There are those moments where something is taken from you or from the systems you lead… and you don’t quite have language for the tenderness that follows.

It feels like an extraction — that moment when something that has lived inside a structure for a long time is suddenly removed. The absence is felt even when the removal was necessary, aligned, or the right next step… the body still knows it has lost something. And loss bears irritability, and in its own way…interrupts your plans.

Surgical healing doesn’t follow productivity rules

The more I sit with it, the more I see how much of organizational life is, in fact, surgery. Not the neat, antiseptic kind leaders like to imagine… but the unglamorous, internal kind, where something must be opened, taken out, repaired, or reattached. And while leaders often set timelines, milestones, and “return to normal” dates, the truth is that surgery rewrites every rhythm. It never heals on command.

Because in organizations, surgery happens when…

A restructuring that sounds minor on paper slices into the way people find their footing. A leadership transition… even a positive one… forces a team to relearn its internal balance. A technology overhaul behaves like a full-system transplant, asking people to breathe differently while still performing. A culture shift cuts straight through old agreements — spoken and unspoken — and exposes the nerves beneath. And conflict that finally surfaces after being politely ignored behaves exactly like a wound that has finally burst; relief will come, eventually, but not before the sting, the swelling, the draining.

Even strategy work becomes surgical when it asks a team to move differently. Strategy is cartilage. When you reshape it, everything around it has to relearn how to hold weight. And alignment — the work I do every day — is its own kind of elective surgery. We go in. We name what’s calcified. We remove what can’t stay. We reconnect what drifted apart. It’s necessary, yes… but it also comes with tenderness, fatigue, and a healing curve leaders consistently underestimate.

Healing has a pattern, but not a schedule.

Organizations want neat arcs. The organizational body wants sequence.
Organizations want momentum. The organizational body wants stabilization.
Organizations want the swelling to be over by Monday. The organizational body whispers… not yet.

And so much misalignment comes from leaders treating surgical seasons like productivity sprints, refusing to honor the very real, very human limits of an internal ecosystem that’s trying to close an incision.

Maybe the deeper invitation is to remember: Healing is still movement.

• It just isn’t fast.
• It isn’t linear.
• It isn’t obedient.

It’s the kind of movement that asks for patience, presence, and a willingness to respect what is tender, not just what is urgent.

Because whether it’s a system, a team, a role, a culture… or something in your own life that had to be removed… the body always needs time to become itself again.

Strategic Reflection Prompt

Where in your organization — or your own leadership life — are you expecting surgical healing to behave like productivity… and what would change if you allowed the healing to follow its own rhythm instead?

About Giselle

I’m Giselle Hudson — Organization & People Development Sensemaker™, MCODE® Legacy Coach, writer and musician. I help leaders and independent professionals close the gap between strategy and execution by making invisible friction visible, so direction can finally translate into results.

If execution isn’t matching intent and you can’t quite see why, message me on WhatsApp. We’ll start with a brief Clarity Conversation to understand what you’re facing and decide together whether a focused Sensemaking Session is the right next step.