When success sabotages you: how high-performing teams fall into the cruising speed trap

It's 10:03 PM. The deployment just broke something no one understands, and Slack is buzzing like a beehive. KPIs are plummeting, the client is asking questions, and you… you hit Enter with the precision of a surgeon. Two lines of code, a rollback, and silence. The system comes back to life. Heroes for a day. No time to think: tomorrow there will be another fire.

What's going on?

We all celebrate speed. High KPIs, fast deliveries, bugs fixed before anyone even notices them... Modern success feels like this: like getting on a rocket that only knows how to aim for "more, more, more"... and that every day steps on the accelerator a little harder.

But there's an uncomfortable truth hidden in that "cruise-mode" adrenaline rush. The better we are at putting out fires… the better we become at generating fuel for the next blaze.

The most curious thing about this is that it's not unusual; it's quite common, even among the most brilliant teams. That's why almost obsessive discipline and honest self-evaluation are necessary to avoid turning today's heroism into tomorrow's exhaustion.

Science has a name for this. Well, two.

First, the normalization of deviance: that feeling that small errors and problems are part of the daily routine and the nature of the project. Survival mode becomes normalized, and temporary fixes become the "official process" because yesterday that solution didn't explode.

And then there's the illusion of control: that bias that we have everything under control… when in reality we're just putting more tape on a hull that has many small leaks. Because we see that we can solve everything masterfully, we think we can solve any new problem that comes along, until one comes along and blows up in our faces.

Sometimes teams are fast because they are good and committed to their tasks, even though they may be affected by these two phenomena.

And that imbalance, that "moving forward with cracks" wears us down, exhausts us, and binds us to daily heroism.

This article is about that.

Heroism should be reserved for exceptional situations, not as part of the workflow.

Science explains why what seems like success can silently be the beginning of the fatigue that will hold us back tomorrow. Because unchecked speed isn't progress: it's a countdown.

The normalization of deviance: when the patch becomes the system

Every complex project begins with perfect processes and solid principles. But time runs out, deadlines loom, and the first makeshift solution appears: "It's okay, it's just this once."

That phrase is the first silent thief of excellence.

Sociologist Diane Vaughan studied it at NASA after the Challenger shuttle disaster and as a result discovered this phenomenon about how organizations normalize risk and error:

"If something bad doesn't explode today, we'll accept it as good tomorrow."

And that's how absurd traditions are born within brilliant teams:

• Workarounds that are inherited like sacred relics
• Code/documentation/processes that are only understood by the person who has already left the project or worse, that only exist in their head.
• Documentation that exists only in a lost chat room
• Non-standardized decisions that are improvised each time they need to be addressed.
• Unorthodox solutions that are marketed as safe because "it's always worked that way"

To conserve energy, the brain resorts to cognitive shortcuts: The exception ceases to be an "emergency" and becomes a "framework." This is because it's far less draining to accept something as correct than to reason about it, seek a more reliable alternative solution, and document the process.

The result: The system ceases to be safe thanks to its design, and becomes safe thanks to luck or recurring heroism.

And luck and heroism are very unreliable companions.

The illusion of control: when we believe we have mastered chaos

Then comes the most treacherous bias: the " illusion of control bias," described by Ellen Langer, a Harvard psychologist recognized for her pioneering research on mindfulness, the illusion of control, and how perception can alter the reality of our health and behavior.

The illusion of control speaks of that moment when we feel we are piloting the ship… when we are only plugging holes as they fall from the sky.

Because the project works, right? Things are delivered on time, important changes are made, there are green indicators, and the ship is still afloat.

But if you look closely, it's not the system that sustains it, it's the people. People making invisible micro-repairs every day:

• Working overtime for an unplanned task that comes in as urgent
• Having to fix mistakes quickly on the fly so that they have the least possible impact
• Improve the documentation whenever a mistake reveals that it is incomplete.
• Let the other teams dictate your pace while they dictate their own.
• Improvised adjustments to allow timely publication of changes

These situations will probably sound familiar to you.

That's not control. That's compensation.

Their success is due to the team's talent… and the price the team is unknowingly paying:

• More extra memory
• More extra coordination
• More extra effort
• More extra creativity
• More luck

Daily heroism is addictive; it makes you feel useful, brave, indispensable, but it doesn't scale, it doesn't rest, it doesn't last.

Heroism is a rush, a euphoria. But the system is what remains when the rush passes.

The paradox of success

Here comes the plot twist that's hard to swallow:

"The better a team is... the harder it is to detect its problems."

Because there will always be someone capable of saving the day. Until one day they're gone. Until the dollar it cost to ignore a crack becomes a million.

The ship isn't sinking, but water is coming in. A little. Enough.

The current pace is not sustainable if each advance requires extra work, extra memory, extra coordination, extra imagination, or extra luck.

And exhaustion eventually arrives on time, like the electricity bill.

How to tell if you're falling into the trap

Checklist of elegant but painful red flags:

• Nobody remembers why something is done… only that “it has always worked”
• It depends on specific people for the magic to happen
• Documenting is a luxury, not a habit.
• The phrase "we'll do it right later" or "I'll skip the process to meet the deadlines" appears far too often
• Discussions about quality are uncomfortable and get postponed.
• There are constant doubts about whether they are doing things right, even though the overall balance is actually positive.

If you felt represented in one or more of them… a good sign.
It means you care and that you can fix yourself; you still have time.

How to go from heroes to architects

This is the plot twist where we leave the drama behind… but maintain the elegance:

• Realistic, not encyclopedic, documentation: lively, useful, brief, concise, and understandable for everyone.
• Roles with real ownership, not just collective good intentions, require that each person on the team fights for their part.
• Unique responsibilities for each person on the team; each person must have a key task for which they actively take responsibility.
• Processes that scale without depending on anyone's memory
• Validation and QA as a culture, not as penance
• Pairs that drive growth and avoid isolated knowledge
• Individual plans that align ambition and system health

The key is not to work more... but to work less to achieve more and not depend on specific people.

The best team is one in which there are no heroes and roles can be interchanged.

That's called intelligent effort design.

Speed that doesn't break from within

The team that goes far isn't the one that runs the fastest. It's the one that takes care of the engine while accelerating.

Lasting success is not based on heroes, but on systems that allow us to rest without fear.

Because if we've learned to go fast, the next lesson is learning to go far. Without cracks. Without tape. With the pride of knowing that the ship doesn't move forward by magic.
but by science.

Actionable in 30 seconds

Ask yourself these 3 questions once a month:

1️⃣ What would break if our star people were missing tomorrow?
2️⃣ What processes exist only in our memory but not in our system?
3️⃣ What things do we accept as correct simply because they “didn’t explode” yesterday?

If an answer hurts… that's precisely where we need to build.

Quotes

Diane Vaughan

“The normalization of deviance occurs when we stop seeing a risk as a risk simply because it has not yet caused negative consequences.”

“The failure was not a sudden explosion, it was a long history of successes that made the risks invisible.”

Ellen Langer

“The feeling of control can be so powerful that it makes us believe we influence even what is purely random.”

“When we operate on autopilot, we confuse familiarity with safety.”

“The real danger is not the mistake, but being so sure that we are not making it.”

References

Langer, E. J. (1975). The illusion of control. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32*(2), 311–328. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.32.2.311

Langer, E. J. (1989). *Mindfulness*. Addison-Wesley.

Vaughan, D. (1996). *The Challenger launch decision: Risky technology, culture, and deviance at NASA*. University of Chicago Press.