You lean back in your chair. The most critical strategy workshop in months is over. Finally. The decision is made. The path is clear. A rare sense of relief fills the boardroom.
But what you perceive as the calm after the storm is, in reality, the silence before it. Because while you take a breath, the real work begins in the engine room of your organisation - the work of interpretation, of uncertainty, and of quiet, grinding resistance. Precisely where brilliant strategies go to die.
As a consultant who has spent over 20 years behind the scenes of executive suites, I know the unvarnished truths that follow this moment. Truths that no one tells you because they don’t fit into the glossy slides of "seamless" change processes.
Here are my top 5 insights:
Insight 1: Every decision produces losers.
By choosing Strategy A, you inevitably reject B, C, and D. For the advocates of the options not taken, this is more than just a rational course correction. It is the loss of a possible future, a familiar way of working, perhaps even a part of their professional identity. To dismiss this resistance as mere "blocking" is a fatal error.
Your real task: Manage the loss instead of fighting the resistance.
Acknowledge that there is something to mourn: a future that will not happen. Only then can you build the bridge from yesterday to today.
Insight 2: You aren’t broadcasting; you are being interpreted.
You believe you have communicated your decision with crystal clarity. You haven’t. You have merely made an offer for interpretation. The Head of Sales hears something different from the Head of Production. The long-standing employee hears something different from the fresh graduate. Every department translates your words into its own logic and its own reality.
Your real task: Observe the internal dynamics of communication.
Don’t ask, "What did I say?" ask, "What was heard? What realities are emerging from it?" Shift from being the "sender" to being the "Chief Ethnologist" of your own organisation.
Insight 3: The "Grapevine" is your organisation’s immune system.
Official communication is only the visible tip of the iceberg. Real opinions are formed in the coffee lounge, in departmental chat channels, and within the informal networks of opinion-shapers. This "immune system" (drawing on sociologist Stefan Kühl’s observations of informal organisations) determines what is actually believed and done. It protects the existing state and repels the foreign.
Your real task: Learn to read the informal organisational chart.
Who are the real hubs? Where do the narratives emerge? Use the grapevine as your most precise diagnostic and intervention tool instead of fearing it.
Insight 4: Consensus is the enemy of progress.
Leadership means making decisions that will not please everyone. The attempt to reach a consensus where everyone applauds almost always ends in a lukewarm compromise or endless discussion loops. The organisation loses its capacity to act.
Your real task: Demand commitment, not applause.
It is not about everyone loving your decision. It is about everyone knowing that it stands. This requires you to endure the pain of contradiction without wavering from the course.
Insight 5: You are not a Harmony Officer; you are a Tension Architect.
Conflict, friction, and tension following a decision are not "operational accidents." They are the necessary side effect of change. Trying to eliminate these tensions is like trying to build a fire without heat.
Your real task: Regulate conflicts instead of suppressing them.
The energy contained within resistance and friction is the most valuable resource for change. Your art (as described by Klaus Eidenschink) lies in harnessing this energy productively before it evaporates in trench warfare.
The Bottom Line:
The most effective leaders are not the best "deciders" or the most brilliant communicators. They are the best managers of consequences. They do not fear the friction their decisions create - they use it.
When you begin to work with these five insights, you transform the greatest drag on your transformation into its most powerful engine.
Further reading: Decisions in Organisations
