By Larry Ramirez
Operations & Supply Chain Executive
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt | Doctoral Candidate in Business Leadership
Introduction – The Uncomfortable Pattern
Every seasoned leader has seen it happen.
A struggling process is mapped, measured, and methodically improved through Lean Six Sigma or another continuous improvement initiative. The team celebrates, the metrics climb, and the dashboards glow green. But then, months later, performance begins to slide. The charts dip, old habits return, and the hard-won gains dissolve quietly into the background noise of business as usual.
It’s tempting to call this failure of discipline or leadership attention. But the truth runs deeper — what we’re seeing is a natural and predictable phenomenon I call reversion to equilibrium.
When the forces that created change stop being applied, every system — whether mechanical, human, or organizational — begins to relax back to its prior state. This principle explains why process improvement fades, why cultural shifts stall, and why even the most well-designed controls decay without sustained energy.
The Nature of Organizational Equilibrium
In physics, equilibrium describes the point at which opposing forces are balanced. Remove the force that was maintaining tension, and the system will revert to its original condition.
Organizations behave the same way. They possess an internal equilibrium — a complex mix of behaviors, habits, and unspoken norms that together define “how we do things here.” When leaders introduce change, they are effectively applying external energy to disturb that equilibrium. But as that energy wanes — as leaders move on to new priorities, as attention drifts, as the novelty wears off — the organization naturally slides back toward its original balance point.
This is not resistance or sabotage; it’s organizational homeostasis — the system’s instinctive effort to maintain stability. In biological terms, it’s the corporate immune system quietly fighting off foreign substances. In business terms, it’s the gravitational pull of old routines reasserting themselves.
Lean Six Sigma and the Control Paradox
Lean Six Sigma practitioners understand this better than most. The DMAIC model (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) ends with a phase explicitly designed to prevent reversion. Control plans, visual dashboards, standard work, and audits are meant to hold the gains — to keep the system anchored at its new performance level.
Yet even the best control plans often degrade. Why? Because controls are not self-sustaining; they depend on people to enforce, update, and respect them. When those people stop applying energy — stop measuring, stop reviewing, stop reinforcing — the process relaxes back toward equilibrium.
In that sense, every improvement effort is a battle against entropy — the natural tendency of systems to drift toward disorder unless energy is continuously applied. Processes don’t maintain themselves any more than gardens weed themselves. Without stewardship, chaos creeps back in.
The Human Element: Behavioral Equilibrium
While systems theory explains the physics of reversion, leadership behavior explains its persistence. People crave predictability. They default to the familiar, even when the familiar is less efficient. When a new process disrupts established habits, leaders must counteract the organization’s homeostatic pull with consistent attention and reinforcement.
In practice, this means that improvement doesn’t end when the metrics turn green — it begins there. The new equilibrium must be taught, reinforced, and culturally absorbed until it replaces the old one.
Unfortunately, many leaders treat process improvement as a project, not a transformation. They assign teams, apply tools, and then move on once the project closes. The leadership “energy field” collapses, and the organization quietly drifts backward.
What’s needed isn’t just process control, but cultural control — an embedded expectation that improvement is the norm, not the exception.
Process Entropy: Why Gains Fade Without Energy
Entropy, a concept from thermodynamics, is a powerful metaphor for this phenomenon. Left alone, ordered systems naturally degrade into disorder. A process that once ran with precision will, over time, accumulate variation, exceptions, and workarounds unless leaders continuously supply energy in the form of oversight, measurement, and accountability.
In operations, that energy looks like:
- Regular Gemba walks and visible leadership presence
- Performance boards that are reviewed and acted upon daily
- Standard work that is revisited and revised, not laminated and forgotten
- Reinforcement of problem-solving behaviors through recognition and feedback
When that energy stops, entropy wins. Controls weaken, data accuracy declines, and eventually, the improved process becomes indistinguishable from its pre-improvement form. The organization returns to its natural equilibrium — the comfort zone of past performance.
Leadership and the Physics of Change
Leadership, viewed through this systems lens, is the continuous exertion of force to maintain a new state of equilibrium. It’s not enough to design better processes; leaders must sustain the energy that keeps those processes stable.
This is why the best Lean leaders don’t just implement — they embed. They recognize that culture is the control mechanism that never sleeps. A leader’s role is to transform external forcing (projects, events, initiatives) into internal sustaining (values, habits, and expectations).
Toyota understood this decades ago. Their true strength wasn’t the tools of Lean, but the culture that sustained it — the daily discipline of looking for waste, the shared vocabulary of improvement, and the expectation that every employee is a problem solver. The system sustained itself because the energy came from within, not from external projects.
In contrast, many Western organizations treat improvement as a periodic campaign — bursts of energy followed by long lulls of reversion. The result is predictable: short-lived gains and long-term frustration.
Creating a New Equilibrium
The antidote to reversion is not more controls; it’s new equilibrium design. Leaders must consciously establish a new normal that stabilizes the improved state. This involves three deliberate acts:
- Codify the Change – Translate improvement into standard work, policy, and metrics that live beyond the project. Institutionalize the new behavior.
- Energize the System – Keep leadership attention and accountability alive. Make success visible, celebrated, and reviewed at every level.
- Culturally Anchor the New State – Tie the improvement to identity, not instruction. When employees see the improved process as “the way we do things here,” equilibrium has shifted.
Sustaining improvement, then, is not about fighting reversion — it’s about relocating the equilibrium. Once the new state becomes the organization’s natural resting point, the need for constant external energy diminishes. The process has found a new balance.
Conclusion – Leadership as Sustained Energy
Reversion to equilibrium is not a failure of Lean or a flaw in Six Sigma — it is a reflection of nature itself. Every system seeks balance; every process drifts when the forces that sustain it fade. The leader’s challenge is not just to create change, but to sustain the conditions under which that change becomes permanent.
In physics, the difference between a temporary state and a stable one is energy. In organizations, that energy is leadership— the daily presence, attention, and belief that improvement is worth maintaining.
Change doesn’t last because it’s right; it lasts because it’s reinforced.
And in the end, the measure of great leadership isn’t how much you improve — it’s how long your improvements endure after you stop pushing.