Circling the Drain: The Silent Spiral Toward Failure and How to Escape It
A powerful metaphor for slow-motion collapse that applies to careers, teams, and products. Learn how to spot it early and turn things around before it’s too late.
It starts small.
Maybe the Jira board keeps piling up.
Maybe no one wants to demo their feature this sprint.
Maybe your once-enthusiastic Slack channel has gone quiet.
Just… slow decay.
Like a quiet leak in a boat no one bothers to patch.
You feel it, but can’t quite name it.
What you’re witnessing is called circling the drain.
And the longer you ignore it, the harder it is to escape.
🔍 What Is “Circling the Drain”?
Circling the drain is a metaphor for a situation that is gradually worsening, heading toward inevitable failure or collapse, even if it doesn’t seem urgent at the moment.
It originally comes from what you literally see when water drains out of a sink or tub. It spins slowly at first, then faster and faster as it’s pulled toward the center and disappears. By the time the spin speeds up, it’s often too late to stop it.
In the workplace, it applies to:
Projects that have lost momentum and direction
Teams that are demotivated or leaderless
People stuck in loops of burnout, underperformance, or stagnation
Origins of the Term
The phrase gained popularity in the medical field, often used by doctors to describe terminal patients whose conditions are deteriorating despite treatment:
“The patient is circling the drain.”
From there, it moved into business and tech slang describing companies, startups, or efforts that are failing slowly and visibly, but without intervention.
It’s incredibly useful when thinking about feedback loops, morale, and project health.
How It Shows Up
1. Projects
Constant re-scoping
Low trust in deadlines
High attrition or reassignments
No one wants ownership
2. Teams
Missed retros or one-on-ones
Reduced engagement in Slack/meetings
Avoiding hard conversations
Shrinking visibility to leadership
3. Careers
Going months without feedback
Working only on maintenance or leftover tasks
No one mentoring you or being mentored by you
Feeling like you’re “just getting by”
4. Company
Products failing
Senior executive leaving
Profits consistently declining
Competitors eating market share
It’s not yet failure yet but it’s moving in that direction.
The momentum is downward. That’s the danger.
How to Use This Concept to Grow
✅ Diagnose Early, Don’t Wait for Impact
Use the “circling the drain” lens in retros or offsites:
“Are we actually progressing or just not failing loudly?”
This unlocks honesty and lets teams course-correct early.
✅ Rebuild Positive Momentum
The only way to escape the drain is to reintroduce forward motion. Small wins help:
Ship a working MVP
Share progress with leadership
Pair program to rebuild energy
Clarify scope with tighter deadlines
Follow up
✅ Interrupt the Pattern with Ownership
If you’re watching a project spiral, raise your hand:
“I’ll take lead on simplifying this.”
“Let me put together a refresh plan by next week.”
Sometimes ownership is the only lever strong enough to reverse the spin.
Examples
Yahoo in the 2010s
Once a tech giant, Yahoo’s slow decline wasn’t one catastrophic failure rather it was a series of missed opportunities, lack of clear strategy, and internal silos. Despite high talent, products kept failing to integrate or innovate. Over time, the company became a case study in circling the drain.
Google+ Shutdown
Despite the resources behind it, Google+ suffered from low adoption, unclear value, and lukewarm user interest. Over time, momentum fizzled. Google eventually pulled the plug. Most employees knew long before the announcement as it had been circling the drain for years.
Conclusion
Circling the drain doesn’t look like an obvious failure.
It looks like silent slip. Delay. Drift. Silence.
In engineering, in leadership, in life do watch for the slow spirals.
They are harder to see, but far easier to fix early if detected early.
If you wait for the panic moment, you’ve already lost too much momentum.
Escape the drain when the spin is still slow.
So ask yourself:
Is your project thriving, or just surviving?
Is your team motivated, or just… not complaining?
Is your role growing, or just “fine for now”?
If the answer is uncertain then that’s your signal. Take control and take action before it’s too late.