Why Change Efforts Stall: The Cost of Systemic Inertia
How often do we allocate significant resources to organizational development (OD) and behavioral coaching, only to watch the resulting change efforts stall just short of impact?
Too often, these high-investment programs—especially those targeting mid-level management or Client Success teams—are at risk of not yielding sustained results. Why do we keep funding a change machine that seems to stall shortly after deployment?
The core challenge isn't a lack of commitment; it's often a profound misunderstanding of systemic inertia.
The Reality of the Flow: A Necessary Lag Time
I was recently struck by Dr. David M. Robertson's candid metaphor (Org/Ldr Development Is Piss In the River) regarding organizational development, which simplifies this complexity: The moment you stop the source of a problem, the system is still carrying what was already in motion.
In essence, stopping the undesired behaviour doesn't instantly deliver clean results. There is an unavoidable lag between the intervention (stopping the source) and the resolution (clearing the downstream effects).
It’s easy for leaders to mistake this crucial lag time for failure. They lose patience, overcorrect, or abandon the effort entirely, ensuring the system never fully flushes out the old, ineffective patterns. This impatience is the single greatest destroyer of strategic change initiatives.
Overcoming Organizational Inertia
To succeed, we must view behavior modification through the lens of Newton’s First Law: The Law of Inertia. Change requires a sustained force to overcome two critical sources of resistance:
1. The Inertia of Habit (Mass)
The "mass" of a team or individual is the deeply rooted strength of their existing habits and comfort levels. A ten-year-old process, even a poor one, has immense behavioral mass. Your coaching, new structure, or L&D program is the external force applied to overcome that mass. This force must be intense enough to start the movement, but more importantly, consistent enough to keep it moving. A one-day training seminar is merely a tap; a structured, perhaps a three-month accountability loop is the more likely, sustained force required.
2. The Inertia of the System (Momentum Transfer)
Once an individual or team accelerates into a new behavior, that momentum has a great chance of transfering to the adjacent systems—reporting, collaboration, approvals, and metrics. This is the ripple effect that takes time to clear the "downstream" effects of the old habits. For example, a client success manager using a new, proactive approach will inevitably expose flaws in the underlying ticketing system or billing process. This exposure is not a failure of the new behavior; it's a step in the successful transfer of momentum forcing the system to change.
The Mandate for Strategic Patience
The great differentiator for C-Suite leaders is not speed of intervention, but strategic patience—the discipline to wait for the effects to clear while maintaining a consistent force.
Leaders who rush to judgment—who "drink from the river too soon"—are likely to create instability. Their teams may learn that no plan will last long enough to matter, making future inertia even harder to overcome.
True success involves:
Locating the source of the problem and applying a measurable, sustained force (coaching/accountability).
Monitoring the system with objective data to verify the source has stopped.
Allowing sufficient time for the inherent inertia of the organization to dissipate the old effects.
Stop funding sprints for marathon races. Leadership in organizational development is less about heroic, one-time pushes and more about the quiet, disciplined application of consistent pressure.
What is one legacy habit in your organization where you have prematurely abandoned the force required to see the results clear downstream?
