by Stephen T. Messenger
August 17, 2026
I’ve been in my current job for two years, and since then, we’ve had a few people come and go on the team. I can remember being fresh to the organization myself. Everything was new, and I wanted to know how it all worked.
I also wanted to question everything. Why do we do that? Isn’t there a better way? What if we tried this? I mostly got an answer in the shape of, “That’s how we’ve always done it,” which never quite scratched the itch.
Twenty-four months later, I’m the veteran, and the new people are asking me the same questions. My response? Something to the tune of, “Because that’s how we’ve always done it…”
Not that it’s right, but there’s a psychological reason why we become the “company man” who defends policies and maintains the status quo. The Stockholm Syndrome is an extreme version of loving things that bring us pain. In a milder, organizational version of this theory, it helps explain why we cling to broken systems and processes, defending them even when they may not make sense.
Once we snap out of our captors’ mindset and regain the idea that all processes should be continuously looked at for improvement, we can make great gains for the organization.
Held Captive in Stockholm
During a 1973 bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, things went terribly wrong. Jan-Erik Olsson busted into the Sveriges Kreditbank and took four hostages at gunpoint. His goal was the release of his friend, Clark Olofsson, from prison, but the result was a six-day hostage situation.
Strangely, and isolated from reality, the hostages started bonding with their captors. They began to think of Olsson as the victim and the police as the criminals. After the incident, some refused to help the prosecutor, and one even raised money to support the defense.
As the hostages formed bonds with the criminals, they began to feel a sense of sympathy and togetherness. This was caused by being dependent on the captors, receiving small acts of kindness, and being completely cut off from the outside world.
This created a positive relationship with something that was completely terrible to begin with. In the workplace, our captors are not bank robbers with guns; they are comfortable routines and broken processes. We use them and become dependent on them, see small wins even though things could be better, and shut off outside ideas.
That’s what happened to me when the new guy asked why we do something the way we do it. I was a prisoner to the old systems and defended them like they were my friends. I was held hostage in the vault. But there’s a way out.
The Three Vault Traps
Once we realize we’re stuck in the vault, we can look at the three vault traps that hold us captive to old ways of thinking: the false narrative, being stuck in our old ways, and the denial of reality.
Trap #1: Speaking About Change but Refusing to Shake It Up. I haven’t been in any organization where leaders didn’t preach the importance of change. They tell the story of how we can’t be tied to our old ways and can recite by memory the tales of Blockbuster and Kodak, who sank their companies by doing things the old way.
The problem is that when we talk about change while letting everything stay the same, we create a false narrative. Team members become stuck in the old systems that slow them down, creating frustration, backlogs, and eroding trust.
The first change that must be made is to align our narrative with action. If we espouse being change agents, we had better make sure our words and deeds match. We have to accept feedback from junior members, understand why and when to change, and then make progress toward fixing things.
Without the alignment of words and deeds, we will be chained to an antiquated way of business.
Trap #2: Stuck in the Way We’ve Always Done It. When the past has proved successful, it’s hard for leaders to drive sweeping changes to make things better, even when the present doesn’t show the full benefits. We must be constantly improving our foxhole to maintain a competitive advantage.
We’ve all been to places where the past is untouchable. One place I worked described an employee who worked there for decades this way: “his roots grow into the cubicle and nothing in that workspace will ever be done differently.” This is a scary statement of embedded systems, good or bad.
We have to break the mindset that past decisions endure for all time. It’s good to acknowledge that past choices were good ones then, but are worth a relook now. We must instead adopt a mindset of iterative decision-making where all processes are open for review. Continuous evolution is a way of thinking where no matter how good we are today, we can always be better.
Success can never be predicated on the past; it must be grounded in the future.
Trap #3: Failure to Acknowledge Reality. The Stockholm prisoners lost sight of who was the good guy and who was the bad guy. In effect, they lost touch with reality. In organizations, failure to acknowledge what is happening comes when people ignore warning signs, look away from problems, and pretend that all is good, even when it’s not.
Anyone can look around any organization and see problems. No place is perfect. Yet once we’re stuck in the vault for a few days, our current reality is altered to think it may not be that bad. We can create denial where we ignore the problems as they become comfortable to us and our new normal.
The way to fix this is through the lens of honest feedback, where people are able to bring up issues without fear. It starts at the top. Leaders should be the first to acknowledge where we can get better. This creates a waterfall of problem identification, the first step to problem-solving. Once we can have open conversations about the issues, we can begin to fix them.
Hiding from reality only creates more problems. Confronting them head-on makes organizations stronger.
Opening the Prison Walls
All of us will be held captive by our beliefs and ideas, more so if we created them. But we always have to push back on organizational Stockholm Syndrome and look for ways to improve the organization.
Three ways to do this are by having our actions match our words, being open to changing old ways, and constantly acknowledging the reality we face. By doing these things, we can open the prison walls of stagnation and create positive change that others feel.
It’s important not to be held hostage by the way we’ve always done it, but instead be open to change and be the leader others need us to be.
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