Change Sclerosis
Repeated failed change erodes the organisation's capacity to engage with the next one.
Repeated change, reorganisation, or failed improvement erodes the organisation's capacity to engage with the next change. People stop investing because investment hasn't been rewarded. The organisation's arteries harden.
Recognition signals
- "We tried that before, it didn't work." The response to any proposed improvement is historical precedent. The organisation has scar tissue from past failures, and the scar tissue shapes every future conversation.
- Learned helplessness — teams don't raise issues because nothing changes. The feedback loop is broken: raising a problem gets acknowledged, sometimes documented, but never acted on. People learn that raising issues is wasted effort.
- Change fatigue from repeated reorganisation without honest retrospective. The organisation has been through three restructures in four years. Each one was announced as transformational. None were retrospected honestly. People are tired.
- Emotional labour is concentrated on one person — usually the PM. The PM is the one who maintains energy, drives engagement, absorbs frustration, and shields the team from organisational dysfunction. When they burn out or leave, the emotional infrastructure collapses.
- Confelicity deficit — the absence of shared joy in others' success. People have withdrawn emotionally from the project. They don't celebrate wins because they don't believe wins are durable. They've learned that today's success is tomorrow's reorganisation.
Structural cause
Why this happens
Every failed change or reorganisation without honest retrospective teaches the organisation that engagement is wasted effort. The cost of caring is higher than the cost of compliance. People rationally conserve energy.
Change Sclerosis is the organisational equivalent of an immune response. Past injuries — failed reorganisations, broken promises, initiatives that consumed energy and delivered nothing — create antibodies. The organisation's immune system now attacks change itself, because change has historically been a pathogen.
The test for Change Sclerosis is simple: propose a modest improvement and watch the response. If the first reaction is "we tried that" rather than "how would this work?", the sclerosis is active. The organisation isn't evaluating the proposal — it's defending against the category.
Risk mapping
| Risk | Description |
|---|---|
| S5 | Fatigue — change capacity exhausted by repeated reorganisation |
| C4 | Burnout risk — emotional labour concentrated on too few people |
| C1 | Confelicity deficit — absence of shared joy signals emotional withdrawal |
Self-assessment
When to worry
- Staff say "we tried that before" when you propose improvements
- Teams don't raise issues because nothing changes when they do
- Emotional labour is visibly concentrated on one or two people
- Past reorganisations were never honestly retrospected
When you're OK
- Past failures have been honestly retrospected and the lessons are visible
- Change proposals are evaluated on merit, not on historical precedent
- Emotional labour is distributed across the team, not concentrated
Related reading
- Confelicity — confelicity deficit as a diagnostic signal for disengagement
- Incentive Inversion — when both patterns operate together, you get terminal disengagement
- Compliance Theatre — people go through the motions without investing
The organisation isn't evaluating your proposal — it's defending against the category.
A programme health check assesses change readiness, fatigue levels, and whether the organisation has capacity for what you're about to ask of it. 10fifteen — programme recovery.