Why Failure Always Looks Sudden
Every organisational collapse is described the same way.
“No one saw it coming.”
“It happened so fast.”
“Everything was fine until it wasn’t.”
That story is comforting.
It suggests bad luck.
A freak event.
An unforeseeable shock.
It is almost always a lie.
Collapse does not come from nowhere.
It arrives when reality finally demands competence from a system that has spent years avoiding it.
This is Bullshit Collapse, the inevitable end-state of organisations that rewarded talk, endured dysfunction, and mistook survival for strength.
The Myth of Sudden Failure
There is no such thing as a sudden collapse.
There is only one collapse that leadership has not been paying attention to.
Long before failure becomes visible:
- Warnings were raised
- Risks were documented
- Workarounds multiplied
- Good people left
None of this was hidden.
It was reframed.
Issues became “manageable”.
Signals became “noise”.
Dissent became “negativity”.
By the time collapse is acknowledged, the organisation has already been in decline for years.
The Trigger Event (And Why It’s Never the Cause)
Every collapse has a trigger:
- A safety incident
- Regulatory intervention
- Financial shock
- Public failure
- Market shift
Leadership points to the trigger and says:
“That’s what caused this.”
It didn’t.
The trigger simply removed the organisation’s ability to bullshit its way out of trouble.
Bullshit works in stable conditions.
It fails under pressure.
Crisis compresses time.
It demands clarity.
It exposes who actually understands the system.
That’s when the collapse begins.
What Breaks First
Collapse does not start with systems.
It starts with decision-making.
1. Decision Latency
Suddenly:
- No one is sure who can decide
- Meetings multiply
- Approvals stack up
- Responsibility diffuses
The people who talked confidently before now hesitate.
Why?
Because talk has consequences now.
2. Accountability Chains Snap
When outcomes matter, bullshit structures fall apart.
Everyone discovers:
- Ownership was never clear
- Roles were performative
- Authority was symbolic
The organisation realises it has titles, not leaders. The matrix system has created a vast array of people who could use variations of the word “Challenging” to deflect responsibility.
3. Trust Evaporates
Trust is the first casualty of collapse.
- Teams stop believing in leadership.
Leadership stops trusting teams.
Blame replaces coordination. - Information becomes political.
Silence becomes defensive.
Truth becomes dangerous.
At this point, recovery is already unlikely.
The Scramble Phase
Once collapse is undeniable, organisations panic.
They do the same things, in the same order:
- Emergency restructuring
- “Bringing in fresh eyes”
- Hiring consultants to tell them what operators said years ago
- Replacing leaders without fixing systems or understanding the problem.
This looks like action.
It isn’t.
It is theatre designed to restore confidence rather than capability.
The real work, rebuilding competence, takes too long, costs too much, and threatens too many people.
So, it rarely happens properly.
Who Pays the Price
Bullshit Collapse is deeply unfair.
The people who pay are rarely the people who caused it.
They are:
- Frontline staff
- Technical experts
- Customers
- Communities
The ones who warned early?
Often gone.
The ones who absorbed failure silently?
Burned out.
The ones who controlled the narrative?
They pivot, rebrand, and move on.
Collapse does not distribute pain evenly.
It concentrates it downward.
Why Leaders Say “We Need Better Communication”
This is one of the most revealing moments.
When systems fail, leadership almost always concludes:
“We need better communication.”
No.
You need better competence.
Communication didn’t break the system.
Talking didn’t fix it either.
But when leaders don’t understand the work, communication is the only lever they know how to pull.
So, they pull it harder, right up until the organisation fails.
The Post-Collapse Storytelling
After the collapse, the narrative is rewritten.
You’ll hear:
- “Lessons were learned.”
- “Mistakes were made.”
- “No one could have predicted this.”
These statements serve one purpose:
to protect reputations.
Rarely will you hear that they:
- “Ignored people who knew better.”
- “Rewarded the wrong behaviours.”
- “We chose comfort over truth.”
Those admissions are too costly.
So, the cycle resets.
Why Collapse Feels Shocking (Even When It Shouldn’t)
Collapse feels shocking because endurance hides fragility.
As long as:
- People compensate
- Systems limp along
- Customers don’t leave en masse
Leadership believes the organisation is functional.
But function without health is an illusion.
When the illusion breaks, the contrast is brutal.
It feels sudden because the warning signs were deliberately muted.
The Organisations That Don’t Collapse
Are very rare and boring to talk about.
They share uncomfortable traits:
- Leaders who understand the work
- Plain language
- Visible accountability
- Low tolerance for bullshit
- Willingness to act early and look bad temporarily
Surviving by choosing short-term discomfort over long-term collapse.
Most organisations don’t.
A Brutal Equation
You cannot:
- Reward bullshit
- Normalise dysfunction
- Avoid accountability
And expect resilience.
At some point, reality intervenes.
It always does.
The Final Truth of the Trilogy
The Bullshit Premium explains why the wrong people rise.
Bullshit Endurance explains why nothing changes.
Bullshit Collapse explains why failure feels inevitable, in hindsight.
None of this is mysterious.
It is patterned, predictable and preventable!
But prevention requires leaders to give up comfort, status, and narrative control.
Most won’t.
A Final Thought
Organisations don’t collapse because they lack intelligence.
They collapse because they lack honesty.
They collapse because they mistake talk for leadership, endurance for resilience, and survival for success.
And when the moment comes that competence is no longer optional, the system discovers what it has been avoiding all along.