Are You Avoiding Change Until Things Break?
Updated: Sep 18
This final installment of the “15 Lies Women Are Told at Work” series explores why “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is one of the most dangerous beliefs in business and leadership. Using examples like Blockbuster, Kodak, and AI disruption, the post examines how fear, saboteurs, and low energy states keep leaders stuck. It blends Bonnie Hammer’s advice with iPEC Energy Leadership concepts and Positive Intelligence insights to encourage self-reflection, adaptability, and innovation. Readers will learn practical ways to embrace change, rethink career goals, combat burnout, and follow opportunities before the market, or life forces the issue.
There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from trying to preserve something that no longer fits. You can feel it in companies desperately polishing outdated products while the market quietly walks away. You can feel it in leaders duct-taping broken systems because “that’s how we’ve always done it.” And honestly, you can feel it in your own career when you keep forcing yourself into a version of success that stopped energizing you years ago.
This is the 15th and final lie in 15 Lies Women Are Told at Work by Bonnie Hammer.
The lie?
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Bonnie dismantles this idea beautifully. If humans had waited for things to fully break before innovating, we’d still be chewing raw meat in caves while arguing about whether fire was “aligned to the strategic roadmap.”
Innovation rarely arrives because people are comfortable. It arrives because someone gets curious enough to ask, “What if there’s a better way?”
And thank goodness for that.
Because given how much of our lives we spend working, if work wasn’t evolving or occasionally fun, life would feel unbearably small.
Prime example: A friend of mine didn’t want to buy a new TV until their 20 year old black and white TV broke - And this was decades after color TV’s were invented. It’s a thrifty mindset and only hurts those who fight change.
Combatting Burnout Means Challenging What No Longer Works
One of the sneakiest forms of burnout is staying loyal to systems that quietly drain you. Not catastrophic systems. Just inefficient ones.
📧 The meeting that should’ve been an email. 💾 The business model everyone knows is aging out. ‼️ The leadership style built entirely on stress and urgency. ⁉️ The career path you keep following because you invested too much to question it.
This is where the iPEC Energy Leadership framework becomes incredibly useful. When we resist change from a Level 1 (powerless) energy state, everything feels threatening. Heavy. Exhausting. We become defensive and fearful. We focus on loss. The internal dialogue sounds like:
“What if I fail?” “What if I can’t learn this?” “What if this proves I’m not good enough?”
That energy creates paralysis.
At Level 2, we may fight the change entirely. We become territorial. Controlling. We defend the old way because our identity is attached to it.
And that’s exactly where career enjoyment and many companies die.
Follow the Opportunities Before They Disappear
Remember Blockbuster?
They famously rejected streaming technology because they viewed themselves more like a convenience store. A candy-and-movie stop. They underestimated what customers actually valued. They actually fired their CEO who wanted to move to streaming and replaced him with a former 7-11 CEO.
Then Netflix gained traction. And where is Blockbuster now? One store left in Bend, OR.
The list keeps going:
Kodak
BlackBerry
Borders
Myspace
These companies became case studies in the innovator’s dilemma. Established success made them protective instead of adaptive.
And before we get too smug about it, most humans do the same thing in their careers.
We cling to expertise that once made us valuable. We protect routines that once made us successful. We defend comfort zones that quietly stopped serving us.
I know because I naturally do this too. I am absolutely capable of accepting something “good enough” long after it stopped being optimal. I can tolerate metaphorical duct tape with Olympic-level endurance.
I’ve had to train myself to ask different questions.
Not: “How do we preserve this?”
But: “What are we refusing to see?”
Career Growth Requires Looking Everywhere
One thing I appreciate about Bonnie’s perspective is that she doesn’t frame change as chaos. She frames it as awareness. And awareness requires intentional reflection.
Look Ahead
A SWOT analysis is one of the simplest and most effective ways to look ahead. Using this you can examine internal strengths and weaknesses while also evaluating external opportunities and threats.
It forces you to stop staring at today’s to-do list long enough to ask:
“What might change tomorrow?”
That question matters more now than ever. And don't think this is only for companies. You can do your own SWOT analysis.
AI is rewriting entire industries in real time. Some businesses are still obsessing over tiny usability improvements while the core need for their product may disappear completely.
There’s a difference between focus and denial.
A fascinating recent example is Allbirds. In 2026, after declining sales, the company announced a dramatic pivot toward AI infrastructure and GPU-as-a-Service under the name “NewBird AI.” That is not a slight course correction. That is a complete identity shift.
And while the internet collectively blinked in confusion, the stock market didn’t. Their shares exploded between 580% and 800% on the Wednesday morning following the press release (it has since settled back a bit). But more importantly, the move reflected something important:
They recognized hope was not a strategy. Which, coincidentally, is something I wrote about previously inHope Is Not a Strategy.
