What if your next crisis isn’t sudden, but a choice you missed months ago?
This weekly series explores ‘organic choice points’: invisible pivot moments where organisations either evolve or unravel. Drawing from real client cases (all anonymised), we’ll dissect why leaders miss these signals, how to spot them, and how to act before they become catastrophes.
A Mini Choice Point Example
Inspired by a client situation, I wanted to dive deeper into this critical yet never mentioned aspect of organisational growth. As I elaborated upon the material I have on this topic, I came across my own mini choice point: either I wrote a superficial article that doesn’t address the complexity of the concept, or I need to offer a longer format. I quickly realised that I could probably write an entire book on this topic if I wanted to explore every aspect of it, so this series is my conscious decision to expand upon this vital topic without sacrificing too much of the complexity, and without writing a second book.
I use this example to explain what a choice point is and illustrate how they naturally emerge from context. I didn’t choose to write a series; the opportunity arose from the implementation of an idea. Just like what happens inside organisations, as more material was added, the initial container became too constraining and seriously limited the output creating unease.
Why do Choice Points Matter?
74% of organisational failures stem from unattended early warnings (Gartner), yet 68% of leaders admit to dismissing ‘weak signals’ as noise (MIT Sloan). This gap between risk and awareness is where transformation lives or dies.
Studies are interesting to quantify the extent of the issue, but they don’t really help us much in identifying these early warnings and acting upon them. Moreover, it’s easy to point a finger at leadership, but is it?
We’ve all heard of the cautionary tale:
- If you drop a frog directly into a pot of boiling water, it will immediately sense the danger and jump out to save itself.
- However, if you place a frog in a pot of cool or lukewarm water and then slowly heat it to boiling, the frog will not perceive the gradual increase in temperature as an immediate threat. It will become accustomed to the slowly worsening conditions and remain in the pot until it is too late, eventually boiling to death.
Whilst this vividly points to our difficulties in perceiving gradual change, in actual fact, the original experiments (e.g., by Goltz 1869, Fratscher 1872) point to a different outcome. It was observed that frogs placed in slowly heated water did not passively boil. Once the water became uncomfortably hot (around 25-30°C for cold-blooded frogs, hotter for some species), the frogs became agitated and tried to escape. If the container allowed it, they would jump out.
And whilst I’m not trying to make comparisons between leaders and frogs, I do believe that this explains choice points better. There comes a moment when our organisational ecosystem becomes uncomfortable, and that is the moment we notice we are faced with a choice point. Whilst the frogs have a simple action / reaction decision to make guided by their survival instinct, I believe the complexity of an organisation and its systemic nature clouds the issue and makes responding to the changes less obvious.
What’s Ahead in this Series
What if your next crisis wasn’t sudden, but a choice you missed months ago?
This series explores organic choice points: those invisible, pivotal moments where organisations either evolve intentionally or unravel reactively. Drawing from real-world cases (anonymised to protect confidentiality), we’ll dissect why even skilled leaders overlook these signals, how to spot them through your organisation’s “canaries,” and practical ways to act before circumstances force your hand. You’ll discover how cognitive biases, cultural dynamics, and the clash between control and trust obscure these critical junctures, and why leaders’ own growth stages determine whether they see them at all. Along the way, we’ll tackle the three timelines (Chronos, Kairos, and the Window of Opportunity) that dictate your capacity to respond, and how to build systems that turn hindsight into foresight. By the end, you’ll have a toolkit to detect, discern, and decide at these forks in the road, transforming crises into conscious evolution.
Follow this series to turn hindsight into foresight.Let’s start by identifying choice points.
When did you realise a ‘small concern’ was actually a critical choice point?
Whilst I decided not to expand this topic into a book, if you’re interested in deep change and transformation, check out my first book: How Might We? A Fresh Look at Change Management and Transformation from a Neurodivergent Perspective.