Constant reorganizations, arbitrary reversals, and decisions that never become final teach employees that nothing they do changes outcomes, so they disengage, stop resisting, and stop engaging with the work too.
An example
Over fourteen months a cable news network reorganized its digital unit four times. The morning show's producer pitched a short-video series to three successive heads of digital; each approved it, and each left or was reassigned before it launched. Priorities flipped from subscriptions to reach and back with no explanation. Two senior executives disputed control of the streaming product in open meetings and never settled it. Town hall questions fell from about forty a session to six. When a new head of programming asked producers for ideas for the fall slate, the producer's team sent nothing; one of them said it was not worth the meeting. The programming head took the silence as agreement with his own plan, and the slate went ahead unchallenged.
Why it works
When effort keeps failing to change outcomes, withdrawal becomes the cheapest response, and the benefit of resisting, advocating, or escalating falls toward zero because nothing seems to connect action to result. It needs sustained exposure (one chaotic reorganization is noise; a pattern is conditioning), unpredictability that people attribute to power more than to incompetence, and employees cut off from comparison with other organizations. It fails when people can leave for other jobs, an outsider such as a board or investor restores the link between action and outcome, or one resister shows that influence is still possible.
The thinking behind it
Mark Granovetter Mark Granovetter's Threshold Models of Collective Behavior (1978) describes each person as having a threshold, the number of others who must act before he or she will join, so small changes in who goes first can produce very different outcomes. A disengaged workforce is a population whose thresholds are not being met. One visible case of someone changing an outcome can be the first mover that brings others back.
Mancur Olson Mancur Olson's The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (1965) argued that large groups often fail to act for a shared goal, since each member gets the benefit either way, while small groups organize more easily. Constant churn keeps employees a large, scattered group. A small, stable circle of colleagues who coordinate across reorganizations is the kind of group Olson's argument says can act.
Warning signs
Reorganizations and priority reversals recur every few months with no stated connecting rationale. Decisions are never declared final, and executive disputes stay visibly unresolved. Town hall questions, poll responses, and volunteers for cross-functional work keep falling. People who once pushed back have stopped, and talk shifts from we to they. Requests for input meet silence, which is then read as agreement.
How to defend yourself
Rebuild the link between your actions and outcomes, in small ways you can see.
- Pick one or two matters within your reach and see them through. A visible case of someone influencing an outcome breaks the pattern for others.
- Form a small, stable group of colleagues who share information and coordinate across reorganizations.
- Stay in contact with peers in other organizations, who can confirm that the chaos is not normal.
- Ask for decisions to be declared final and recorded, with the rationale for each change.
Keep your options outside the company current. Mobility breaks the conditioning, and knowing you can leave makes it easier to keep engaging while you stay.
How a leader shuts it down
Reduce churn, declare decisions final, and explain the reason for each change. Settle executive disputes in private and present one position. Watch the engagement signals: falling questions, falling volunteers, silence on requests for input. The conditioning persists after its authors are gone, so repair takes deliberate, visible wins.