Sometimes the bravest thing a leader can say is: “This plan no longer matches reality.”
I have helped many clients evaluate life choices with a great model that not only looks at pros and cons, but also helps people figure out how to manage the pains of a change and still get the gains they are losing. It's game changing.
Look Back
Reflection matters too. Not in a nostalgic “remember the good old days” kind of way. More in a: “What patterns keep repeating?” kind of way.
Where have you succeeded before? What decisions created momentum? Where did stress become unsustainable? Which saboteurs showed up every single time?
Many things happen when we look back. One unexpected outcome is that we look at the past as a reason to avoid making a change now. "Last time I did something like this, this negative outcome happened" is a common mind trick. The obvious conclusion is that the change is something to avoid.
One other common blocker are our saboteurs, the internal voices that distort our thinking. Mine often sound like the Hyper-Rational and the Controller teaming up like two unqualified middle managers with strong opinions.
One says: “That change doesn't make sense.”
The other says: “If you can’t control the outcome, reject the process.”
Together, they make innovation very inconvenient.
Look Around
One of the best ways to accelerate career growth is to study industries outside your own.
I’ve seen law firms adopt agile methodologies from tech companies to provide faster, leaner legal services. That kind of cross-pollination is where innovation often begins. One of my favorite books is "4 Lenses of Innovation" which evalute the root mindset across almost every innovation in our lives.
Mentorship can help here too. A great mentor doesn’t just validate your existing thinking. They widen your perspective. They help you spot blind spots before those blind spots become expensive. For more on the importance of a good mentor, read this post.
This is especially important for hyper achievers. High performers are often rewarded for certainty. Which means they can accidentally become resistant to experimentation because experimentation risks looking inexperienced.
And that’s where imposter syndrome gets sneaky. You start believing that being competent means already knowing everything. It doesn’t. The best leaders I know remain curious long after they become successful - and admit when they don't know something. More on combatting imposter syndrome here.
Look Inside
Sometimes resistance to change has nothing to do with strategy. Sometimes it’s emotional.
📡 Maybe you’re afraid you won’t understand the technology. 🙀 Maybe you fear becoming irrelevant. 😩 Maybe balancing motherhood and career already feels exhausting enough without adding another learning curve. 🤨 Maybe self doubt convinces you everyone else adapted faster.
This is where your energy matters again.
Level 3 energy creates acceptance. Level 4 creates compassion and understanding. Level 5 begins to see opportunity and possibility.
The external situation may not change immediately. But your relationship to it does. Try adopting a different level of energy and just see the change in your stress levels.
When you move from: “This change is happening to me”
to: “What opportunities might exist within this?”
you regain agency.
That shift doesn’t erase stress. It transforms it into movement.
Look Beyond
There are opportunities around every corner if you stop insisting they arrive in familiar packaging.
Some of the most meaningful career pivots begin disguised as disruption.
A restructuring. A failed launch. A technology shift. A role you didn’t get. A business model that stopped working.
At the time, those moments feel terrifying, but later, they often become the exact turning points that create career growth. I started my own company when I was squeezed out of my executive C-Level position. I never would've done that had I not been pushed out. And it changed my life.
That doesn’t mean blind optimism is useful. It means openness is useful. Look beyond what currently exists. I'm currently testing an idea for a new app and the market is telling me it is not worth the investment. Testing your ideas is critical.
👀 Look beyond the title you thought you wanted. 👀 Look beyond the original business plan. 👀 Look beyond the identity you built ten years ago.
Because sometimes the future version of you is waiting on the other side of a decision your current self finds uncomfortable.
If someone had told me I would be a leadership coach in the future, I would have told them they were smoking crack. But life happened. I evolved. And here I am. And I'm loving it.
Look on the Bright Side
Change is hard. I say that constantly because it’s true. But hard does not mean wrong.
I completely agree with Bonnie, even though my initial reaction to change can still be deeply skeptical. My brain loves stability. It loves proven systems. It loves certainty.
But I’ve trained myself to become more open. Now I’m often the person suggesting the change.
Not recklessly. Not because every new shiny object deserves attention. But because staying awake to possibility matters. Especially now.
So yes, change is hard. Do it anyway. Just do it with an open mind, an open heart, and a plan.
And that’s it. The final lie.
I hope you enjoyed this evaluation of 15 Lies Women Are Told at Work.
Next up: the 10 core disciplines of great leadership.
If you are seeking guidance on managing your career, overcoming fear, dealing with self doubt, or becoming a stronger leader, schedule a free discovery call. Coaching can help you find your own success formula.
To read or re-read the blog posts on the 15 Lies, check these out:
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