What Gets Normalised First

Strain rarely announces itself as a problem.

It arrives as accommodation.

Extra effort becomes expected. Small inefficiencies are tolerated. Decisions that once felt simple now require more checking, more people, more time but no one names that shift directly. It’s absorbed instead.

This is how strain becomes normal.

In many organisations, the first things to be normalised are not failures, but workarounds. Someone stays late to smooth an issue. Someone steps in “just this once.” A decision is revisited because it feels safer to defer than to clarify.

None of this looks alarming. In fact, it often looks responsible, however, what changes quietly is the baseline.

What once would have triggered a conversation now passes without comment. What once felt heavy now feels familiar. The organisation adapts not by redesigning itself, but by asking people to carry more.

Over time, this tolerance reshapes expectations. Effort replaces structure. Memory replaces process. Goodwill replaces clarity. The system still works, but only because individuals compensate for what hasn’t been designed.

Normalisation is subtle. It doesn’t feel like a decision. It feels like continuity.

The difficulty is that what’s normalised early becomes difficult to unwind later. Once extra effort is assumed, removing it feels disruptive. Once ambiguity is tolerated, naming it feels uncomfortable. Once compensation is embedded, redesign feels optional until it isn’t.

Early strain doesn’t persist because leaders ignore it. It persists because it becomes familiar.

The work at this stage isn’t to disrupt what’s working. It’s to notice what’s being absorbed and ask whether it should be.