An ambitious leader from an international mobile telco in transition towards becoming a ServCo called me, after his third leadership offsite in 6 months. He sounded calm, but defeated: ‘We’ve got a strategy, a roadmap that makes logical sense, ambitious goals, a fresh management layer, new people… budgets. But still — no movement. And yet… nothing moves. I don’t get it anymore!’
Can you help me?!?
So, last month, I was invited into this mobile telecom company — a well-known player transitioning from a traditional mobile Telco-operater towards what they proudly call a “ServCo. It’s a necessary shift: from product-centric to customer-centric. From transactions to long-term value.
And everyone agrees: this change needs to happen. Now! No time to lose.
But something else is happening too. Or rather, not happening.
The transformation isn’t landing. Teams are circling in polite compliance. Vision slides aren’t turning into felt ownership. And the people on the floor — the ones who need to carry the new way of working — are stuck in what I can only describe as systemic hesitation.
We know what to do. But it is not happening.
I hear this phrase in every corridor conversation, whether it’s with mid-level managers, project leads, or even the C-suite.
On the surface, the problem seems operational:
- Change fatigue.
- Shifting priorities.
- Strategy roll-out without clear internal narrative.
If you’re reading this thinking, ‘yes — this is me’… then I want to offer you a different lens.
You need to scratch a little deeper and you’ll see something else emerge.
A company trying to transform — without looking at what’s holding the current system in place.
This is where many transformations derail. Not in the ambition. Not in the tooling. Not in the PowerPoints.
But in the invisible.
The Immunity to Change.
When an organisational system protects itself from transformation
Let me explain what this really means.
Most people inside organisations don’t resist change because they’re cynical, lazy, or disengaged. They resist because change threatens something they haven’t named — yet.
In the case of this telecom company, I started listening for finding the competing commitments that sit just beneath the surface:
- A middle manager committed to innovation, but equally committed to not losing credibility in front of her team.
- A senior exec pushing for agility, but unconsciously holding onto control because the new leadership layer isn’t yet fully trusted.
- Teams asked to lead more autonomously, but still waiting for permission because they’ve been conditioned for years to seek approval.
These are not signs of sabotage. These are signs of protection.
And this is the real heart of Immunity to Change:
You can genuinely want to grow — and still be deeply invested in not changing, because changing would mean letting go of something that feels essential to your safety, status, or identity.
The cost of not addressing the undercurrent
In this organisation, the leadership is putting all its focus on implementation: timelines, reporting, dashboards, KPI’s. The hard and rational-stuff.
What’s getting less attention? The emotional reality of change.
Here’s what’s actually at stake:
- Trust is on the line, after years of reshuffles and strategy shifts and new management. The safe transitional space is lacking.
- The organisational immune system is in overdrive, protecting people from more perceived harm.
- Teams are interpreting the same strategic direction in five different ways — because the vision hasn’t been metabolised yet.
You can’t solve that with another comms campaign or a sharper rollout plan.
Maybe you’ve been in that leadership room already, watching your team nod and smile — only to fall back into the old way of working by Monday and trying to fix this with very operational and rational solutions.
But here is the thing!
You solve it by naming what’s not being said.
By mapping the invisible forces.
By allowing leaders to see that what looks like resistance might actually be loyalty, grief, fear — or a legacy identity trying to protect itself.
Leading change is not a technical exercise
This is the trap many (commercial) leaders fall into.
They treat change like an operational puzzle:
- More alignment sessions.
- More Objects & Key Results.
- More “buy-in.”
You all know the drill.
But if the real issue is a competing commitment — like the need to stay seen as competent, in control, or indispensable — then no tool will touch it.
You’ll just keep experiencing the same pattern:
People say yes.
Behaviour says no.
And the leaders?
Ending up exhausted, doubting themselves, or forcing harder — which only strengthens the immune response.
So what now?
This is where I do my work, because there is more in the lives of organisations than meets the eye.
Not in adding more process — but in creating space to surface what’s underneath.
To ask the inconvenient questions.
To hold the mirror up long enough for the real story to emerge.
To let leadership teams see their own role in the stuckness — not with blame, but with clarity.
Because until we bring the undercurrent -that what is not so easily to be seen in organisations- into the room, all we’re doing is rearranging furniture on a system that doesn’t want to move.
Change doesn’t fail because people don’t want it.
It fails because they’re protecting something that matters more.
If you want movement, you have to make that visible.
That’s where real change begins.
So the real question isn’t: ‘How do you push harder and get more strategy in place!?
It’s: ‘What are we — consciously or not — protecting that what no longer serves us?
Do you recognise the pattern? ….
If this struck a nerve – let’s talk.
No pitch, no prep needed. Just a 30 min. call to explore what ight really be going on underneath the resistance you’re seeing.
Sometimes, one honest conversation is enough to shift the lens. Grab your precious personal time via this link; https://calendly.com/margerieth-visser/discovery-meeting