Why change makes things worse before it makes things better

I recently received a request from Angela, a Wednesday Wisdom reader, to talk about the immediate impact of organisational change on productivity. She wrote:

"We are going through a massive reform. Most of us are feeling like we have been dice in a cup and we’ve been shaken up and thrown out onto a board and wherever we landed, that’s our new role. Lots of us have found ourselves in quite different places than where we started in 2022!

In change management circles, it is known (and accepted as part of the process) that productivity goes down for a period while everyone is sorting the new stuff out. Productivity has to drop before it can rise again.

I think it would be really valuable for everyone to know – we are all putting so much pressure on ourselves to keep up the old pace even though we are doing new work with new people, and if it was widely known that it is OK to slow down and get your bearings, there are a lot of people who would be much happier right now."

Thanks, Angela! Great request - and you're absolutely right. When we go through significant change in any part of our lives, including at work, it's entirely normal to wobble for a while before you operate at full capacity.

Over the last two years, we've taken an already ambiguous and difficult work environment and we've added a whole bunch of stuff on top:

• A global pandemic
• Widespread social and political unrest
• Unprecedented levels of sickness and health concerns
• Financial panic and economic uncertainty
• Personal re-evaluation
• Reassuring children, families and vulnerable community members
• Combining work and personal life in new ways
• Tackling new challenges in our relationships
• Finding new ways to socialise and convene.

All of that is before we even begin to contemplate restructures, new ways of working and other changes at work. Our adaptive systems are at breaking point, and many of us are dropping out. Depression, anxiety, burnout and fatigue are at all time highs. Anti-depressant prescriptions are up. Relationships are stretched thin. Stress has skyrocketed. Exercise levels are down, mental health diagnoses proliferate and for many people, daily life has begun to feel hard.

If you're wondering why even small changes at work feel destabilising and why you can't get as much done as usual, take heart. Even without all of the above to deal with, you'd be feeling this way.

Rather than show you another bendy change curve that don't make you feel any better, let's get stuck into the nitty-gritty of what change does to us, and why we feel a lot worse once we start the journey, even when it's something we're excited about and supportive of.

Here's five reasons why change gets harder before it gets better.

1. You find out all the ways you were wrong

Most change projects get blown out by scope creep before they even get started. Because few of us are taught to think in systems and operate within siloes, we grossly underestimate the impact of even small changes in a complex environment.

Our IT project might be manageable by our IT team, but likely ignores the toll it will take on every other part of the business to learn a new platform, attend trainings, update workflows and trouble-shoot unforeseen integration issues.

New recruitment might take into account the time needed for interviews and hiring, but fail to appreciate the on-ramp time for new employees across the teams they work in, the impact on those who are responsible for equipping new hires with the technology they need, finding time to on-board and train and the social and physiological impact of integrating new people into existing relationships and cultural norms.

Beyond that, we rarely know everything when we get started. Planning bias sees us underestimate the amount of time and money it takes to make things happen, doesn't allow time and space for planning, iteration and strategic conversation and is blind to countless dependences spanning people, projects and process.

Things that seem simple on paper are often much harder in practice, and even simple missteps have the potential to throw entire projects off course. We try to plan too far in advance, because our funding requirements expect full-blown business plans over multiple quarters or years. When we find ourselves battling new problems in week 2, it's hard to imagine pulling off three years worth of strategic initiatives in time - which adds incredible pressure to people who are already under the pump.

Sometimes, the right thing to do is pull the pin early. But we don't work in environments that encourage or allow that kind of change, so instead we double down, throwing more time, money, stress and people at a project that simply shouldn't happen right now. When we don't plan for being wrong, we guarantee trouble.

2. You confront things that were hidden before

The people who make decisions inside an organisation are rarely aware of the daily reality of working there. Sidney Yoshida calls this The Iceberg of Ignorance, positing that only 4% of an organisation's problems are truly understood by its most senior leaders. When systems have been operating the same way for a long time, many of our biases, workarounds, problems and inequality go unnoticed or are swept under the carpet.

