BAU mould – break free or break!

We have all heard the stories of once dominant industry juggernauts fizzling away. They are now left to exist only in the annals of history.

At the risk of using cliché examples, who can forget the disappearance of the once ubiquitous Blockbuster DVD shops? Or the collapse of Nokia? At some point in time, Nokia’s share of the global cell phone market was close to 50%. How and why would organisations fall so precipitously from such grace?

The comfort of the status quo

Amongst the potential reasons is the fallacy of the pre-eminence of Business as Usual (BAU). For Blockbuster, they failed to see around corners, as the author Rita McGrath would put it. This implies and connotes a focus on the prevailing situation to the detriment of the future.

By the same token, Nokia grew comfortable in its lion’s share of the market and huge profits. However, they became blinded by the status quo. It’s all seemingly noble to focus on the present, because, after all, “we live in the moment”. Nevertheless, this can easily be a slippery slope.

It’s not uncommon to hear comments such as “something has come up, please proceed without me” or “I need to attend to an urgent matter”. Or better still, “please reschedule, there is a crisis”, when leaders excuse themselves from a project’s affairs. (Whenever project is used in this article, think of it as a vehicle for ushering in a new version of a part of the organisation or a new version of the organisation entirely.)

Overcoming the BAU mould

Leaders’ attention often gets diverted to putting out fires or to activities geared towards short-term profit targets. Considerable amounts of time and effort go into reacting to incidents. It may be unsurprising that if we performed root-cause analyses for each of the big and small fires that need to be put out, we would find an error in planning for the future naturally leading to the eventuality.

Rob Llewellyn summarises this phenomenon as: “The problem for many companies is that they are caught up in the day-to-day challenges and hope of success”. With their eye on the next quarter’s profits, it’s easy for leadership to lose sight of what could happen to their business model in the longer term if they fail to truly transform.

Now, some of these conflicting priorities could be legitimate. However, the future version of your company pays the price. In the modern world of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (VUCA) where customer interests and options evolve rapidly, technology advances at breakneck speeds, and economic and political climates become evermore unpredictable, shouldn’t our priorities focus more on the future version of the company and less on the now?

Focus on the future to break the BAU mould

Leadership’s focus should have a future orientation. By extension, leaders should influence other levels of the organisation to adopt a similar mindset because, “as the leadership goes, so goes the team,” as stated by Dafne Tsakiris.

Leaders, especially, should not get continuously bogged down with the targets of the day-to-day. Day-to-day operations are undoubtedly important. However, on the leader’s to-do list, BAU matters should be subordinate to a focus on the future.

If we are introspectively honest, we would concur that there is a discernible cycle here. If you focus your energy – priorities and resources – on future-orientated needs and imperatives, you ultimately mitigate against things that could crop up out of the woodwork later or at least minimise them. Conversely, not applying the requisite level of attention to future-orientated projects is like karma. You will soon be beset with BAU problems when that future arrives.

The lure of operational normalcy

In case this is coming across as abstract, let’s reify it with a concrete illustration. If our attention diverts from future-orientated activities because of distractions such as technical debt, the question arises: what causes the accumulation of technical debt in the first place?

A case could be made that some of the technical debt is created when short-termism takes effect. For example, implementing poorly architected solutions in pursuit of sometimes myopic goals.

Another example could be the endless post-implementation tinkering with a system even after the system would have been completed “in-time, on-budget, and to-scope”. Imagine continuously adding canals along the length of a river. Eventually, the river loses its strong current and isn’t much useful downstream. If operations worked optimally, there would be little need to constantly divert attention to their rescue.

When we are bogged down with the here-and-now, we are not attuned to subtle signals – or sometimes loud messages – of changes in the offing. Liz Wiseman, in her book entitled Impact Player, puts it pointedly: “This is the central problem of modern organisations: if you are doing today’s job, you are probably handling yesterday’s priorities”.

