The most dangerous company has no problems

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July 21, 2026 | 12:00am

For the past few months, I’ve rediscovered the simple pleasure of reading old folk tales to understand how their timeless lessons mirror principles I’ve practiced throughout four decades in management. Folk tales are easy to digest, better than attending most seminars, and often contain more wisdom than a shelf full of business books.

One of my favorites is Aesop’s timeless fable, ‘The Frogs Who Desired a King.’ It’s about a colony of frogs growing tired of their easy, self-governed lifestyle.

Apparently, even frogs can become bored with democracy like a senator’s fancy for communism. They convinced themselves that life would be far more exciting if they had a king, someone who could dictate order, prestige, and perhaps the occasional ribbon-cutting ceremony to their marshland.

They asked Zeus to send them a leader who would actually dictate to them. Amused by the frogs’ foolishness, he tossed them a large log into the middle of the pond.

The sudden, violent splash sends the terrified frogs scurrying into the reeds. With quiet reverence, the frogs watch the log stranded in some rocks. They remained silent until they noticed something unusual.

The log does nothing. It doesn’t move. It doesn’t care. Realizing their “king” is entirely useless, their reverence turns to utter contempt. They begin jumping all over it, treating it as nothing more than a stepping stone. Being unhappy with their lazy “king,” they petition Zeus again demanding a leader who interacts with them.

Losing his patience, Zeus sends them a giant, terrifying water snake, which promptly begins eating them all, proving that you should always be careful about what you wish for.

Invisible wastes

We’ve all heard the saying that “silence is golden.” This is often misinterpreted by some managers who view empty suggestion boxes and tame questions during townhall meetings as the ultimate badges of honor.

They claim it’s one proof of a friction-free environment.

They didn’t realize there’s a razor-thin line between running an engine and a dead battery. If no one is complaining, it doesn’t mean everything is perfect.

More frequently, it signifies that individuals have lapsed into apathy, or have discerned that vocalizing their grievances yields absolute futility.

Beyond Aesop’s fable, there’s another durable lesson that managers should be able to understand. I’m referring to Japanese industrial engineer Taiichi Ohno (1912-1990) who said: “Having no problem is the biggest problem of all.”

That simple observation became one of the brilliant cornerstones of Kaizen (for the Japanese) and Lean (for Western managers). Ohno viewed almost everything with extreme suspicion. For him, an organization with no problems suggests two things:

1. There are hidden or ignored issues. Workers cover them up to avoid being blamed or punished. It happens when they are not required to do proactive problem-solving. Worse, if they are not empowered to think.

2. The performance standards are low. Managers are satisfied with their comfort zone. They don’t do anything about wastes like excess inventory, surplus workers, even the basic implementation of 5S good housekeeping.

Ohno believed there are hundreds of invisible wastes, mostly small things in every organization that managers and their workers cannot see or choose to ignore. That means only one thing -- their perception is clouded.

To my activist mind, that’s blind complacency which is more dangerous than any operational error.

Problem as opportunity

Is your operation running perfectly and entirely free of conflict? Congratulations...you are actively failing. That might sound overly dramatic, but Elon Musk, the world’s first individual to cross the $1 trillion net worth threshold, despises a “perfect day.”

For Musk, a smooth, flawless operation is just a beautifully packaged disaster. If you were to tell him that everything is going great, he would probably start planning your replacement.

If Aesop had met Ohno and Musk, they probably would have agreed that a workplace claiming to have no problems resembles a stagnant marshland -- quiet on the surface but slowly dying underneath.

My takeaway? Continuous improvement cannot survive in a culture of comfort. It thrives only when people feel safe enough to expose problems instead of hiding them. Organizations that celebrate the discovery of problems -- not their concealment -- are the ones that continue to learn, improve, and stay competitive.

Rey Elbo is a quality and productivity activist. Send your comment, question, or story to [email protected] or via Facebook, LinkedIn, X or https://reyelbo.com