An old colleague called me recently.
Senior leader. Pharma. Twenty years in the industry.
She had survived the restructuring.
Kept her role. Kept her team, what was left of it.
A promotion even seemed within reach.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said.
“I should be relieved. Happy even.”
She wasn’t sleeping. Couldn’t focus in meetings the way she used to.
No energy. Second-guessing decisions she would have made without hesitation two years ago.
She didn’t understand.
Working outside the industry now, I did immediately.
When you operate under sustained uncertainty for months, waiting for the next announcement, absorbing the work of the people who left, holding your team together while quietly wondering about your own position, your body responds the same way it responds to physical danger.
Cortisol rises. Breathing goes up.
Your brain moves away from strategic thinking and toward survival.
You still function. You still show up. You still deliver.
The quality of what you deliver changes.
The higher your performance standard, the less likely you are to notice.
High performers are trained to override the signals their body sends.
That’s what makes them high performers.
It’s also what makes this invisible.
Until it isn’t.
74% of people who survive a layoff say their productivity declined afterwards. Taking also your motivation with it, and even your health.
Because, your agenda ignores what your body will not forget.
I spent 26 years in this industry. I sat in those rooms. I know what a restructuring feels like from the inside, not as a consultant brought in after the fact or proposed the idea, but as someone who led global teams through exactly this.
What do you notice, when you are in an organization going through change right now?