When the Car Starts Groaning: What Your Team Is Trying to Tell You
When the Car Starts Groaning:
What Your Team Is Trying to Tell You
1. The Car That Wouldn’t Stop Complaining
My car started making moaning, groaning noises.
At first, I did what many of us do.
I hoped it would go away.
I turned up the radio.
I adjusted the seat.
I told myself, “I’m sure it’s nothing urgent.”
But the noises stayed. In fact, they got louder.
When I finally took the car in, the mechanic said,
“Your suspension parts are worn out. They’re still carrying the car, but they’re tired. If you keep driving like this, the ride will get rougher — and you might damage other parts too.”
The suspension system is not flashy.
You don’t see it.
You don’t brag about it.
But it silently carries the weight, absorbs the bumps, and keeps the ride smooth.
I couldn’t help seeing the leadership lesson in that.
This is exactly what happens in teams.
Your team’s “suspension system” is made of processes, tools, norms, and unspoken agreements. When those wear out, your people start to groan.
As a new or aspiring manager, your job isn’t just to “drive.”
Your job is to notice the noises early and take responsibility for the suspension.
2. How Teams “Make Noises” Long Before They Break
In cars, noises come before breakdowns.
In teams, it’s the same.
The “groaning sounds” in a team rarely come as a clear message like,
“Excuse me, our work intake process is poorly designed and creating invisible rework.”
Instead, they show up as:
Side comments: “I guess we’ll be working late again…”
Dark humor: “We’ll probably fix it in production like always.”
Change in energy: Cameras off, fewer ideas, shorter answers.
Slower responses: Emails and messages take longer to get a reply.
Quiet exits: The best people quietly start looking for other jobs.
Studies continue to show that a large portion of employees are disengaged or “quietly checking out” at work, often due to unclear expectations, poor communication, and frustrating processes, not a lack of talent.
But as managers, we often:
Push harder on performance
Add more status meetings
Introduce a new tool
“Motivate” more, without changing the work system
That’s like putting on noise-cancelling headphones in the car while the suspension is falling apart.
3. The Suspension System of Your Team
Let’s extend the metaphor.
In a car, the suspension system includes springs, shocks, struts, bushings, and linkages.
They:
Carry the weight
Absorb bumps
Keep the wheels in contact with the road
In a team, your suspension includes:
How work enters the system
Is there a clear intake process?
Or does work arrive from every direction: chat, email, meetings, “quick favors”?
How work is prioritized
Is everyone clear on what comes first?
Or does every request feel urgent?
How handoffs happen
Are responsibilities and owners clear?
Or do tasks fall between roles?
How problems are handled
Do you have a simple incident or issue process?
Or do you rely on heroics and last-minute firefighting?
How you talk about load
Can people say “I’m at capacity” safely?
Or do they keep saying yes and quietly resent the system?
None of these are glamorous.
They rarely show up in job descriptions.
Yet they determine whether your team feels supported or constantly shaken.
4. Why Good Systems Still Wear Out
Here’s the important part:
Your suspension system can be well-designed and still wear out.
In cars, normal use over time changes the condition of parts.
In teams, normal growth changes your environment:
You add more team members
You serve more customers
You adopt new tools
You add more product lines
You work across more time zones
A daily stand-up that worked beautifully for 4 people may be painful at 14.
A shared inbox that was fine for 20 tickets a week may crumble at 200.
That doesn’t mean you did it wrong.
It means your system has reached the next stage in its life.
As a manager, your job is not to create one perfect process that lasts forever.
Your job is to notice when the ride gets rough and be willing to adjust, rebuild, or replace parts of the system.
5. Listen to the Noises: A Simple 3-Step Framework
Let’s turn this into a practical framework you can use.
The “Suspension Check” Framework
For new and aspiring managers
Whenever you notice groaning — missed deadlines, tension, subtle complaints — walk through these three steps:
Step 1: Listen on Purpose
Don’t wait for a formal survey.
Create small, safe moments to hear what’s really going on.
You can ask:
“What’s feeling heavy or frustrating about our work right now?”
“If you could change just one part of how we work, what would it be?”
“Where do you feel we waste time the most?”
Tips:
Ask in 1:1s, not only in group meetings.
Ask for specific examples, not general feelings.
Listen without defending the current system.
Your goal in this step is not to fix.
Your goal is to notice patterns.
Step 2: Find the Worn-Out Part
Once you’ve heard the “noises,” look for the real source.
Ask yourself:
Is this a capacity problem? (Too much work for current people.)
Is it a clarity problem? (Roles, priorities, or expectations unclear.)
Is it a coordination problem? (Too many handoffs, unclear ownership.)
Is it a tool/process problem? (The way we track or request work is clumsy.)
