What undermines problem‑solving during business change?
I will say it again: every transformation introduces friction.
These frictions are temporary problems created by the act of transition. They are not defects in the plan, they are the point at which the plan meets reality. They exist in the space between the old state no longer being tenable or desirable and the new state not yet fully formed. They should be expected, planned for, and worked through - not treated as evidence of failure.
At the organisation level, decisions take longer, processes no longer behave as expected, there are competing interpretations of what “success” now looks like, while governance, policy and metrics lag behind intent.
At the project team level, an assumption proved incorrect, a system doesn’t quite line up with the one we just bought, a dependency that “wasn’t critical” suddenly becomes a blocker, a workstream discovers that its outputs create unintended consequences elsewhere.
At the individual level, they won’t be able to find information as easily, they will lack confidence that they are doing something right, they will be slower, or they need something to work and be compatible with multiple, seemingly incompatible things.
When an issue arises, some of this can occur:
Panic disguised as urgency
Retreat to “how we have always done it”
Escalation to leaders without any analysis first
Waiting for the leader, supplier, or consultant to fix it
Treating the problem as evidence that the change itself was a mistake *the worst one in my view
What’s easy here, is to say that this is either a leadership issue, or an individual issue, but that is far too simplistic. The panic, retrenchment or escalation is not just a leadership failure and not just an individual failing. It is produced by a wider set of conditions that cause people to believe, often quite rationally, that thinking through a problem is unsafe, pointless, or too costly.
As a transformation practitioner, here are some key conditions that I look for that are either deactivating or weakening problem-solving ability of teams and individuals going through a business change or transformation.
Deviation is penalised
Many organisational systems are designed to optimise stability, repeatability and control. In tightly coupled processes, highly standardised workflows, or compliance‑heavy environments, deviation is frowned upon. People learn that staying within the lines matters more than making sense of a new situation.
Metrics only reward output
What organisations measure powerfully shapes behaviour. When performance is defined primarily through speed, utilisation, throughput or compliance, friction is threatening. Problem solving inevitably slows output in the short term because it requires thinking, testing and sometimes rework.
People may mask issues if they feel they must keep metrics looking healthy, and they will likely want to optimise for what is visible and rewarded.
Change narratives over‑promise smoothness
When change is framed as simple or straightforward, any issues acquire a negative meaning: as if ‘it should have been easier than this.’ Instead of problems being expected, they are interpreted as evidence that something has gone wrong. Problems will be used as proof that the change itself was a mistake, rather than as information to work with.
Leadership is the one to tackle problems
If leaders have historically solved problems themselves, valued speed over understanding or new learning, and rewarded compliance over judgement, then teams have learned that independent problem solving is risky. Leaders may say they want ownership, resilience and initiative, but their behaviours still signal “bring me the problem and I will decide”.
Individual‑level traits or dispositions
Some people experience uncertainty as acutely destabilising. Some of us fear being wrong in public. People who have lived through repeated changes that were abandoned, reversed or ignored develop a rational scepticism. Individuals with low frustration tolerance may experience these moments as emotionally overwhelming rather than intellectually interesting. Some people are highly attuned to social dynamics and deeply uncomfortable with tension, disagreement or disruption.
I work in transformation and I can recognise some of these traits in myself. None of these make any single individual wrong or incapable of problem-solving, simply: human.
Threat to identity
During transformation, individuals often move temporarily from competence and fluency to uncertainty and hesitation. For people whose sense of professional value is tied to expertise, this can feel like loss rather than learning. The friction which inevitably occurs during change triggers self‑protection. Escalation or avoidance of the issue becomes a way to restore confidence and status as you either make it someone else’s issue while you get back to what you were already doing. Problem solving, which requires admitting you do not yet know, is hard to sustain when identity feels under threat.
Cognitive load
Even highly capable people struggle to problem solve when cognitive load is high. Change often arrives alongside existing operational pressure, multiple initiatives to switch between, and the regular-degular day-to-day firefights. In these conditions, the brain defaults to familiar patterns and shortcuts, the path of least resistance and least cost.
Not enough information
People cannot see the system they are working within. When people cannot form a coherent picture of what is happening, they struggle to reason about it. This creates a sense of helplessness rather than empowerment, and that helplessness will tend to down-regulate problem-solving.
Collective habits and social norms
Problems in a change are just difficulties, and teams and organisations develop shared responses to any type of difficulty over time. Norms about who speaks first, how disagreement is handled, and whether uncertainty is tolerated, all shape behaviour in subtle but powerful ways. An individual may be willing to think through a problem, yet may also sense that the group will not hold the space for that thinking.