When we get stuck into changing things, we can be quickly overwhelmed at the true magnitude of inefficiency, ineptitude or brokenness that has been operating unchecked. It's hard to recruit new people, and then realise that we've been onboarding poorly for years. It's confronting to launch a new strategy and discover that people don't trust each other or believe in our vision. It's scary to embark on a diversity initiative only to realise we've been unintentionally racist and sexist at every step. It's terrifying to hire a consultant and read a review that paints a picture of poor performance or negligence that would be devastating if it made the papers.

Being confronted with these realisations at a time when we're already stressed is a huge ask for anyone. Our inbuilt defence mechanisms and punitive internal performance metrics aren't designed for us to be reflective and transparent. They're far more likely to see us pointing fingers, shifting blame, claiming ignorance, glossing over problems and turning on each other. None of these reactions makes for a rewarding or safe work environment, and the toll can be immense.

3. We resist change with bad behaviour

Leaders are often the first to accuse their teams of change resistance. I hear it all the time: "people here just don't like change." In my experience, its leaders themselves who behave the worst when asked to shift their embedded ways of thinking and working.

Everybody wants to restructure, until their own job goes on the line. Everybody wants more inclusion, until they realise their mates might not be protected. Everybody wants more collaborative working relationships, until they have to sacrifice budget, power or status. In short: we might not be resistant to change, but we're sure as hell resistant to loss.

When this isn't confronted at the top table, leaders behave badly. They front presentations, while secretly refusing to do things differently. They're dishonest about their progress, so they can't be accused of dragging the chain. They turn on each other, because they feel put out that one of the functions they like has been shifted to a colleague. This bad behaviour creates tension and unease inside even the most functional teams and occupies the mental space that should be dedicated to easing transition for the people they lead. 

4. We have to use more of our brain than we did before

Autopilot runs much of our lives. In Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman explains that we use a toolbox of heuristics to make the vast majority of our decisions. People make an average of 17,000 decisions each day, and there's no way to consider each of those individually - we'd be worn out by morning tea! Instead, we use shortcuts for everything from driving to choosing meals and answering emails. When some of our daily tasks get shifted from autopilot into analytics, the whole system is disrupted.

All of a sudden, we're having to *think* about things, and that brings everything to a grinding halt. Decision fatigue sets in and while we may be working harder than ever, our productivity drops right off as we carefully consider each step in a process. Multiply that effect across dozens, hundreds or even thousands of staff members who all need to interact with each other to get anything done and it's a wonder we achieve anything at all when we're in the midst of significant change. Which brings me to my last point:

5. Change is really tiring

It takes a lot of work to think and act differently all the time. All the thing we used to take for granted are suddenly up for question, chewing through our mental, emotional and physical energy. We no longer have certainty about what to do, who to talk to and how to solve problems. 

This is exhausting, and it's stressful. When every task or decision gets an extra loading, we work through our reserves faster. If you're used to achieving everything on your list in 40 hours, but each task now takes just 25% more thought, intention or figuring out, you'll find yourself exhausted by Wednesday.

Multiply the cumulative impact of that with added pressure from your managers, feelings of guilt and inadequacy, and a very valid fear that your job might be on the line if you get it wrong (because restructures make everyone feel insecure, even those whose jobs are safe) and it's no wonder you're exhausted.

Once people get tired, they stop performing even when the expectations on their time are reasonable. If we spend too long trying to do good stuff when we feel like crap, we start to miss emails, stop responding to requests, take more days off and resent our colleagues. Morale and productivity drop off, absenteeism rises and frustration builds. 

In short, change is hard. It might be necessary, the end result might eventually be great, but in the process, it often sucks. People are tired, stressed, under pressure and doing their best. When we ask our families, teams or entire organisations to re-examine foundational aspects of their existence, it isn't fair to expect perfection straight away.

Go into change with pragmatic optimism. Keep your expectations low and your faith and empathy high and above all, be nice to yourself and others. You're all doing your best, and you'll get there eventually. 

Finally, a huge thanks to Angela for reaching out. Your curiosity, consideration and desire to serve others has brought reassurance and insight to everyone who's read this article. Ka rawe.