Fighting Inertia
In business transformation, the most underestimated challenge isn’t strategy, innovation, or even execution. It’s inertia.
Inertia is the force that keeps things as they are. It’s embedded in habits, systems, assumptions, and even identities. It shows up as “we’ve always done it this way,” “this works well enough,” or “we don’t have time to rethink that.”
Inertia is powerful because it represents comfortable, known, predictable.
But transformation, by definition, requires movement. It asks people to change their perspectives, redesign processes, reimagine value, and realign with purpose. That’s not just a technical or strategic task, it’s emotional and psychological. It’s about helping people let go of what’s familiar and lean into what’s possible.
The Work Behind the Work
When I help clients transform their business, a lot of the real work happens in the moments of discomfort when someone realises their current model doesn’t reflect their values, won’t sustain them, or does not suit customer needs any longer.
Inertia must be broken in the pause between “I know this isn’t working” and “I’m ready to change it.”
It’s not just about pushing harder — it’s about unearthing the right information with good questions. Breaking inertia doesn’t mean rushing into action. It means creating the conditions for movement — clarity, confidence, and understanding. When people can see what’s misaligned, name what matters, and imagine something better, they start to move because they want to.
What Helps Break Inertia?
LANGUAGE. Giving people words for what they know intuitively but haven’t articulated. Naming misalignments, patterns, and possibilities makes them real and changeable.
DESIGN TOOLS. Visual frameworks like the Business Model Canvas or Service Blueprint help people see their business differently. That shift in perspective is often the first crack in inertia.
EXTERNAL PERSPECTIVE. Sometimes it takes someone outside the system to ask the question no one inside has thought to ask — or dared to. A fresh lens can reveal blind spots and open up new possibilities.
UNHURRIED THINKING SPACES. Counterintuitively, inertia thrives in urgency. When pressure is high, people default to what they know - old habits, familiar solutions, inherited assumptions, known concepts. Urgency narrows thinking. Reflection expands it.
Creating intentional space for unhurried thinking allows people to step back, notice what’s not working, and imagine what could. It’s away from the noise of deadlines and performance targets and the game of comparison — that real shifts can begin.
NAMING THE DISCOMFORT OF CHANGE. When people feel off about change, naming the tension helps. It validates their experience and gives them a starting point for change.
MICRO-EXPERIMENTS. Small, low-risk tests can help people experience change without committing to a full overhaul.
QUESTIONS. like “What would we do if we were starting from scratch?” or “What’s the cost of staying the same?” can disrupt default thinking and spark movement.
If you’re trying to transform your business, don’t underestimate the power of inertia and how it may be holding you back.
It’s different from change resistance, which is active. Resistance pushes back — it’s vocal, often visible.
Inertia is a state, a way of being. Inertia doesn’t push at all. It just stays. It’s passive, embedded, and often invisible. A state of being rather than a stance.
That’s what makes it so powerful and so easy to miss.