Reinvention rarely happens on schedule. 

It doesn’t wait for board meetings or budget cycles. It doesn’t come neatly packaged as a five-year plan. More often, it starts as a quiet discomfort—something in the system no longer fits. The questions don’t land. The market moves sideways. The energy dips, but no one wants to admit it. 

Most organisations don’t need a total reset. What they need is a moment of interruption—sharp, temporary, deliberate. A pause that breaks the trance of routine. A perspective that doesn’t come from inside the building. Not a new division. Not another committee. Just a well-timed jolt of clarity. 

Call it what you like—an intervention, a catalyst, an outside eye. The point is the same: reinvention begins when someone dares to see things differently. Not from above, but from the side. Not endlessly, but just long enough to ask the better questions. 

I’ve seen it work in places where the surface looks steady—revenue strong, teams busy, roadmaps tidy. But underneath, something’s stalled. Innovation has become repetition. Ambition has become performance. And nobody’s sure whether they’re growing—or just optimising what’s already out of date. 

That’s when the real work starts. 

Not with dramatic declarations or glossy decks. But with someone who’s not afraid to ask, Why are we still doing it this way? Or, What would we build if we started from scratch today? Someone who’s allowed to challenge, but not expected to stay. Someone who isn’t tied to legacy decisions, or worried about internal turf. Someone who can disappear as quickly as they arrived—leaving behind momentum, not mess. 

Brief, bold, and a little inconvenient

It’s tempting to believe reinvention should be a permanent structure. A taskforce. A function. But that’s often where it loses its edge. Reinvention isn’t a full-time job—it’s a full-time capacity. The trick is knowing when to bring it in. 

When hiring slows. When ideas feel safe. When culture starts confusing ‘busy’ with ‘brave’. 

That’s when the questions need changing—not just the answers. 

Reinvention works best when it’s not smothered by process. When it’s allowed to be brief, bold, and a little inconvenient. It doesn’t need a department. It needs permission. Permission to interrupt the rhythm. To test what’s still true. To explore what’s no longer obvious. 

And then, just as quickly, it steps out of the way—so the real transformation can take root. 

Not every company can afford a reinvention team. But every company can create the conditions for reinvention to appear when it’s needed most. That might mean bringing someone in for a quarter. It might mean setting aside one day a month. It might simply mean carving out the headspace for someone—internal or external—to ask the uncomfortable questions that no one else dares to. 

Whatever the form, the impact is the same: focus sharpens. Assumptions get unstuck. Momentum returns. 

Because reinvention isn’t about having all the answers in-house. It’s about knowing when your answers are due for a rethink. 

Sometimes, the smartest thing a business can do is invite in a different voice—not forever, but just for now. 

Just long enough to shift the question. 

Photo: Dreamstime.