Why Teams are Tired of Change
And what to do about it.
We’re going to explore change fatigue.
Why are our organizations so tired of change? And more importantly, what can we do about it?
Before you come in as a technical coach or a new change agent, even if you’re internal, it’s important to recognize that teams that are change-fatigued don’t have much hope in your particular technique or process.
The 12-Year Loop
At one company my partner worked with, they had been trying to improve their delivery execution for over twelve years.
Every 8 to 12 months, they launched another major initiative to radically transform delivery. This was to improve quality, to speed up execution, and to finally get it right.
Each wave followed the same pattern:
big vision → big promises → big effort → no results.
Then came the ritual:
Fire the people who led it, hire a new group, rebrand the initiative, announce a new vision.
Every leader had a different story about why this time would be different. But when you looked closely, the pattern never changed.
Every initiative changed how the work was planned.
None of them changed how the work was executed.
Every one reorganized employees in new ways.
None of them changed the contract with the vendor who added most of the delays and quality problems.
None of them touched the real constraints.
And the real constraints were obvious to everyone doing the work.
Most of the work was done by outside vendors who didn’t care about delivery quality or continuous improvement. They didn’t follow processes and didn’t share the organization’s goals. Even internally, most of the teams didn’t know how to build or assess quality before full-system integration. That was where the friction lived.
But every new transformation ignored those realities. Instead, they tried to improve planning and communication over and over again.
So when the fourteenth initiative came along, the teams didn’t resist out of laziness or cynicism. They yawned and did what they knew worked well enough because they recognized the pattern.
They knew that once again, leadership was going to change everything except the things that actually mattered.
What Change Fatigue Really Is
Change fatigue isn’t exhaustion from too much change.
Change fatigue is exhaustion from too many cycles that never change the right thing.
People aren’t tired of improving. They’re tired of pretending improvement is happening.
How to Break the Pattern
If you’re stepping into a system like this, don’t start with a new theory, technique, or process.
Start by watching the work.
Without judgment.
Ask:
What are people actually doing when they do the work?
What in the system shapes those behaviors?
Which small, critical behaviors, if done differently, would start to shift the system itself?
The key is to focus on the behaviors of doing the work, not the behaviors of planning the work.
There’s a time and place for visualization and planning. But transformation only happens when you touch the work product itself.
Whether you’re coding, designing, or creating an OKR strategy, the leverage isn’t in the charts or ceremonies. It’s in the actions that change the published work.
The Green Path Forward
If you want change that sticks, shelve the big changes.
Instead, start small.
Observe.
Learn the system that shapes behavior.
And find the few keystone actions that quietly shift everything else.
Because the truth is simple:
Small, deliberate iterations beat big leaps.