Revolution or Just the Same Old Spin? The Cycles of Change in Organisations

Change. That grand, sweeping word that sends shivers down spines, excites the optimists, and sends middle managers into PowerPoint overdrive. Every organisation, no matter how forward-thinking or archaic, has its own cycle of change. Some operate on an annual cycle, predictable as the seasons, where every year brings the same “bold new strategy” wrapped in slightly different branding. Others take a more long-term approach, rolling out changes in five- or ten-year cycles, often aligning suspiciously well with the tenure of senior leadership.

What’s fascinating (or perhaps mildly infuriating) is the realisation that these cycles of change are not really change at all. They are just the same things resurfacing with new buzzwords. It’s like fashion: wait long enough, and bell-bottoms (or “flared trousers for the rebranded professional”) will be back in style. The challenge for people within organisations is recognising the cyclical nature of these changes and not losing sleep over them. Today’s revolutionary transformation is tomorrow’s faded PowerPoint deck buried in an old email thread.

The beauty of this is that, while everything?appears?to be changing at breakneck speed, very little actually does. Yes, we have new technologies, shiny systems, and endless digital tools promising to revolutionise the way we work. But at its core, work is still about people—collaborating, arguing, resisting, and occasionally agreeing to something that sounds suspiciously like what was proposed five years ago.

Technology supposedly accelerates change, but it really just makes old habits more transparent—or, in some cases, more opaque when organisations suddenly develop selective amnesia about transparency in the name of ‘data privacy.’ Remember when emails were going to make office life more efficient? And now we all have meetings to discuss emails, followed by emails to summarise meetings, before inevitably slacking each other to clarify the summary.

Academia, of course, has its own delightful twist on change. The grand reforms of university management, the restructuring of programs, the bold new visions from new deans—they all come and go, leaving behind a suspiciously familiar landscape. Academic titles evolve, department names get rebranded, but the same committee meetings (with eerily similar minutes) persist across the ages. Every five years, a sweeping curriculum review is launched with much fanfare, only for the conclusion to be a slightly altered version of the previous one.

I turned 60 in December last, and I thought over the last year or so a change in perspective was needed. But instead, I have found myself watching these cycles repeat with an almost comforting predictability. There was a time when I would get frustrated by the inefficiencies, by the constant repackaging of old ideas, by the overenthusiastic declarations that this, finally, was the game-changer. But now? Now, I watch with a knowing smile. I’ve seen this play before; I even remember the cast from the last production. The scripts are slightly altered, the jargon refreshed, but the essence remains untouched.

The lesson in all of this? Don’t get too attached to the latest fad or too despondent about the latest ‘organisational transformation.’ It’s just another turn of the wheel. The real trick is recognising that while technology speeds up the visibility of change, the fundamentals remain the same: human interactions, hierarchies, and a deeply ingrained resistance to anything that disrupts the illusion of progress.

So, next time an email arrives announcing “exciting new changes” in your workplace, take a deep breath and smile. You’ve seen this before. And if you wait long enough, you’ll see it again. The seasons always turn, but somehow, we’re still standing in the same place.