When Leadership ‘Improvement’ Becomes the Enemy of Progress

There’s a German word that every leader should memorize before their next big strategic retreat: Verschlimmbesserung.

It doesn’t roll off the tongue, but the meaning is pure poetry. It is an attempted improvement that actually makes things worse. And if you’ve worked in business long enough, you know exactly how often this happens.

You’ve seen the executive who launches a sweeping reorganization “to drive efficiency” only to derail high-performing teams and burn months of productivity. You’ve witnessed the leadership group that spends six figures on consultants to rewrite their mission and vision statements — producing nothing but elegant-sounding abstractions employees can’t remember, let alone apply.

The intentions are good. The outcomes, not so much.

Leaders often suffer from what I call the “fixer’s fallacy”: the belief that activity equals progress, and that tweaking systems, structures or slogans will automatically yield improvement. But their well-meaning interventions often dismantle what’s working, alienate employees and slow the very momentum they’re trying to accelerate.

Let’s break down two examples of Verschlimmbesserung and explore what you can do to stop yourself from “improving” things into the ground.

Related: How Great Leaders Know What to Solve and What to Learn From

The reorganization rabbit hole

Reorgs are a corporate classic. Every few years, leaders decide the current structure is outdated, misaligned or bloated. Out come the PowerPoint decks with neat new reporting lines and dotted arrows. But in reality, it’s often chaos.

Here’s why: people aren’t boxes on an org chart.

A high-functioning team isn’t just a collection of skills. It’s a living ecosystem of trust, tacit knowledge and working rhythms. When you start reshuffling, you break the unspoken patterns that make work flow.

Take the marketing manager who knew exactly how to frame requests to the product team so they’d get prioritized. Move that person into a different reporting line, and suddenly, the product is frustrated, marketing is ignored and customers are waiting longer. Or consider the engineer who had a shorthand with design, able to solve problems in a ten-minute hallway conversation. Break up that pairing, and suddenly you’ve added meetings, miscommunications and missed deadlines.

Most reorgs fail to account for these invisible dynamics. Leaders imagine they’re moving chess pieces into smarter positions, but humans don’t operate like pawns. They require time, trust and cultural familiarity. Resetting all of that can take months or longer. By the time people find their footing, the company has often lost the gains it hoped to achieve.

That’s the paradox: the very pursuit of efficiency becomes the source of inefficiency.

The mission/vision mirage

If reorgs are the structural version of Verschlimmbesserung, mission and vision rewrites are the linguistic version.

Leaders love a mission refresh. It feels strategic, lofty and forward-looking. And it gives executives the chance to unveil shiny posters and rousing speeches. The problem is, the more leaders tinker with mission and vision, the more abstract and less useful they become.

Take a simple, powerful statement like: “We help small businesses thrive.” Everyone from the CEO to the intern can understand what that means and how it connects to their work.

Now run it through the consultant spin cycle, and it comes back as: “We leverage innovation to create scalable impact in evolving ecosystems.”

Sounds impressive. Means nothing. Employees can’t use it to make decisions. Customers don’t feel it. The mission that once grounded the company has now floated into abstraction, where it’s more of a branding exercise than a real compass.

Ironically, leaders think this kind of language shows sophistication. What it shows is detachment. A mission that no one remembers, or mocks doesn’t build alignment. It builds cynicism.

Related: 3 Signs You’re a Bad Leader — and How to Be a Better One

Why leaders fall into the trap

Why do smart leaders keep stepping into Verschlimmbesserung? A few reasons:

• The pressure to prove value. Executives feel compelled to show they’re driving change, even if nothing is fundamentally broken.
• The allure of visibility. A new org chart or mission statement is tangible, presentable and “strategic” — something leaders can point to in board meetings.
• The myth of complexity. Many leaders assume that if something sounds simple, it must be insufficient. So, they add layers, jargon and abstraction to make it feel weightier.

But in their pursuit of impact, they often undermine the very outcomes they’re after.

So, what can you do to avoid making things worse under the banner of improvement? Here are three practices to anchor every decision:

1. Ask for evidence, not just opinions

Before reorganizing or rewriting, ask: What’s broken? Show me the data and insights. Are customer complaints pointing to this? Is employee turnover accelerating? Is time-to-market lagging? If the problem can’t be quantified, it may not actually exist. Without evidence, you’re likely solving for optics, not reality.

2. Stress-test with the front line

Your employees will feel the effects of any change long before you do. Involve them early. Pilot changes in small groups. Ask what unintended consequences they foresee. Frontline insights often reveal blind spots that look invisible in the boardroom but obvious in daily operations. It’s much cheaper to catch those issues before a full-scale rollout.

3. Default to clarity over complexity

Improvement isn’t about adding layers, it’s about sharpening focus. If your mission or vision statement can’t be explained plainly, it’s not ready. If your reorg doesn’t clearly shorten decision-making lines, don’t do it. Complexity is not a sign of sophistication. Clarity is.

The real measure of leadership

Great leadership isn’t about constant tinkering. It’s about discernment. Knowing when to intervene and when to leave well enough alone.

The best leaders improve by subtraction: cutting clutter, eliminating barriers and clarifying priorities. They resist the urge to “make their mark” in ways that undo the quiet but powerful systems already working.

The next time you feel the itch to “fix” something, pause and ask: Am I addressing a real problem, or am I about to commit Verschlimmbesserung?

Sometimes the bravest move a leader can make is to leave the working parts of the machine untouched. Because in business, not every improvement improves. And knowing the difference might just be the most important leadership skill of all.

There’s a German word that every leader should memorize before their next big strategic retreat: Verschlimmbesserung.

It doesn’t roll off the tongue, but the meaning is pure poetry. It is an attempted improvement that actually makes things worse. And if you’ve worked in business long enough, you know exactly how often this happens.

You’ve seen the executive who launches a sweeping reorganization “to drive efficiency” only to derail high-performing teams and burn months of productivity. You’ve witnessed the leadership group that spends six figures on consultants to rewrite their mission and vision statements — producing nothing but elegant-sounding abstractions employees can’t remember, let alone apply.