The new gospel: There Is Nothing In It for You

Why we should stop giving special treatment to the individual and focus on the collective instead

In Organizational Change Management (OCM), there’s this sacred acronym: WIIFM—“What’s in it for me?” It’s treated like it was sent from God, carved in stone: Thou shalt bribe thy people with promises of convenience. 

When planning a change, we’re told that people won’t budge unless they’re shown personal gain. So we tailor messages to highlight individual benefits: convenience, time savings, recognition, maybe even career growth, and expect them to start salivating like Pavlov’s dog with the bell. 

And maybe that made sense in the early days of digitalization, when most changes genuinely did make life easier. “Hey, you don’t need to handwrite a letter, walk it to the post office, lick a stamp, and send it through a five-person approval chain. Now you can just type, click ‘Send,’ and the other person sees it instantly. Magic.”

But that era is gone.

Today, most organizational changes aren’t about convenience. They’re about cleaning up the mess left behind by decades of chasing convenience. We’re not streamlining anymore—we’re reckoning. What used to be a sexy upgrade is now often a necessary correction. That changes the equation entirely.

We’re asking people to change not because things are getting better for them—but because they must. Because the current system is unsustainable. Because the house is half on fire, and we need to rebuild it while still living in it.

And here’s the hard truth:

There is nothing in it for you.

Not in the traditional WIIFM sense.

Not in the “you’ll love this new tool” kind of way.

If you’re an employee caught in one of these transformation efforts, what’s likely ahead is mess, discomfort, and failure—before (and if) things improve. For you, it might even get worse before it gets better. And that’s not because we don’t care. It’s because we’re dealing with something much bigger than individual comfort: collective survival.

So What Is in It for People?

Maybe… the chance to still have a job.

Maybe… a future where the organization doesn’t collapse under its own weight.

Maybe… the opportunity to work in a system that finally makes sense—but only after we rebuild it from the inside out.

We keep selling transformation like it’s a product, when it’s actually a collective act of intentional repair. And that requires a shift—not just in strategy, but in narrative.

We should stop pretending that change is always about “making things better.”

Maybe it’s time to say:

“We made a mess. A big, unintended, systemic mess. And now we have to clean it up. Together. With intention this time.”

That’s a much more honest conversation. And it’s one that respects people’s intelligence and emotional reality. Because let’s be honest again—what many organizations are facing isn’t about staying competitive. It’s about staying alive.

And if we want to survive the storm, we need shelter. Not another new tool. Not another dashboard or productivity app. We need stability. But here’s the paradox:

We created the storm.

And now we’re trying to survive it by hiding under a freaking Kanban board covered in sticky notes.

So What Now?

Let’s stop framing change as a series of upgrades full of quick wins and short-term improvements and start naming it for what it often is:

A collective reckoning.

Instead of asking “What’s in it for me?” maybe we need to ask:

“What part of this mess am I willing to take responsibility for?”

“What might we build together that’s actually worth the discomfort?”

Let’s invite people into that. Not with manipulation or spin, but with honesty and courage. Let’s stop trying to win hearts with shiny promises, and start winning minds with truth.

Let’s trade WIIFM for WIIFU—What’s in it for us?

Because if we get this right, we might not only survive…

We might finally start making sense, smash the old stone tablet and carve a new one — but keep the spirit of the original:

Thou shalt not lie. Especially not to thyself.