In a similar fashion, Antonio Nieto Rodriguez puts it simply – “Operations run the organisation. Projects change the organisation.” If we prioritise the present over the future, what chance do we have of getting a handle on the future when it arrives?

Ok, so what do we do about this fallacy of focusing on BAU?

Keys to break free from your BAU mould:

Carving out time to think

This approach, championed by Warren Berger in The Book of Beautiful Questions, underscores the power of intentional inquiry. While the book explores the value of asking the right questions, one particularly relevant idea is booking time for thinking.

By deliberately setting aside uninterrupted time for deep thought, individuals can break free from the cycle of immediate, reactive tasks. Instead, they can focus on future-orientated strategies that drive innovation and long-term success. However, carving out time to think does not, on its own, eliminate the challenges of BAU mould. Fires will still need to be put out, and operational demands will persist.

The real value of structured thinking time comes not breaking free from your BAU mould, but from gaining the clarity to rebalance priorities, anticipate potential issues, and make more strategic decisions. This ultimately reduces the likelihood of future crises.

Furthermore, simply having time to think is not enough. Employing systems thinking ensures that this reflection translates into holistic, high-leverage interventions rather than isolated, short-term fixes by employing concepts like “leverage points” and “feedback loops”.

Rebalancing resources toward strategic initiatives

Runaway BAU commitments, especially in IT operations, can mortgage the future by diverting resources from strategic transformation initiatives. While keeping the lights on is undeniably necessary, it does not confer competitive advantage – innovation and transformation do.

To counteract this, organisations must intentionally rebalance resources. They must ensure that people, time, and budgets are allocated to strategic initiatives first, with BAU drawing from what remains – not the other way around. One way to operationalise this is to set an upper threshold for BAU resourcing. In addition, organisations should introduce incentives for continuously reducing BAU commitments. This shift not only safeguards future-focused investments but also has the by-product of driving better project behaviours. Particularly, it minimises technical debt and optimises long-term operational efficiency.

An overall framework approach here could be the adoption of lean portfolio management, or its waterfall cousin, project portfolio management. In both paradigms, organisations manage change initiatives and BAU activities holistically. This enables a centralised view of capacity and prioritisation of resources.

Culture

You may have guessed this one. Nowadays, “culture” seems to be the panacea for all things wrong with organisations. However, this has a twist – this proposition is about setting the tone for human behaviours before we get to habits (Key #1) and processes (Key #2).

In other words, before people can develop the discipline to carve out thinking time or organisations can rebalance resources, they need a foundational culture that values adaptability, strategic foresight and reinvention.

John Rossman’s book Think Like Amazon offers a glimpse into the philosophies that underpin one of the world’s most successful companies. One of Amazon’s guiding principles is the “Day 1” mindset, a philosophy that rejects complacency and encourages companies to operate as if they are always at the start of their journey – hungry, innovative and forward-looking.

Think of a typical start-up. The risk of failure would be enormous if they were to fall for a BAU prioritisation fallacy. The priority is building – forging ahead – and not creating problems that can become heavy baggage.

A strong “Day 1” culture helps organisations resist the inertia of BAU by embedding mechanisms that keep the organisation adaptable and forward-thinking. This contrasts with “Day 2”, which represents stagnation, bureaucracy and ultimately, decline. Sounds familiar?

Breaking free from your BAU mould by embedding a “Day 1” culture:

• Encouraging proactive thinking – fostering an environment where questioning the status quo is the norm, not the exception.
• Balancing urgency with long-term vision – ensuring that teams don’t just react to immediate fires but also anticipate and shape the future.
• Rewarding adaptability and calculated risk-taking – creating incentives for employees who challenge existing processes and experiment with better ways of working.
• Maintaining a bias for action – reducing decision paralysis by promoting high-velocity decision-making over excessive deliberation.

A strong culture isn’t just about what a company believes. It’s about how it operates daily. A “Day 1” culture ensures that organisations don’t just sustain operations but continually evolve, compete and lead.

Vusa Nyathi | Business and Technology Strategist | mail me |