When your logic stops working and you don’t notice

Three years ago, your organization made a logical decision based on the information available at the time. That decision shaped how you operate. It shaped your processes, your structure, your priorities. It became established practice. Conventional wisdom. “Just how we do things.”

But conditions have changed. Markets shifted. Competition intensified. Your customers’ needs evolved. The assumptions that made that old decision sound are no longer true. Yet you’re still executing on the original logic.

This happens more often than leaders want to admit. A company optimized its supply chain for reliability when that was the competitive advantage. Five years later, speed matters more, but the entire operation is still designed for reliability. Another reorganized around geographic markets when that’s where revenue came from. Now digital channels matter more, but the structure persists.

The danger isn’t the original decision. The danger is that no one re-examines it when circumstances change.

Organizations that survive disruption don’t necessarily make better strategic choices. They revisit old choices more often. They ask: does this still make sense? What’s changed? Would we make this decision again today?

This requires a specific discipline. Not constant thrashing around—that creates chaos. But systematic review. Not of what’s happening, but of why it’s happening and whether the “why” still holds.
PuMP’s approach includes this built into the rhythm of execution management. As you track whether your outcomes are actually being achieved, misalignment becomes visible faster. You hit targets, but the business doesn’t improve like you expected. That’s a signal that something in the logic chain is broken.

For example: you hit your efficiency targets. Your processes are more streamlined than ever. But customer satisfaction dropped. The logic that said efficiency would drive satisfaction isn’t holding. That’s the moment to stop and ask: What changed?

Often, nothing changed about the external world. What changed is that you overoptimized in one direction at the expense of something else. The efficiency logic didn’t account for the human cost of speed. Or the quality cost. Or the time spent on things that don’t matter to customers.

The practical response is to build review cycles into your execution calendar. Not annual strategic reviews. Quarterly or semi-annual check-ins that ask: are the assumptions underlying this decision still valid? Is the outcome we’re tracking still the right outcome? Are there new constraints or opportunities we haven’t accounted for?

This doesn’t mean abandoning every decision that hits friction. It means being intentional about when you’re operating on legacy logic and when you’re actively choosing to continue something because it still serves you.

The cost of not doing this is the slow drift away from relevance. You’re executing perfectly on yesterday’s strategy while tomorrow’s market passes you by.