We Waited Until Something Broke

My artificial Christmas tree lasted twenty-five years. It was a good tree: full, well-shaped, the kind you stop noticing because it just works. Every December we’d haul it out of the basement, assemble the sections, string the lights, and carry on. It was part of the routine. Part of the system.

Then one year, it broke. Not dramatically. No crash, no fire. A hinge gave way. A section wouldn’t lock. The whole thing leaned at an angle that no amount of creative propping could fix. We’d known for years that the joints were loosening, that the branches were thinning, that the base was wobbling. We just never did anything about it. Why would we? It still worked.

We waited too long. We waited until something literally broke.

I see this pattern everywhere in organisations, especially ones navigating mergers, acquisitions, and major transitions. The system is under strain. The signals are there. The wobble is visible to anyone paying attention. But the tree is still standing, so we keep decorating it.

The decision-making structures that made sense before the acquisition? They’re creaking. The communication channels that once moved information efficiently? They’re clogged with new reporting lines and competing priorities. The trust networks that held teams together? They’re fraying as people recalibrate who has power, who has their back, and whether their role still exists in six months.

This is what I call the “decorated wobble,” the organisational equivalent of hanging ornaments on a tree you know is about to collapse. We invest in the visible layer (the integration plan, the town halls, the new org chart) while ignoring the structural layer (the trust, the meaning, the informal networks that actually hold the work together).

The problem with waiting until something breaks is that by then, you’re in crisis mode. You’re not choosing how to respond. You’re reacting. And reactive organisations make expensive decisions. They over-correct. They restructure when they should be listening. They replace people when they should be replacing conditions.

I’ve walked into organisations six months post-acquisition where the break has already happened. Key talent has left. Delivery has stalled. The remaining team is exhausted and disengaged, not because they’re bad at their jobs, but because the conditions for doing good work no longer exist. The system broke, and nobody noticed until the ornaments hit the floor.

The alternative isn’t to panic at the first wobble. It’s to notice it. To take the wobble seriously as a signal rather than dismissing it as normal turbulence. To ask: what conditions have shifted? What’s no longer holding? Where is the system compensating, and what happens when it can’t compensate anymore?

In practice, this means sensing early. It means creating spaces where people can name what’s actually happening, not what the integration plan says should be happening. It means paying attention to the informal signals: who’s updating their resume, which meetings have gone silent, where the hallway conversations have turned from curiosity to self-protection.

It means treating the wobble as information, not inconvenience.

My family bought a new tree that year. It was fine. But we lost twenty-five years of “just works” because we never invested ten minutes in tightening the hinges. Organisations don’t get to buy a new tree. They have to fix the one they’re standing under, while the ornaments are still hanging.

The situation is real. It’s also navigable. But only if you stop decorating the wobble and start paying attention to what’s actually holding the thing up.