The Real Reason Your Best People Are Leaving

I recently wrote about a dangerous phrase "we've always done it that way," used when nobody has the will to change. Eric Shoars shared another dangerous phrase "We can't do that, it'll set a precedent." 

Here's what "we can't do that, it'll set a precedent" actually means when a leader says it. It's not about the one decision in front of them. It's the fear of what happens after. If we make this exception once, we'll have to make it again. For everyone. Every time. So instead of weighing the decision on its own merits, leadership protects consistency instead.

The cost of that fear isn't abstract. It shows up in your turnover numbers. The people who leave first when nothing changes are the ones with the most options, your best performers. They don't quit because too much changed. They quit because nothing would.

You can see both sides of this in two well known brand stories.

In 2009, Domino's was ranked last for taste among major pizza chains. Admitting your product is bad breaks every rule in corporate marketing. If you say it once, what happens the next time something's wrong? CEO at the time, Patrick Doyle, made the exception anyway, putting real customer complaints on camera and rebuilding the recipe in public. Domino's stock, which traded at $8.76 a share in 2010, had climbed to $391 a share by 2023.

Blockbuster shows the other side. Late fees generated roughly $800 million a year, close to 16% of Blockbuster's total revenue at the time. Changing that model meant giving up guaranteed income, so leadership protected it instead of making the exception Netflix had already made. Netflix was willing to risk cannibalizing its own DVD business to build streaming. Blockbuster wasn't willing to risk its stores or its late fees. That refusal to break its own rule was one of the clearest signs of a company unwilling to change, and it's a big reason Blockbuster isn't around today.

Same fear. Opposite outcomes.

Every "we can't do that, it'll set a precedent" is really a company choosing consistency over its own future. The question worth asking isn't whether the exception is risky. It's what you're protecting by refusing to make it, and whether that's worth more than what you'd gain by finally acting.