Small moves that lead to a big shift
How to realign while you're still in motion
Running a business is rarely tranquil. Trying to improve a business while it’s fully operational? That is a different challenge altogether.
It’s no different to refurbishing while you and your family are still living in your house, renovating a shop around customers still browsing and purchasing, or rewiring the system while the business is still running.
You’re trying to realign strategy, shift outdated systems, mindsets and habits, and reintroduce clarity and direction. All while the team keeps pushing forward and delivering, clients keep needing and demanding, and the backlog doesn’t stop growing.
There is no quiet pause.
No break where you get to think in straight lines and re-evaluate. The opportunity to work on the business rather than in the business.
Cue the geology anecdote.
I remember descending the side of Mount Etna in Sicily during one of my experiences with the volcanologists there. Impressive views of nearby erupting Stromboli that mildly distract from legs burning and boots gradually filling with ash and lapilli. Every few steps, I’d sink slightly more.
You don’t realise how much of that ash and lapilli collect in your boots until it starts to change how you move. When every step feels heavier as the sharp rocks start to rub inside your boots. Until your footing and your balance become less certain.
It’s much like business, really.
Misalignment doesn’t arrive with a royal fanfare. It often builds slowly. A clunky decision here, an old system there, and that sense that your team is firefighting rather than growing.
By the time you notice, the business is already mid-descent down that very volcano. There’s no easy place to pause and empty your boots. You still have clients to serve, teams to lead, targets to reach.
The main question to ask here isn’t “how do we stop?”.
It’s: “how do we adjust while we are still moving forward?”
The art of adjusting without stalling
Early in my career, I remember this shared illusion that August would be a quieter month. Things would slow down. Projects would pause. We’d finally have time to “catch up” on all the things that we had been putting off for the rest of the year: process improvements, strategic rewrites, and overdue thinking.
Suffice it to say. It never worked out that way.
August was just as full as any other month of the year. Sometimes even more so, because half the team was away on holiday, priorities became more reactive, and the very space we had hoped to reclaim was swallowed up by the same patterns we were trying to escape.
That is the myth of waiting for the “right moment”.
In fact, waiting for that mythical moment in time when things are quieter, clearer or perfectly timed, is often how that misalignment lingers even longer in business.
Why? Because that right moment rarely arrives.
Realignment doesn’t require a full business reboot or a full stop.
You don’t need a pause. You need a strategic slowdown in the right places and you need to create clarity in motion.
So how do you do that?
Here are a few ideas of what that could look like:
Create space for discussion and truth … even if it’s brief.
We are not talking about a complete off-site full-day meeting here. All it needs is 20 minutes in your next team meeting, where you ask one question.
What is one thing that no longer makes sense for us, but that we are still doing anyway?
Adding in these opportunities for regular dialogue and feedback helps build momentum for longer-term clarity. All while empowering your team to feel heard, valued, and invested in the future.
Spot the workarounds and name what is being over-compensated for
If your teams have normalised workarounds to be able to do their day-to-day jobs, they are building habits around broken systems.
Perhaps it’s time to ask why.
What have we quietly accepted as “it’s just how we do things”?
These quiet yet impactful compromises are often the clearest indicators of legacy drag and can offer powerful insights into areas that need realignment.
Compound and stack small, aligned moves
You don’t need to fix everything all at once.
Update that one document everyone quietly works around. Clarify who actually owns the next step. Or, why not cancel that meeting no one finds useful but everyone still attends.
Remember that realignment doesn’t require an overhaul. It requires a series of aligned and conscious nudges that help steer you back on course.
Small moves, made consistently, create momentum.
This compounds over time to create big change. It’s all about removing just enough friction to let progress flow again.
Progress without pause
More often than not, it’s the tiny course corrections made in motion that have the biggest and longer-term impact. Be it repacking a heavy backpack, shifting the load, or clearing the ash from your boots to help get you back on track.
Realignment doesn’t always look like a bold and dramatic reset.
It’s all about noticing what is slowing you down, and choosing (even in the middle of a steep volcanic slope) to pause and adjust anyway. One small step at a time.
The path rarely clears on its own.
The longer you wait for an imaginary perfect moment, the more energy you’ll spend carrying around what no longer fits. Much like ash in your boots.
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