The Comfort Zone trap: Are you falling for it?

In times of crisis, we gravitate back to what’s familiar. This is a natural inclination.

And it seems that for many of us, we are indeed in times of crisis, facing an extended phase of the tech economy slowdown paired with a fraught job market, decimated teams, and the weary coworkers who are left. (Not to mention geopolitical and environmental crises, which also impact our general outlook on life as well as the market.)

In response, the refrain I hear from across the industry tends to sound the same: Focus on EBITDA. Do more with less. Set your sights on short-term goals and low-hanging fruit.

And in this environment, innovation becomes a dirty word. This is coupled with a growing sense of frustration that modern approaches—whether that’s agile, lean, product or design thinking— “would never work here.” 

The symptoms: Falling back on familiar patterns

These conditions often play out in a series of symptoms: People are exhausted from the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment of the past few years and the collective change fatigue. They’re fed up with industry experts telling them how things should be. And perhaps they’ve even been burned by terrible implementations that have produced unworkable operating models or removed all the value from adopting new approaches. 

As a result, leaders are falling back to their bad habits: waterfall, top-down product development, shortsightedness, Gannt charts, CEOs who tell teams what to build instead of setting a strategic vision.   

The problem is these old-school approaches provide a false sense of security. We can look at our colour-coded charts and roadmaps that extend for an entire year and it seems to magically erase all the uncertainty we’re feeling. 

But all that uncertainty is still there. Now it’s just lurking beneath the surface. The truth is that accelerating AI and other technological advances are leading to even more unpredictability in our business environment. 

The diagnosis: A refusal to leave the “comfort zone”

What we’re seeing is a broad-scale refusal to leave the “comfort zone.” This is all of that falling back on the old, familiar, known practices that lead us to a sense of security (however false it may be).

But if we’re to truly meet the challenges we’re being faced with and come out on top, we have to go beyond the comfort zone and into the learning zone.

The difficulty that lies within making this transition is that it means embracing uncertainty, conducting experiments, and allowing the time and space for innovation. This is how continuous growth occurs. But the trick of it is that as things get more unpredictable, it becomes harder for business leaders to make these types of investments.

A coaching question and litmus test to help guide you

So my coaching question to you is: How are you making sure your org is not getting stuck in the past? Are you facing this uncertainty by accelerating change, being adaptive to new opportunities and challenges, and becoming more inclusive? Or are you hunkering down and returning to old habits?

You may already know the answer to these questions, but if you’re still not sure, here are a few more prompts for you to consider.

You know that you are in your comfort zone if you’re reverting back to old organisational habits that you have tried to move away from. This might include: 

• Waterfall project management (often in the form of Gannt charts with fixed timelines and deliverables)

• Moving away from working in cross-functional teams (often in these circumstances, a culture reverts back to whatever was the earlier dominant culture such as being sales-led, engineering-led, etc.)

• Not investing in user research-led problem framing and solution development 

• Managing by outputs instead of outcomes

However, you might be lucky enough to be in a team or organisation that’s in the learning zone. If this is the case, you might be experiencing:

• Room to discover, experiment, and iterate to adapt to the VUCA environment 

• Leaders who set your strategy and outcomes but give you the autonomy to identify appropriate solutions (instead of trying to micromanage the uncertainty with outdated leadership practices)

• A balanced emphasis on both short- and long-term goals

Next steps to consider

Let’s say you’ve gone through the questions above and you’ve determined that your organisation is indeed in the comfort zone. What can you do?

I wish I could simply prescribe a wonder drug to cure your organisation, but the reality is that there’s no single, simple solution. The process of changing institutional habits is hard. But here are a few ideas to consider:

• Have an honest review of the behaviours that are driving decisions and culture at the moment. What effect do they have on people?

• Are you still able to balance short- and long-term goals? Or are you being pushed to only focus on the near term? Is there a way you can ensure you’re not being too short-sighted?

• How empowered do you and your team feel to come up with your own solutions? Can you take any steps to shift your executives’ thinking back toward the problems and let you and your teams handle the solutions?

• Do you still have the sense that you’re moving towards your organisational vision? How do you articulate the purpose of your work?

Take some time to think through these questions. Perhaps they will spark some ideas of areas for improvement and specific steps you can take.

And if you’re still feeling stumped, don’t hesitate to reach out. I can work with you on either an individual and organisational level to help you move away from the familiar (but ultimately dangerous) comfort zone and into the slightly scary (but ultimately beneficial) learning zone.