Organizational Scar Tissue: Building Trust After Disruption
By Jenny Vazquez-Newsum, Principal at Dowling Street.
Between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, I had three knee surgeries to repair a torn ACL. I know scar tissue well: the dull, stubborn ache, the resistance it creates, the slow, intentional work required to move through it. Physical therapy became a discipline of patience and discomfort. One post-op appointment stands out though. After months of work, my doctor examined my knee and told me that scar tissue was building up again. Unless I increased my range of motion, I would need yet another surgery to remove it.
The words hit like a wave. I had worked too hard to hear that, and the thought of starting over again with another procedure was overwhelming. So, I began waking up at 5 a.m. before school for mobility exercises. I painfully pushed, stretched, and trained my knee to move, to heal, to trust itself again. In time, I avoided the surgery. But I never forgot what that doctor told me: inaction in recovery can create more damage to the original injury.
That lesson has followed me into my work with organizations. After a rupture (a layoff, a restructuring, a leadership change), I often see the same thing: scar tissue. Teams stiffen, systems tighten, and even as operations resume, trust and movement don't fully return.
The Organization Remembers
Every major organizational shift leaves emotional residue. Layoffs and restructurings are not just operational disruptions; they are relational ruptures. Even when handled thoughtfully, they create what can only be described as a trust deficit.
People may return to their roles, but they return under-resourced. Not just operationally, but emotionally. The invisible energy that allows teams to collaborate fluidly becomes constrained. Self-protection becomes the default. Colleagues grow quick to judge and slow to understand. Conversations become more transactional, less exploratory. Everyone is working harder, but fewer are working together.
Just as the body tenses around an injury, organizations contract after trauma. The instinct to protect what remains (information, status, credibility) creates rigidity. And just like with scar tissue, this protective layer can inhibit future movement.
How Organizational Scar Tissue Forms
When the body heals, it rushes to repair. Collagen floods the site of injury, creating a fibrous web to protect and stabilize. It's an efficient short-term response, but the new tissue lacks elasticity. Without intentional movement, it hardens.
The same process unfolds within organizations. After rupture, people move quickly to repair: updating org charts, reassigning projects, filling gaps. The pace feels necessary, even heroic. Yet if no space is created for processing loss, confusion, or fear, the organization heals in a way that limits future mobility. New norms of silence, avoidance, and guardedness take hold.
Over time, these norms layer over one another like scars over scars. The mythology of "what happened" begins to replace the memory of what was real. Stories persist. Leadership can't be trusted. Change always means loss. Nothing is safe here. These narratives, left unchecked, harden into culture.
The Paradox of Crisis: Move Fast, But Also Intentionally
Organizational crises create a paradox. They demand speed (quick decisions, rapid restructuring, visible control), but the efforts that sustain and succeed ultimately require slowness: reflection, communication, and trust-building.
The question for leaders becomes: How do we move fast without hardening the scar?
In the aftermath of a layoff or major change, the instinct is to regain control through momentum. Yet the most effective leaders I've worked with pause to "take the temperature" first. They assess not just performance indicators but emotional climate. They acknowledge that teams are operating in crisis mode by default, and that this mode is unsustainable if left unexamined.
According to Harvard Business Review only 12 percent of large-scale transformations produce lasting results. I’d argue it’s not because those strategies are weak, but because as those large-scale changes occur, the emotional scar tissue remains unaddressed. Without flexibility, organizations can't absorb or sustain change. The cost isn't just morale; it's long-term adaptability.
Ownership on Both Sides
Repair begins with ownership. First from leadership, then from teams.
Leaders set the tone by naming the rupture. They acknowledge not only what changed but what was lost. They communicate with clarity and humanity. They create what Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linksy describe as a holding environment — a kind of sanctuary in which people can process adaptive challenges without the added layer of fear.
At the same time, teams have agency too. Rebuilding trust isn't passive. Employees must choose to trust again, even when it feels risky. But that choice is made easier when leaders show consistency, transparency, and follow-through.
Just as physical therapy requires movement before comfort, organizational repair requires action before certainty. The first stretches are the hardest. But with repetition, strength returns.
Practical Pathways: From Scars to Strengths
So how do organizations rehabilitate, not just repair, after disruption? A few guiding ideas, drawn from research and experience, can help:
Differentiate repair from rehabilitation. Repair is the immediate response: restructuring, communication plans, stabilization. Rehabilitation is the sustained process of regaining range and confidence. It requires time, repetition, and patience.
Name the loss, privately and publicly. Trust is rebuilt through acknowledgment. Create moments where teams can name what has changed and what feels uncertain. This isn't indulgent; it's responsible leadership.
Rebuild connection through consistent motion. Connection and trust are rebuilt not through grand gestures, but through steady, repeated action. Healthy organizations prioritize relationships as ongoing practices rather than one-time initiatives. Daily rituals—regular check-ins, recognition of effort, shared reflection, and small celebrations—signal movement and renewal. These moments remind teams that they are part of something living, adaptive, and capable of repair.
Avoid work avoidance. After disruption, teams often revert to busyness as a shield. Leaders must distinguish between productive urgency and avoidant activity. Rehabilitative work is quieter, less visible, but far more consequential.
Design for belonging and reciprocity. Build systems and habits that encourage care, curiosity, and mutual respect. When people feel safe to bring their best selves to work, collaboration deepens and trust rebuilds faster and more authentically.
Model flexibility at the top. Repair and rehabilitation require leaders who can flex in two directions: decisiveness and empathy, action and reflection. It's possible, and necessary, to move with urgency while maintaining intention.
These aren't soft practices. They are the conditions for resilience.
Reclaiming Mobility
In physical healing, scar tissue is often described as stronger than the original tissue. That's partly true. It's durable, but less flexible. The same applies to organizations. Post-crisis structures can become stronger in some ways (clearer roles, tighter systems) but without elasticity, that strength becomes brittle.
The goal isn't to return to pre-injury normalcy. It's to build a new kind of mobility: one that integrates the lessons of rupture. In resilient organizations, trust isn't assumed; it's maintained through ongoing movement. Through transparent decisions, consistent follow-through, and the willingness to stretch even when it's uncomfortable.
So leaders must ask:
What would it look like for our organization to regain range of motion?
What are the small, daily movements that signal healing?
How do we ensure the tissue of trust doesn't harden again?
Closing Reflection
When I think back to those early-morning rehab sessions, I remember the quiet discipline of movement before daylight. There was no applause, no finish line. Just the daily decision to keep the joint alive.
Organizational healing is no different. Rebuilding trust after disruption is not an event; it's a practice. It happens in the repetition. In the meetings where someone finally names what others are feeling, in the transparency that replaces speculation, in the decisions that prove alignment between words and actions.
Scar tissue is not weakness. It's memory: the body's record of what it survived. But without movement, that memory becomes limitation. Leaders who understand this don't rush to erase the scar; they help the organization learn to move with it, and through it.
Because healing, in the end, isn't about returning to what was. It's about regaining the ability (and the courage) to move again.
Sources:
Mankins, Michael, and Patrick Litre. “Transformations That Work: Lessons from companies that are defying the odds.” Harvard Business Review, May–June 2024.
Heifetz, Ronald A., and Marty Linsky. Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading. Harvard Business Review Press, 2002.