Try mapping a recent piece of work from request to completion:
Who asked for it?
How was it captured?
Who touched it?
Where did it wait?
Where did it go off track?
You will often discover that people are frustrated not because they are unwilling, but because the system makes it hard to do good work.
Step 3: Replace, Don’t Blame
When a car’s suspension is worn out, a mechanic doesn’t say,
“Your car is lazy.”
They replace parts.
In teams, we often accidentally blame people:
“They’re not committed.”
“They’re not detail-oriented.”
“They’re just resistant to change.”
Instead, focus on the system:
Can we simplify approvals?
Can we reduce the number of “urgent” channels?
Can we make handoffs clearer with checklists or templates?
Can we stop starting new work until we finish what’s in progress?
Involve your team in designing the replacement:
Ask: “Here’s what I’m hearing. Does that match your experience?”
Ask: “What small experiment could we try for two weeks to make this easier?”
You don’t need a massive transformation.
You need small, targeted replacements where the system is clearly worn out.
6. A Mini Case Study: From Complaints to Clarity
Imagine this scenario.
You lead a small software team.
Lately, you hear more “noises”:
People joke about working late
Incidents keep popping up near release dates
QA and Dev are quietly frustrated with each other
Instead of pushing for more “ownership,” you apply the Suspension Check.
Step 1 – Listen on purpose
In 1:1s, you ask, “What feels heavy or frustrating in how we work?”
You discover:
QA often gets features very late, with incomplete notes.
Developers get last-minute changes from stakeholders.
No one is sure who can say “no” to late requests.
Step 2 – Find the worn-out part
You map the flow of a feature from idea to release.
You see:
No clear cut-off for changes
No simple checklist for “ready for QA”
No guardrails for stakeholder requests
The worn-out parts are not the people.
They are the intake process and handoff criteria.
Step 3 – Replace, don’t blame
Together with the team, you:
Add a simple “ready for QA” checklist
Set a clear “change freeze” point before release
Clarify who can approve exceptions
You agree to try this for two sprints and review.
After a few weeks, the “noises” reduce.
There are fewer surprises, less tension, and more calm.
You didn’t demand more effort.
You replaced worn-out parts of the system.
7. For New Managers: Common Traps to Avoid
If you’re a newer manager, it’s easy to fall into these traps when you hear team “noises”:
Taking it personally
“If they’re unhappy, I’m failing.”
Result: You avoid feedback or over-explain decisions.
Over-focusing on attitudes
“They’re just negative.”
Result: You miss the process or workload issues underneath.
Fixing alone
You go into a room and design a perfect new process.
Result: Low buy-in and “here we go again” fatigue.
Trying to fix everything at once
You create a big transformation plan.
Result: Overwhelm — and the old system survives.
Instead, try this:
See complaints as data, not disrespect.
Look for system causes before people causes.
Co-design solutions with the people who use them.
Start with one small change, then iterate.
8. Everyday Leadership Reflection: Your Own “Car Noise”
Let’s make this personal.
Think of a recent “noise” from your team:
A complaint you heard more than once
A pattern of delays
A conflict between two roles
A sarcastic remark about “how things always go”
Now walk through these questions:
What is the noise?
Put it into one sentence, in their words if possible.What might be the worn-out part?
Is it intake, prioritization, handoffs, tools, or norms?What is one small system change we could try for 2 weeks?
Something low-risk and testable.Who can I involve in shaping that change?
Who feels the pain and has ideas?When will we check if it worked?
Set a date to reflect and adjust.
You don’t need the perfect solution.
You need the next experiment.
9. Bringing It Back to the Car
My car still needed new suspension parts.
No amount of wishful thinking or loud music was going to change that.
But the earlier I listened to the noises,
the easier and cheaper it was to fix the problem —
and the safer and smoother the drive became.
Your team is the same.
The groans, jokes, delays, and disengagement are signals.
They are not attacks on your leadership.
They are invitations to examine the suspension.
As a manager, you are not just a driver.
You are also the mechanic of the work system.
When your car starts groaning, you check the suspension.
When your team starts groaning, check the systems that are supposed to carry their load.
10. One Question to Leave With Your Team
In your next 1:1 or team meeting, you might ask:
“If our team were a car, where do you feel the bumps the most — intake, priorities, handoffs, tools, or communication?”
Then listen.
That’s where your leadership work begins.
A Seasonal Note
🍂 I’ll be taking a break from publishing in December to rest, reflect, and come back with fresh stories in the new year. Thank you for reading, sharing, and practicing Everyday Leadership with me. I’m grateful you’re here. Wishing you and your loved ones a very Happy Thanksgiving and a gentle, joyful holiday season. 💛
