Pace of change:
why hesitation costs companies dearly

There are moments in my working life when I sit at my desk in the evening, read the news and feel a deep, almost physical frustration. Not because the challenges we face are too great. But because I see how often companies, teams and ultimately people fail at hurdles they could have overcome – if only they had looked in time.

I am not writing these lines as a detached consultant handing out clever advice from the outside. I am writing them out of a deep inner conviction. It is a matter very close to my heart to make the world, which is turning ever faster, a little better within our direct sphere of influence. In more than 20 years of leadership responsibility in the banking and financial sector, I have seen what people are capable of when they are given trust, clarity and real responsibility. But I have also seen what happens when leaders close their eyes to reality.

The hard numbers of a soft discipline

Let us take a brief, honest look at reality. In the first three quarters of 2026, 5,150 companies in Austria had to file for insolvency. According to KSV1870, that is an average of 19 businesses per day. Around 15,600 employees were affected in those nine months alone^[1]. Particularly telling: in 2,230 of these cases, around 43 per cent, there was not even enough money left to open proceedings at all. KSV1870 sees one of the reasons in the fact that companies increasingly wait too long before filing for insolvency^[1]. The official data from Statistik Austria also show a persistently high level of corporate insolvencies for the first quarter, alongside declining registrations of legal entities^[2].

Of course the causes are complex. KSV1870 cites a weak economy, subdued demand, high costs and inflation that has recently risen again. In individual sectors, high operating costs, staff shortages and thin financial reserves come on top^[1]. All of these are massive, in some cases existential burdens that no managing director and no employee can make go away single-handedly.

That is why I do not want to draw a statistical short circuit here: the available data do not prove that a lack of willingness to change is the most common or sole cause of Austrian insolvencies. It is not recorded as an isolated factor in any official statistics. Anyone who sells this thesis as a simple explanation overlooks economic reality.

My observation from practice is narrower, yet still decisive for leaders: external pressures hit companies very differently. Some recognise warning signs early, review their business model, address cost and capacity questions openly and bring in an external reality check in good time. Others wait, hope, postpone and gloss over. It is precisely this inner ability to learn and change course in time that I call willingness to change.

Research supports this direction without proving a monocausal insolvency thesis. Organisational resilience – the ability to keep pursuing goals even under heavy strain – is not simply stubbornly enduring crises. It encompasses preparation, adaptation and transformation^[3]. The research review names, among other things, leadership practices, information management, culture, human capital and collaboration as relevant influencing factors^[3]. Resilience therefore does not come from rallying cries to hold out, but from clear leadership, honest information and the consistent involvement of employees.

The dangerous wait for the perfect moment

When companies fail, it is often because this adaptability has been neglected for years. The signals were seen, but people waited. They hoped the market would settle down again. They postponed uncomfortable decisions because the moment was not perfect. They sat out conflicts in the team because they shied away from confrontation.

But in a world that is turning ever faster, that perfect moment no longer exists. Waiting has become pointless. Those who wait lose not only market share but, piece by piece, their ability to act.

A sociologist wrote this, not a consultant. And it describes the position of every leader quite precisely: the certainty you are waiting for does not come. Those who wait have therefore not decided less – only later, and without saying so.

The first warning signs are rarely spectacular – but they follow recurring patterns that can be recognised early. An important client gets in touch less and less often. New software is introduced but bypassed in day-to-day work. The best employees go quiet. A conflict between two key people is dismissed with a shrug. The monthly liquidity meeting gets shorter because nobody wants to ask the uncomfortable questions. Each of these signals on its own may be explainable. Together they are a call to look more closely.

In the financial sector, in restructurings, in post-merger situations, in building a digital business model and in numerous transformation projects, I have learned this: an unpopular, well-prepared decision is almost always better than a friendly but indecisive postponement. That does not mean every change has to be decided immediately. It means that a leader must not delegate responsibility to the calendar.

Mistakes happen along the way. They happen to me, they happen to you, they happen to every organisation that works honestly. The aim cannot be to be free of mistakes. The aim must be to learn from mistakes before they become expensive. That is exactly what experience is needed for. Not as omniscience, but as the ability to recognise typical patterns, to ask the right questions and to distinguish between a temporary symptom and a genuine structural problem. You do not have to make every mistake yourself before you can learn from it.

It sometimes makes me melancholy to see how much potential lies dormant in companies. How many excellent, committed employees quietly quit because they keep running into the walls of rigid structures and timid leadership. How many leaders know deep down that something is wrong but do not take the first step, because it would mean admitting that the previous path is no longer enough. And how many companies get into difficulty because false pride blocks the view of the change that is needed.

The decision is ours

But this melancholy is not the end of the story. It is the driving force. Because the good news is: we are not helplessly at the mercy of this development. Willingness to change is not a genetic code that a company either has or does not have. It is a decision. Made anew every day.

I believe deeply that leaders have the strength to turn things around. Even small transformations – honestly resolving a smouldering conflict, consistently realigning a single team, a properly prepared handover conversation, admitting a mistake or a new ritual for critical decisions – have an effect. They resolve concrete bottlenecks and build confidence in one’s own ability to shape change. This is how, step by step, the resilience emerges that carries a company through the next storm.

This does not always require a huge programme. Small and medium-sized companies often have fewer reserves for long decision-making channels; at the same time, they can often make change felt more quickly. Especially in growth phases, this comes down to a few decisions set early. A good first step can be to stop a process that drains energy from clients or employees, or to finally give a leadership team clarity about roles and priorities. What matters is not the size of the slide. What matters is whether the solution holds up in day-to-day work.

It is not about doing everything perfectly. It is about taking responsibility. It is about having the courage to look, even when it hurts. And it is about giving the people in our organisations the feeling once again that their work, their thinking and their willingness to change make a real difference.

I am writing this text because I have no desire to get used to looking away. Not as an entrepreneur, not as a leader, not as a person. There is enough momentum, enough uncertainty and enough pressure in our world. All the more reason we need people who do not pretend that everything is under control, but who take responsibility for the next sensible step.

If you have read this far and feel, deep down, the impulse that there are things in your area of responsibility that you can no longer afford to sit out: do not wait. There is no better time than now to tackle the challenges.

Let us talk. Honestly, confidentially and with the clear aim of making your organisation capable of acting and resilient for the future. I am confident: clarity can create movement. Movement can create trust. And trust can enable a company to shape, once again, the future it deserves.

Sources

1. KSV1870 (2026, 9 October). Unternehmensinsolvenzen 1.–3. Quartal 2026 [Corporate insolvencies, first to third quarter of 2026; in German]. Vienna. View source (ksv.at)
2. Statistik Austria (2026, 8 May). Zahl der Insolvenzen im 1. Quartal leicht gesunken [Number of insolvencies fell slightly in the first quarter; in German] [Press release]. View source (statistik.at, PDF)
3. Barasa, E., Mbau, R. & Gilson, L. (2018). What Is Resilience and How Can It Be Nurtured? A Systematic Review of Empirical Literature on Organizational Resilience. International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 7(6), 491–503. View source (doi.org)
4. Luhmann, N. (1992). Die Beschreibung der Zukunft [The description of the future; in German]. In N. Luhmann, Beobachtungen der Moderne (pp. 129–147, here p. 136). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.