Why Small Bets On Big Change Make Big Messes

Every time you change something meaningful in an organization—install a new tool, rewrite a process, reshuffle who sits next to whom—you trigger what scientists call “The Great Flailing.”

Okay, maybe not scientists. But anyone who’s lived through it knows: change has a tax. And the tax is paid in the currency of confusion, complaints, coffee-fueled complaints, and missed Slack messages.

The first thing that happens when you roll out a shiny new system or a freshly laminated playbook is a not-so-shiny drop in efficiency. Like clockwork. About 20%. Sometimes more, depending on how many acronyms are involved.

Why?

Because people don’t shift gears without grinding them first.

Because new means learning. Learning means friction. Friction means time.

And time is what you didn’t account for when you said, “This’ll make us 5% faster.”

Here’s the truth they don’t print on the cover of that McKinsey report: If your bet on change is only going to net you a 5% improvement, don’t bet on it.

Not unless you enjoy emails that start with “Quick question about the new process…” and end somewhere near despair.

If you’re after a 5% boost? Let people be.

Let them get better at what they’re already doing. Because they will. Humans, like sourdough starters and poorly parked shopping carts, tend to drift in the direction of improvement when left alone.

But if you’re going to mess with the system—if you’re going to throw a wrench in the spaghetti and call it “transformation”—then you better be aiming for a 40% better outcome. Minimum. Because you’ll lose the first 20% to growing pains, and you’ll need real ROI to climb out of the ditch you dug with your enthusiasm.

Change is worth it, sometimes. But only when the juice is pulpy and spiked with at least 40% improvement.

Stay Positive & Otherwise, Let The Wild Things Work