Kanter's Law
The observation that every major project hits a messy middle phase where progress stalls and doubt creeps in. Perseverance through this valley is what separates success from abandonment.
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Origin
Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter articulated this principle in her 2009 Harvard Business Review article "Change Is Hardest in the Middle". Drawing on decades of research into organizational change, she observed that "everything looks like a failure in the middle" — the phase where initial enthusiasm has faded but results have not yet materialized. The insight became widely known as Kanter's Law among change-management practitioners.
Updated February 22, 2026