I should have been excited.
I was asked to frame up a new initiative... and the topic was deeply rooted in my favorite kind of work. It's a chance to clear roadblocks, improve tools, maybe even make life better for every engineer across the whole organization. I have absolutely no qualms about taking on this type of task; I was born for it. I know what needs to be done, I know how to do it, and I know I'm fully capable of delivering.
But instead of feeling energized by this request, I felt conflicted. Because I knew how this story usually went. Around here, change was rarely welcomed; more often, it was attacked. No matter how carefully we scoped improvements, no matter how much value we could show, the organizational immune system would flare up. Committees, politics, process... the antibodies would swarm and neutralize the effort before it ever had a chance to take root.
Extreme Measures
In a healthy system, a little resistance is normal. It forces ideas to sharpen and keeps reckless changes from running wild. That’s what I wrote about in Organizational Immunosuppressants: the ways leaders can dial down an overactive immune response just enough to let improvements through.
But what I was staring at with this initiative wasn’t normal resistance. It felt deeper, almost pathological. The very act of trying to improve would trigger the system to attack, as if change itself were a threat. That’s not just resistance—it’s autoimmunity.
How to Tell the Difference
How do you know when you’re dealing with organizational autoimmunity instead of just normal resistance?
Think of it like a doctor’s visit: you don’t diagnose a disorder from one symptom—you look for a pattern. With organizations, the same holds true. A single blocker might just mean you need to refine your pitch. But when every attempt at improvement, no matter how small, gets swarmed with politics, process, or personal turf wars, that’s evidence that the immune system is misfiring.
Here are some of the telltale signs I’ve watched for: symptoms that reveal an organization isn’t protecting itself, it’s attacking its own chance to heal.
Symptoms of Organizational Autoimmunity
Enter the politics. You make a suggestion, and it sparks a holy war of competing opinions, status battles, and territory fights. Various teams send their "champions" to engage with the initiative, to protect "their turf".
Gatekeepers everywhere. No matter where you start, someone insists you need sign-off from another committee, another leader, another process. You'll go around in circles until the idea becomes stale and loses traction.
The “Not Invented Here” reflex. Borrow an idea from another team? Inspired by an industry practice? The shutters come down. "Let me explain why this will never work here, for this team."
Change agents get scapegoated. There's a Russian proverb: "The tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut."
The status quo is sacred. Old processes, tools, or standards are treated like untouchable relics—even when everyone knows they don’t work. Suggesting updates is heresy. I like the acronym "TWWADI" for this... 'The Way We've Always Done It'.
When the organization has an autoimmune disorder, improvement feels unsafe. You find yourself second-guessing whether it’s even worth proposing something better, because you know the antibodies will come for you.
Treating the Condition
When every improvement turns political → Create leadership shields.
You need visible, senior sponsorship: a leader who says “this effort matters, and I’ll take the political heat for it.” Shields don’t remove the conflict, but they give change agents cover long enough to move forward.
When gatekeepers multiply → Build a protected sandbox.
Instead of fighting approvals on day one, carve out a safe zone where experiments can happen without triggering the full bureaucracy. Time-box it, keep scope clear, and promise to share results. Contained risk calms the immune response.
When “Not Invented Here” shuts things down → Reframe with shared identity.
Tie the change back to the org’s own language and values. Show how this idea is really our idea, adapted to local context. You’re not importing antibodies, you’re strengthening the organism.
When change agents get scapegoated → Realign incentives.
Reward attempts, not just outcomes. Celebrate learning (even when experiments fail) so the immune system stops punishing the very antibodies it needs.
When the status quo is sacred → Use incremental rollout.
Don’t ask the body to accept a transplant overnight. Introduce change in small, nonthreatening doses. Early wins reduce the sense of invasion and build tolerance.
When improvement feels unsafe, you combat it by normalizing feedback loops. Create channels where concerns can be voiced without politics attached. Then visibly act on that feedback. Trust grows when people see change isn’t being done to them, it’s being built with them.
When Treatment Fails
Sometimes the antibodies win. Despite setting up shields, sandboxes, and inclusive incentives, the system still sees change as a threat and crushes it. When that happens, you’ve got three options:
Escalate — take the case to higher leadership, and make the cost of inaction visible.
Go parallel — run a skunkworks project outside the main system, then reintroduce it once it proves value.
Walk away — recognize that some environments are too hostile for healing, and conserve your energy for a place that wants to improve.
Not every organization is ready to treat its own autoimmunity. Knowing when you’ve reached that point is part of survival.
Wrapping up
A healthy immune system protects. It filters out noise, pushes back on reckless change, and keeps the organization from hurting itself. But when the defenses misfire, even good ideas get treated like infections. That’s when you need more than patience: tools that can calm the reaction long enough for change to take root.
In my last post, I called those tools "organizational immunosuppressants". Think of them as medicine for when the system turns against its own best chance to heal.
So the next time you propose a change and feel the antibodies swarm—pause. Ask yourself: am I just hitting normal resistance, or am I staring down autoimmunity? If it’s the latter, it doesn’t mean improvement is impossible. It means you’ll need to treat the system before the system can accept the cure.
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