Patio Pondering: How Dare You Use a Thesaurus

I have a distinct memory of sitting in Ms. Butler’s English class in B-hall at Northrop High School and watching her publicly chastise Carol Sibole for cheating on her paper. Carol was accused of having someone else write her essay. When she tried to defend herself, she said something that has stayed with me for more than forty years:

“I used a thesaurus to use better words to make it sound better for you.”

There are not many moments from high school that still surface uninvited. This one does. Not because of the accusation itself, but because of what it revealed. Carol had been quietly placed in a box—the poor writer box—and the moment she tried to climb out of it, she was slapped back down. Her attempt to improve herself was met not with encouragement, but with suspicion, contempt, and public embarrassment.

For context, Ms. Butler was an old-school, hard-nosed teacher of English and Economics. She was strict. She had high expectations. And when she decided to discipline someone, she did it herself, in her classroom kingdom, with a kind of reaper-like harshness that cut to the bone. When she went after Carol, the room went dead quiet. Everyone understood the lesson being delivered. You could see Carol deflate with each sentence, even as she tried to explain herself. Even now, I can still see and feel the scene unfold.

Looking back on that moment now, I don’t see it as a failure of teaching or leadership. I see it as the first time I watched a system wield a sledgehammer to put someone back where it was comfortable keeping them. Carol didn’t break a rule. She violated an expectation. And in rigid systems, that’s the greater crime. Self-improvement becomes threatening when it shows up where it wasn’t authorized.

I’ve spent more than twenty-five years inside organizations that talk endlessly about growth. We plaster walls with values statements. We hold annual reviews filled with improvement goals. We send people to seminars, workshops, certifications, and lunch-and-learns. On paper, development is celebrated. But I’ve also watched what happens when someone actually changes—when they start to think differently, speak differently, or bring skills that don’t fit neatly inside their job description. That’s when the system tightens. That’s when people are nudged back into “their lane,” reminded of “their role,” and quietly taught that ambition is welcome only if it stays predictable.

Leaders in most systems don’t succeed by dismantling these structures. They succeed by learning how to operate them efficiently. They master the carrot—praise, bonuses, titles, development plans—while keeping a firm grip on the unspoken sledgehammer of stay in your lane. Performance is rewarded. Transformation is not. Growth is applauded right up until it challenges assumptions about who someone is allowed to be.

I know this pattern because I’ve tested it myself. I’ve had leaders praise my performance and talk about development—right up until I asked how I could help beyond the narrow lane I was assigned. That’s when the conversation stopped. Just do your job as well as you can. It wasn’t said harshly, but the message was clear: perform, but don’t expand; contribute, but don’t cross boundaries. I wasn’t being corrected for poor performance. I was being reminded where I belonged.

Our systems are full of the outward signs of mobility. Annual reviews promise growth. Training programs and self-help systems tell people how to become better. LinkedIn alone will bury you in inspiration before breakfast. And yet we spend almost no time confronting the entrenchment tools we rely on to keep people in their place—the role policing, the early labels, the assumptions formed once and never revisited. Those tools don’t just slow growth. They quietly train people to stop trying.

I learned that lesson watching Carol stand in front of a classroom.

I’ve watched it play out for decades since.

And at this point, I’m no longer willing to pretend it’s accidental.