your team can actually go.
Next Steps:
Download my free self-audit tool:
Want help mapping your current floor? Book a consulting session!