We spend our time responding rationally to a world which we understand and recognize, but which no longer exists.

Eddie Obeng, a change-management educator and founder of Pentacle, is known for arguing that the pace of change has outstripped the usefulness of many “rational” management habits built for a more stable era. This line is typically used in his talks and training materials about leading in uncertainty—especially in business and organizational settings—where people keep applying familiar frameworks, procedures, and assumptions even after the environment has shifted. The remark functions as a critique of institutional inertia: teams may be logical and competent, yet still misaligned because they are optimizing for an outdated version of reality.

Obeng’s line critiques a common mismatch between human decision-making and rapid change. We tend to act “rationally” within mental models built from past experience—institutions, markets, technologies, and social norms we once understood. But when the environment has shifted, that rationality becomes misapplied: we optimize for conditions that have already disappeared. The quote underscores the need for adaptive learning, experimentation, and humility about what we think we know. It also implies that nostalgia for stable, familiar systems can quietly drive ineffective strategies, because recognition is mistaken for relevance. In fast-moving contexts, the most dangerous error is not irrationality but rationality anchored to outdated assumptions.