What Made You Successful Might Be Slowing You Down

Over time, we get exceptionally good at doing what has worked before, even as the environment quietly changes around us.

It is how most of us are trained to succeed: we identify a problem, then apply a proven approach. It's efficient, it conserves effort, and keeps work moving forward. And in stable conditions, it works remarkably well!

The challenge emerges when success turns repetition into habit. Organizations accumulate decades of experience while unknowingly reinforcing the same assumptions year after year. Growth continues, but learning and innovation slow.

Learning through playbooks, SOPs, operating models and frameworks help organizations execute better within existing models.

Adaptive learning challenges the assumptions behind status quo by asking: 

• Why do we approve work this way?

• Why does this policy exist?

• Why are some decisions escalated while others aren’t?

In fact, many established practices persist not because they’re wrong, but because they’ve never been revisited: work schedules, approval structures, meeting norms, planning cycles. They may still work, but less well than they could.

From: “How do we fix this?”, to: “What assumptions are ready to evolve?”

A cross-functional colleague reviewed an interim milestone before client submission. Twenty minutes of additional collaboration have an immediate impact: fewer client revisions, less rework, higher quality outcome and, even stronger cross-team trust and more engaged employees. All this with no new tools and no structural change. Just a thoughtful challenge to an assumption that had never been revisited: “Work is reviewed only at the end.”

In that case, why don't we ask more often: What still holds true? What deserves reconsideration? What assumptions have quietly expired? Well, the trouble is these questions inevitably collide with hierarchy, identity, and legacy decisions. So it is no surprise that organizations tend to embrace adaptive learning during crises— when anxiety is high and tolerance for experimentation is low. (Ironically, the greatest value of adaptive learning comes long before a crisis appears!)

Yes, reflection takes time. Yes, it introduces short-term uncertainty. But over time intentional testing of current models builds better decisions, greater adaptability and faster learning and growth.

The organizations that endure aren’t the ones with the best playbooks, they are the ones willing to revisit them.

That’s the work we do—creating thoughtful, practical spaces where leaders and teams can expand their thinking, surface assumptions, and discover more effective paths forward. If that resonates, let’s talk!